An Entrepreneur Championing Rural Australia: “The Regions have the Solutions to the Worlds Problems” with Julia Spicer
We are so excited to share this episode with you. Julia Spicer is one of those people you meet and you instantly feel like you’ve known them for years.
She’s a true champion and advocate for rural Australia, the people within these communities and is eager to see innovation unlocked and enabled.
At a young age and eager to see more of the world, she received a Rotary Exchange that would take her to the middle of Europe, in Switzerland.
“I think what that did was make me appreciate what we have here in Australia.”
One of those appreciations was for long-term history. The Europeans marked out their 1000’s of years of history in and around the cities, and a 17-year old Jules was curious to understand more from an Australian perspective.
“We did have First Nations people, and that was probably the start of some of my interest in actually being really honest, and being really curious around what our whole history is for this country.”
She returned home and headed straight to University to study a degree in Natural Resource Management, and like an arrow, she knew exactly where she wanted to go.
“I knew that Ag and the regions were my people.
It was where I thought I wanted to contribute.
It was what I was excited about.”
Photo Credit: Image provided by Julia Spicer.
Initially she was supporting the horticulture industry in a variety of roles and found herself in Brisbane. It was a long way from home, and when an opportunity presented itself in the little Western Queensland town of Mitchell, Julia took it with open arms.
“Mitchell to where Mum and Dad lived was really only about an hour and a half away. So I was able to spend some more time with them on the farm and helping out.”
“I took some time off to help Mum and Dad during one of the droughts. One of the many droughts we always have.”
In the early 2000’s, a short term contract would present itself in Goondiwindi and as they say, the rest is history. It’s now home.
The thing about Julia is that she could literally do anything. She’s intelligent, an excellent communicator with a savvy business mind. I wanted to know if she ever felt hamstrung…
“I think for a long time, I didn't fit the mould of a regional woman. I'm pretty ambitious, pretty keen to, as you said, have impact and be useful. And so that is hard sometimes to do in the confines of a smaller community.”
“I'm very doggedly and I am very clear, when I am speaking to people all over the place that there is intelligent life form west of the range. And I say that all the time, that the region's have the solutions to the world's problems, not just our problems. If we can solve a problem here in Goondiwindi, we've actually solved that for the world.”
Humans of Agriculture team members Oli and Hannah pictured with Julia and her husband, Tony on their farm at Goondiwindi.
Julia shares the experience of establishing and running her own business, Engage and Create Consulting.
“I came from the not for profit land. So I was used to doing as much as I could for as many people as I could, for as little as I could. So that is not the best way to start a business, my friend.”
“I think this leadership piece is really important. So how much is ego? How much of it is actually what I think I can deliver on. And if ego was driving me. And when ego drives me, I end up in a complete pickle. I've signed up for jobs that I actually don't really want to do. I've got to deal with people who are not my peeps, I have to wear shoes and proper clothes.”
“I am 100% your person, if you want precise action, you're in the pursuit of excellence, not perfection. You don't need the most polished person in the room. You know, I'm really clear now on what that looks like for me. And I think it is really important.”
Today she finds herself in an incredibly unique role, as Queensland’s Chief Entrepreneur.
The Chief Entrepreneur role is designed to make a significant impact to the innovation and entrepreneurial ecosystem in Queensland.
Julia’s role centres from helping businesses take their first steps, to working with government and industry to identify valuable problems that can be solved with innovation.
“I have been through a whole range of different threads, [I’ve been] one of the people that's been invited to sit at state and now federal tables, to make decisions without needing to be a politician to do that.”
“The Ag industry obviously has all of their industry groups. And yet the government is often looking for people who can represent a demographic.”
“We need to have more regional people making decisions. We’re the most decentralised state in Australia, our decision makers need to be more decentralised than other places.”
As we sat there in Julia’s office, she had a question on the wall that peaked my interest - “What does it take to grow a profitable small business in regional Australia?”
“We need businesses to be successful in the bush, and we need people to be proud of running them. Now, the pride word might stick for some people as well. But we need to actually talk about it. And so to run successful businesses in the bush looks like understanding our finances. It looks like actually having a plan and knowing what's going on.”
Several years ago she worked with more than 100 businesses in regional communities, and all of the businesses had five common problems:
Financial literacy – are we making or losing money?
Strategic planning – where are we going? What are we actually trying to do here?
Succession planning – are we hobbling the next generation with current expectations?
Mental health
Time out of the business
“We can’t have a ghost town, so we need to actually be solving and having some of these harder conversations.”
“What I want to do is find the stories of people that have had them, and maybe haven't had them and how do we all learn from that? What are the themes that come out of that? What do we need to be able to really value and hold onto bush businesses?”
Listen to Julia’s full episode where you find all your podcasts, or via the link below.