Category Archives: Internships

Jasmine Batra, the founding-director of Arrow Internet Marketing has come a long way and witnessed a lot of change in the marketing industry since she first began her career.

In 1997 she was finishing up her MBA and completing honours in Systems Management. It was a time where Jasmine says the Internet was beginning to boom, and a time where everyone was indulging in the ability to create a new .com.

“Even at that time though, I was thinking how would they market it, not what new technology, new site or new web app, but how would you reach out,” she says.

And then to Yahoo and everyone else’s disbelief, Google came along.

“Google has really changed the scene,” she says, “They really refined how and what people were looking for.”

From a very early time Jasmine knew that the Internet and Google sensation would transform business, the way people search for things and of course marketing, for a very long time.

However it wasn’t until after a lengthy career in web development and digital strategies that Jasmine and her husband of sixteen years Anup, decided to make the leap of faith and build their own marketing business.

“Not for a single day did we work from home, we had no client on board, but we decided to take an office,” Jasmine says.

This is because Jasmine has a strong belief in separating business and personal life.

“When I am at the office, I am here one hundred percent,” she says, “when I go home, I don’t think about work at all.”

Whipping up the deal for a small office on St Kilda road in January 2007, Jasmine and her husband had no idea of how they would pay their first month’s rent.

“We knew what we had to offer, and we knew it was a bit of a risk,” she says.

Now, seven years later Arrow Marketing has expanded with a 20 member team and two offices, one in Melbourne and one in Sydney, and an array of awards under its belt; including the winner of The Best Australian Social Media Optimization Company for three years running.

“It is sometimes a bit of validation for yourself, and recognition from the outside world,” she says.

More importantly though, for Jasmine it is all about hearing the success stories of her clients, and hearing how much they trust her and the business.

“It’s what gives you the kick and the motivation to come up here every day and find out what’s next,” she says.

“I had one client who said “for me, this business is my life, and getting someone else to market it for you, is like going to a heart surgeon. I don’t know anything that you will do, but I trust that you will look after it – and this is my life, because if my heart stops beating I am no more.””

Her emphasis on trust, honesty and respect, comes from her cultural background that she says is ingrained in her.

“Coming from India, I have the values of doing what’s right, and believe in spirituality, [and] karma,” she says.

“That’s what really sets us apart as an organization from many others, is that our heart is in the right place.”

Likewise, she has an emphasis on keeping her staff bright and positive too.

“We have in our office, afternoon teas… we always try and have a theme for it,” she says.

“We just get together, forget work, eat together and enjoy and for me that’s important because life is a festival.”

Her focus on creating positive and happy work environments may also be inspired by her love of meditation, bollywood and dance.

“I like all things colorful, so events, festivals, all of those sorts of things get me going,” she says.

It may be just this, which encourages Jasmine to continue the sometimes difficult battle between motherhood and being a business owner.

“This is something that I think every woman will tell you,” she says.

“It’s always which part of me wins today. It is a juggling act.”

Fortunately for Jasmine, she has a strong and industrious team.

“I have very good people, who I know I can count on,” she says.

Jasmine and her team were at the Small Business Festival again, for the seventh time since they commenced business in 2007, an opportunity she is always grateful for.

“I’ve had a small business myself and to be able to give back and be in front of people and learn and share  is rewarding,” she says.

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Kiri Delly is the CEO of the Council of Textiles and Fashion Industries of Australia and has the epitome of a self-driven success story.

Growing up in Auckland, New Zealand and then relocating to Canberra for her final school and university days, Kiri was always wide eyed about the future and her possible career prospects.

With her mind set on working abroad, Kiri managed to save up enough money in her year after graduating from Public Relations and Communications to get herself to London, where she would then work for a further eight years.

“I always wanted to work overseas,” she says.

“I think it’s really important that you have an opportunity to work with different cultures and different countries. It gives you a really full perspective on life and on the different ways of doing things.”

Fortunately her first job in London progressed from the role of office manager to an events manager, which lent her exciting experiences such as working with clients like Disney and Fox.

One of the more enthralling projects working alongside Disney, involved travelling around on a train for two months to 40 different European countries, as scenes from the then new movie Hercules were played to families and children.

“That opportunity to live on a train and promote a film and experience different cultures – because we had people from all of those countries on board as well, that was quite fun and quite exciting,” she says.

