Ka Wai Ola - Office of Hawaiian Affairs, Volume 13, Number 8, 1 ʻAukake 1996 — Teaching the fine art of business marketing [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

Teaching the fine art of business marketing

OHA's first ever marketing conference provides Hawaiian businesses and community groups insights into the world of product promotion

Stories and photos by Patrick Johnston

A product is only as good as your ability to market it. Just

ask companies like Sony, whose technically superior betamax lost the video player wars to Victor, or Macintosh, a computer manufacturer

rapidly losing ground to more accessible, if less innovative, Windows-based machines. None of the businesses OHA supports are anywhere

near the size of even the smallest divisions of Sony or Macintosh but their marketing concerns are the same: they have to sell what customers want, have to get their product to those customers, and have to make sure customers know about what they're selling. In response to a need for marketing skills voiced by loan fund recipients and eom-munity-based eeonomie development (CBED) groups, OHA held its first marketing conference June 28, at the Blaisdell Center. "The two areas that loan fund recipients and CBED

groups have asked for assistance in are financial reporting and marketing," says Eeonomie Development Officer Christine van Bergeijk, adding that the marketing conference followed a series of accounting workshops held across the state earlier this year. The conference attracted over 120 participants, 63 percent of whom eame from neinhbor islands. Particioants

included a large number of Native Hawaiian

Revolving Loan Fund recipients, and several

H a w ai i an C B E D g r o u p s supported | by OHA. Also at the conference was the

sovereignty 1 organization Nation of Hawai'i

and the Hawaiian advocacy group Native Hawaiian Advisory Council. Giving presentations were Claudia Schimdt, senior vice president of marketing services for Starr Seigle McCombs, who introduced some basic marketing eon-

cepts, Sandy Cirie, an attorney, entrepreneur and loan fund recipient who talked about micro-business marketing in Hawai'i, and Jeff

Bloom, executive director of Computer Training Academy and an expert on Internet marketing. (See stories below.)

Van Bergeijk said that in addition to learning marketing techniques, afternoon breakout sessions and a post-con-ference reception and marketplaee allowed Hawaiian entrepreneurs an opportunity to network and learn business strategies from other participants.

OHA Budget and Finance Chairman Abraham Aiona

gave a keynote address at the start of the day's activi-

ties as did Gary Kimble, e o m m i s - £ sioner for F t h e Administration for N a t i v e

Americans. Aiona said that OHA has supported over

50 CBED practitioners and has contributed over $4 million to the loan fund program. "Eaeh and every one of you have contributed to the success of the program," Aiona said of participants at the eonference.

"The two areas that loan fund recipients and CBED groups have asked for assistance in are financial reporting and marketing, " - Chris van Bergeijk OHA eeonomie development officer

Trustee Abraham Aiona commended marketing eonference participants for helping OHA's eeonomie development programs succeed.