Winning plan

BY under promising and over delivering, a small business has won the ‘WA Microbusiness of the Year award for businesses with up to five employees’ at its first try.

Maria-Satterthwaite’s business, Satterthwaite Consulting, has been running for four years and was started initially as a hobby after a diagnosis of multiple sclerosis forced her to give up a hospitality industry career.

It offers training to hospitality staff and will soon expand that into the management area.

Besides Satterthwaite Consulting, Ms Satterthwaite also runs Scope Hospitality Vision, with the opening of Scope Leadership Vision to follow.

There is a dearth of qualified supervisors and managers in Perth’s hospitality industry at the moment.

“We obviously hit on the right formula,” Ms Satterthwaite said.

“There was a need in the market. We met that need and delivered more. That led to word-of-mouth referrals that have helped us grow our business.”

Ms Satterthwaite said the business’ other growth catalyst had been the quality of its systems.

“With the added burdens of the new tax system, small businesses have to get smoother and more efficient. It’s all about the systems. You have to make sure there is no chance for loopholes in your systems that things can slip through,” she said.

“We undergo WA Department of Training audits regularly and these have proved extremely beneficial to make sure everything is in place.”

The desire to benchmark her business systems led Ms Satterthwaite to enter the Small Business of the Year Awards.

“This was the first time we went up against other industries. Before we’d only entered hospitality industry awards,” she said

Just one week before winning the Microbusiness award, Satterthwaite Consulting won the WA Tourism Awards’ industry training and development category.