Industry speakers offer different points of view to students, enhancing their learning experience by providing first hand insights into real world business bringing theory to life and inspire students to see the opportunities that await them.
The Department of International Business and Asian Studies was delighted to welcome Mr Craig Somerville, Managing Director at Reload Media as a special invited guest to talk to the students of 1005IBA (Introduction to International Business) on Monday 21 May.
Reload Media is a full service digital marketing agency based in Brisbane with a reputation for delivering high-quality digital marketing services across SEO, pay-per-click (PPC) and social media. Craig has played a pivotal role in the successful growth of the company from a start-up of $10,000 into a multi-million dollar company today. Reload now has 300 clients in Australia and around the world with offices in London, Auckland, Manilla and India. Reload has recently ran a very successful marketing campaign for Griffith International.
With credentials in management, marketing and economics, Craig has worked extensively with businesses across a range of industries, offering a unique perspective on running a business in today’s marketplace. Craig puts a strong emphasis on corporate culture, leadership, fostering innovation and delivering solutions that are practical and measurable.
Course Convenor, Dr Bernard Gan said, “Listening to Craig’s international experience deepened our students’ understanding of how international business concepts and theory relate to the real world.”
“It provided an invaluable opportunity for students to seek insights into how they prepare themselves for the corporate world.”
Craig’s stories and global experiences relate to many concepts taught in 1005 IBA. In the guest lecture, Craig shared “(organisational) culture is key to (success in) strategy”. He spoke of the challenges of adapting appropriate marketing, recruitment and customer relationship strategies to address local needs and demands and provided students with very informative career advice and recommended resources.
At the heart of Reload’s success is a carefully-forged high-performance culture through hiring the right people and maintaining constant communications. Employees at Reload are known as “Reloaders”. Every Reloader is carefully selected primarily based on attitude and mindset. Skills can be learned, but attitude is difficult to change. A job applicant who sends a generic template that begins with “to whom it may concern” gets an immediate desk reject because it infers poor attitude. It shows the job applicant does not bother to research and get to know about the company before applying for the job. Craig shares an interesting story of one Reloader who applied for his job at Reload by sending boxes of fortune cookies to every employee at Reload’s Brisbane office. In each fortunate cookie, the message reads “Hire Mike” (with a URL link to his resume). Of course, this does not mean every job applicant should use such unique method of job application, but it does infer good attitude and mindset.
Photos of the session are available on the course Instagram.