Subscribe
Share
Share
Embed
What sets this podcast apart? We believe in the power of meaningful marketing—a holistic approach that prioritises authenticity, connection, and purpose, whilst still turning a profit.
Chantal Gerardy is an International Award Winning Marketing Strategist who empowers purpose-led businesses to revolutionise their online marketing approach and create a brand that resonates deeply with their online audience. If you're tired of cookie-cutter marketing advice, and seek strategies that truly make a difference, this podcast is for you.
If you are a business owner feeling overwhelmed, stressed, or struggling to cut through the noise online? We've got your back!
Our podcast is tailored for entrepreneurs hungry for clarity, confidence, and tangible results in their online marketing. Our podcast isn't just about boosting sales; it's about creating an efficient marketing machine that reflects your values, passion and purpose. Whether you're stuck or looking to maximise your marketing, we're here to guide you every step of the way.
Our episodes dive deep into practical skills, customer-generating strategies, and streamlined systems to help you thrive without relying on paid ads. From mastering social media, creating content that converts, ranking on google, getting your website to work, lead list building and email marketing, each episode is packed with tips and techniques to help you thrive online.
Join me each week as we explore management and monetisation online marketing strategies designed to reduce your time online while increasing your impact. With our guidance, you'll align your business and marketing team more closely, ensuring every effort moves you towards growth. From overcoming challenges to seizing opportunities, each episode is packed with actionable advice to help you thrive in the world of online marketing and effective management.
Are you ready to transform your online marketing, build a business that you enjoy, and leave a lasting impression?
Tune in to the Meaningful Marketing Podcast and unlock the secret sauce to marketing success.
📈 More from Meaningful Marketing
📥 Download our FREE Marketing Guide
🎧 Catch all episodes
👉 themeaningfulmarketingpodcast.com
🌐 Learn more
👉 onlinebusinessmarketing.com.au
This podcast is brought to you by PodPro Australia.
Social media, Google, email, marketing systems, website traffic, and the endless content creation that comes with marketing. It's overwhelming, right? Say goodbye to endless stress and hello to Clarity with the Meaningful Marketing podcast. In this podcast, I will share with you fast and free practical methods to help you manage, monetize, and market your business, all infused with a healthy dose of motivation.
Let's do this. Hello and welcome to another episode of the Meaningful Marketing Podcast. Today I have Nic Rone with us from the Varsity Lakes Community Limited and Sports House Center, where he is the general manager. I met Nic at a community event and thought I'd really like to get him on the podcast today because he's actively involved in community.
And I'm curious to know, and I'm sure our listeners are curious to know about how you go about your marketing when it comes to community and when it comes to building relationships with community and connecting with people. So thank you so much for joining us today.
Thank you for asking me along.
So Nic, we were talking, um, a little bit earlier about, um, you know, how you originally got involved in a travel agency or owned a travel company and then from there went into Poli Pol politics and then from politics.
Into the Varsity Lakes Community Center. So I suppose let's start with a little bit about who you are and how you got into doing what it is that you do now.
Okay. Uh, look way back, uh, I lived in Greece for 10 years, um, managing Tiki Trafalgar Insight Creative Holidays. Um, eventually, uh, met my future wife at the time and, uh, decided to come back to Australia and have children.
So. Uh, lovely idea was to move into a brand new area called Varsity Lakes, um, and start up what we thought then would be just a travel agency. So, um, going on from there, just literally I guess getting out there, meeting people, you know, trying to bring business into your new agency in a new area. Um, somehow I got involved with, uh, the Chamber of Commerce, eventually become the president.
Um, uh, the community bank, which again, I became chairman and we started up. 20 years ago. And that was with the idea that a bank could be owned by the community, um, and, uh, not only owned by the community, but also benefit by, if it does well, the community does well as well. So having done that, um, we then jumped on the idea of, uh, with the community base that I'd created, I was asked to leave the chamber and come and be chairman of Varsity Lakes Community Limited.
And at that time we were looking to bring outta the ground, uh, a new facility, which to this day now is known as, uh, sports house. So from the money that, uh, council paid us for the land or that was at the time, uh, not us, but Dolphin, Lendlease. Um, VLCL was formed, um, and we, we built sports house with the money given to us by council.
