THE CAP IS COMING…

From the 1st April 2016 the Meal Entertainment and Holiday Accommodation/Venue Hire benefits will have a combined cap of $2,550?

• Make sure you take advantage of this benefit from now until 31st March 2016 to maximise your savings whilst no cap is in place.
  
• Any balances will need to be reimbursed before 31st March 2016.
  
• Restaurants
  
• Professionally catered functions
  
• Self-catered functions
  
• Holiday accommodation in a hotel, motel, caravan, cabin or serviced apartment
  
• Cruise ships
  
• Holiday package deals where total costs are inclusive
  

Furthermore, these amounts will also become reportable on payment summaries and could impact certain government income tests such as child support, medicare levy surcharge and HECS/HELP obligations.

Novated Leasing could benefit you and provide MORE tax savings for LESS work!

• No GST on the purchase price of a motor vehicle (up to the luxury car threshold)
  
• Fleet discounts on purchase price of new vehicles
  
• Pay a portion of finance and running costs from pre-tax salary
  
• Fleet discounts on running costs
  
• Your choice of fuel card
  
• 24 hour emergency hotline
  
• Vehicle maintenance & servicing booking hotline
  

For those working in the charity sector this will be a significant change. If you would like further information, please contact 1300 408 046 or email info@salarypackagingplus.com.au

It seems parents have no sooner paid for school books, uniforms and shoes—and for many Australian families, a decent amount for school fees—and the invoices begin arriving for the winter sports season.

For families with multiple children wanting to play AFL, hockey, rugby, soccer, netball, Oztag and more, the burden on the budget can be overwhelming and can even factor some children out altogether.

So how can sporting clubs and associations ease the financial pressure on families while retaining cash flow and boosting membership numbers?

Direct debit billing is an ideal solution.

The pinch point for many families is having to pay the membership fees or the fees for the season up front on sign-on day or shortly after the season begins. These bills can total in the thousands of dollars for families, and for the sporting clubs, this can result in a large influx of money to manage in one hit and becomes a major administrative task.

However, direct debit subscription payments made either on a weekly or monthly basis, allow families to ‘pay off’ their fees over time—whether it’s over the season or throughout the year.

Making sport more accessible for all Australian families

If you’re managing a sporting club or association and want to help make your services more accessible and affordable, a direct debit service like PaySmart is ideal. Fees are paid automatically, so families don’t need to physically pay an invoice each month or worry about late fees, and your staff won’t have to chase up late payments. Plus, PaySmart offers free support from our Australian-based Customer Service Centre experts should you or your members ever need it.

“PaySmart provided an ideal solution for us because we aim to be accessible to everyone in the community, and for many people and families, paying a lump sum for their membership is impossible. With PaySmart, members are able to pay their fees over time so it’s great for them, plus it means we’re not spending all of our time chasing payments—it’s a win-win.”

— Brendon Boss, President Toowong Football Club

Sporting clubs that use a direct debit billing system like PaySmart can also transform their cash flow management with a secure and ongoing line of cash coming into the club. It can also encourage membership retention with an easy system in place to pay fees for subsequent years.

It’s not too late to talk to PaySmart today about getting a direct debit payment system in place for your sporting club in 2016.

Talk to a local PaySmart Business Development Manager to get started with PaySmart, or if you’re a parent who is keen to recommend PaySmart to your club, get in touch and we can provide you with all the information you’ll need to share with management. We’ll even come out to your club and show you how easy PaySmart is to use for parents and staff.

This article was supplied by PaySmart and written by Colin Walker. 

AuSAE Networking Lunches offer a great chance to get out of the office and meet new connections in the sector. Each lunch also features an insightful presentation on various topics of importance. Attending a lunch is a great chance to see what AuSAE really offers which is a place like-minded professionals can gather and share workplace challenges and achievements over a delicious two-course luncheon at a great venue. Check out the upcoming lunches below. We would love to see you there!

