I delivered the first of two workshops at the Australian Newsagents’ Federation’s Convention on the Gold Coast this morning. My topic was using best practice IT to navigate to the newsagency of the future.
Tom Carter, a newsagent in South Australia, was the first person I ever heard talk about the need for us to consider the newsagency of the future and that was years ago. The business he owns with his wife, June, is one of the examples in my presentation. I have blogged about it here before.
It seems to me that newsagents are like the deer staring in the headlights. Many are paralysed by fear of what they see in front of them. Newsagents know that newspaper sales are flat or falling, magazines the same, lotteries starting to move online and stationery sales being chased by every person and their dog.
While the bright lights of this reality stop most, there are some good examples of newsagents using technology to drive extraordinarily successful businesses. Rather than spending too long on a grand plan, these entrepreneurial newsagents are evolving their businesses today and with excellent success. In my presentation I talk about four businesses – yes there are plenty more than that – including June and Tom Carter’s newsagency in Adelaide.
Many newsagents, the ones staring at the headlights, are waiting for answered to be delivered to them. These are the newsagents most at risk.
The call to action of my presentation to the ANF Convention today and again on Wednesday is that the newsagency of the future is here, now, in our newsagencies and that all it takes is for us to use our IT systems – regardless of the brand – to cultivate data to guide our decisions.
The hour long presentation barely opens the door on consideration of the newsagency of the future. It’s likely I’ll develop an expanded presentation to share with newsagents elsewhere later this year.
Footnote: There are some who called on me to not attend the ANF convention because of the war between the ANF and the state newsagent associations in Queensland and New South Wales. I accepted the invitation from the ANF mid way through 2006, during a moment of peace, when I spoke at the QNF State Conference on a similar topic. Given the 1,400+ newsagents in the Tower Systems community, I felt it appropriate to accept the invitation and encourage newsagents to become more entrepreneurial.