Service Provider Webinar: Grow your NDIS Business based on success

Webinar ReplayService Provider Resources

11 Apr

The team at Kinora joined Bessi Graham from Benefit Capital, to discuss how we define ‘success’ as a business operating in the NDIS space.

Topics covered include:

Conversations to have across your organisation (or with yourself) to understand what success means to you.
The three 'B' stakeholders that must be in balance when making decisions about growth. * How to measure the right things to make the best decisions to grow your business.
Further resources to work through your business plans and strategies.

Bessi Graham Slides - Grow your NDIS business
Future-proof your business; things to do in times of uncertainty

Blog: Grow your business based on success

SWOT Analysis

NDIS Service Provider Business Visibility Checklist

What value does your business provide? Worksheet

Being unique with your marketing

Previous webinar replay: What NDIS clients want to know about service providers

Library of tools: Disruptive Innovation & Business Strategy Library | Strategyzer
Hi everyone. Welcome to our Kinora webinar, Grow Your NDIS Business. Based on success. Today, we are extremely fortunate to be joined by Bessie Graham of Benefit Capital. I'll introduce Bessie properly in just a moment. My name is Yvette. I'm part of the team here at Kinora, and I'm also joined by Erin, who will be manning the chat.
Hello, Erin. Thank you. If you're a Kinora member, you may already know us as coaches within the community.
Today we are talking about the number one problem that Kinora hears from our service provider community. How do I get more clients? But rather than limiting ourselves to that one concept, we're taking it a few steps wider and looking at the idea of growing your Ndas business as a whole and looking at further ways that we can measure success rather than just the bottom line, which is definitely important but not the only thing to keep tabs on when looking to grow in the NDS space.
But before we get into it, I would like to introduce Bessie Graham of Benefit Capital as an investor, entrepreneur, business owner, company director, speaker and writer, as well as mum, wife, daughter and general awesome human. Bessie's passion for using business as an agent for change is being recognised worldwide. Bessie has a background in management consulting and training, was a finalist in the 2017 Telstra Business Women's Awards and for the past 20 years she has focused on delivering positive social and environmental outcomes in Australia and Pacific. Thank you so much for being here, Bessie, and welcome.
Just before we get started, a brief background on Kinora if you're not already a member. Kinora is a safe and supportive online community where you are able to get support for your NDS questions from us coaches and our community of thousands of other NDIS participants, their families, and support coordinators. You can find service providers on our Marketplace directory who are experts in their field. If you're already ignore a member, you may be aware that we record these sessions to share the replay and any resources we speak about in Kinora. If you're not already a member, we will send the replay and resources direct to your inbox. If you look to the top of your screens, there is a chat button. Please click on that. Now this is where you can introduce yourself and to any comments and questions as we go along. Aaron will be monitoring the chat and as a little bit of a switch up to usual, Bessie is small and happy to take questions as we go along with the content. Normally we hold them to the end and I'm sure we'll have some time at the end as well, but if anything crops up top of mind as we go through, please feel free to jump in there.
Uh, any any questions that we don't get a chance to address in the webinar we will put into the community and we'll give you direct feedback to your inbox as well.
Acknowledgement of country
If you are just joining us now, the aim of today's webinar is to acknowledge the reality that being a service provider or now I need to. Being a service provider in the NDIS is a really tough gig, but it is possible to be successful and more than that, there is a real need for more service providers to be successful so that the NDS continues to deliver on its life changing purpose.
Alright, excuse me with my tech issues. Alright, recently I was fortunate even just a couple of weeks ago to attend the DFC conference in Sydney where one of the segments presented by Ability Roundtable went through some really key financial and workforce benchmarking data providing a real greater understanding of how providers have been tracking over the last few years. There are some really huge insights, but the overwhelming takeaway for me was that the majority of service providers are making a loss. And it's a huge statement and it's not really the the tone that I want to take into today. But we need to need to keep in mind that it was a specific data set and there are many other factors involved.
One thing that was extremely positive out of that data set was that sole traders were overwhelmingly the most prevalent service providers that were making a profit. So that's huge.