Melbourne | 'Solving the Strategic Planning Puzzle' Lunch on Wednesday 24 February 

Craig Richards (CEO at Bicycle Network) will reveal the mysteries behind preparing and implementing a great strategy using the Bicycle Network experience [more] 

Perth | 'Answers to the Age Old Question: Why Should I be a Member?' on Wednesday 2 March

Simon Glossop (CEO at Caravan Industry Association WA) will share his knowledge and experience on how to engage, retain and increase membership [more] 

Brisbane | 'Solving the Strategic Planning Puzzle' Lunch on Thursday 3 March

Craig Richards (CEO at Bicycle Network) will reveal the mysteries behind preparing and implementing a great strategy using the Bicycle Network experience [more] 

Adelaide | 'Innovation and Risk Taking in 2016' Lunch on Wednesday 9 March 

Vera Visevic (Partner at Mills Oakley Lawyers) will discuss how associations can take advantage of key innovative approaches that will help not-for-profits grow and thrive in 2016 [more]

Canberra | 'Reinventing your Organisation for a Sustainable Future' Lunch on Thursday 10 March 

Shahana McKenzie (CEO at AILA) will discuss how the AILA has doubled its membership, increased sponsorship from $20,000 to over $500,000 and changed the way the organisation communicates with members all in just 24 months [more] 

Sydney | 'How to Prepare your Organisation for the Future' Lunch on Wednesday 16 March 

Adrian Cosenza (CEO at AOA) will share contemporary global practice in leadership and strategy applicable for all not-for-profit organisations [more] 

Association software provider Abila predicts associations will start mixing up their membership and partnership models to meet their 2016 resolutions.

With the turn of the new year, associations will start seeing some new trends. According to predictions from Abila, which provides software and services to associations, key changes will include a transition to hybrid membership models and increased for-profit partnerships.

These projections come as the percentage of associations reporting year-over-year membership growth is down 6 percent, according to Abila’s Senior Product Marketing Manager Amanda Myers.

“Both the hybrid model and both the partnerships, be it for-profit or nonprofit, are really about helping overcome some of those challenges,” Myers said. “It’s very solutions-based, and that’s really exciting seeing some of these associations get creative and start thinking outside of the box in terms of what they can bring to the table to help overcome their challenges and really set themselves up for a great 2016.”

Associations will start turning to a hybrid membership model versus the traditional model, which Myers described as a one-size-fits-all strategy. Instead of having one set of benefits and dues, a hybrid model creates tiers by career stage, level of engagement, and the like.

Tiers based on involvement offer several sets of benefits with corresponding dues. This structure allows people who can’t afford full dues, such as students or recent graduates, to still be part of the association’s network and community, but for less money and with lower output.

To read the full article please click here. 

This article was originally sourced from Associations Now here and was written by Alex Beall. 

Two associations in the plastics industry have partnered to grant free memberships to students, with an eye toward the long-term benefit to both associations and their industry as a whole.

Staring at a membership report, it can be easy to look at the numbers and just wish they were a little bigger—especially in young-professional and student categories, where the numbers always seem stubbornly unmovable.

The numbers, of course, represent actual people. And student members, in particular, are a constantly changing group of people who speed through that membership category in just a few short years. Their place in the industry your association serves is fluid but important.

That viewpoint—that student members are more than just positive numbers on the membership dashboard—played a role in sparking a partnership between two associations in the plastics industry that has more students than ever before participating in the two organisations.

I visited one of those associations, the Society of Plastics Engineers, last month and met Managing Director Russell Broome and fellow staff. Broome is a little more than a year into his tenure as the leader of SPE’s U.S. office, after more than 20 years as a member and volunteer with the organization, dating back to his own student days at North Carolina State University. He told me SPE had been spinning its wheels in recruiting student members for all the presumable reasons.

“Students are very busy with coursework, internships, sports, and other activities. They don’t often feel the need to join a society—most times they feel that there is no value—especially since the time demands are already stressful,” he says. “Showing them why an SPE membership is valuable to them as a student as well as to their future career is important.”

To read the full article please click here. 

This article was originally sourced from Associations Now here and was written by Joe Rominiecki. 

Although some business trends come and go, there are some are some that have proven timeless. For example, doing what’s right for the client will never go out of style, and the same goes for treating employees well and putting the company in a position to succeed. As companies experiment with different processes and report on their successes or failures, others may adapt them as a part of their own policies in order to improve internal or external business operations.

Here are 10 trends for CEOs and business leaders that various experts and writers have explored for 2016.

1. Customer Experience

The explosion of online commerce and marketing via social media has increased the already high-demand for excellent customer service. Laura McLellan discusses this in her article about marketing trends for 2016 on Gartner.com, saying that businesses must “look to new sources of differentiation.”

