Trying new things

Loved the NSI open day. I am getting old too lol

We often hear about the ‘importance of innovation’ in business and I am sure no one would disagree it being important to the success of any given enterprise.

It makes perfect sense. You improve things, continually come up with new ideas and push yourself to deliver more to your customers to stand out in a very cluttered marketplace.

What I find interesting is that I would say only the elite few of companies and entrepreneurs out there actually do try new things. The ones that don’t are often the companies you don’t hear about and the ones that do are the ones you of course often read about.

One of those companies who are making a lot of headway is Northern Sydney Institute (Part of TAFE NSW). I have worked with them for years, done TEDx sessions with them and they are one of the leading parts of TAFE in Sydney (as it’s broken up into different regions).

As an institute they are always up to something cool. Talking from a Marketer’s viewpoint, you have the light improvements from website design right through to quite serious initiatives such as hosting TEDx talks right through to impressive open days.

I was the MC at their open day yesterday (Saturday) and ironically before it – I realised it was their first one. They put their hopes into a crazy person like me (lol) and it came out as a great first run for the day. The traffic was steady throughout the day. You didn’t get massive crowds of people coming through, BUT you had people coming through that were incredibly interested and asking very serious and heavy questions.

It was a quality / quantity debate for sure in that many visitors came with their mothers and it gave me the impression that when it comes to education; the mothers are certainly the key influencers and decision makers (was for me a long time ago too).

You had mothers going through with their sons & daughters constantly suggesting different directions for them to go in. I loved watching the social interaction and it was lots of fun in many ways.

In short, NSI tried something new and was it perfect? Of course not. Things never are in the first run. It usually takes about 5 – 6 runs before something is well optimised and working well.

However, it will bring them lots of new students and is a great move for keeping their name out there in the community.

My advice and thinking? Like our friends at NSI – you want to be very progressive in your business. This includes trying new ideas, forever improving, not being afraid to fail and of course; learning from your wins and losses.

I like to keep the wins of course much bigger than the losses! Love your work, thank you NSI and friends + remember #thinktafe