By commenting on this data, I want to acknowledge that being a service provider in the NGS space has developed a little bit of a PR stink, the idea that an entire industry has been created from guaranteed government money and is a honeypot ripe for the picking. The reality is so far from this, as the data suggests. So today we are enlisting the formidable business mind of Bessie to fortify all service providers on their mission to be successful. Thanks again for being here, Bessie. Now is there anything that you would like to say further in relation to what you're, what you do and why you're here today and what you want to get out of today's webinar? Sure. Probably the first thing would be just in case anyone is already feeling put off or nervous by the fact that, you know, both the framing of me in that business sense and then even just this broader topic and looking at kind of the ideas of, you know, Yvette just talked about baking a loss and that, you know, guaranteed income and money and all of these things. If you're feeling uncomfortable in that, I just want to say it's all good. You're not alone in that. There is often this disconnect between work that's seen as really valuable and having important purpose and mission in the world and then the ideas of making money or having a business model that allows it to be financially sustainable. They are so often presented to us as mutually exclusive things. And so the piece I want to give you reassurance on before we kind of kick off is really around the fact that all of my work in sort of 24 years has always been about the merging of those two pieces, helping people figure out how do you merge things like money and meaning, How do you genuinely not compromise on the mission and purpose of the organisation, but also be unapologetic about needing to make money. So as we talk today, I just want to reassure you, don't worry, this isn't going to be a, you know, ruthless money making exercise of me trying to push you to be all about profit maximisation. But equally there will be some things where I am pushing you to consider more fully some of the commercial realities of how you go about building your organisation. So that would kind of just be a little sending a message out to not feel worried about what that's going to look like. Awesome. And obviously the the concepts that we talk about today absorb what works for you, go away and look further into things, come back. Obviously that's what the community is there for. We can have conversations. We can come back to Bessie, get her insights at any point. So this is just the starting point and hopefully the starting point to some really awesome conversations. So in that regard, if we can start somewhere, can you talk to us through, can you talk us through this idea of success in this sort of space And and specifically I guess as an NDS service provider, how, how do we define success and then aim towards it? Yeah, so look, I think that there's going to be different answers for each organisation. Part of what you'll find, as we talked today, is that I'm always going to bring you back to the aspects of to land on your answers and get clarity for your organisation. There'll be a theme you're gonna see here, which is you. You need to be able to understand your own organisation. So you need to be really clear on some of the aspects of what do you actually care about as a group. You know, what do you want to be part of in the world? How do you want to behave? So there's some of what will frame your answer, the internal aspects of drivers for your organisation. Then there's going to be, yeah, yeah, sorry, no, I was just gonna say it Also it kind of gets a little bit difficult because everyone's here for NDS participants. So in terms of really kind of drilling down a little bit further into that in terms of why you're here maybe sorry that just we've had a lot of conversations about operating within the code of conduct and and marketing yourself using code of conduct terms. So it's more just like yeah, drilling further down into why that's all. And I think too because this aspect of being able to answer some of those questions, and I do mean them much deeper than the generic level of what the NDS is about or what it's trying to achieve and provide for participants. But at the level of your own organisation, depending, you know, you've mentioned, um, that someone might just be a sole trader, someone might have a really tiny team or they might be a quite a large organisation. So everyone's gonna have different complexity that they have to take into account. But part of why this piece of understanding what's actually important to you and the drivers for your organisation is a critical first step that you're going to see come up a lot today. Is that in some of your answers there it will start to allow us to pinpoint what differentiates you, because within the NDIS we still between organisations have different areas that we're passionate about or where our expertise overlaps with the what the NHS is trying to provide. So I do encourage you in that first piece when I talk about understanding your own organisation that I wouldn't want to see that every single person had the same answer and that it was just repeating back what the NDIS is trying to achieve. That isn't the that's not the kind of clarity I'm talking about for the organisational level. But so the next part of being able to decide what success looks like within the NDIS and for your organisation is the piece around really drilling in and getting clearer on understanding your customers.
And this goes to I'm using the word customer even though you know. Again, sometimes that feels like an awkward word to use. The reason I am is because when we come back to trying to pull apart what creates A sustainable organisation, we need to have understood and named who it is. Who are the decision makers that ultimately are going to drive revenue or you know cash into our organisation
And you made the important UH point based on the the conference around talking about some of these misunderstandings of OHP, this is guaranteed income from the government and and what does that look like when we talk today in terms of looking at success in the NDIS customers and your customer segments, There is an element of that that is around the funding mechanism and understanding what's going to be required to be able to get access to that funding. But we, we deeply want to also be respectful of the participants because the reality is from the decision making point of view, if we don't deliver great service, if people aren't there talking about how wonderful it was to work with us, it doesn't matter that there is a bucket of government funding there. No one's gonna choose to work with us, right? So no ones working. Yeah. Understanding and giving the respect to the participants and their families who are making decisions to work with us and who we are ultimately delivering those products and services to is important. So that's kind of the second piece that you'll you'll see repeated there is it's understanding your own organisation, understanding those customers, what are you wanting to be part of? And when we look at it from that perspective the the pieces that I would say play out become the easier bits to then fall into some of our questions around how does this become sustainable, how am I going to actually make money on? That's the sequence. OK, yeah, alright. So drilling down on what is important in our individual businesses with all of our different complexities and how we deliver those services balanced out with what our actual customers in all of their different names that we know them by so many different names for things in the DS, balancing the two for sure, yes. OK. So, yeah. And if you want to have a, A A look then on one of the slides, so it'll be probably grab them all slide, yeah, we'll we'll skip over the 1st 2:00 because we've covered those. But so the the one that's got a bit of a graph down the side with some questions and icons,
I'll stop talking while you. I'm sorry. So, what I was gonna say. Oh yeah, You're happy for me to chat while you pull it up? Yeah. Um, yes. Please go for it.
So the last piece in terms of for all of you in the.
Juggling out and and working through this question of what does success look like in the NDIS, the the final piece for me around how you actually ultimately be successful in Nas comes down to really being honest within your organisation, whether that's just you as a sole trader or a broader broader group around. What is the sequence of change across the organisation and who's responsible for for each of those places?