So it's now a council owned facility, which we manage. So I guess from there it was just community, community, community. And of course beyond that became, well, you've got the connections, let's start doing major events. And so probably 200 events down, or if not more. Um, here we are today.
Oh, look, I absolutely love it.
I mean, you shared how you came to, you know, to Australia to settle down, have your family and, and start basically again. Um, and obviously that resonates with me having come from South Africa and had to. Really find my place inside the community and meet new people and develop a business and grow. Um, so it's certainly lovely to, to hear the, the inspiration and how successful you were with that as well.
So let's talk about marketing in the travel agency space. So you come to Australia, um, settle down in Varsity Lakes, and now you have to grow a business where there already are travel agents. So how did you go about differentiating yourself in the marketplace in order to grow, um, that particular business?
What were some of the tricks?
Look, I think, uh, well two of the things that helped me out enormously early were choosing the right organization to belong with. Um, usually there's, you know, you've got the flight centers of the world. At the time it was Travel Scene America Express, which is now, uh, HelloWorld.
Um, HelloWorld tended to be the 30 fives and over, whereas, um, flight Center tended to be the 18th to 35. And they are corporate owned, not solely owned as we were. So the idea was, um, we felt that the older generation needed more assistance. Um, especially in those days. It was literally around it, you know, our understanding and our experience from Europe, say for instance, was able to help them more.
So we found our market there. Second of all is having, um, I ran, I was more operations when it came to, you know, we were bringing 20 or 30,000 people through Greece a year. So, um, operationally we would hear what the travel agents in Australia or America had sold them. 'cause half the time I was solving the problem because they were sold something that wasn't what they arrived to.
So I then understood when I got back, okay. What are we gonna sell to these people? Be truthful to them so that when they arrive, they're not disappointed. Come back and tell you it was a bad experience. So for me, um, we also understood that you're selling a dream. Uh, quite often we found that probably over 80 to 90% of the people that decide the holiday not always pay for the holiday are the young ladies, the wives, the mothers, um, they see the dream, they look at the price, they see what their circumstances are.
Are they a young couple going over or are they a, a family going over? Or is it just a person on their own that needs to feel safe? Um, so we would have to look at the imaging that we were using to sell. And then make sure when they came in, we had the experience to back it.
Oh, I absolutely love that. We were talking earlier about how I'm about to head off to Bali and, and I was sharing with you how like I wanna go and, uh, you know, bathe in the holy water and get those waterfall shots underneath that waterfall.
And, um, and that's exactly what you're talking about right now. It's just selling that aspiration. Yeah. You know, being able to show those photos so people go, oh my gosh, I wanna go there. I wanna have that shot. I wanna be that person. Um, you know, selling the dream. So I absolutely love that. And I love what you said about, you know, being absolutely honest and truthful about the experience and what you're actually selling.
Not just trying to make a sale, but being really truthful about what it is. Um, often, you know, because I'm in the marketing space, people will come to me and they'll go, Chantelle, you know, I wanna invest this money in marketing and, but I want results like this and other agency tell me that, you know, we can get results like this and I'll go.
They're bullshitting. Yeah. I don't bullshit. Maybe it's the South African and me, but I don't bullshit. And the reality is, is that, um, marketing takes time. And it depends like where you started out at and where you're actually going and how long and what support you've got in order to get you there. I'm just not gonna bullshit and say it's gonna be overnight success.
'cause if that was the case, we'd all be millionaires. Right?
Yeah. And it has to flow through your staff as well, because you've marketed this thing then you, you, the, the clients walk in. So if what you've done is just sell them the look and then you can't back it up with the staff who go, hold on. What did you, what was the image?
You know, what, what are we actually talking to this person? How do they drawn in here? So if it hasn't gone all the way through, then you know, you again, you, you're bullshitting your, your clients. So,
yeah, a hundred percent. I love that. Okay, so then tell me how the transition into. Politics, um, the transition into politics, we'll start with that and then we'll go into, um, how that plays out from a marketing perspective.
Mm-hmm. I, I guess politics came about for two reasons. Number one is just in the nature of what I did through all my different chairmanships and all the different people I got to know, um, literally building my business. Um, you know, I suddenly knew. If not hundreds, thousands of people here on the Gold Coast in what was, you know, in the early two thousands was a burgeoning sort of community.
