Queensland Leaders – Month 2

So last week was my second hit of Queensland Leaders. As discussed by previous participants, you definitely get more each time from it.

This week we had presentations from a whole raft of people, but including ABN Amro Morgans (Philip Lee), McMahon Clarke Legal (Langton Clarke) and BBS (Amanda Newbery). Sometimes it is hard in short sessions to gather all your thoughts together, but these 3 were all very relevant to me / ireckon at this time and it had my mind spinning a little.

Particularly useful was a checklist provided by Langton Clarke which covered about 100 questions, to check how investment ready you are. As ireckon has grown so quickly over the last few years, I often look back at the trail left behind by the growth whirlwind wondering if all is in order.

While I doubt any small – medium organisation could easily say it is, there is a great feeling of validation to review a checklist that you can answer YES to more than half the questions without checking! Of course many more of the items are now firmly in my sights as I pursue our first ever look at funding the next stage of our development.

As a business owner it is difficult at times to disengage your head from your business, and you find yourself at outside events with a different level of thinking than employees or others who don’t deal with the day to day decisions an owner has to deal with. One of the great things so far with Qld Leaders is the ability to actually be talking to a whole group of similar minded people, all faced with the very same issues and day to day items we all face.

That in itself will make this a very worthwhile 12 months.

Already other valuable connections have been made and offers to attend sessions that would not pop up on my radar have been made, and I will do my best to soak up as much as possible from them.

One thing is for sure I had 3 reasons I chose to join Qld Leaders for this year, and already 1 of them is becoming a reality, and the other 2 have distinct possibilities, which I am sure it is up to me to take!

After the first meeting I was a little unsure of the value, and was a touch disappointed with the mentoring sessions.  This month I have definitely locked in the value in my own mind, and 1 of this months mentoring sessions definitely had value. No doubt I will reserve my judgment on the mentoring sessions at present, however the presentations and networking events have definite value.

It certainly has me on my toes making sure I can handle answering my own questions that I have been pondering the last 12 months. Let’s hope it gets me answers I can accept and work with!