Because what can happen if we talk through some of those bits that we we went through like understanding your customers, knowing what it looks like to actually be clear on what you're about in the organisation. Different people need to take ownership of those conversations or be part of those conversations. And so one of the things I would just encourage you to actually sit down and think about and and maybe feel free to take a a screenshot or or capture these questions that I've got here that I've shared with you is to start to think through who can be part of which conversation. So that as an organisation you get clear on these things and you can come back and revisit them. So you'll see that down the left hand side there's seven different questions and then I've got different groups across an organisation that are going to be part of those conversations in different ways from either just being informed. So you're just filling them in on the where you land in that conversation through to actually being really heavily involved. So you'll see some of those questions are pieces that that we just spoke to. So the first question is around what is our organisation or mission and vision.
That's a piece that the executive and the board and senior managers are gonna be more heavily be having those conversations to to get answers. But then communicating that to frontline team members and back office team through two. When we go down towards the number six where it's talking about how do we ensure the consistency and quality of our ongoing delivery. Now that's more heavily in the realm of frontline teams and the back office teams, right? So part of where I think we need to have that broad concept that you spoke about of looking at success in a more holistic way is to say who's responsible for what and how we making sure we're asking the right questions and then implementing that and sharing that information across the organisation. So I've, I've pulled this out because I thought it could actually. Sometimes it's helpful just to have some prompts, like I have a question to prompt. Definitely, yeah. And I and I think you've come across a really important there is that no one person can define success for an organisation. So I mean someone can dictate what they think success is for a company, but then that doesn't necessarily mean that everyone else in that organisation is going to work towards that because they're not involved in that identifying that that is success for them. So yeah, it's yeah, collaboration, Um, I mean it's always a challenge in terms of getting everyone's input, but ultimately you're obviously going to get a stronger definition of what success at a company level will look like. And I also think what you'll get if we go back to the fact that I started this part of the conversation by saying to you, don't worry, this isn't just A1 sided. Yeah, commercial conversation. What you'll notice after the webinar when you read through those seven questions is there's a real mix there. Because what we don't want to have happen is that let's say you are an organisation or hello, my dogs just joined us. Let's say you are an organisation who has um the size that you do have an executive and a board. If on that executive team we treat the financial side of the business and the social impact side of the business is too distinct things. And we have a financial, you know, chief financial person who's just focused on trying to make as much revenue as we can and drop our costs, all costs. And they're disconnected from what are we actually trying to do here as an organisation? What what's the opportunity that the NIH presents for us to really, uh, transform people's lives and improve the quality of their lives? If those conversations aren't brought together into trying to figure out how do we operate as an organisation so that in delivering better outcomes we also increase our financial stability, then we're forever kind of at odds with each other. And different members of the team feel like their piece should be prioritised over something else. So these questions are trying to help you to equally respect both elements of of what's required to succeed within the NDIS and so for organisations that don't necessarily have that same structure, all of these questions still as applicable to them, you still need to be able to answer them. So what I would suggest and look, I've built multiple organisations. I know that feeling where you're wearing lots of hats, but I would say use this little graphic here to help you think about which hat am I wearing at any given moment. Because if you don't still switch in your mind the perspective you're taking in terms of what hat you're wearing, if you come into answering that first question, what are our organisational mission and vision like? But if you're coming at that very much as if you are the frontline team member only engaging and you're not being strategic, you will answer the question with a different scope. Yeah, perspective. So even if it's just you, think about what role am I sitting in when I answer the question?
Hmm, yeah, for sure. Alright, so in terms of defining success, it's a it's a personal and or organisation driven exploration using some tools, having some conversations and it's people can help you get to that point in terms of figuring out what success means for you and your organisation. But it's the work that you have to do yourself. Yeah, the the particulars of your answer are going to be unique to our organisation. The overarching piece that we're wanting to make sure is consistent is that win Win. I spoke about where you want to be building an organisation that is really committed to and genuinely delivering great results for the participants you work with, but is also not feeling embarrassed about or apologetic that it needs to financially stack up because we don't want to be in that position. You spoke about of many of the organisations that were beyond Sole Trader who were actually losing money, right? So this doesn't have to be something where you're not allowed to make money, but we're wanting the win Win to be present where you're building an organisation that respects the delivery of wonderful outcomes for participants and a model that stacks up for you as an organisation. Yeah, totally. And yes, of course. Amazing. Alright, so now that we've got not necessarily a specific idea of what success is, but a way to get to that idea. Yes, the path, yes, how do we measure it and and and what is useful to measure in that way and then how does that inform growth and getting and success, I guess, Yeah, yeah. So I'll start with the piece around growth because I think it's important first to again really make sure that we're all on the same page around the practicalities of, OK, we moved to implementation where we're running this business. We're trying to find more customers, we're trying to make this more work, right.