So having met everybody on the way, um, I suddenly found they were coming to me, um, thankfully for travel. So I put together for every single business card I got, I literally made this thing called hot deals. And, uh, whenever I went to a networking event, they would always say, bloody Nic Roh, I got that hot deals on last Monday.
So the good thing was, is I just put that together. It would hit them on a Monday and then we'd have a joke when we talked about it at, at a networking, and then other people would start talking about, what's that about? So that really worked well. And then others came to me and said, well, you seem to know a lot of people and you're really involved in community.
You know, would you ever step up? Knowing a few mps at the time, um, some are still in place. Uh, they suggested, um, what have a look at it. Um, we think it'd be good for the community because Resolve is about the community, not about politics. Um, they found that I had a good track record in, in reference to the, the jobs that I'd had through Community Bank, community Limited Chamber of Commerce.
Um, so, and I guess at the time, friends were also. You know, suggesting I move forward and uh, you know, I give it a shot. So that's how, that's how the idea first came about, was probably more from others suggesting, well, is that your next step? Um, rather than me sitting there going, okay, my aspirations are to get into politics.
'cause uh, anybody that has been involved in politics does not want to be involved in politics, uh, or gets out of it eventually. So
thanks for sharing. Um, so there's a couple of key things there that I wanna talk about. And the one is, um, the importance of networking. So can you just explain to everyone what your views are on networking and how important you think it is and why?
I think the, the thing for me with networking, it, it, it's gotta be sincere. It's gotta be authentic, um, honest. It also has to offer what somebody else doesn't. I think there are many offerings around and there's no one size fits all. I think, um, different people, I mean, I think you're involved with some speed networking.
Others prefer that more social. Others enjoy the breakfast 'cause it could be time restricted, it could be family restricted. I, I think the thing is what you've gotta find something that fits you. I used to say to people going, stop running around to every single different individual. One. What I find is if you find one you like, everyone travels through it eventually.
Gold Coast is a small place, so quite honestly, if you stand still, you'll get to meet everybody. Just find one that works for you. Um, but do your homework. Um, ask others that have been involved in it, um, what they've got from it. Um, and when you go along, you know, have your own set of rules and regulations into your head.
I mean, are you prepared? For what you want out of it. 'cause then you're prepared as to what you'll give. Um, I hate when I walk into any networking, the first person that rams a business card under my throat is the last person I'm ever gonna talk to again. Um, it's about you've, I always say, even in the ones that I run, um, step aside and be prepared to meet two people today.
Honestly, meet them and before you go too far into anything, invite them out for lunch. Go and have breakfast. Or have a coffee. Do the the rest of the work afterwards. Get to know them that night. Don't get to know a hundred people 'cause you won't know anybody by the end of it. So that for me is the really important go insincerely.
Um, but don't take anything insincere either.
Yeah, I love that so much. I think what happens is, and I, and I call them networking sluts
a lot around, and
there's a lot of them around. So when I say that, people go, yeah, Chantel, actually, that's a good way to to say it, but, um, it is, it is about relationship and a lot of people are going in there and they're looking for a sale, like they're looking for, for somebody to buy from them on the day that they go to that networking group.
And it's not about that. It is about the relationship that you, that you start to form with other people, and it's not necessarily. What those people are selling, but it's the, the people that those people know as well, which is so important as well. And like you said, being consistent and sh making sure that you show up and you've actually got a plan in place.
But also reviewing, is it working, is it not working? I think that's really important as well. Um, I think there was probably about a year of networking where I probably should have ended it a year earlier. Mm-hmm. And that was really just because my business grew and became too big. Yeah. Um, and the word of mouth referrals and everything that I was getting was, was more than enough.
The best referrals.
The best referrals. And then I, that's when, for me, that was the time where I didn't. It wasn't worth the time and the energy to go anymore. So I had to be a lot more selective
Yeah.
About when I actually do go to those events. So yeah. Really important, um, things there. Um, so let's talk about then politics and marketing.
Yeah. So when you decided, okay, that's it, I'm gonna get into politics, and now you've gotta go online onto social media and present yourself on social media as a politician, let's talk a little bit about that experience for you.
Uh, wow. Uh, where do you start? Look, I, I guess my outtakes at the end of it all were, how did I start to get into it in the first place?
