1. Clients and industry welcome (very) small businesses
There are many micro businesses, freelancers, and mum and dad businesses in Australia. Society is very open to these kinds of businesses and, sometimes, could be said to favour it. There's often an undercurrent of support for people who choose to reject the traditional employer-employee relationship, and a continuing dialogue is championing the benefits of supporting small businesses. Australian society loves to celebrate its small business players achieving big things. If you can demonstrate the desirability of your product or service, it's not unusual to start getting business immediately, assuming that you play your marketing and networking cards right.
This also creates a landscape where it's easy to outsource much of your work to others like you. Without having to pay big margins to corporate entities or well-established businesses with large overheads, you can easily hire other micro business owners like yourself to outsource work like book-keeping, copywriting, data mining and design work. This frees up your time to focus on your core offering and business growth, as well as providing you with enough flexibility to access specialised skills and resources as you need them, without taking on employer obligations or expenses.
2. Set up is simple and can be done in a day
All you legally need is to apply for a Tax File Number, Australian Business Number and register a business name. Of course, it's likely that you'll need a bank account and insurance and other administrative set ups, but technically you can get most of your paperwork sorted in a day. Although it will probably take far longer than that for some of it to reach you if the services you're accessing are reliant on good old snail mail, as some government services still are. The government website is a great resource that will help ensure you've ticked all the boxes that you need to.
3. Online marketing is the new black
Even though Australian internet speed is regularly mocked, Australians are by no means behind with their online marketing game. Everyone's on top of it.
People know they can't succeed on their own, and that they aren't going to be miraculously ‘found' by their target audience in a sea of micro businesses. You can collaborate with everyone and anyone and create awesome social media, print and content marketing materials without having to pay the full price yourself. Sometimes it's a bunch of businesses within the same industry coming together (for example clothes and beauty products) on a mutually beneficial project like organising a photoshoot together and splitting the costs. Sometimes it's a photographer and a product-based business collaborating, and the photographer gets exposure or material for their portfolio, while the shop owner will receive discounted images. Other times it can be guest blogging or social media engagement. As long as you're looking to contribute something of value, it's easy to manoeuvre outside of formal channels to make a big impression on the next-to-no marketing budget.
4. Network, network, network
Starting or running a business on your own can be so disheartening at times. Fortunately, it's easy and rewarding to make connections and find your ‘tribe' amongst like-minded companies and collaborators in Australia — support and help are accessible online. Australians are happy to share their wins and their losses, to cheer you on and to help you find solutions to your problems. Make sure that one of the first things you do when starting your business is finding all sorts of different support groups and networking channels. There's honestly something for everyone: Facebook groups for female entrepreneurs, online networking groups, meetings and events focused networking groups, as well as sites and online communities like Flying Solo, which focuses on micro business. It is quite common to be an active member in many different business networking groups, and for many of your leads and working relationships to build from these networks.
As you grow you can even move on to the next level - there are networking groups that only accept members with a certain annual turnover. This isn't elitist, but aimed at avoiding repetitious discussion of ‘beginner' issues, such as logos and registrations, and instead focusing on dealing with more advanced business topics. These are often paid networking groups in order to keep the groups smaller, everyone more invested and provide a better service at the meetings.
5. The Australian taxation system actively encourages start-ups and micro business
I truly did not think it would be this good. I'd never heard of Australia having a ‘small business friendly' tax system, but it does! You don't have to pay goods and services tax (GST, the equivalent of VAT in Europe) if your annual turnover is under $75,000. That provides a serious buffer for small businesses to get on their feet. It eases the burdens of entering the market by removing GST obligations in the early stages, while small operators are simultaneously trying to grow their businesses and to make ends meet. It's like the ATO decides that you've made it once you reach the GST threshold.
There are other tax considerations, including the need to make provisional payment of your personal income tax, but the big selling point of the small business tax climate in Australia is that the Australian government gives you every chance to succeed by suspending GST obligations for the first $75,000 you make per year.
And it gets better, especially if your business relies on imports. Duty concessions apply to imports under $1,000 per parcel. At Nordlife, we intentionally keep our orders under $1,000 to avoid import duty. As we grow, we'll be importing larger shipments and will be happy to pay our fair share of taxes, but having this tax break while we are still less than a year old makes a significant difference.
So there you have it, my five insights to starting up a small business in Australia. It genuinely is that easy for anyone so inclined to just get started and have a go. This is what I feel sums up the Australian perspective on business, and life. “Have a go, mate!”
