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Management

From frontline cleaner to group CEO: A journey of persistence, people and purpose

Prabin Shrestha 3 headshot closer

Prabin Shrestha sums up his amazing 30-plus-year journey from cleaner to group CEO of SKG Services using the time-honoured Three-Ps to prove his point. But proving Prabin’s point are three words beginning with ‘p’ that are his own – that is, different to the acronyms regularly used in management, leadership and operational circles. Not people-process-product in business management and manufacturing. Not people-purpose-passion in leadership circles … or the ‘resilience’ mantra of passion-patience-persistence. And not the ‘extra-p’ added to surf rescue radio messaging: position-problem-people-progress. Shaped over 30 years on his extraordinary journey from cleaner to group CEO, Prabin Shrestha built his business acumen on the Three-Ps that have always worked for him and his beloved 50-year-old group of companies: Persistence. People. Purpose. 

By Prabin Shrestha >>

My career journey is proof that leadership is not defined by where you start, but by your willingness to learn, work hard, and create opportunities for others along the way.

More than 30 years ago, I began my career in the cleaning industry as a frontline cleaner. Like many people entering the workforce, I was focused on doing the best job I could, supporting myself, and building a future through honest hard work.

At the time, becoming the group CEO of one of Australia's leading integrated services businesses was not something I had imagined. However, every role I undertook provided valuable lessons that would ultimately shape my leadership philosophy and career progression.

The cleaning and facilities management industry is often viewed as a behind-the-scenes profession, yet it plays a critical role in keeping workplaces, hospitals, educational institutions, and public facilities operating safely and efficiently. Starting on the frontline gave me first-hand insight into the challenges our employees face every day and instilled in me a deep respect for the people who deliver essential services across Australia.

Throughout my career, I embraced every opportunity to learn and grow. I moved through operational, supervisory, management and executive roles, gaining experience across workforce management, customer service, contract delivery, financial performance, business development, and strategic leadership. Each role broadened my understanding of what it takes to build a successful and sustainable business.

Challenges faced along the way

One of the greatest challenges along the way was learning to navigate change.

The facilities services sector has evolved significantly over the past three decades. Customer expectations have increased, technology has transformed service delivery, and businesses have faced growing pressures around efficiency, compliance, and sustainability. Remaining adaptable and continuously learning became essential.

Like many leaders, I have also faced setbacks and difficult periods. There have been contracts lost, operational challenges, economic pressures, and moments when difficult decisions needed to be made. What I learned during those times is that resilience is often built during adversity. Challenges force leaders to think differently, engage more closely with their teams, and find innovative solutions.

Another challenge was balancing operational excellence with people leadership. As organisations grow, it becomes increasingly important to maintain strong connections with employees at every level.

Having started on the frontline, I have always believed that every employee deserves respect, recognition, and the opportunity to succeed. Some of the most valuable insights I have gained throughout my career have come from listening to the people closest to the work.

Key wins and career milestones

Looking back, there have been many significant milestones that I am proud of. Progressing from frontline operations into senior leadership roles was an important achievement, but the milestones that stand out most are those involving people and organisational growth.

Helping build high-performing teams, supporting employee development, securing major contracts, expanding service capabilities, and contributing to the long-term success of the business have all been incredibly rewarding.

A particularly significant milestone has been my appointment as group CEO of SKG. It is both a privilege and a responsibility to lead an organisation with such a strong reputation and talented workforce.

This role provides an opportunity to help shape the future direction of the business while continuing to invest in our people, customers, and communities. As group CEO, I am focused on ensuring SKG continues to evolve and innovate while remaining true to the values that have underpinned its success.

The future of our industry will be shaped by technology, data-driven decision making, sustainability initiatives, and workforce development. Organisations that can successfully combine operational excellence with a strong people-first culture will be best positioned to succeed.

Practical wisdom gained over 30+ years

Over the years, I have learned several lessons that continue to guide me as a leader.