Um, when it came to the marketing side of things, it was important to make sure that what I was putting forward as to what I was suggesting I represent, which was community. Um, it was, you know, obviously making sure that you, you know, from a, from a look and feel perspective, you, you looked like somebody that was electable.
Um, second of all, was it how I felt? Not only how I wanted to be perceived, but how others felt. Um, you know, why they had suggested I stepped forward. Um, second was then to promote what it is I'd literally done. So I was, the hardest thing about politics is you are, you are pushing to be in so many people's faces and your head, you get sick of seeing your own.
Honestly, I didn't wanna look in the mirror when I brushed my teeth during campaigns. It it, and you're asking people to sell your head to everybody else, and it just, wow. So it's, it's extremely confronting because it's, it's very ego driven, but it's not with the ego that you're doing it. So it's a bit of a dichotomy there.
But for me it's, it was about going. You know, does, do I look like a person somebody would like to elect? Second of all is, is it coming across as being the community orientated person? As to my motivation as to why I am literally there in the first place. I didn't wanna sit there and go, okay, this guy just looks like he wants to go out through the, the annals of, uh, you know, a political party.
Or, which for me it was important that they knew I was grounded in community and did my website, did my networking, sorry, did my social media. Um, look like and reflect that, both in its words, um, um, how, how it was perceived and literally it's, look, if somebody just flashed up and went, oh, he looks like an absolute moron, or, oh, okay, well I wanna click on it.
And that was for me, important. So we did a lot of testing with family and friends who are literally the best people in the world. 'cause they're brutally honest. Oh, hell, my my friends are, are, yeah. Hilarious. They, they're the best
friends. The best friends are the truthful friends.
And, and interestingly enough, the good thing for me was you get it right when you go, Jesus, I've known you for 20 years, and I didn't know that.
Yeah.
And that was like, okay, well that's good because they read it.
Yeah.
When you put something in there and you ask somebody to, even before you've gone into your, this is the final page, you can tell if people have read it because you've put something in the middle of it.
Yeah, and they
hit that and went, what the hell is that?
Because it could be their name. That's completely outta context. They go, thank you. You actually did read it. So sometimes it's making sure that the people aren't just skimming it
because
this is going out and guaranteed there will be somebody that hates your guts, wants you to fail, um, literally can't stand the look of you that will try and find something in what you've written, will find a picture that's you know, less than, um, and will try to harm you.
And I found that in business as well, if somebody's a competitor. Mm. Um, and these days I think it's a lot harder than when, you know, I first started, but. Um, they're not always out to do your best. They're out there, do their best to see you not. Yeah. And that's, that's in business and in politics I think so you gotta be very careful.
Yeah. So I'm sure in order to avoid, um, you know, all that trolling online before you actually go and be that visible online, you would have to have a plan in place. Absolutely. Where you look at your personal branding, you look at. How consistent, well, what consistent messages you're gonna be putting out.
What does that brand feel and tone and voice that you're consistently gonna be sharing so that you are really are prepared for, you know, if any of the, um, trolls or anybody of your competition came up that, that you would actually be able be prepared for that. You'd be prepared to be able to handle any of those objections.
Yeah. Never lie.
Never lie. I can't keep on the lie. It's going through the first,
first thing they'll find, but that's the same in business. If I put out a. A deal. And um, you would've thought, okay, I'll just slip that in there and, uh, you know, no one will really notice, but it pads out the deal. I guarantee it's the first thing they can go, well, why didn't I get the haircut that my wife's supposed to have on the holiday?
Yeah, they'll come back, they'll remember it. So it's no different to me saying, oh, you know, I've got 10 degrees and this, that and the other. If it's not truthful, don't put it in. Or if it doesn't make sense, get rid of it. I think if you've gotta get clarity, you've really gotta,
yeah. It's
a bit like the way I tell people to pack when they go on holiday.
Um, get your suitcase that you're already with. Um, now unpack it. Divide it in half, and then that's all you need. Oh,
don't say that. I'm about to go to Bali.
Well, you'll be able to buy the other half over there for about two 50 anyway. Oh my God. You'd be
fine.
Just put me under pressure. All
right, so have you got any, um, example, just one example that you could potentially share with us about a trolling online situation or something that happened?