“Most companies expect to compete primarily on customer experience in the next two years,” she explains. “In 2016, customer experience will garner the highest level of marketing investment; it is one of three areas in which CEOs’ expectations of CMOs will increase the most; and bleeding-edge technologies to improve it will be the top innovation project marketers undertake. Marketers will lead the customer experience cross-functionally across all touch points in the majority of companies by 2016.”

2. Benefit Changes

When major companies make a big change to their benefits policies, like Netflix did in 2015 with its extended parental leave, it tends to make headlines. This trend should continue in 2016, as this story on ExecutiveForum.com explains, and serve as a recruiting tool.

“In order to compete for top talent, organizations will start looking at the overall competitiveness of their comp plans and identify the flexibility of paid leave time as an easy concession,” the story states. “The number of companies offering paid maternity leave now is disturbingly low, and paternity leave has been virtually nonexistent. But tech companies are quickly adjusting their leave policies in an attempt to retain their already limited female workforce, and that is creating a larger conversation in organizations across the U.S.”

3. Focus on Connecting Customers

Writing for Forbes, contributor Ian Altman describes “a connection economy,” which focuses on “building relationships and creating connections, rather than building assets by industrialism.” His examples:

• “Uber is the largest ‘taxi’ company — yet they own no vehicles and excel at connecting riders with drivers.”
  
• “AirBnB is the largest provider of accommodations — yet they own no real estate.”
  
• “Facebook is the largest media company — yet they create no content.”
  
• “Crowdfunding businesses like Kickstarter and IndieGoGo are expected to surpass venture capital for funding in 2016 — yet they have no funds to invest.”
  

“Whereas it used to be sufficient to sell a product and receive revenues, customers now seek to connect with other like-minded individuals to get the most value in the long run,” he writes. “… If you want to build something that stands the test of time, you’ll connect your customers to each other and to valuable resources that extend beyond the sale.”

4. Big Data

This trendy phrase may still be vague to some, but the use of analytics in determining a business’ direction and outlook will continue to grow and become an important step in 2016. Tim Crawford, CIO of AVOA, explores its evolving role in information technology in a story for Hewlett Packard Enterprise.

“We’ve been talking about Big Data for a while, but what most people call ‘Big Data’ today is actually tiny data compared to what’s coming down the road,” he says. “More importantly, the term ‘Big Data’ alone doesn’t capture the full scope of its real impact on IT. CIOs and their teams can’t simply focus on managing the technical complexity of exponentially growing data in their data centers. We must become more data-driven and analytical in all of our decision-making and strategies, because that’s what’s happening throughout the organization. Don’t mistake data analytics for a marketing trend. Almost all company decisions — whether about mergers and acquisitions, growth markets, or new opportunities, products, and services — are increasingly made based on data.”

5. Innovations in Marketing

Innovation is one of those concepts that should be entrenched in any list of business trends. As McLellan writes in her Gartner piece, CEOs and CMOs should have a sharp focus on new efforts and directions with marketing in 2016.

“For the second year in a row we found that marketers are setting aside more than 9 percent of their budget for innovation,” she writes. “Leading a culture of change and company-wide innovation was the third-highest ranked increased CEO expectation of CMOs. More marketing executives have innovation in their title. An increasing number of CMOs manage product development as well as product management. Digital business transformation is causing many industries to shift their business model and offerings to digital vs. physical, putting marketing squarely in the middle of such innovation.”

To read the full article please click here. 

This article was originally sourced from Business2Community here and was written by David Kiger. 

Traditional and Digital PR are rapidly converging. A new Holmes report lays out five areas where digital changes are likely to intersect with, and have an impact on, Public Relations this year.

1. Earned vs Paid Content: Publishing content is one of the core aspects of Digital PR. In December 2015 the FTC laid out guidelines for paid content in an effort to prevent consumers from being misled by native advertising. It’s no longer enough to label the content “promoted.” Disclosure now has to be above the content. One of the ways this affects PR is working with the media and influencers. The ability to identify the right influencers – in both traditional and social media – and provide them with content they value so that you get earned media coverage will become highly prized in 2016.

2. Audio & Visual: There seems to be no end to the demand for immediate, visual content. Original images, smart infographics and engaging videos certainly capture the attention of your audience and are now important Digital PR skills. Then we have live-streaming video. The catch here is the skill needed to produce excellent quality visual material. It might be easy to write an engaging tweet, but taking high-quality photos on a smart phone or making a consistently interesting live-streaming video is not so simple.

