PMA Future Leaders Program
PMA's Future Leaders Program was launched last week, commencing with the the first Workshop being held in Sydney on Friday 29th April, the second in Melbourne on Tuesday 3rd May and the final workshop being held in Brisbane on Wednesday 4th May. Despite an initial slow start to enrolments for the Workshops, there was an excellent turn out across the states, with over 20 young Future Leaders in attendance at both the Sydney and Melbourne Workshops, and one dozen Future Leaders in the Brisbane Workshop.
The Sydney Workshop saw a great mix of Industry Future Leaders - the Workshop was well attended and supported by Fujifilm and Olympus Imaging, and the Camera House Group was well represtented with Future Leaders travelling from Erina, Katoomba, Bowral, Macarthur, Castle Hill and Sydney to attend. Both Foto Riesel and Paxtons saw value in sending their Future Leaders to the Workshop, as did Hydro Photographics who had had two Future Leaders, Rachel and Sarah, travelling from Port Macquarie to attend. All groups represented - Suppliers, Retailers and School Photographers reported that they saw great value in the information provided by the Friedman Groups, Kassandra Lewis.
The Melbourne Workshop also had a good mix of Industry Future Leaders, with groups from Teds & Michaels, Professional Labs (Bond Imaging and Nulab), School Photographers (Schoolpix) Picture Framers (J.R Framing & Art), Suppliers (Fujifilm) and other Retailers in attendance. Future Leaders travelled from Adelaide, Hobart, Albury and Wangaratta to attend the Melbourne Workshop, and PMA would like to thank and acknowledge these Members and their staff who made a big effort for their Future Leaders to participate. The Brisbane Workshop saw a smaller group, but not one lacking in enthusiasm. Once again, a great mix of businesses were represented, from Picture Framers (Framing Corner Toowong & Art of Framing Toowong), Suppliers (Olympus), groups from Teds and Peters Camera House, Fotofast, and two Future Leaders travelled from the Gold Coast (Garricks Camera House) to attend. A big thanks to all those that participated in the Future Leaders Workshops for 2011.
PMA Australia Newsline Editor, Glynn Lavender, sat in on the Melbourne Workshop to write the following report.
"In Melbourne on Tuesday PMA ran it's Victorian Future Leaders training day.
There was a terrific turnout of over 20 young members from all areas of our industry.
The importance of a training day such as this was valued so highly by some companies that team members were sent from Tasmania and far flung reaches of Victoria as these companies knew that a day spent in the capable hands of the Friedman training group could only help their businesses to improve.
One of the real early eye openers for the attendees was the realisation of just how low most salespeople's conversion rates are and that improving in this area, rather than trying to find ways to get more customers through the door, is the fastest way to improve a business.
Once this fundamental shift in thinking was understood Kassandra Lewis from the Friedman Group then broke down the role of the sales manager and demonstrated how our future leaders can work with their team to increase their conversion rates and thereby improve overall results.
The sales manager role was then broken down in to it's four key components Sales Person / Trainer / Operations Manager and Sales Manager.
Each attendee worked throughout the day on challenges set by Kassandra to work through how each of those roles can change the way a business is run.
Another eye opener was having each attendee analyse what kind of person they are by using the DISC profiling method.
Understanding that there is no single of dealing with all personality types is a great step on the path to becoming a great sales manager and a great tool for the Future Leaders of our industry.
The afternoon session kicked off with analysing the difference in sales between a stores top sales performer and the lowest performer.
When this was broken down into a per hour figure and compared like for like another way of growing a stores volume was discovered by the attendees.
Understanding how to grow a stores lower performing sales member incrementally showed how stores can increase their sales by 20-30% in sales over a 12-month period.
Kass ran through a series of examples on setting sales targets for team members, Fair Share targets and methods of achieving these targets.
Overall the twenty Future Leaders of our industry spent the day learning more about how a business needs to run and how they can implement changes to ensure the business they are involved in.
In the words of one attendee 'I have learned more today about business than the last four years at 'Company X'.
Judging by the feedback PMA has received from attendees in other states this new training program has been an enormous success and looks to become an important part of the development of the youth in our industry."
A big Thank You also goes out to the PMA Future Leaders Program Sponsors: Yaffa, Fujifilm, Teds, Olympus Imaging, Australian Photo Supplies, C.R Kennedy, APCI, PhotoEdge Group, Maxwell International and UR1. Without funding from these sponsors, programs such as the Future Leaders Workshops would not go ahead.