Come on. There's gotta be one. No,
no. I, I, I had, uh, significant ones. I mean, look, when you're putting yourself and your face out, I mean, I think we had what, 26,000 people to help. Well, I was looking to want to get, uh, a vote from. As I say, if, if, if they're not happy that you're running or you, you've had a bad experience with them in the past, sometimes it's, it's not about the fact of whether I'm good, bad, or ugly, it's just they just don't like you and they wanna harm you.
So yeah, you've gotta become, I can't give you an ex express example. What I would find though is, um, um, if, if I got something which was sent to me because of either something I'd said I'd written or how I've come across somewhere, if it was one sentence. Uh, there may be something in this I've gotta look at.
Mm.
Um, if somebody wrote me a page about something, you go, well, they're venting. And that's easy to answer. It's the person that's very succinct that goes, tell me this. And that's why I say never. If, if something's misunderstood, you've got to be a very clear to go back going, okay. I can, I can see how you've understood that, but that's not what I meant.
Mm. And
that's what I was said before about making sure. Okay. I, I do a lot of copywriting. I do a lot of writing. I think you probably know yourself when you've, when you've paddled over it for, for an hour and you've rewritten the thing, you've gone, you start to not see it. So you've gotta give it to somebody else, step away and go, it doesn't make sense, and it, it made sense to you, but they talk about it.
They give it back to you. You go, actually, it doesn't, does it because you can just gotta step away for a while. So sometimes how you meant in or the intent behind it. Again, that's why I'm saying. Don't add too much detail in get, get more clarity, put in less, just use either better words or, and then other side of things, literally make it, you don't use other people's words, don't chat beach either.
The crap out of it, you know, I, I just see that daily. Now I know there's, there's a reason for chat, GPT. Mm. And it, it, it works very well. I use it, but the thing for me is. Are you authentic in literally how and what you are putting forward?
Mm. If you want connection, you have to connect with people and you can't.
Hundred, you can use chat, BT, um, to come up with solutions for things, but don't use it to be the voice of you. I think that's so important.
I think where I've come from is, is this. People approach me now more often than I approach them. I've either done something good for them in the past and they wanna do good for something for me, or they know either my reputation, um, in all of what I've done, um, I'm well received.
And so as such, they go, well, if Nic knows them, therefore they're probably worth knowing, and maybe I can ask him. But I don't do that for people I don't have a relationship with. Just because somebody comes up and says, you know, can you give me a pathway to Chantelle? Why?
Mm.
You know, how do I know you?
You know, you've gotta have had a relationship and I can just gonna give away all my contacts as somebody who just walks up and asks. Yeah. Because it took me, you know, what, 25 years now on the coast.
But also I think like, you know, known as a connector if you are a connector. And I'm exactly the same. I'm a bit of a gatekeeper.
This morning I was chatting with somebody in the us. Uh, who's wanting a connection to some virtual assistant, a virtual assistant agency, and I work with four different agencies, and I was like, I really wanna know about your business. I wanna know about your culture. I wanna know, even though I get nothing out of it, I'm like, I really wanna know this because I'm not just gonna hand you over to an agency that I know, like, and trust because it's my reputation on the line as well.
A hundred percent. And if you end up being an absolute douche bag, um, and wasting their time, that's not, that's not a good, good, good impact on me. So even though it takes me a bit longer to do that. I'm happy to qualify those people. Um, so just to step back a bit, um, you spoke about, you know, how you are perceived, so how you write, how you portray yourself online.
Um, but then also that it may also come across differently to a person on the other side and looking at it objectively. I love how you said that because it takes me back to when I owned my health, wellness and fitness center on the Gold Coast, and I remember it was a beautiful sun, um, sunny day on a Sunday.
I was down at throwers, I was swimming with the dogs, and I just put up a post that morning about how, um, getting outside and, um, being in the sun and exercising and being active really helps with your mental wellbeing. Mm. And as I came up from swimming a little bit later, I checked my phone and it was going.
Off and I looked at it and I was like, what is going on here? And I'd shared it into some of the Facebook community groups and all these people with mental health issues had jumped in and said that, I had said that they mustn't that they don't have a mental health problem, shouldn't take their mental health medication.
That I was saying that instead they must exercise instead of doing this,
replace it with, yeah.