Despite this appetite for the visual, podcasts are still very popular and are a way to reach and engage your audience – a core PR function. They’re much easier to produce than video, they’re easy to digest and can be listened to while multi-tasking.

3. The Shrinking Social Media Landscape: Facebook is now in its 12th year and shows no signs of slowing down. What we do see is a concentration of content and brand activity on the major social media platforms. PR pros need to hone their research skills, so they know exactly who is on which platform and what messages need to be posted where for best result. (Which means you have to understand data and analytics, another core Digital PR skill)

If you have a Millennial audience it’s vital to be familiar with SnapChat, WhatsApp and Line. Line is going after disenchanted Facebookers as much as it’s hoping to woo Skype-calling addicts. And it would be wise to keep an eye other platforms coming out of Asia, like WeChat, QQ and QZone.

4. Social Media at Work: LinkedIn cornered the market for business networking online. While still a major HR play, LinkedIn has also worked hard to make its platform appealing to journalists – and so it should be a priority for PR pros too. There are other apps making headway for internal comms – like Slack, which already has a large user base and has been valued at $1 Billion. Facebook at Work is a new product currently in beta for the work environment. If you are responsible for internal communication programs you need to be on top of these new services.

5. There’s an App for That: There does appear to be an app for pretty much everything today. People are using apps in a more personal way – many of them health related. And the success of these health apps, along with the Internet of Things – opens the door to other brand engagement opportunities. Smart PR pros will investigate how their brand (or clients) could tap into this trend. There are tons of opportunities for engaging content that can not only entertain, but make the world a better place.

This article was originally sourced from Business2Community here and was written by Sally Falkow. 

Disastrous events. We’ve all had them. I remember standing with my boss behind a pillar at an event in 1999, as he was unable to look at the room we had set for 700 with the 50 attendees. My attempts to promote the event as having a better-than-expected speaker-to-attendee ratio fell a little flat.

That’s why so much energy for every event is spent on thinking about how to get “butts in seats.”

A good place to start is with the trusty “4 P’s” of marketing, first espoused by Phillip Kottler (often called the father of modern marketing) in 1967. It’s funny to see how many lessons from his 4 P’s—product, price, promotion and place—still apply in the Internet and social media age. Particularly when you consider that this photo represents the state of the art in computing the year that Kottler wrote his seminal textbook “Marketing Management.”

So what would Kottler say about events today?

Product: Here’s the cold, hard reality. The market does a really good job of separating out good events from bad ones. And the event market is more competitive now than it has ever been. I look for four key elements in creating a client event:

1. Content: Whether it’s the right speakers or the right opportunity for audience interaction, you can’t spend enough time thinking about the agenda for your event. As you do, remember that the approach to content over the years has shifted. For example, the days of ninety-minute keynotes have given way to shorter, punchier TED talks. I’ve blogged about this before.
   
2. Packaging: I spend a lot of time at client events looking at staging and appearances. These items are far from superficial: they have a significant impact on people’s perception of an event. Walking into a room and saying “Wow!” helps attendees feel that an event is more than just an association meeting—it’s a happening.
   
3. Networking: People come to events to meet people. Be sure you’re giving them that opportunity—not just by having the time on the agenda, but by facilitating it with tools like mobile apps.
   
4. Fun: Whether it is an off-the-beaten path speaker, a theme at a networking reception, or a clever opening video, look for an opportunity to make your attendees smile. That’s where impressions are made.
   

Price: The pricing strategy on events is one that requires careful consideration, as it will often be a key consideration in people’s ability to attend.

Here are a few rules of thumb:

1. Free is costly: A mistake I’ve made in the past is the “free registration/sponsor-supported” event. You need to remember that for attendees, price connotes value. I’d rather give someone a “courtesy registration” to an event priced at $595 than have an event be priced as free.
   
2. Be competitive: People have nearly limitless opportunities to attend events. Be sure to do your market research to take a look at how comparable events are priced.
   
3. Cover your costs: Being a “non-profit” doesn’t mean that you need to lose money. I typically look for a pricing model that enables sponsorship to cover the hard costs of the meeting with registrations serving as the profit margin.
   

Promotion: With a strong product at the right price, it’s now time to start promoting.