As you said, there's lots of, you know, very busy juggle that people are are working with. But I would say that if we go back to some of those ideas that I mentioned around the beliefs that have been pushed onto us around, well, you need to choose. Are you running a business or are you running a nonprofit? Are you trying to make money or are you trying to do good in the world? Right, Yeah. Those either or pieces. The first starting point for me in tapping into that question around how do we actually grow and what would the sort of for want of a better, better word, the ethical or sustainable liberty to do that. I would say that it comes right back to our understanding of the the purpose of business or if you're not comfortable with that terminology, the purpose of the organisation, right. So the structure that you're delivering through and the if you can pop up the the there's a slide which is the one directly after the one you just shared. What I want to give you because I think sometimes it's helpful to see a graphic of this. So if we look at the three elements that are going to need to be present for us to build that financially stable business, that can be sustainable over time, but be done in a way that you actually feel comfortable with it because there's not a disconnect in how you're making that money. Then the three elements that I always get organisations to focus on, you need to know the value you bring as an organisation. You need to understand the value of what your customers want. And then it's only on the back of those things that you capture value in return, right. So when we shift away from this aspect of thinking, money is just about, sorry, business is just about profit maximisation. And we say no, it's actually about the creation and delivery of value. That's a different piece. And the NDIS just perfectly, It's not a transactional thing.
Yeah. So the NDIS is perfectly set up to help us think about our organisation in this way. The reason I've got those three circles sitting on top of a business model canvas is because when we look at the elements that are required to be functioning for our organisation to be sustainable and financially stable, the where I've put those circles kind of corresponds with the business model campus. I'm aware not everyone is familiar with that, but I'm just explaining to you why it sits there. So if we flick to the next slide, the the pace that then kind of comes from that if we have thought through the growth in that way. So we know the value that we bring as an organisation which helps us with that positioning in the market. It helps us differentiate ourselves from other providers because the reality is we're operating in a very competitive noisy market.
Then UH allows us to do this piece on the right hand side where you can see that ensures we can deliver results to our customers. When we do that, as we spoke about before, the natural corresponding action is that drives revenue into the business. For many people who have come into the NDIS with that real desire to serve and make a difference, there has been traditionally and you know, historically this discomfort with, yeah, having, having to have the conversations about, well, how are we actually making money? Did the way we delivered that service cost us more than we made. There's kind of this disconnect because people feel like, well, but I had to stay for an extra 2 hours because they needed me to. And and then there's the practicalities on that back end of, well, how do we pay for that, right. So I want to stay for a moment on this graphic and just go through the the aspects of why this is not it. Yes, it's simple, but it's actually really important. Yeah, because the the disconnect comes when we feel like,
OK, there's here's the requirements and the rules of what we're allowed to charge for and how much we can charge. And here's this person who's wanting these different outcomes and I'm trying to just fit my business into it right, you you're almost reverse engineering to the rules to try to make it work. What I am suggesting here, which my experience, and again I've been in this space for 24 years and seeing things work really well and things work really badly. But one of the elements that will help you stand out in the market, that will help you be able to consistently deliver better outcomes to those that you work with, is if you start to get this humming in your organisation. Because here's what happens when this is occurring in your business. The first thing that happens is you stop trying to be all things to all people. So you don't have that desire to be like, ohhhhh, yes, we can do this service and this service and what, you know, whatever a participant wants, you're kind of that Jack of all trades, right? When we do that on the back of actually knowing the value we bring and we can be really clear on saying, no, um, we delivered these services amazingly well, Here's, you know, here's why we're the best people to work with if this is what you're looking for. It helps tune people's minds into whether you're a good fit or not, right. So it it allows that to happen. And and the other piece is that if we go back to some of these issues around costs and and how you're different to someone else when we don't present our uniqueness or or what we bring in a specific way, then all someone compare us to their competition on is price like well this person's cheap. Yeah, you cost totally as a one example I was talking with someone recently and their piece it it can in some ways connect over into into this area. But so their work, what they were finding was they hadn't differentiated in the market and they kept getting knocked back because people were saying they were too intensives, but what they weren't articulating to their customers. So they worked with children and actually their specialty was with kids with incredibly intense tempers to the point of like physical violence, right. But so they were more expensive, but they were presenting all their marketing looked like they were just for any developmental issues or challenges for children. And So what we found very specific niche when they actually, they thought it would put people off. But when they actually specified this is who like we work with and get the best results with children whose behavioural issues actually display in a violent, you know, then what it meant was apparent. Who's in that category didn't look at your generic thing and think, well, you couldn't help me. My child's actually really extreme. And they also weren't comparing you to a generic provider whose prices might be lower, right. So part of this relationship that we're trying to get happening here is in articulating and describing why you bring something different and you understand your customers to be able to speak specifically to the challenges they're having and how you are going to address it. It changes our relationship around what something costs or what is involved in that. Yes, we still have to fit within requirements, but often that is about the being smart about the the presentation of what other areas within their, the needs of that NDS participant. Could this have a the corresponding effect, right. So we can do that, but I just wanted to use that example as when we're understanding that we need to be delivering results to that customer, that's what will drive our revenue. It takes away some of the discomfort and it also forces us to better articulate where we sit. And then the last thing I would say around what this type of model provides for you and the change that will occur within your organisation is on the back of how you then start to relate to the people that you're, uh, serving to your customers. But but also to how you get that funding to pay for your services. Because you now are easier to refer because people know what you do, specifically what you do. They they can, they can say, ooh, you should talk to this person. And because you've started to get comfortable with that aspect of you, you no longer have that scarcity mindset like desperately grabbing at every client you know that there's a need what people trust you more. Because if you get asked whether you could do something, you say no, we're not actually the best people for that. You should talk to so and so and you know and send them somewhere else. You and then incidentally you're building your network as well the same time so much more highly. And so I think it removes the scarcity. You start to relax into owning your space more and it changes the way that you talk about your services. And to me, if we go back to that common thread, we want for everyone in success in the NCIS being a an organisation that actually is creating a win win, this holds you accountable to your growth as a business and your financial stability only comes on the back of you delivering more value to your client. Yeah, we're not just saying how do we grab out all the funding and lots of clients. So it's incentivising the right behaviour that we're getting better results and then you get better at doing this specific thing that you are providing value to your clients and the more you do that, the better you become, therefore more efficient and delivering better outcomes. So it's just by single pieces of the driver, yeah. So that's sort of where I think what I would focus on around your question of the, how do you actually know from an implementation perspective grow the business that's, that's how I would connect those dots. Yeah. Amazing. Yes. Alright. So just going back to, I just wanted to reiterate, so you say we're using the example of a day programme. So intervention day programme, yes, that is you can mark it as a day programme, but it's not the programme itself that is offering the value. It is the value is lies in your specialty, your expertise, your ability to cater to a specific participant that is the value that you're delivering to your customers and understanding that that is what they're looking for is how you are able to better communicate and then we'll get better deliver outcomes for them and then growing from that place for sure. Yeah. And I think the the piece to add to that if we, if we go back to why you need to understand that customer again the the language and what someone actually sees as their pain point or the challenge that they're trying to overcome.