Then after a build up of life changing international fun, Kiri felt it was time to return home. Ending up in Melbourne, the events capital of Australia, Kiri felt both nervous and excited for her future in the city.

“It was actually quite a tough time, I didn’t have any contacts here, I didn’t know anyone because I hadn’t been in Melbourne before,” she says.

Wanting to get her foot in the door, and to make a few connections, Kiri put her hand up to volunteer at the Melbourne L’Oreal Fashion Festival, where she would later become the events manager and then the general manager.

“They saw my CV and said “wow you have done heaps, you want to volunteer?””

After progressing from a volunteer position in a short six months to a paid role within the festival, Kiri decided she would recruit new staff in the same way.

“Volunteering is a really good way of showing what you can do and getting an understanding of the organization and what’s needed,” She says.

Now, almost ten years on, Kiri appears to view Melbourne as home.

“It’s such a great city, there’s this vibrancy,” she says, “it’s very open to creativity and new ideas.”

“And my family are here now.”

Kiri has now been working with the TFIA, which has been supporting the industry since the 1940s, for almost two years; an experience that has been invaluable for her.

“I’m really interested in what it takes in getting the designers to the right stage, and what has to happen at the very beginning… and what support they could get,” she says.

“It’s crucial because we can be a voice that often small businesses can’t be.”

Another great service that Kiri and TFIA have been involved in setting up is the Textiles and Fashion Hub that operates in conjunction with Kangan Institute in Richmond.

“It’s quite a flexible project, we listen to what the industry tell us they want, and take it from there,” she says, “if they say they want a workshop on leather, we’ll put it on.”

The Hub also has services such as knitting machines, 3D body scanners and digital printers, which are open to the industry and small and medium sized businesses for use.

Kiri’s role as CEO is certainly keeping her busy, as she is often juggling conversations between the media, the industry, business owners, government and universities on a range of topics and solutions, while organising big workshops and events too.

“I recently just got back from a women’s dialogue conference in Malaysia, that was all about empowering women through textiles and tourism,” she says.

No two days are the same for Kiri, but it seems she wouldn’t have it any other way.

“I’ve always liked things that take people out of the grind of the day, by providing things that are visually stimulating and engaging – that’s why I enjoy events,” she says.

Though she has already come so far and achieved so much in her self-driven career, the future remains endless and full of ideas for Kiri; and it may not stop at Melbourne.

“I’ve always liked getting yourself part of a culture… having that opportunity to live in it,” she says.

“And I think that is something that will continue throughout my life.”

Like all young boys growing up, James Richardson had a world of potential before him. And like all young boys, the building blocks for the future were in abundance.

For James, it all started with building websites. A curiosity that began with creating online sport fan sites and e-commerce stores has blossomed into something even bigger, as he is now the proud founder of Optimising, a successful online marketing company.

But it didn’t just happen overnight. James had the skills in web development, a bachelor’s degree in Business Administration and Marketing, and a strong love for sport and communication, but he still wasn’t sure what he wanted to do.

It wasn’t until he had almost travelled the whole world that he realized where he needed to be.

“I travelled for about a year… and then came back and had to work out what I was going to do,” He says.

“Travelling for a while you need to start thinking about what you need to do, and that helped me figure it out.”

For James he realised his skillset and saw a way he could use this to help other people.

“I saw the skills that I had… and I saw that there are a lot of businesses that didn’t have that skill set,” James says.

“That’s where I thought I could come in and implement some of the stuff I have learnt.”

His real motivation came from the fact that it was a dream for James to run his own business.

“I thought that I’d like to do my own thing”, he says.

“[And] Utilising the skills that I have, doing business in online marketing made sense.”

The online sphere appears to be the future, and it doesn’t seem to be a bad way for James or Optimising to be investing his time.

“It’s the first point of call when anyone is looking for any kind of product or service,” he says.

“They get online, search for something, and check out the first few results they find. As a business if you can’t be found there – then you will get left behind.”

That’s why at Optimising, James has ensured his business is there to provide a variety of online marketing strategies to help other businesses maximize their efficiency and operations within today’s ever growing online space.

“We work on a variety of projects. We can be putting together new websites, working on a new online marketing strategy to implement for a client. Some of the guys might be working on some Facebook Ad campaigns,” James says.

But the biggest achievement aside from helping other businesses grow, has been watching his own business develop and change.

“It started off with just myself… and now we’re up to twelve [staff],” James says.

