Council gives away $500 flight vouchers

The City Council's Economic Development Unit is giving away 20 $500 flight vouchers to help local businesses keep current customers or find new ones. The vouchers will be allocated to businesses to help them "get out there and sell".

EDU Manager, Peter Harris, said his team wanted to encourage businesses to get face to face with customers. "Dunedin businesses often do fantastic work but can miss out on orders because of a natural reluctance to skite" , he said, "We want to help them put their best foot forward".

The "get out there and sell" project will see businesses apply for the 20 vouchers and with a streamlined approval process an announcement of those who've been successful will be made on Thursday 16 April. As well as this 20 copies of "Purple Cow - Transform your business by being remarkable" by Seth Godin will be given away to the winners to provide some sales tip reading on their flight.

The funding for the flights and books will come from the Council's Marketing Support Fund that offers up to 50% of the costs of a marketing campaign for businesses selling outside the city. This process involves a written application and 2-3 weeks for approval. The 'get out and sell project' is designed as a one off fast process to encourage businesses to get excited, get out, get selling and relationship building. Mr Harris said that applicants for the flight vouchers will only need to answer 3 questions to apply, "Who do you want to see and how important are they to your business, Where do you want to go, and what do you hope to achieve is all we want to know" he says, "and when they return we'll expect them to tell us what happened".

John Bezett, Chair of the Economic Development Committee, supports the programme. "This is a twist on the traditional way we support business through the Marketing Support Programme", he said, "and if it helps secure some orders then that helps retain jobs for the city."

Contact details

Contact Peter Harris on (03) 474 3463.

Last reviewed: 16 Apr 2009 8:25am