Part of why you need to understand your different customer segments which we talked about originally. And and differentiating how you might talk about your work to someone that's in, in the customer segment of being an NDS participant or a family member who's choosing to work with you as opposed to how you might frame and present the work you're doing so that it fits within the requirements to receive funding right there. Two different things.
Who as an organisation need to be tuned in enough that you also see, well, we can actually play a really significant role in helping bridge and navigate the NDIS for participants where we can say, oh, actually we understand the challenges you're having to such an extent that we know, yes, we're going to provide the services that that you just ran through, but that actually can help you achieve these other outcomes which will fit within your plan and can be funded.
So let's package it in that way. So we're achieving all of these things that align with what we're funding sits, but we're talking to you not in jargon and complicated language but around your actual challenge and problem, which I think is a natural segue into the question you asked around kind of what do we measure and how do we share that? Because this is a critical thing that I see all the time where if we haven't done the work that we just have talked through so far and we haven't differentiated between different audiences, different stakeholders, customers, whatever word you want to use, Yes. The problem is that people jump straight to either marketing documents or their proposals and things are worded for the wrong person. We're using jargon with someone who's already overwhelmed and their mental, like they don't know what we're talking about or where using two generic and fluffy things. And it doesn't fit within the requirements of how we actually get funded, right? Yeah. And so on your point around kind of the metrics that are going to help you on that journey and how you measure and what that looks like. Yeah, the piece that I would get people to focus on whenever I do measurement work or trying to manage impact and and what we're creating, there's three different stakeholders that we wanna consider related to that. I think about them. I like alliteration. So they all start with B, the 3B's. So we have our, we have our beneficiary. So in the case of the NDIS, when this might be a participant or it might be their family, but it's who who is it?
You were actually serving here, trying to get a better outcome for them or transformation for them? Yep.
We want to see them as one of the three stakeholders that we consider in measurement. Then we have the work. I use the word business, but you can use organisation. It just doesn't start with B, so it doesn't work. So we have the business which is new, you as an organisation and the information you need to be able to consistently deliver results that are at that level of quality. And then we have what I call the banker, right? Right. So this is anyone who's putting money into your organisation. So that might be government funding, that might be customers directly, if someone's paying some additional aspects themselves. So for you that will look different, but it's whoever's making those decisions and putting money into the system, putting the bill for sure. When we then think about measuring and trying to identify, are we on track? How is this going?
It's understanding each of those different groups as our starting place. And actually then unpacking will what do those different stakeholders need? What information do they require from us? Yeah, And what's the knowledge or the different evidence that they're going to need to feel confident in what I'm telling them? Because if we don't differentiate, then what I see people do is provide way too much research and proof to the wrong people who don't want to read 50 pages about relevant to them for sure. Yeah. And so we want to use those 3 categories to say who's the audience I'm speaking to. And it might be that the language where they're using on a social media post is really targeted. It's not having, you know, deep references to reports and things they should read. Yeah. But it's, it's approachable. So it's thinking of the group, what they need to know and how that actually plays out and tailoring that information and how we present it rather than feeling like for example, more information is better because so often less, less is more. We want the right information to the right group. And so then also, sorry, as a proviso, having the further information and the detail as available. Yes, so that when someone is asking questions and you've got it to back you up for sure. Yeah, but instead of, you know, it's a little bit like that, but you're not putting that forward straight away. Yeah, yeah. Because what we tend to do is just keep adding things so the website ends up site OHP and we better add this in and add that in. And rather than being go boil it down to its essence first and make it really clear so someone can go, oh, I'm looking to work with you in this capacity, just give me that information. Yes, the depth is available behind but not all up front. So I think those pieces would be how I would think about differentiating what we collect. My experience is that most people are collecting way too much data and doing reporting to a level of detail that is both too expensive and too time consuming, and yet they're not using that data to inform decision making. So my kind of rule of thumb is always when you look at measurement, reporting any of these pieces, if you find it hard to find anyone to fund that measurement and reporting, then you're not asking the right questions. Because if the information isn't of value to, you know, government or a funder, if it's not a value to you as an organisation to inform how to run the business better, then that kind of tells us maybe we're asking the wrong questions, maybe we look at it from a different perspective.
