Minders Watch Over North Shore Businesses

A group of ‘minders’ is giving growing North Shore businesses a helping hand to succeed.

Their advice and assistance is breaking down the barriers that might prevent businesses from entering the Westpac Enterprise North Shore Business Excellence Awards.

The ‘minders’ are otherwise known as facilitators or mentors by Enterprise North Shore, which provides their services free for those wanting to enter its 2006 awards and it is especially aimed at growing businesses or any that haven’t entered before.

“Our goal is to make it as easy as possible for businesses to enter the awards, so that more people can see what innovative companies we have on the Shore,” says Terry Hoskins, Chief Executive of Enterprise North Shore.

Enterprise North Shore Awards Facilitator, Mark Bond, helps prospective Awards entrant, Danielle Watson of MTM Business, with her Awards preparation.

“A few years ago we set up a task force of roving facilitators – minders, if you like - who go out and help companies who are new to the awards by advising and encouraging them. It has worked so well that the facilitators have become a permanent feature of our business awards.”

There are ten facilitators contracted to provide advice and their job is to visit companies, encourage them to enter and help them decide what information needs to be in the submission.

It is a very rewarding task, according to Graeme Mackay, who has been a North Shore facilitator for the past three years and guided about 50 companies to complete award entries.

“There is a phenominal amount of innovation on the North Shore that’s hidden away and it’s a great thrill to go out and meet these people,” says Graeme.

“Often we’ll find that they are consumed by their business and they just need someone from outside to guide and mentor them through the process of entering the awards. We look at the strengths and weaknesses, make sure they are entering the right category and so on.”

Mark Bond, who joined the facilitators for the first time this year, says it can be daunting for businesses that have not entered in the past and he sees his task as pointing them in the right direction.

“These are busy people and they don’t want to write a book to enter our awards,” says Mark. “Instead, we work with them to extract the essence of what their business is about and steer them in the right direction – once you’ve shown them they become very enthusiastic.”

This year the process of entering the Westpac Enterprise North Shore Business Excellent Awards has been made even easier with an online entry facility incorporating newly devised entry and category templates. Entrants can still download and print out the entry form and submit hard copies.

Entries must be submitted to Enterprise North Shore by 5pm on Thursday 15 June and finalists will be announced by Friday 29 July.