Matt Lye’s years of experience in providing useful advice to a range of business owners from doctors through to café owners, manufacturers, importers and exporters, equips him with a wide range of skills and a deep understanding about business diversity, tenacity and growth.
While he comes from a financial background, he has also worked across the areas of marketing, sales and human resources for large organisations and across several industries.
Before becoming part of the Realise Business team, Matt worked for Sydney Business for the past three years rolling out the Government’s Small Biz Connect program and providing business advisory services from North Sydney to Hornsby and Palm Beach. He has also operated his own business helping entrepreneurs with financial and business planning advice.
Matt’s impressive business background involves rolling out pricing worldwide for Laura Ashley in London, being involved in the re-branding of Woolworths and Qantas, and launching the Lexus models for Toyota. He was also Financial Controller for the company that provided marketing services to Bayer.
He is a strong believer in the Realise Business product offering that forms part of the Business Connect funding program including the membership benefits, the free 2-hour business advice sessions, and more. He is proud to be part of what he believes is a ‘strong and experienced advisory team’.
Matt gets a significant amount of enjoyment by working with business owners to find out where they want to be, their passions and how equipped they are to carry out their goals. Once these points are determined he focuses on ‘working out how we can help business owners reach these goals through the many channels that we have’.
Owning his own business has given him a clear understanding of key functions including staff, productivity, margins, cash flow and how to work with large organisations. He said one concerning issue that he sees relates to businesses leaving themselves open by ‘putting all their eggs in one basket’ once they have secured regular work with a large client. He encourages businesses to continue to build a diverse client base rather than relying on a large client because that reliance leaves them vulnerable if they lose the contract, meaning they must downsize immediately.
Matt believes that the three top mistakes that he often sees are small businesses that overestimate sales, appoint incorrect people for roles within the company because the job description hasn’t been written well, and those that set up in an incorrect location.
When clients first come to him he works with them to do a quick audit of the business so that key areas of business concern can be identified. Once that’s done it’s about setting KPIs and developing strategies that will help meet those goals.
One of Matt’s favourite quotes related to business is ‘be passionate about it’ because he believes if you are passionate about it you won’t mind doing it. He believes that his key strength is his mature business experience and he welcomes the opportunity to be able to share that knowledge to assist others.
If you would like to book a business advisory session with Matt you can do so by emailing us here.