Michelle, Sorry, Betsy, question jump in. Yeah, just had a question that I would completely forget what you talking about if you left it to the end. But um, Amanda just asked if you could please clarify what were the three groups for the stakeholders you just mentioned you could just go so the 3B. So we've got the beneficiary, we have the business which is your organisation and then the banker. So wherever the money is coming from and what I'm proposing is that it from that measurement, reporting, impact management, trying to ensure we're actually getting the right outcomes, delivering on what we promise when we understand those 3 distinct groups and then present the right information to each the way they want it and the right information that helps us not be collecting loads of stuff that actually we don't need that. And then it's time and money that we could have saved, but we also don't use. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. I would also ask with the beneficiary, So say your participation, your client, your customer in terms of the metrics that would be useful to measure, I mean I would assume that feedback and and their experience would be one of those metrics. So that's not so when you're saying collecting data, it would be having those feedback mechanisms in place and that becomes part of the, yeah, information that you're using. Yeah. But the piece when we go to this aspect of, we're wanting to come at this in a way that's equally prioritising all of those three groups and that isn't falling into some of the power dynamic traps that are often present here. The reason why I would just make a slight distinction there is we, we want to be able to be treating people with the respect that they deserve and not kind of just having these transactional bits of like fill in this data here do. Yeah, the conversations with people, yeah, that come from a place of curiosity too because these these insights are what give you the, the right language to then know how to describe your value proposition and talk about your results in the market right there, potential customers. So, yeah, So we don't wanna fall into the trap So often when we do measurement and reporting or any kind of the evaluation it turns into, I talk about it as having an acquittal focus. So it's about ticking boxes and saying I promised I'd deliver this, did I deliver it? Yes, we said we'd do. And it's nothing in that enriches your decision making, helps you as an organiser do with that ticked box. Yeah. So that ticked box help you. Yeah. Using the interaction with that beneficiary group to also, let's go back to unapologetically wanting to help us drive more revenue into the business. Using those interactions to actually capture beautiful stories of transformation or moments of change where a parent said, you know, I finally got eye contact with my kid and they went off to school Happy like gives me goosebumps. Capture those stories because yes, they can be used as a little snapshot in a report of the changes that you're seeing happen, but they also become the pieces where you say, ah, I can use this to demonstrate to future customers and future participants who will work with us that this is the kind of beautiful transformation that could happen for your child, right. So seeing it connected to not just ticking a box of did I get a survey or evaluation, but when we understand what is required to deliver great results and drive revenue, then make sure you tie them back together and always look for the opportunity to improve your delivery of results and connect it to driving revenue.
So improvement comes from curiosity as opposed to taking a box from the feedback file. Yeah, yeah, curiosity always awesome. Um,
OK. So that's the benefit. So we're getting all of the data, figuring out what data we need for each of our, UM, stakeholders to be happy and working as an ecosystem, how they want, how they want it presented, which I mean especially from a beneficiary perspective like knowing how your clients or participants want to be communicated with and have their information stored or provided to them. That's I mean in instrumental to great service delivery. Anyway, I feel like, um, and obviously we're doing a lot of exploration in terms of why and coming from a place of wanting to deliver value, there is that little voice in the back. It's not even the little voice, it's the it's the need to make money that is still there. So all of this is lovely and fluffy and nice, but then does it actually bring the money in? Like, we still ultimately need more clients. So, Yep, with that,
Will, does that have, how do we address that? Yeah. So how do we break that mentality? I guess maybe
I would say that the the way that that happens is if we go back to the, the starting point for me was that when we looked at the 3B's we're equally prioritising all of them. Yes. If we only look at ask questions of and ensure we're delivering value to the beneficiaries, then we'll fall into that trap that you mentioned where it's like or what more do they want and how do we deliver that, right. So in any of this, in these three different areas that we've talked about today, when we've looked at sort of what is success in the NCIS, how would you build that model sustainably? And now looking at how you actually measure and and track that over time, in all of the examples, we've talked about broadening out who we're taking into account, not having this one dimensional kind of either or approach. So related to your question, I'd say great. If you're still worried about that, you've probably just asked the questions around beneficiary. If we now shift into saying, OK, as a business, how are we using this data to actually inform how we run the business, how we run the organisation?
Some of the questions that were on that previous slide that I showed you where we were talking about really getting into what does it look like in our organisation to ensure we can deliver those value propositions of what a customer, what that beneficiary needs. Yeah, and do it in a way that is desirable to them, yes. But that's also feasible for us to deliver and viable financially, right. So this is where as a business we're coming back.