  • Never underestimate the value of hard work. Talent is important, but consistency, commitment, and a willingness to go the extra mile are often what differentiate successful people and organisations
  • Remain curious and never stop learning. Industries change, markets evolve, and customer expectations shift. Leaders who continue to learn and adapt are far more likely to thrive in changing environments
  • Leadership is ultimately about people. Strong businesses are built by engaged employees who feel valued, supported, and empowered. Investing in people is one of the most important investments any organisation can make
  • Integrity matters. Trust takes years to build and can be lost quickly. Making decisions based on honesty, transparency, and accountability creates stronger relationships with employees, customers, and stakeholders
  • Finally, success should always be shared. No individual achieves success alone. Every milestone in my career has been supported by mentors, colleagues, frontline teams, customers, and family members who have contributed to the journey. Recognising and appreciating those contributions is essential.

Looking ahead

When I reflect on my career, I am grateful for the opportunities I have been given and the people I have worked alongside.

My journey from frontline cleaner to Group CEO has reinforced my belief that career progression is possible for anyone willing to work hard, embrace challenges, and continue learning. I hope my story demonstrates that leadership opportunities can emerge from any starting point.

Titles may change over time, but the values that drive success – humility, perseverance, respect, and a commitment to people – remain constant.

As I look ahead, I remain excited about the opportunities for SKG, our employees, and the broader industry. The future presents both challenges and possibilities, and I am committed to ensuring we continue to grow, innovate, and create meaningful outcomes for our customers and communities.

Looking ahead, I believe the facilities services sector is entering one of the most exciting periods in its history. Advances in technology, data analytics, automation, and sustainability initiatives are creating opportunities to deliver smarter, more efficient, and more responsive services for customers.

At the same time, workforce development will remain a critical priority.

As industries evolve, attracting, retaining, and developing talented people will become an increasingly important differentiator. Organisations that invest in their people, provide meaningful career pathways, and foster inclusive workplace cultures will be best positioned for long-term success.

I am particularly passionate about creating opportunities for the next generation of leaders. Having started on the frontline myself, I understand the impact that strong leadership, mentorship, and development opportunities can have on a person's career.

One of my goals is to ensure that others within our organisation have the same opportunities to grow, develop, and realise their potential.

While technology and business models will continue to evolve, I believe the organisations that succeed will remain those that never lose sight of the importance of people.

About Prabin Shrestha

Prabin Shrestha is group chief executive officer of SKG Services, a national commercial cleaning, maintenance and security services company marking its 50th anniversary. He has more than 30 years of experience across frontline operations and executive leadership within the business, beginning his career as a part-time cleaner while studying accounting and finance. Since joining SKG, he has progressed through a range of operational and leadership roles, including group chief operating officer (COO), where he helped drive service integration, operational performance and national growth as the business expanded, leading more than 2,000 employees. Prabin now leads SKG Services’ overall strategy and growth agenda, with a focus on disciplined expansion, acquisitions, technology-enabled operations and building a strong people-first culture across the organisation.

www.skg.net.au

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Understanding employees’ mental health challenges to elevate company performance

By Leon Gettler, Talking Business >>

ONE of the big issues for employers today is how to deal with employees that have attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), mental health issues, autism and neurodiversity.

An estimated one-in-five Australians is neurodivergent. This includes conditions such as ADHD – a neurodevelopmental condition characterised by persistent patterns of inattention, hyperactivity, and impulsivity – and autism spectrum disorder (ASD).

Factors such as stigma, late diagnosis and limited awareness continue to affect career outcomes for this group.

Workplace barriers affect thousands of neurodivergent Australians. Data shows seven in 10 employers discriminate against candidates with a long-term illness, disability, mental illness or those aged over 55.

The Australian HR Institute (AHRI) found one-third of employers exclude workers with mental illness, up 14% from 2024.