And I was like, oh my gosh. So I just, I couldn't believe this. I had no idea that any, like the simple little motive, what I thought was a motivational post, was gonna, you know, create this much drama. I was getting people privately messaging me, like absolutely trolling me.
Mm. Um, so I contacted straightaway on hand. I've got a lawyer and a psychologist, so straightaway, lawyer, psychologist, I said, what do we do here? And the psychologist explained it to me and she said, well, you're out and about swimming, having a good time. Some people are completely living in a different world.
Mm.
So the way that they interpret it is completely different. So, you know, it helped me and they helped me. The psychologist actually helped me to come up with a script to reply to them, to deal with it, to say, I'm commenting once this is it. Um, and the, in no way did I say any of that, you know? And then I had a lawyer as well, and we, there were one or two that we have to sort of say cease and desist.
So it was like always
one,
it was always like insane. It was really, yeah, difficult. So I think preparedness is really important if you are gonna put yourself out there. I don't mean to scare people. 'cause some people get, um, you know, paralysis analysis and don't wanna do anything. Um, if you wanna make an impact, it is important to go out and do these things.
But preparedness is important, you know, make sure that. You are prepared for this?
Well, you can't be debased. The, the hardest thing in the world is if you've said something, you can't back up if you've not necessarily lied or you might have embellished or anything else. Mm-hmm. The hardest thing is it's, it's all very well and good to put it on if you're putting yourself out to people.
Um, and you're creating a connection, especially if you're doing it on a political level, but also if you publicly speak or if you go out there and push your business. Um. You are then on the spot if somebody attacks you or you know, or challenges, not attacks, challenges, something about you and it's on the spot, it's live and you aren't ready.
Mm-hmm. Um, or you can't remember the lie that you made up to. Yeah. To put that forward. You, you've just had the feet cut from under you. Yeah. And your credibility is then shot to pieces. And different people's motivation. I mean, travel used to be, we used to sit there and people came in and they're all happy.
They've saved up. They're going on a holiday just like you are. You know? You're excited about it.
Yeah.
These days people are that bloody stressed because they find it very hard to have saved for a holiday in the first place. Mm-hmm. That they come in going, I've gotta get away. So that. The way that they booked the holiday isn't with all this woo.
It's like, can you please get me away? I'm stressed, my wife's, we can barely afford this holiday. We've gotta go. So now they go. And also, if it's buggered up, we've got somebody to blame. Oh wow. That's why it's coming to you. So the whole way people book now is a hell of a lot different to what they used to do.
It's not the big fluff, it's now going get it right. This is the price. I'll go somewhere else if I have to. And I mean, it's like going, well, what's the value you're selling? There's a thousand travel agencies out there. If you've made the right connection with this person because you've got the skill level to do it, and you've spoken to them correctly, and you have marketed yourself as well as this agency and our ability to look after you and your family away, that person will outgoing, I feel, I feel happy, and it's no different in politics.
Will this guy do the right thing by me if he's sitting up in that office? So community works that way.
So good. Um, and I think it was really important as well that um, if you are, if you do, if you are online and you are putting content out there, it is important for you to know how to also block, how to, um, you know, block remove comments.
I think that's so important. I've, I've had two businesses in the last year. One was a mechanic and one was a veterinarian where nobody was monitoring their pages. Uh, review had gone up on both of theirs. Um, on one was on Google My Business, the other one was on Facebook. And both those accounts had to be shut down within 24 hours because in 24 hours it got completely out of control based on a review and people jumping in and doing it.
And the business owners had no access to the page, weren't monitoring the accounts, didn't know, didn't know how to resolve it. So I think it's really important. You know, to know what you're doing.
Well look a lot of in, in, uh, let's take travel for instance. A lot of them are, are owned by, um, predominantly.
Um, if they're not agencies that are multiple agencies, if they're, if they're smaller groups, it could be a person, it's generally a woman, um, who doesn't have the skillset to understand at all anything about marketing. And they generally will take up marketing when they're in trouble.
Mm.
Oh crap. I'm not getting anything.
Yeah. And then they buy bad people. Somebody walked in going, okay, for a thousand dollars I'll put your, uh, I'll put your logo and a few things up on the screen in a doctor's office. Okay. That's just gonna get you nothing. And not even monitoring it and go, what's your return? Anything like this. But they don't have that skill level.
