Cyber businessmen

As seen in ThePenrith Press on Oct 30, 2009

Story: by Nicole Hasham

Twitter time: Phil Grueff (left) of ARCS Building Group, Martin Rogers of Localman in a Van and Rod Matthew of KSR Smash Repairs. Picture: MELVYN KNIPE

ROD Matthew used to think Twitter was just a tool for teens with too much time on their hands.

But after giving it a go for himself, the KSR Smash Repairs manager soon discovered it opened a whole new world of business.

“A guy who was restoring an old car got on Twitter and asked if we could respray a whole vehicle,” Mr Matthew said.

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“I said yes, and he came in for a quote. Now we’re confident of winning the job.”

Mr Matthews is among the first batch of graduates from Penrith’s Social Media School, which introduces business people to the latest online networking tools.

The school is the brainchild of Penrith businessmen Martin and Owen Rogers and Phillip Grueff, who enlisted the help of personal branding expert Luke Harvey-Palmer.

Mr Rogers said while the Penrith business scene was sometimes seen as too far removed from the action, that need not be the case.

“Penrith is sometimes considered to be behind everything else happening in Sydney,” Mr Rogers said. “But using social media can connect you to people anywhere in Australia.”

Tools such as Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and Posterous helped a business carve out a “personality” in cyberspace, Mr Rogers said.

“People buy from people and you need to promote the relationship, not just the brand,” he said.

Social media tools also enable a business to serve customers at lightning speed.

The school’s co-founder Mr Grueff, also the managing director of ARCS Building Group, uses the camera on his iPhone to deliver quick quotes.

“Our quotes department prepares the quote and sends it out within 30 minutes of receiving my video,” Mr Grueff said.

Meanwhile, Mr Matthew uses Facebook and Twitter to broadcast his day-to-day business operations to the world.

“I’ve sent out before and after photos of cars we’ve repaired, and down the track I want to use YouTube to do time-lapse photography of vehicle repairs,” he said.

“You’ve got to network a lot more in business these days, and this is just another way.”

Social Media School runs over four consecutive Saturday mornings at Panthers. The next course starts mid-November.

Go to socialmediatribe.com.au

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