ADHD costs affected employees

A Senate inquiry into assessment and support services for people with ADHD found more than half of the adults with ADHD did not receive workplace adjustments, while three in five believed they had lost a job due to ADHD.

Sarah Richardson, the CEO of Tasmania-based psychiatry service Clear Minds, said her business was educating employers about this condition. 

She sad employers “weren’t really educated enough to know” what it was like to live with different illnesses and how they could support and guide their employees.

“It’s not a disease that you can physically see,” Ms Richardson told Talking Business.

“So when you look at people and how they’re interacting with colleagues and with work, you just think they’re being maybe lazy or they don’t have their finger on the pulse.

“But you’re not actually understanding what’s going on for that employee behind the scenes,” she said.

“That’s why we’re trying to promote the education around this and actually helping employers understand these conditions and how they can work more cohesively with their employees.”

Educating business leaders

Ms Richardson said Clear Minds had worked closely with a wide range of businesses facing these challenges.

“We have done some education with high executive leaders and at the conclusion of those sessions, they actually felt quite empowered by the information and I think we opened their eyes to really give them the ability to understand, to recognise those employees as well,” she said.

Ms Richardson said there was some resistance at the beginning but as her team “broke down that stigma attached around mental health, ADHD and neurodivergence” it delivered positive results.

She said the sessions can be tailored for the needs of the particular business. A session could be conducted in suitable time blocks – ranging from 15 minutes to one hour.

It can include work by video link or sometimes face to face. That’s despite her business working out of Tasmania.

Ms Richardson said sessions had to be capped “at about an hour” because generally managers are busy.

She said clients with those conditions were also being educated alongside employers and colleagues.

“What we try to do through our ADHD-specific brand is educate the clients who are being diagnosed with this because sometimes they come through, they’re  diagnosed with ADHD or ASD and they think it’s all going to be fixed and that’s not how it actually works,” Ms Richardson said.

“There still needs to be a level of education around what this means for you, what you’re possibly going to feel like – and how it might have to change how you feel about life – and what you need to do differently within life.” 

www.clear-minds.com.au

www.leongettler.com

Hear the complete interview and catch up with other topical business news on Leon Gettler’s Talking Business podcast, released every Friday at www.acast.com/talkingbusiness 

https://shows.acast.com/talkingbusiness/episodes/talking-business-18-interview-with-sarah-richardson-from-cle

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Underperforming? Penelope Barr tells business leaders to ‘get enough sleep’ and ‘beware of burnout’

By Leon Gettler, Talking Business >>

HOW MANY corporate executives are there who are not getting enough sleep? How many are just burnt out?

Careerpreneur Penelope Barr has the answer. Ms Barr, a startup founder, mentor, and advisor with 20-plus years expertise as a global innovation, technology, product, change and transformation executive, is in the business of leading individuals and teams to help them unlock opportunities to drive value. 

Ms Barr said she had embarked on this after realising that she had to change her work as a corporate executive five years ago. It was her last permanent role.

“I then started an idea I had many years before which I call 6-3-3,” Ms Barr told Talking Business.

“So I basically work six months of the year in interim exec roles, three months of the year I create. So I write and I paint. And then three months of the year I rejuvenate so I travel and do my passion projects.

“And I also coach others in how to live like this.”

Ms Barr has just encapsulated this in her new book Win the Night to Win the Day.

Bringing ‘transitional rituals’ into the picture

As part of this coaching, she has what she calls ‘transition rituals’ which are based on 150 experiments.

“There is a range of ways I suggest that you can re-orient your days so that you can integrate rest, get more done, make sure you get into bed still feeling alive rather than rushing to the bed and one of those things is transition rituals,” Ms Barr said.

“Basically what that means is that if you think of your day as a component of energy spaces, how you move between things rather than rush through your day really helps your integrate rest more effectively, calm your nervous system and enable your to get more done.