Mm-hmm. So, quite often you've gotta try and as always, you do surround yourself with the people that know more than you do. You know, I've built up my level of understanding online simply through. People I've met over the years and made good connections through, uh, through my networking, you know, and literally to this day I've probably got four or five people I turn to and go, how the hell did you, how do you do that?
I see. Their marketing or, or the way that they put themselves forward going, that is immense.
Mm. Go
over, sit down, understand how it's done, and, uh, go. Okay, well. You take your version of that and you, you know, always upskilling yourself, but you know, don't think you can do it all because if you're not working, um, on your business and you're just head down, bum, head down, bum up in it, you uh, you're not gonna see the wood for the trees.
And I've seen that all too often.
So let's talk about now the, the area that you're now involved in, which is general manager of the Varsity Lakes Community Limited. Yeah. Okay. Let's talk about that business now. Um, and how community focused it is and how basically you make your money through the community, through that organization.
Okay. Well, the best way I can describe it is this obviously the, uh, the facility in which we put together and now council owns, but we run, um, effectively we have to a, make it wash its face, and that's both with staffing, that's, uh, maintenance repairs, um, let's just say. We have over a hundred, nearly 120,000 visits to sports house every year.
So we punch well above our weight. We've got 18 different organizations including three Olympic teams, you know, para canoe, para sprint, canoe. Um, we have sprint, kayak, you know, all of the different, uh, disciplines when it comes to, uh, kayaking or canoeing. Um, on the lake, at sports house, we've got first aid, we've got university sport, um, you, you name it, everything, even down to local yoga.
Um, we look after. Uh, politicians who come through and, and wanna host conferences. We look after health and wellbeing. We've got disabled through, uh, sport and rec. So we have a big responsibility in making sure not only that works for the people who are our stakeholders, that actually are members at Sports House.
So even down to varsity college, varsity rowers, um, university sport. Uh, who else was there? There's, um, you know, a, there's, there's a number of Kara Creek PLAs. Um, so. There's the stakeholders. Then on top of that, where we are a facility where the local people could come in, um, rent space through not only participate or become members of our clubs, um, use our facilities and services on top of that, use the, the, uh, meeting space that we have there available to them.
We don't do parties or, or weddings, things like that. We keep alcohol and parties away. It's more so about going, well, how do we support. The local Chinese society, we support varsity college and sometimes getting different ethnicities together who are quite lonely in the community, who don't even know that each other are there because they don't speak the language very well.
But we'll put on a lunch for them and say, Hey, this is free of charge. Come along. No, no strings attached. And then, you know, we've had 'em break into tears when they walk in and realize, I didn't know somebody else spoke Mandarin. I don't, you know, it was, it could be from any different ilk. And I've literally, we've had people walk in and just burst into tears going, I didn't even know this community exists.
Within the community in which we live, and that is very rewarding. Um, the marketing side of that then becomes how do we get into the households where, the one thing that I learned when I, I went around knocking on 26,000 doors, um, or sorry, probably 20,000 doors during my campaign was. Wow. The differences in the people that are at home.
You've got very lonely people. You've got ex-CEOs where the wife has died. He was the head of a big company, and his business skills are sitting there, but he doesn't know how or what to do because he's no longer the head of a business. Mm-hmm. He could come along to our business forums. He could actually join one of the organizations to say, what would you like to do on that?
So you're providing them a bit, but how do we get down to the grassroots of local people and say, Hey, we've got these things available to you. So for me then it's the connections, getting the connections with, uh, university, with varsity, college with, you know, there's what, 6,000 parents, 3000 students, you know, that is its own community within our community.
So how do we get to all of these people and say, Hey, what, what do you need? And that comes down to events as well.
Yeah. So a large part of that, as you were talking about earlier, is, is that events. So holding those community events and getting people involved in those events. So talk a little bit about event marketing or your event marketing strategy.
Okay. When it comes to the event marketing, what we do is, it's kind of a, it's a double-edged thing. So obviously you've got the planning involved to actually run the event itself. Then you'll have to have made OB uh. Multi-levels as to how you market it, both through, you know, uh, posters, flyers, um, word of mouth.