“Coming from nothing to where we are right now, is quite significant.”

It has taken a lot of hard work and perseverance, but James has finally gotten his business at a place he wants it to be.

“Now we service one hundred clients a month,” he says.

According to James, building trust and respect amongst customers has always been the foundations of the business.

“For the first few years that was something we had to focus on.”

Now that Optimising has established its strong customer relationships, it has led way to even more exciting things, like a brand new office in Cremorne.

“It’s a nice space,” he says.

“It’s significantly bigger – we have the ability to grow, and space up to thirty people, and that puts us in a good place.”

With that, it is safe to say the future for Optimising looks promisingly bright.

“Over the next few years, we want to improve our products and the service that we provide,” James says.

Clifford Moss has quite frankly tried it all.

He has travelled back and forth across the globe, lived amongst other cultures, started many business projects and worked in an array of industries.

Now he has nestled his way into the Melbourne scene where he has become the enthusiastic founder of Good Business Matters.

Having successfully wrapped up its first time in the Small Business Festival with a sold out workshop, Good Business Matters has big plans for the future.

“We’ll definitely be rehashing the workshop for other clients and associations,” he says.

The business, co-founded by Simon Davies was inspired by a need they found within the industry for business sustainability and social responsibility support.

“I went to the small business festival last year as a bit of a Sherlock Holmes exercise,” he says.

“They only had one sustainability event [and] I realised there is a huge hole here, all of these business – hundreds of thousands of them in Australia, aren’t being serviced in this social responsibility space.”

Good Business Matters aims to illustrate that profitability and sustainability can go hand in hand, benefiting both society and businesses too.

“It used to be business is business and it’s all about making money and that’s the end of the story, but it’s not the end of the story, it’s the start of the story,” he says.

Any business can potentially turn a sustainability based action into one that melds both purpose and profit, such as a coffee house, he explains, that could be not only be recycling its coffee grounds but also re-selling them as a premium form of compost.

“[Businesses] don’t realise that they cannot only save money but potentially create revenue streams,” he says.

All of this is achievable with little cost to the business Cliff says.

“They think to do all of this they have to be like big businesses and employ and pay thousands of dollars for it, but the fact of the matter is they don’t.”

Cliff’s personal motivation for the business has also come from his very diverse and enlightening past.

He was born in France but spent most of his years growing up between there and London, before he graduated with a degree in Commercial Property.

Inspired by the film industry in south of France, Cliff worked his way up from being a film runner, to a production assistant and then a director.

This led him to a 12 month experience in New Zealand, where he worked on another new television show.

After moving on from the film and television industry, Cliff and his then business partner decided to launch their own marketing agency.

However after a lengthy career of doing that, Cliff decided again that it was time for something new.

“It became a bit soulless, there was no real reason for doing it other than helping people sell more,” he says.

So he packed his bags and decided to go to South Africa where he would help establish a charity based organisation called Help 2 Read, which is still running today.

The organisation is based around providing primary school children with fun books and games to help improve their literacy skills.

It was only when he was looking for a cost effective way to obtain supplies for the organisation and after crossing paths with a mother who was moving her family to Australia that a light bulb moment went off in Cliff’s mind.

“I realised, we don’t need to go and buy more books, we just need to access them, they are in peoples’ cupboards, I’ve got to go and talk to the removals companies,” he says.

“If I can engage them in the idea of being responsible, then we will get books and games, the business will look good… and the customer will be happy because they will be moving less stuff abroad.”

“That’s what got me hooked on social responsibility,” he says.

Cliff has also been involved in two other substantial projects including his late venture Manifest and a popular school music program called Rock the Schools, which has worked with well-known bands like Van She, Oh Mercy, The Cassette Kids and Operator Please.

Cliff returned to London to work in property again, before finally making his way back to Australia and launching Good Business Matters.

“[Originally] Good Business Matters was going to be a book,” he says.

“[But] we could tell that it wasn’t going to work just with a book.”

They are still intending to publish the book which will include easy and sustainable business strategies by mid next year.

However it won’t stop there for Cliff and Simon as they have found their workshops to be such a hit.

Business appears to be looking very good for Cliff, though there is now another equally important role for him within his life.

“I have a new baby, he is ten weeks old and that’s a huge, exciting experience – I really want to be the bedrock for that,” he says.

“I’ve got two focuses: the family and the business.”

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