1. Personal invitations: Tip O’Neill used to say you have to ask for every vote. And similarly, you have to ask for every registrant at a meeting. Be sure your promotion strategy includes personally inviting past event attendees to register—they should be a solid base from which you begin.
   
2. Return to sender: When I have scores of emails to sort through, I typically start by seeing who sent them. That’s why it’s so important that your promotion strategy start with attention to the sender line. Who is the message from? If your message is from a generic “events” address or an unknown staffer, it won’t cut through the clutter.
   
3. Go social: Of course, social media is a key part of your promotion strategy. Understanding what has worked and is working for other similar industry events and meetings, and applying it to promotional messaging testing is crucial. Don’t set one message up to one defined audience without providing variants of images and calls to action. This allows increasingly sophisticated delivery systems like Facebook Ads to more effectively target your message to not only your target audiences, but their specific tastes!
   
4. Set goals: Remember, not every meeting has to break attendance records. Sometimes exclusivity is what you’re going for—and a big attendance goes against your goals. Be sure you have a set goal for attendance success.
   

Place: It’s not quite what Kottler meant by “place,” but when it comes to meeting success, location matters in driving attendees. Worry about the “ABC’s” of location.

1. Access: Be sure you have solid access from airports and multiple airlines. I’m not always crazy about the Grand Hyatt DFW, but it sure is easy to get to.
   
2. Budget: Consider the budgets of attendees. They’ll need to put the event on their expense accounts. Don’t book a Four Seasons for a group that is on a Ramada Inn budget, and be careful about locations that could be perceived as a “junket.”
   
3. Cachet: Consider locations that have some perceived “cachet” that are still within your budget. Here in Boston, for example, colleges and universities are a great venue—unused classroom space is affordable and having a major university name as the location provides some cachet for the event.
   

So will doing all the strategies above guarantee solid attendance? Of course not. But some careful consideration of the “4 P’s” can save you from the dreaded “fifth P”—the pain of an event gone wrong.

This article was originally sourced from Virtual here and was written by Andy Freed. 

With so many different communication channels – including websites, blogs, emails, newsletters and social media – communicating with your stakeholders in 2016 can seem like a daunting task.

Kivi Leroux Miller’s annual Nonprofit Communications Trends Report helps non-profit staff and volunteers understand how similar people in similar roles have been communicating in the past, as well as their plans for 2015. This year’s edition has compiled data from 1,534 non-profit staff from USA and Canada on their communication goals, preferences and habits.

Here are some highlights:

• 57% of respondents said that “Engaging Our Community” was their most important communication goal.
  
• 81% thought that their website was the most important communication channel and 92% thought podcasting is the least important.
  
• The respondents reported that Facebook updates took the most time in a typical week.
  
• Facebook is still no. 1 in social media - 96% of respondents have a Facebook page.
  
• Respondents ranked the “lack of time to produce quality content” as “very challenging”.
  
• 62% will send an email newsletter at least monthly.
  

If you’d like to check out all of the insight the report provides, you can download the 2015 Nonprofit Communications Trends Report here.

This information was sourced directly from the Wild Apricot website here. 

The Mortgage and Finance Association of Australia (MFAA) have launched a new intensive training program specifically for female mortgage and finance brokers.

Partnering with recognised leadership developer Gillian Fox, the six-month WIMBN:SOLD Leadership Development (Advancing Women) program has been launched with the aim of improving women’s ability to become more successful business owners.

“Many female entrepreneurs work extremely hard yet are not always achieving their goal to make their value visible when it comes to differentiating themselves and continue to grow their business,” Gillian Fox said.

The program includes four workshops and two individual sessions which will equip women with the tools and practical information needed to accelerate their operational growth. The course also includes guest speakers and will challenge participants to create a career development plan for the future.

With many brokers operating as solo business owners, the chief executive of the MFAA, Siobhan Hayden, said the intensive program will help female brokers leverage their position in the mortgage and finance industry.

“Promoting conversations about priorities, establishing new referral partners through influencing and decision-making on business diversification are all top of mind for brokers. A lot are solo business owners and I believe that the program will help them to achieve their professional goals,” Hayden said.

As the mortgage and finance industry is beginning to be represented by more and more women, Fox said opportunities like this are important.

“I see more women in leadership in the finance industry growing. The aim is to create more opportunities for women to expand their influence within the sector.”

This article was originally sourced from Australian Broker here and was written by Julia Corderoy.