“So I have transition rituals for each component of the day but the key thinking behind it is that if we just rush through our days and we don’t close anything as we go, we don’t take a few moments to say what do I need top take from that – what are the key actions I need to capture, what do I need to do or not do? – and then reset for the next thing that’s happening.

“It’s just amorphous and we end up being frazzled, exhausted and that can lead to burnout and not getting anything done.

“That’s where transition rituals come from and they stem from how I run my year.”

Planning makes the difference

So that means Penelope Barr plans in November and sets up the year so that she pops them into a calendar and sequences those. She then does quarterly planning, monthly planning, weekly planning, daily planning.

“All of those work in a loop,” Ms Barr said.

”It is the same that happens in my 6-3-3 days. I am constantly in a process of resetting, doing something, reflecting and then resetting again.”

In effect, she has compartmentalised her life.

To help execs get some sleep, Ms Barr is setting up the 10pm Club.

“One of the things that’s happening is that we, as a modern society, have forgotten that we need to sleep,” she said.

“For many of us, life is busy, there’s a range of digital distractions and more and more we are pushing our sleep time out further and further.

“The thinking behind the 10Pm club is that if you can get to bed ready for sleep by 10pm, if that suits your circadian rhythm, then you are giving yourself the best chance of 8-9 hours when most of us have to wake up early in the morning.

“Sleep is when all of our background functions happen, all of our memory storing, all of the processes that help us manage our health, our weight and our minds.” 

https://au.linkedin.com/in/penelopebarr

www.leongettler.com

Hear the complete interview and catch up with other topical business news on Leon Gettler’s Talking Business podcast, released every Friday at www.acast.com/talkingbusiness 

https://shows.acast.com/talkingbusiness/episodes/talking-business-16-interview-with-penelope-barr-from-penelo

 

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Tereza Murray explains why franchising works for some and ‘not quite’ for others

By Leon Gettler, Talking Business >>

FRANCHISING IN AUSTRALIA is generally considered a safer pathway to business ownership than starting an independent business as a solopreneur.

Franchising has a reported average success rate of roughly 80% over five years across Australia.

That’s the plus side. But there are risks. 

Examples include Retail Food Group (RFG) which operated brands including Michel’s Patisserie, Donut King, and Gloria Jean's. RFG got into trouble over high fees, poor support, and unsustainable debt. That led to hundreds of store closures.

In the end, the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) imposed a court-enforceable undertaking which saw RFG making payments to – and waiving – historical debts of a number of affected current and former franchisees, in relation to the purchase of certain corporate stores by those franchisees.

RFG also had to pay $5 million to the franchisees of Michel Patisserie stores who paid levies into that franchise’s marketing fund between July 1, 2012 and June 30, 2017.

Investing in a proven system

Franchise and business consultant Tereza Murray, who set up TMPlus, explained the franchise success rate citing the fact that franchisees were investing in a proven system.

“They’ve got brand strength, they’ve got systems and processes that they can follow. Quite often, they’ll have buying agreements, they’ll be able to access better rates on products and services,” Ms Murray told Talking Business.

“Obviously having an experienced franchisor at the other end of the phone to answer any questions, it’s not something that a small independent business operator has.

“They have to try to work all of that out themselves. They have all that financial risk themselves without realty understanding what the biggest pitfalls are,” she said.

“Whereas the franchisor has come out the other end of that. They’ve started a business, they’ve built it from scratch, they’ve taken all the risks, they’ve made mistakes. They’ve come out the other end with their shirts still on their backs and they’re ready to impart that wisdom and they’re learning with franchisees.

“So that really is why the model is so successful and so popular, particularly in Australia.”

No single franchise model fits all

Ms Murray said there was no “one size fits all” model for franchise systems in Australia.

“Franchising is the process of replicating a business model and operating system, so there is no such thing as a standard franchise structure,” she said.

“Every single business we work with is different and every way they approach things, like marketing, will have slight differences.”