Um, we have quite a number of different Facebook pages. Um, we link into a lot of Facebook pages as well, which are local. Um, you know, we're always correct in the fact that, you know, some is once a week posting. You don't wanna bore people, so you've gotta change the imagery. Yet it's still selling the same event.
On top of that, you find that, um, these days video works quite well, so you're gotta make them short and sharp. But somebody sees this, you know, if we're running a fiesta, so to speak, you know, does that, wow. What's that about? Bang. Oh, it's in my local area, the symphony by the lake. Wow. The big symphony on the, on the lake.
So, you know, you're selling something. You're also selling and tapping into people's community pride. And the big thing for that is, um, varsity has that, Burley has that all the different areas. They're very parochial. We love our area because we live here and that's why we moved here. And they wanna tell everybody else about that too.
So if you tap into that word of mouth, bang, they invite people and we get 'em coming from Brisbane interstate and that's where it works.
I love that so much because, um. Partnership marketing is a huge part of what I include when I talk about marketing ecosystems. So we obviously talk about Google website, email marketing, social media, website traffic, but a lot of marketing agencies don't talk about partnership marketing.
And we talk about forming relationships with people, building those connections with people and actually utilizing that, whether or not it's through referrals or, um, emailing through their databases or, um, doing joint marketing ventures or, yeah. Running competitions or covets. It's such a huge part, um, in the marketing ecosystem of which so many people don't actually do.
So I love that you've mentioned that.
Mm-hmm. Well, it's good. I mean, if you've got sponsors, um, you tell 'em, look, it, this is your opportunity. We're now selling you through, you know, we've got 10. The easiest thing is we've got our own, um, database, which is for vl, VLCL, varsity Lakes Community Limited and Sports Health.
So it's gonna go out to them. We've then got all the databases we're connected in through our social media. We have 10 board of directors. Each of them owns a company or is involved in a company which has their own databases, which sometimes can be up to, you know, 30 or 40,000. So your amplification is instant.
Um, once others hear of it, and if you ask them the right question, do you love this? Share it. Um, or say it or ask. And when you get people asking questions, that's amplification. That is them going, okay, glad you asked that question. Very good question. And it also tells you, what did I miss? And I've put out a poster once and going, geez, we didn't even put a link on it, you know, and going, wow, 10 people looked at this thing.
You know what I mean? And somebody's going, ah, do we find it? It's okay. You're not, and I'm not on social media. I, I don't have, you know, I don't use the internet much. Okay. Well you're bound to get a flyer in your front, you know, in your letterbox over the course of the month. Okay, well that's great then.
Thanks. So we covered all bases. So it's, but I think the word of mouth simply is, and when you get some consistency, I think no matter what it is, whether it's politics, whether it's business, whether it's events, um, is the image or the look and feel everything about it, are you being consistent? Yeah. '
cause
then, you know, when I do it next year, they go, oh, I remember that event from last year.
You change it up because you, you, you know, you're freshening it, but it, you know, it could be the logo that you've created. Oh, bang. That, that just tells you what it is. Oh, it's come back this year. So that way that's always something they link to. They link to, and you freshen up the rest. So
I always say marketing is boring because, um, once you've got your plan mm-hmm.
And you've got your key messages and you've got your branding, it should be boring. It should be same color, same font, same, you know, same heading, same images, same feel. Mm-hmm. Um, so that it's so that you become memorable. Like McDonald's, you know, it should be boring. And you know, I work with a lot of virtual assistants and a lot of the time the VAs wanna change it every week.
They're changing their font and changing the template and changing whatever, and I go, are you prepared to do boring marketing? Because marketing is boring when you get it right?
Yeah. Well, I mean repetition as well, isn't it? So,
yeah. Memorable like McDonald's. So thank you so much for coming and sharing so many valuable tips today on community and connection and partnership marketing and so many juicy tips in there.
Thank you so much to all the people that are listening right now. If you haven't already, please make sure that you subscribe. This was another episode of The Meaningful Marketing Podcast, and I'll see you shortly. Bye. Thanks for listening in. Meaningful Marketing is all about you making your marketing meaningful.
If you've enjoyed today's episode, please hit that subscribe button, but subscribing means that you won't miss out on future episodes. All about marketing and motivation. Stay inspired, stay focused, and make your marketing meaningful.