COOK ISLANDS: Business 101 in CI

Question: What do you call a one-day crash course designed to give attendees a better basic understanding of subjects like business planning, business accounting and financial management,  business marketing and business technology?  

Answer: You call it Business 101 of course! 

When Business Link Pacific’s in-country Cook Islands partner the Cook Islands Chamber of Commerce (CICC) realised that many of the country’s business owners were unable to access vital government support – available as part of the Cook Islands’ economic response to COVID-19 – due to knowledge gaps in the way they documented their everyday business activities and financial records, they turned to BLP for help. 

We saw that there was a large number of informal businesses operating in the Cook Islands who needed assistance,” says CICC training and development manager Brendon Welsh. 

A particular area of concern for us was the knowledge gap these businesses had with regard to  their operating obligations, which made accessing government support challenging.” 

Working with Business Link Pacific, CICC developed a basic one-day business course tailor-made to the needs of small business owners in the Cook Islands, providing upskilling in areas such as finance,  strategy, marketing and technology. 

With Brendon’s local expertise guiding and designing the course content and delivery, and BLP  coming to the party with support and funding, the CICC was then able to offer their Business 101  course free of charge – and the feedback was fantastic. 

• “I really enjoyed this course – it made for a really comfortable atmosphere to join in and  contribute and also ask questions.” 
• “It was great! Highly recommended. Really enjoyed making connections with everyone, both  the course presenters and also with the other business owners.” 
• “We need more workshops like this.” 

Much of the credit for responses like these can be laid at the feet of course facilitator Brendon.  While the 33-year-old father of two was able to draw on 15 years’ worth of experience working primarily in sales and business development roles in the Australian telecommunications industry, he says actually facilitating the course himself was not without its challenges. 

Someone once said, ‘the hardest part of the journey is the first step’,” Brendon laughs. “And this  was definitely the case for me. But once the framework was done, working with the different people  in various disciplines of business to refine the content became easier.” 

Along with staff from the Chamber of Commerce, other business professionals in the Cook Islands came onboard to help develop and present several separate aspects of the course, from marketing to finance and tax obligations. Brendon says he was “extremely grateful” to get advice and support in the delivery of this Programme.  

It was a great experience being able to work with different professionals and get an insight into the  way that they have successfully run their business or organisation,” he adds.

It was also important that course attendees felt comfortable enough to engage and interact not only with the course content itself but also with Brendon and the other presenters, as well as their fellow business owners sitting alongside them. 

The course was designed to be relaxed and open enough for the attendees to ask questions specific  to their situation,” explains Brendon. “This allowed each presenter to guide the presentation of each  module in a way that was relevant and engaging to the audience, which worked well.” 

When asked to look back on how it all went, and if the Business 101 course gets a passing grade from the Cook Islands small business community, Brendon says:

Absolutely. While there is always room for improvement, I’m extremely happy with how the course  turned out, as the sessions conducted achieved the goals that we at the Chamber set out to achieve. 

The main goal of the training module was to address particular knowledge gaps here around record-keeping and documentation, as these were the areas that hampered people’s ability to apply and be eligible for government support. 

By the end of the course attendees were able to understand and create a business plan and a  marketing plan. They also gained a better understanding of how to keep proper financial records and learned about some general technology tools that can be used to enhance their business at little to  no cost.” 

Sounds like A+ work to us!