This means the franchisor can choose to manage all of the marketing and the franchise contributes to the marketing fund or they will allow the franchisee to do all their local area marketing.

Marketing seems to be where SME skills gaps exist

However, Ms Murray said marketing remained one of the “biggest skill gaps for business owners starting out”. It is also one of the biggest “black holes for money, if you don’t know what you’re doing.”

She said TMPlus had set up an alternative to hard-wired franchise or licensing methods with its innovative CorAlliance system.

As Ms Murray explained it, CorAlliance offers a smart, sustainable growth pathway for business owners who want something more flexible than a franchise and more involved than a licence.

It’s a modern solution, she said, that removes many of the barriers associated with franchising, licensing, or expanding through employees without sacrificing brand integrity or momentum

“We notice a lot of business owners want something that is less prescriptive, less resource-heavy to manage and more collaborative,” she said.

“CorAlliance is essentially a community of business owners working together under one brand. It’s like forming a buying group but with the added benefits of shared systems, brand strength and support.” 

www.tmplus.com.au

www.leongettler.com

Hear the complete interview and catch up with other topical business news on Leon Gettler’s Talking Business podcast, released every Friday at www.acast.com/talkingbusiness  

https://shows.acast.com/talkingbusiness/episodes/talking-business-7-interview-with-tereza-murray-from-tmplus

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Small Giants Academy helps drive women’s equity and excellence

By Leon Gettler, Talking Business >>

GENDER EQUALITY is now a major issue for companies everywhere. But what sort of companies would agree to it?

Tamsin Jones, an expert in women’s leadership, an advocate for equity in boardrooms, a strategic advisor – and she is currently the head of programs at Small Giants Academy – is seeing certain companies and organisations embracing it.

Examples include Coles, Rio Tinto and the Department of Defence.

Ms Jones is leading the Mastery of Business and Empathy program — a 10-month MBA alternative that puts empathy at the heart of leadership, business and economics. 

“We (Small Giants Academy) are interested in bringing all perspectives into board rooms, C-suites, organisations and seeing how that might help us serve both our customers well but also serve the societal issues we are facing,” Ms Jones told Talking Business.

“It’s this idea that we want to be in our ecological boundaries, because that’s going to be a safe place for us to live in, and we also want to build social foundations.

“Business plays a role in both of those things and we can only do that if we bring different perspectives, viewpoints, understandings, around the table,” she said.

“Maybe to some people they feel this is not the role of business but I think ever since business was established as a concept, it always had a role of creating the kind of society we want to live in. It’s an important engine.”

Bringing best perspectives, ideas

This means the work Ms Jones does now is bringing the best perspectives, viewpoints and ideas. However, this was not just about reinventing board rooms but also organisational structures and ways of doing things.

“Many businesses see their organisations as a group of people,” Ms Jones said. “They see an opportunity to motivate end engage their people but also create a bigger impact in the world.

“We tend to get, at Small Giants, a lot of people sitting in senior roles saying I want to do things that will put us in a better place as a business, more sustainable, but also us responding to the challenges that we are seeing in the world.

“They tend to come from all over the place. From many different companies, like Coles, Rio Tinto, Defence as well as community organisations, platforms for renewable energy.

“Everyone coming in has a different perspective on what that means to them,” she said.

“Some of them want to leave a legacy that’s in line with their values and what needs to be done. Others want to create organisations that are built off a future system that might work more effectively than the current one we have.”

Cater better for women

Ms Jones said companies such as Coles and certain insurance businesses understood that a lot of their clients and stakeholders are women.

“They are really creating deep insights,” she said.

“Women are 50% of the population so it’s useful to consider whether their viewpoints are different. With businesses, you don’t want to be behind on those things.

