Author Archive

Getting Paid Twice

By brendan at 10 June, 2011, 9:29 am

How do you make $2 profit from every $1 sale? That was the guts of a fabulous speech by Goran Roos last night at the Churchill Club. Its hard to put Goran in a box, but he is a management consultant, entrepreneur, Professor, Chair of the Finnish version of the CSIRO and currently on loan [...]

Localisation

By brendan at 9 June, 2011, 12:24 pm

Twenty one years ago, when I left Perth, I planned to return in two years because that was where my home was. Despite not being born there, I had become an adult in Perth and it was where all my “forever friends” are. You know, the ones you don’t have to speak to for years, [...]

Device Independence

By brendan at 31 May, 2011, 4:17 pm

Sometimes I wake up at 4:30am in the morning and ponder over things. I don’t want to, I just can’t get back to sleep. On the weekend I was pondering over whether technology was making my life easier or harder. Certainly I seem to be working a lot more hours and have my fingers in [...]

Venture Design

By brendan at 23 May, 2011, 12:29 pm

Over the last 25 years I have started one commercial lighting retailer, three IT businesses, one marketing business and a social venture. Unfortunately, I’m no where near as wise, clever or as wealthy as I aspired to be, but the again I do reckon I have learnt a thing or two along the way. One [...]

What type of entrepreneur are you anyway?

By brendan at 11 May, 2011, 3:24 pm

I spoke at the Startup Weekend last Friday night on building valuable networks, but got asked by three people before the event – “who is the target audience of the Churchill Club?”. The simple answer is entrepreneurs, but the real answer is unsurprisingly, a little bit more complex, so I normally talk about the [...]

Event Report – Member Value Management 28-04-11

By brendan at 2 May, 2011, 9:50 pm

With Justin Reeves – General Manager Supporter Services, Collingwood Football Club Kelly O’Shanassy – CEO, Environment Victoria Sarah Adams – Marketing Manager, Artshub Moderator Brendan Lewis – Chairman, The Churchill Club Who were the panellists and what were they doing? Justin Reeves is the General Manager Supporter Services, Collingwood Football Club. It is the largest [...]

eBay based priced discovery

By brendan at 2 May, 2011, 12:49 pm

Buying some kayaks was phase one in the plan to spend more time outdoors with my family. Phase two was buying some kayak carriers to mount on the roof racks, after discovering that two kayak’s are just too wide for the average roof racks. So after looking at some outrageous prices for bent pieces of [...]

Revenue Models and Memberships

By brendan at 29 April, 2011, 4:19 pm

I quit the Naval & Military Club when they decided that members should have a minimum spend at the Club each quarter, or simply be billed it anyway. This completely brainless revenue raising scheme accelerated the downfall of the Club, which went into liquidation in 2009. Since that time though I had been thinking about [...]

Follow the Signs

By brendan at 27 April, 2011, 11:00 am

About 10 minutes into the trip to Eildon Dam for a picnic lunch on Sunday, we realised we hadn’t put the Sat Nav in the car. Bugger. Its not that the map book doesn’t work, its just that we feel the Sat Nav is a higher authority – i.e. we don’t argue when the Satnav [...]

5 Steps to Becoming a Great Networker

By brendan at 8 April, 2011, 9:46 pm

I sat there one Christmas and watched the sales people walk in with baskets of goodies and bottles of whiskey, and wondered why there was nothing for me. Initially I thought it was because as the Accountant, I wasn’t particularly client facing. But after a fair bit of naval gazing, I realised it was simply [...]