We're needing to understand what are those levers we can pull? Is it that we say interesting, All the feedback we're hearing from beneficiaries is talking about this really important, beautiful personal relationship they have with our staff members. So that's great and we need to be aware of that, that in order to get outcomes that feel valuable to them, they need a personal connection. What we now need to think about as an organisation is,
OK, how do we staff that we have the right people. Yeah, yes, yeah. What are the the different channels of who could we partner with that there's some of those services that we could actually they are personalised but we've we know our, our, our customers well enough that we know typically they're there's a pattern of these ten pieces where we could have some content that we've already pulled together. And it's more that when that person meets with they say ohhhhh, you might benefit from how about you watch this, this little video that we've got that helps with that issue. So that can be customised by listening to you and tapping into your needs. But are there ways that we could streamline or automate things that we do see in a recurring way. So all of the questions are about you then figuring out how we create that beautiful win, win, right. So the business model that allows us to deliver that because we don't want to be in a position where actually we go out of business because we we can't stack up, but that doesn't help anyone. So it's OK and in fact necessary for us to make money on that, but it's asking the right questions from each perspective.
A question, Yeah, I just want to jump in there, Bessie. So Trish has asked, what have people found is the best platform to use to get that detailed feedback from clients? How would you suggest people go about that? So the best, the best information always comes from actually the like a conversation or a relationship. So the more you can factor it into being a natural part of an interaction your staff or any of those frontline people are already having with your beneficiaries, the better. It's even down to, again, when we talked about the fact that you understand OK, what is, what's the information, how do they like it to be provided. I would say that once you're clear on the sorts of things you need information on, that's where you could sit with the aspects of frontline team or office stuff and say what are the conversations you're already having. Like is it that someone's on the phone making an appointment and you could just drop in two quick check in questions that are quite casual but that give you some of that information. I think what I've seen work best is when it doesn't feel like you're now adding in this layer of bureaucracy of complicated, like quarterly assessments that take, you know, 45 minutes to fill in. So the more relational it can be, the better quality information you'll get and the more likely you are that people will actually answer the question. So sprinkling it in to conversations that are already happening already, then, yeah, right. And it it also goes to when you think this through and and you've connected it to where do we actually want to have got someone as a result of, yes, we've delivered these great results.
Therefore what would we need to have asked right back at the beginning if we think of this from measurement 101, right, if we know where we need to get that tells us some of the baseline data we need cause otherwise we can't show transformation, right. So by mapping it out, it actually helps you identify, ah, if what we're consistently hearing from people is that their kids are now able to interact with peers at school in a more confident way, we need to ask some questions up front.
So we can use that as a baseline to say we're seeing this kind of change happen, right. Yeah. So like pre qualifying like ideal clients. Yeah, exactly. And it starts to tune you in. So again, as you go through this part of why I always say don't make them token ticker box, like just fill in the data and then don't use it for a decision making. The more you actually fit with what you hear and go, ah, that's really unique. People are saying, I've tried three other service providers and they could only give me this. You give me this, Take that data and bring it back into how does that sharpen our articulation when we did the knowing the value, we bring this, we're hearing something here. So make it relational. Make it as embedded and natural as possible so that it's not adding more work to people who are already exhausted and stretched to capacity, both your staff and participants and their family, right. Yeah. So don't add layers of complexity.
And I the last thing I would say on that piece in terms of how to collect it is if you communicate with your team why this information is important, then it also helps with any of that pushback of Oh my goodness, I already am, you know really pushed to capacity. So part of it is just you talking and communicating why we want this information and that what it serves. Yeah, of course. It kind of also sounds like when you go from the beginning and you figure out your why and what your value is that through this process and and so you go through some cycles and get some feedback from your fisheries and through conversations and integrating it with your business processes that you can't necessarily hold onto the idea of what you think your value is like. It sounds like it needs to change and adapt with what what you what you are seeing from your customers. So it's not it's not a very good concept. Yes. So I don't think that you should um assume that once you've got clarity from the initial group of people that like that is what people want and that it's never gonna change so you keep using the same language. I would say that related to how you then what you actually do or how you operate as an organisation. What are I don't want people to feel like is they're having to reinvent the wheel and rebuild systems and processes and how they actually deliver or operate. Yeah.
Like that's not sustainable, that's not possible. But when you get, when you have this approach working well, what it does allow you to do is match quicker spot how you would connect those two things. So I often talk about it as you find how to have a Trojan horse where you say, ah, what people need aligns with what we're good at. In this way they're calling it, you know, they're saying it's interactions with their peers.
We're calling it this, right? When I talk to them, I'm going to use their language and that's how I get my foot in the door. But in the back end, it's alright team, we're delivering the same thing. This is what we're doing, right? So it's all the efficiency comes from by you understanding all the different stakeholders well enough, you're now finding the way to deliver that with consistency and quality, but you're not recreating the wheel every time. When we do that, we have no efficiencies and yeah, dramatically increase the chance of it losing money, not being sustainable.

Yes, amazing. Alright. I think we are very, very close to the end of our time. Were there any other questions, Aaron, or are we good to wrap up?
