After entering and winning various categories of the Albury Wodonga Business Awards in previous years, Johnsons MME is ‘paying it forward’ by coming on board as the naming rights sponsor for this year’s event.
Director Paul Goonan says supporting events that recognise business is crucial.
“It’s important to ensure these events continue on,” Paul said.
“We’ve been involved in entering a few different categories over the years and had some success in those, and found it was a good experience.”
“We enjoyed the process of preparing for the awards and really analysing the business to put it up against others in the category. The event is really well run and well attended.”
“Our involvement is also part of expanding our brand and giving people a greater understanding of who we are. Being part of a big event that chamber is running, allows us to showcase our business to a number of really successful businesses in the region.”
It’s no surprise that Johnsons MME has been successful in the awards in previous years.
The business was established in 1948 by thirty-one-year old Fred Johnson post World War II, and has grown to become the largest, locally owned accounting and financial advisory practice in the Southern Riverina and North East Victoria.
It’s the local ownership of the business which Paul Goonan credits with much of their success and growth in recent years.
“We’ve gone from a three partner practice with 35 staff in 2000 when we left the PwC network and managed to grow to seven directors and around 60 staff.”
“We’ve grown in different areas as well. Recently in the past 12 months we’ve added a mortgage broking division under our financial planning arm. Financial planning is through our own licence – we’re not aligned with anyone, so we do things a bit differently there.”
“It’s fantastic to see younger people wanting to come in and run their own business”
“It’s about understanding what the clients need and we find something that matches. It ties in well with our business advisory, which is the largest part of the business, and our audit division as well, so we’ve got quite a broad range of services we’re offering our clients.”
While the majority of Johnsons MME’s clients are within two hours of the Border, they also service clients in a diverse range of industries and across a number of different states.
Given Johnsons MME has a successful history and a broad range of clients, Paul offers up these observations.
“I think we’ve got a great business community here,” Paul said.
“It’s fantastic to see younger people wanting to come in and run their own business. Our advice is talk to people who have experience, can help guide them or look at things a little bit differently. Find a mentor, a business coach or someone you can talk to about how to improve your business.”
“Here we take broad experience across many different businesses and say ‘these are the successful businesses we’ve dealt with, and these are some of the things they’re doing to help make sure their business is on track”
“If you can get those processes in place, the likelihood of you succeeding and fulfilling what you want to do improves.”
For more on Johnsons MME: http://www.johnsonsmme.com.au/home
For more on the Albury Wodonga Business Awards: https://chamberbusinessawards.com.au/
Produced by Border Cafe in partnership with AlburyCBD & Albury Northside Chamber of Commerce
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