“You want to be ahead of the curve so things like C-suite boardrooms, (and) seeing your customers as stakeholders, these things can help you design a business and run a business that is serving and responding to your stakeholder groups.” 

www.smallgiants.com.au

www.leongettler.com

Hear the complete interview and catch up with other topical business news on Leon Gettler’s Talking Business podcast, released every Friday at www.acast.com/talkingbusiness

https://shows.acast.com/talkingbusiness/episodes/talking-business-2-interview-with-tamsin-jones-from-small-gi

 

Get ahead by stopping spend – 5 routes to protect against price hikes in 2026

By Gemma Thompson

NEW YEAR, same pressures. Hardly into 2026 and it’s clear that businesses will continue to face financial headwinds, with interest rate hikes and new superannuation policies intensifying strain on P&Ls and cash flow. Those yet to think about contingency measures may already be behind.

Reacting to cost increases, after the fact, puts you on the back foot.

Often businesses approach cost reduction structurally – grand transformation programs, new platforms, wholesale restructures. While optimising the cost base is critical for long-term success, it’s slow, requires upfront investment, and demands extensive change management.

But what if fast savings are already sitting in your P&L, hiding in plain sight? Initial savings that can dampen upcoming hikes and set the tone for a more commercial culture. Gemma Thompson Proxima Australia

At Proxima, we call this approach ‘Stop Cost’ – rapid, real-time interventions to eliminate waste, negotiate improved commercials, claim unclaimed rebates, and better leverage supply requirements. It’s a commercial reset: identifying and eliminating unnecessary spend before it’s committed.

This means adding governance around purchases coming through the pipe. Business stakeholders justify the need, value for money, and commercial relevance of deals they wish to commit to. Where need is agreed but value falls short, procurement steps in to negotiate hard and fast with suppliers.

This isn’t archaic.

Suppliers face the same commercial pressure as your organisation. They expect negotiation and price it into deals, happily walking away with the spoils when businesses don’t commercially test offers, and procurement teams rarely have time or insights to do so en masse.

This isn’t about burning bridges. It’s about challenging deals and resetting them to market levels, creating a platform for mutual trust that enables rebuilding and collaborating on bigger, bolder initiatives for the future.

Here are five ideas for stopping cost in 2026.

1. Auto-renewed contracts you’ve stopped thinking about

Software renewals and rolling service contracts quietly eat budgets with automatic 3-5% annual increases.

If a contract has auto-renewed for three-plus years, you’re almost certainly overpaying with specifications that no longer match your needs. Create a renewal calendar, flag contracts 90 days before they roll, and ask, “Would we buy this again today, at this price?”

2. Things you’re buying but not using

Usage audits reveal uncomfortable truths: software licences for 500 people used by 50, premium service tiers when basic suffices. We led a pallet optimisation program for a large oil and gas client, reducing spend on new pallets and dumpster removal by implementing reusability. Every business has an equivalent. Eliminating unnecessary spend or downgrading over-specified contracts often saves 10-20% of category spend with zero operational impact.

3. Fragmented spend across multiple suppliers

Dual sourcing for resilience is smart. Paying five suppliers 10 different prices for the same thing without realising it? That is expensive and common in businesses with multiple divisions, mergers, or decentralised procurement.

Spend visibility is step one – you can’t consolidate what you can’t see. Once you understand where money goes, consolidating suppliers and leveraging scale becomes straightforward.

4. Tune into the opportunity in mid-tail indirects

Most organisations focus on direct spend while overlooking indirect categories like facilities, IT services, professional services, travel, and utilities.

Yet significant savings exist through relatively easy ‘buy better’ levers: re-tender cleaning contracts, consolidate uniform volumes, reallocate to best-price suppliers, run e-auctions for maintenance.

The market moves, competitors emerge – you could be paying 2020 rates in a 2026 market.

5. Supply chain inefficiencies

Recent years have taught procurement that supply chain resilience is key to weathering storms. Yet with all the focus on building measures – buffer stock, additional routes, packaging solutions – ask if these still correlate to actual market risk for your business.

Do you need that much stock? Can packaging be respecified? Is distribution optimised?