Uh, I think we've covered all the questions in the chat there. I just wanna apologise though, at the very start the chat wasn't working. I was somewhat talking to myself. Thank you Microsoft Teams for switching a thing in the background. So if anyone did miss a question near the start, feel free to pop it in now. We've still got just a couple of minutes. Yeah, I did have a question emailed through if we've got time just to quickly run through one. This one was from Sarah. I'm very new to the NDIS industry. Previously I just worked with private clients and the NDR seems like a pool of people who needed services, but it seems like a lot of work and are not sending new NDS clients as easy as easily as I thought. Should I just go back to private clients?
So I mean, I think this comes back to actually lots of the things we've talked about today because what you're trying to find. So was it Sarah with. So for this, this person, for Sarah, if you're struggling to kind of find this match between here's what I do, here's my services and I I'm not finding participants, what could be happening is that you're too focused on describing what you offer and then saying how do you know other people fit into that. Yeah. Which is what a lot of people do, even when they're, you know, trying to do something like they're jumping straight to writing a business plan or they're doing their marketing plan and it's like, here's what Ioffer and hopefully people will magically come to me. Yeah. What I would say in response to that question is go right back to that really curious desire to understand a customer group. So maybe look at where you have got some customers in the NCIS, look at those and say which ones were the best fit, where did I get the best results And they enjoyed working with me the most. What can I see as a pattern there that's emerging And how do I then better start to take some of these pieces we've talked about today to shape the presentation of my offer to be in their language and about them, not about me just saying here's my idea, here's my website with my offers, who wants them if they're very different model. So that's how I would approach that. And then ultimately the reality is whether you're in private or NDIS, these are the same methodologies that you have to use because we can't just be in love with and obsessed with our own products or services. We need to have that desire to understand and use the language of our customers to be able to make this stuff work. So probably then the the last piece that connected to that is that and I know uh that that you've already done some pieces in the broader network push, you know sharing information around things like the business model canvas and other things. But there's lots of free tools that you can look at on. So the group that invented the business model Canvas, Strategize Her have heaps of resources around things like the Value Proposition Canvas that goes into specific questions and ideas to understand what are the challenges people have, what are the gains they're looking to achieve.
So if people didn't have budget to bring in a consultant or have some work done on that, you can do a lot of this in a really exploratory really fun way actually to get answers on these things by simply and maybe in the chat if we put Strategize or we could share maybe afterwards we'll we'll send a whole bunch of links with the replay to everyone via there as well. So yeah, so yeah, I suppose that's the piece sort of that follows on from that question. It says everything from, you know, free pieces like Strategize or we have a really low cost business modelling series that people could do that goes into this. And then you know, I would say rather than your first point of call, your last point of call should be the more expensive kind of engaging of the consultant. Because the problem is if you don't have some of these foundational pieces in place first, it's gonna cost you a lot more money and they're gonna be exploring a whole bunch of stuff that actually you could have done yourself. Good point. And and may not necessarily directly understand or relate to in the day to day. So yeah, and you don't have the philtres yet to know, should I take that advice or not. And that's when we all end up being generic and looking the same. If you can do some of these exploration to pinpoint what differentiates you, who are you as an organisation, what are you most excited about? That is a really important place to then not just publicly position you, but when you do get external help, you now have a starting place to say here's what we're trying to achieve.
Yeah, of course. Amazing. Thanks, Aaron. Um, was there any other closing comments that you would like to meet Bessie before we wrap up for today? That's we've covered a huge amount of info, but ultimately it comes down to self exploration in terms of understanding your value and what you deliver to your customers. And then you're three, you're 3B's, which I'm I'm pretty sure everyone's gonna be getting into their alliteration after this for sure.
There was a PC where Amanda said maybe a silly question, but how can there be a more expensive provider when most items are listed in the price guide and have a cap?
This is the piece where what I was getting at was more the innovation aspect of by understanding what a participant actually needs and the the changes that they're wanting to have. Sometimes it's that we haven't understood enough to be able to understand what are the different categories of how this service could actually be tapping into multiple items, not one, right? So this goes back to the piece of how does the broader approach actually increase your ability to deliver a more customised, meaningful outcome for the participant, but also do it in a way that stacks up for you. So it's the broadening of our understanding of not just being ticking boxes, legalistic of like what our service is, this it, it's starting to think differently about what could that look like. So that's kind of what I was getting out there with that. Yeah, of course. No, definitely. Alright, well, I will wrap this up. We've made to the end today. Thank you everyone for hanging.
And the conversation doesn't end here. Uh, join us in Kinora. It's free to join. If you're not a member already, jump in and ask any questions either around anything to do with today's webinar. Share your experiences, your thoughts, your challenges. Thank you so much for being here today, Bessie. This is some real foundation. Think pieces of thinking up, thinking work for people to do about why they are in the space that they're in. Because yeah, it's really challenging. And if you're if you're not solid on that idea, then I think the rest of it can be even more challenging to continue. So thank you so much for sharing your knowledge with us today. To everyone else, thank you all for coming. We'll be sending you an email with the replay and any of the resources that we've spoken about, including the strategic user information that Bessie was talking about. And of course, we'll be posting the video and the resources within the Kinora community as well. I'm Yvette. That was Erin who helped us out in the chat. And we've been joined today by Bessie Graham of Benefit Capital.
Well, hope to see you all in Kanora soon. Thank you so much. Bye, guys. Have a great day.