Come and join us for our annual Next Generation seminar aimed at yonger repairers in Sydney's CBD on Friday 13 March. This event, sponsored by PartsCheck, iBodyshop and BMW, is a great opportunity to network and learn.
Next Generation was set up at the suggestion of Mark Walker at Walker Crash Repairs in South Australia who wanted a forum of forward thinking younger repairers to discuss the latest industry trends and share information. This year's theme is Fresh Thinking and we'll be hearing from repairers and speakers who aren't afraid to experiment with different ways of achieving goals on Friday 13 March.
Dan Maher from L&M Smash in Sydney summed up the feedback we received about our last Next Gen in Melbourne: "It was great meeting everyone and speaking with open minded and optimistic operators that have different business models that all are profitable. That in itself was a valuable experience. I take away from that that we need to diversify to grow our business and we can do that by listening and learning off each other and getting the right guidance."
Two forward thinking, successful repairers will be sharing their experiences and fresh thinking - Simon Leven from Leven Smash Repairs in Dubbo and Mudgee and Chad Buckley from Peter Kittle Toyota in Adelaide. Leven faces all the challenges of a country repairer but has built a state of the art new facility and continues to grow the business in both locations, winning business awards along the way. Buckley has had experience of working in a traditional family owned business and now manages a large dealer repair facility and shares his insights of the differences between the two and where fresh thinking has been applied at Peter Kittle. Two BMW repairers, Glen O'Donnell from Macarthur Prestige and David Butler from Autohaus Prestige will discuss what fresh thinking they needed to employ when building their new shops. Next Gen stalwarts Steve Lozenkovski will be there facilitating a session on teambuilding and leadership.
We asked our nearly 200 members of our closed Facebook group for Next Genners what they wanted to hear about. One member said 'things we need to know now which will affect us in the next five years.' Cyber crime is on the rise and small businesses are a big target. Rami Fahmy Director, Nsure General Insurance Advisors is going to outline some of the dangers and how to protect your business against cyber crime.
We also have Adam Davey who is CEO of the Winston Churchill Trust who will be telling us about the overseas scholarships from the Trust for those working in Automotive. We'll be announcing the final speaker line up next week.
This great event takes place at the stylish Ovolo Hotel in Woolloomoolloo, Sydney and there will be the opportunity to carry on networking at drinks after the seminar.
There's also the opportunity to tour three diverse shops the day before on Thursday 12 March with our Sydney Shop Tour.