This route emphasises the governance and balance required when implementing Stop Cost, ensuring decisions don’t negatively impact broader business imperatives such as resilience.

Stop first, optimise second

Stop Cost programs require executive participation and finance stakeholder commitment to drive momentum and enable decisions at pace.

They need open mindsets from budget holders willing to challenge spend against business drivers – growth, reputation, customer service – not just accept requests at face value.

Done well, Stop Cost evolves into an ongoing cost-conscious culture.

The beauty of Stop Cost is speed. While transformation programs take months to design and deliver, stopping unnecessary spend shows results within weeks.

It’s not revolutionary, but in 2026’s margin-squeezed environment, it might be exactly what your business needs.

www.proximagroup.com/australia


ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Gemma Thompson is the principal consultant for Proxima Australia the local arm of a global procurement and supply chain consultancy that is part of the Bain procurement ecosystem. As procurement specialists, Proxima Australia works with many of the world’s leading businesses, providing strategic advice and hands-on delivery. 

 

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Thryv helps SMEs deal with business challenges systematically

By Leon Gettler, Talking Business >>

SMALL BUSINESSES are excited entering 2026 but they’re aware of the challenges that lie ahead.

Thryv Australia and New Zealand has been supporting the small business economy in Australia and helping them navigate the complexities of marketing and growing their business. 

Thryv is taking the pulse of small businesses and the challenges they are facing in 2026, like staffing and service, and the opportunities like artificial intelligence (AI).

That’s across tens of thousands of businesses and they’re diverse – from physios, to accountants to dentists to plumbers.

Elise Balsillie, who heads Thryv in Australia and New Zealand said AI is a big trend right now. 

“Earlier on this year, there were a lot of small business owners that were a little nervous about AI and what was happening in the industry but from a small business perspective, it really has changed the narrative,” Ms Balsillie told Talking Business.

“It’s giving small business the opportunity to have a marketing department, or to have a comms department, or even just help them give confidence in things like giving a review online or responding to a review that a client’s left them.

“They can use some of those AI tools to make sure that it sounds professional, that it’s got a good tone and they are responding in a way that they’re comfortable with.

“So AI is changing the game and really allowing those small businesses to compete with some of the bigger ones.”

Staffing remains a real issue

Ms Balsillie said while a lot of small businesses wanted to grow, there were issues with getting the right staff to drive forward.

“Finding good quality staff is a real challenge for them,” she said.

She also said a lot of small business owners now recognise that service matters now more than ever before.

“They’re being hit from all angles, whether it’s Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp. They’re getting phone calls, text messages, emails,” Ms Balsillie said.

“There are so many channels their customers are communicating with them on, that really that volume of noise of service requests coming in is really getting overwhelming for some small businesses.

“So they’re definitely looking at ways to manage that communication flow.”

Eliminating non-productive tasks

Ms Balsillie said a lot of business owners were now sitting back and evaluating the amount of time they spend on non-productive tasks in their business.

“Being a small business owner is really hard,” she said.

“You’re doing your invoicing in the evening, you’re quoting in the evening, your dining room table is your pseudo-office, your passenger seat in your car is an office while you are out and about on the road during the day,” Ms Balsillie said.

“So small business owners are really starting to sit back and think, what is the toll that it’s taking and really putting a price on their average hours that they’re working and really starting to understand the amount of non-productive hours, non-customer revenue facing hours that they’re spending in their business and really giving them an opportunity to look for help.

“Because, I think, there is more and more noise from more and more channels out there for business owners and I think giving them ways to free up that time is important.” 

www.thryv.com.au

www.leongettler.com

Hear the complete interview and catch up with other topical business news on Leon Gettler’s Talking Business podcast, released every Friday at www.acast.com/talkingbusiness

https://shows.acast.com/talkingbusiness/episodes/talking-business-1-interview-with-elise-balsillie-from-thryv

 

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