The success of the country’s largest event for business, the Small Business Expo, has seen the event organiser take the concept overseas and make arrangements for international franchising.
The expo went national for the first time last year and attracted larger-than-expected crowds with more than 13,000 business people attending in Auckland, Wellington and Christchurch. Now small business sector specialist Sarah Trotman and Associates is working with franchise company Franchize Consultants to take the event to Australia and beyond.
“It’s very exciting development for us,” Sarah Trotman says. “Our business model has moved forward at very rapid rate over the last three years and we expect there to be significant interest from overseas, especially Australia. We have the country’s largest database of business owners who are proactive in growing their business, and the ability to build similar database in other countries will undoubtedly be major attraction for franchisees.”
Trotman attended the Business Startup Expo at Olympia in London and the International Small Business Conference in Glasgow this year and says the Small Business Expo stacks up extremely well against these international events.
“We plan to invite number of APEC SME leaders and managers charged with looking after SMEs in the EU to attend the 2008 Small Business Expo and Vero Excellence in Business Support Awards to see for themselves that we are indeed world class,” she says.
She is confident the franchise package which includes the Small Business Expo, the Excellence in Business Support Awards and the Your Business Your Way expo magazine will work as well internationally as they have in New Zealand.
This year’s New Zealand expo season kicks off in Auckland in mid-April and then moves to Christchurch in May and Wellington in June.
Information on the Small Business Expo is available through the website www.businessexpo.co.nz.
People can get information on entering the Vero Excellence in Business Support Awards at www.excellenceinbusinesssupport.co.nz.
