Tourism

As National Sales Manager at Gray Line, I travelled the world promoting Australia and training our sales team around the country. This was my first tourism role and I was fortunate to learn from many tourism mentors (legends).

Whilst on maternity leave from Gray Line in 2003, I was asked to help Global Ballooning to develop internationally ready pricing, and sales system for The Australian Tourism Exchange (ATE03) and have been dedicated to helping people to grow their businesses ever since.

With a strong passion for Melbourne, tourism and sport, my husband Anthony Grace and I took the leap into life as tour operators by launching Melbourne Sports Tours in 2004 and Melbourne Shopping Experiences in 2010. We sold these businesses in 2019 after 15 years.

Over the past 20+ years, I have develop international and domestic marketing strategies for many Tourism, Hospitality and Foodie businesses and also representing businesses at tradeshows alongside successful sales call plans. Some of these include The Australian Superfood Co, Australian Wine Tour Co., Epicurean Tours, Great Private Tours, Hidden Secrets Tours. I thrive at tradeshows & networking events and am eager to help teams to develop their own sales structures, KPIs and memorable moments.

I am passionate about helping young people to develop their tourism careers. Many industries develop an 'old boys' network - and every year I undertake at least one project to ensure that I am not stuck in that mentality (ask me about Plus One). In 2023 I was lucky enough to be a Young Tourism Network mentor for Sunny Lockett via the Trusted Advisor Program, and have been a judge on the VTIC Lynette Bergin Tourism Award Fellowshipfor the past decade.

Ausfoodie

Over 5 years, I helped The Australian Superfood Co (TASC) grow from a small food business, to then scale and achieve a 6-figure sale to a publicly listed company. That success was partly due to the high standards and ethics of Hayley and Ralph, the father-daughter founders. The Australian Native Ingredient industry has started and failed many times, The TASC team had a strong desire to ensure the entire Native Food industry thrives. We worked hard at building relationships with indigenous growers, packaging companies, on-sellers, wholesalers, product brands and industry experts. Our business marketing plan had solid processes including KPIs with regular accountability checks, product development and allergen management systems, strong branding and social media, a wide distribution network, tradeshow and sales call strategy, and selling into and promoting Australian Native Ingredients via media and the major supermarket chains.

ttps://www.linkedin.com/pulse/spotlight-australian-natives-kirsty-grace/

Hi I'm Kirsty Grace, founder of Positively Productive.

I am passionate about helping people to achieve their business goals and to free them from their constraints or pain points.

So far in 2024, I have coached and mentored almost 50 business start-ups, owners and managers. There are some common Pain Points which I have noticed:

- lack of focus on important tasks

- busy stress leading to mind fog

- burnout and decreased motivation

- imposter syndrome

After operating a Sports Tour business and Shopping Tours for 15 years, alongside working with Tourism, Foodie and Hospitality businesses over 25 years I have the benefit of hindsight of someone who has achieved success And made and seen plenty of mistakes. Many of my lessons are "do what I know - not what I did!"

50% of my work involves mentoring business owners, and my main advice to business owners is usually around understanding your customers, and the importance of building relationships and collaborating with partners in your industry.

Be continuously learning. Business owners need to ensure they share the load, or they will implode. It Is impossible to know and do everything. This belief led me to develop our network of fabulous expert industry advisors who are keen to share their training, tips and knowledge, and VAs who can help support your business.

With a wealth of industry contacts and knowledge, my Purpose is to help businesses to thrive and for business owners and managers to live a Positively Productive life.

Positively Productive - The Long Launch

In 2013, I had been Tourism Consulting for 10 years and had the Positively Productive light bulb moment and started building the business plan and website https://kirs58.wixsite.com/positivelyproductive

Very few careers follow a straight path, and I took job opportunities, studied and covid19 slowed the launch for 10 years. You may call that procrastination, but I am confident that the decade of learnings and experience has improved the Positively Productive content and concept launching in 2023. I also know that I will look back in 10 years and the Positively Productive concept and website will look different again; just as humans mature and evolve so do businesses…and that is ok*

In 2017, my mutual mentor/accountability buddy** and friend Danielle Anderson and I booked ourselves into Crown Hotel for a 2-day business planning session. We joined a Shepreneur planning seminar, then worked our way through structured business brainstorming and goal setting. We also combined our passions by enjoying the Crown Spa and watching the very first game of AFLW at Ikon Park between Carlton vs Collingwood.

Every month after that we had a planned accountability call to discuss our goals and KPIs.'

EDUCATION & Learning

My formal CV includes a Bachelor of Arts (Leisure Studies) - Certificate in Teaching English as a Second Language - Grad Dip. In Tourism and Hospitality - Cert. IV in Training and Assessment.

The world changes so quickly and we constantly need to upskill. I believe in the power and process of learning; both formal and informal education. You may choose to lay your career path with formal education, but informal education and experience will cement the path

I have upskilled with The Digital Marketing School while teaching Travel & Tourism at Holmesglen Institute.

I joined Jack Delosa and The Entourage Team and flew to Sydney over 3 months for business-building workshops with a focus on launching Positively Productive.

I completed The Melbourne Tourism Industry Leadership Program which includes content such as values, productivity, behavioural drivers, self-awareness, managing, perceiving, using and understanding emotions, positive leadership and communication strategies, coaching and goal setting. I was lucky enough to complete the program with Mel Neild (Founder and CEO at Mind Insurance) and I highly recommend this to the Victorian Tourism Industry https://www.vtic.com.au/MTLP/ OR to source similar programs wherever you are based.

I often revisit the VALUES that I uncovered during this Leadership journey. It is important to assess your values regularly to ensure that you are living up to them:

Optimism - Happiness – Fun – Playfulness - Confidence - Gratitude,

Connectivity – Family - Community - Belonging, Contribution

Efficiency – Productivity (this was my 2014 Aspirational Value Goal)

For a more inclusive run down on my career and education please check out www.linkedin.com/in/kirsty-grace-tourism/

Kirsty at Fine Foods Tradeshow - 2018

Maggie Beer (foodie legend) talking about Australian Native Ingredients with Kirsty at The Pheasant Farm SA - 2019

Kirsty and Carol Fox FightMND Fundraising event - 2018

Catriona Rowntree, Kirsty and Friends with The Getaway film crew - 2011

Catriona bought her 'old uncle Des' aka Jules Lund on The Getaway Shopping tour. Check out the fun madness here

Anthony Grace talks about Melbourne Sports Tours and Inside Melbourne HERE

Hard at work with Melbourne Shopping Experiences - 2010