Have you ever wanted to get into the business side of things but had no idea where to begin? Ever wondered about whether you’re missing out on key advice and a point in the right direction? Or about every pro and con to anticipate in your business venture?
Pacific Business Mentoring Programme may just have what you are looking for.
What’s it all about? As its title suggests, the programme assigns individual business mentors to coach clients in their respective business ventures over a period of 12 months. The company’s inception in the early 1990s has seen their assistance of over a whopping 60, 000 clients.
This grabbed the attention of the New Zealand government, who saw the programme as an ideal opportunity to drive economic activity and further development of private sectors in Pacific Island countries.
With NZ Aid on board with full funding, the programme has extended its services to the Pacific, with the Cook Islands being the first in early 2010.
Since, they have expanded their services to Tonga, Samoa, Solomon Islands, Vanuatu, Fiji, Kiribati, Tuvalu and Papua New Guinea.
An agent per country is appointed to organize and promote the Programme services – for PNG, it is the Port Moresby Chamber of Commerce and Industry, and for Lae, it is Lae Chamber of Commerce Inc.
All of you aspiring business moguls out there should know that the Programme is completely free.
So what are the criteria?
Business plans, mission stateMen’s, budgeting and target markets are some of the things you will have to have established in your business venture if you are serious enough to get mentored.
Below are select requireMen’s to look into:
– The business must be from a sector that is driving the economy
– The business must be trading for at least 6 months
– The business must have at least one employee besides the owner
– The owner must receive income from the business
– The business must have less than 25 employees
– The business must be less than an hour’s drive from the Chamber and not from another town or
province
– The business owner must be committed to make changes and to stay in the programme for at least a
year
– The business must provide significant employment opportunities
– The business owner must commit to fill out a survey every 6 months
– An email address is required as it is the preferred way of communication
To sign up or not to sign up? Take a look at this story of Anne Timi, whose experience with the Pacific Business Mentoring Programme is set to kick off her potential export business with the avid guidance of George Spiers, her assigned mentor.
The Pacific Business Mentoring Program has an online site with everything you need to apply, including where to start.
So if you’re in to simply provide a service you’ve noticed hasn’t been provided, or to whip up some competition in the country, what better way than to have an established and successful business mentor pointing you in the right direction?
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