A sharp way to upskill in business

A NEW business and professional development program will launch in Ballarat in March.

Sales Shift and Sharp Accounting are partnering to deliver the local Sharp Summit Circle, which will aim to offer professionals a chance to learn, up-skill, network, and share their ideas about best practice.

The initiative will be hosted by Glenn Sharp and Ewen Fletcher, with Sales Shift’s Mike Boyd as facilitator.

“Our program is based on a community approach,” Mr Boyd said. “It revolves around a quarterly loop.

“We have a peer group session where members come together to gain insights, tools, learn case studies and scenarios, then they go away and implement that, and we support them with a coaching philosophy in between those sessions.

“We have an online portal, videos and a chat box so leaders in the Summit Circle community can chat amongst themselves about common issues. The process repeats four times a year.”

Mr Boyd said it’s a unique program for the city, and one that would be ideal for diverse business owners, directors, and leaders of strategy who have a growth mindset, and are keen to help their team develop into the future.

“A CEO said to me recently that being a CEO is often a really lonely place. They might be having resource and profit issues because of the economy, but who do they talk to for solutions without judgement?

“The key to our community is that we can offer a safe space with structure to talk about these things,” Mr Boyd said.

Five businesses and leaders are already signed up in Ballarat, from the agricultural sector to national brand sales.

“We want to put a mum and dad business and a global leader together, and watch them work together,” he said.

The Ballarat program will launch on Wednesday, 1 March, 8am to 10am at The Goods Shed with guest speaker, professional cyclist Mark Renshaw, a member of Summit Circle in Bathurst.

Summit Circle also operates in Toowoomba, Melbourne, and New Zealand.