Façade Grants are back! 

If a fresh new look for your shopfront is calling… the Frankston City Façade Improvement Grants could be the answer you have been waiting for! Give the front façade of your business or commercial building the facelift it deserves and help us improve the amenity and attractiveness of our Frankston City streets. With a funding pool of $100,000 and between $5,000 and $15,000 per application up for grabs, a Façade Improvement Grant could help you attract more customers to your Frankston City shop and achieve that fresh look you’ve been hoping for. Whether it’s a fresh coat of paint, new signage, lighting to support night time trading, servery windows, bi-fold doors or you have other ideas to spruce up the front of your business façade, this is your chance to apply for funding. Open to all businesses with a shopfront visible from the street in the Frankston City municipality, including those outside the city centre in shopping strips or industrial estates, if eligible in accordance with guidelines. Stage 1 applications open 28 January and close 7 February, 2025. 

Business Grants Update 

The 2024-2025 Frankston City Business Grants wrapped up in September with Stage 2 applications currently being assessed by an independent panel. Council received the most amount of Stage 1 applications since the program’s inception in 2012 with 75 businesses applying! Of those, there were 43 Stage 2 applications, which are now being assessed. The grant program offered businesses between $5000 and $20,000 to expand, relocate or start a new business in Frankston City in a commercial space. There was a $150,000 funding pool for this year's program. We look forward to announcing the successful grant recipients in our next edition. 
Pic: 2023 Business Grant recipients Hoop Culture

Aspire Program 

Do you want to turn your business waste into a resource? Reduce your waste disposal and costs, create new supply chains and generate new income for your business with the new ASPIRE program! We've covered the registration to this awesome platform for you, so that you can simply join, sell your unwanted materials and product or buy someone else's! The Advisory Stream for Process Innovation and Resource Exchange (ASPIRE) is an online marketplace for businesses wanting to buy, sell or trade unwanted materials and product. ASPIRE allows businesses (with 20 employees or less) to have unlimited resource listings and is actively trading a wide range of items for reuse and recycling including items such as soil, plants, and grass, paper, cardboard, and equipment, metals, fabrics, plastic, glass and more. This fantastic program not only helps you make money off unwanted goods, it also helps other businesses and the environment! Register to attend one of our info sessions early next year.  

Career talk at Woodleigh School 

Providing insight into career pathways outside the box, was the purpose of Frankston City Council's recent Career Insight's Q&A at Woodleigh School in Langwarrin. The team visited the school with six local business owners from a range of industries for a Q&A with 100 Year 11 students. The event focused on providing the students with information, experiences and advice from each of the business owners' on their own career journey's such as first jobs, skill building, studying, industry insights, recruitment and what employers look for when hiring.
Thank you to our guests; Courtney Smith from Kynection and Firefly, Keiran Bast from Wheelhouse Architecture, Tory O'Brien from TJS Accounting, Marty Lynch from Lynchpin Psychology and Ashleigh Alsadie from The PromoDonna for helping to shape our future generation of movers and shakers. 

Southside Festival Frankston 

Applications for the FREE Local Listing's as part of South Side Festival Frankston 2025 program are now open. The festival dates next year are 9-18 May 2025. Your self-funded event can be a pre-existing event/show/exhibition/special offer that you are already planning for that time or something new and bespoke. Whatever idea you might like to ignite to tie in with this immersive, thought-provoking, innovative festival celebrating art, culture, heritage and food, we want to hear about it! For more info and how to apply email South Side Festival below. Applications close November 30th 2024. Please note: This FREE listing offer is for self-funded events within the Frankston LGA and Festival dates.

Annual Business Survey results are in!

Thank you to everyone who filled out Council's Annual Business Survey in September helping the Economic Development team understand the key development opportunities facing Frankston City businesses. Congratulations to two survey respondents who won $500 each to spend at a local Frankston City Business; Rebecca from Tolip.Designs and Adam from Grand Slam Surfaces. The survey helps ensure the programs, services and supports Council provides are relevant and reflect the needs of the business community. There were 102 responses received from a range of industries including retail, trades, construction, manufacturing, services and hospitality. Highlights included;  14 home-based businesses said they were keen to expand into a commercial space and 25 businesses were interested in learning more about becoming a social enterprise or Certified B-Corp. When asked whether they have “interacted directly with a member of Council’s Economic Development team?” of those respondents who said ‘Yes’, 92% said they were ‘Very Satisfied’ with the service provided.  Another 8% said they were ‘Satisfied’ with zero respondents saying they were either ‘Dissatisfied’ or ‘Very Dissatisfied”. Got feedback? Email us today. 

Frankston's Christmas Festival! 

Can you help us promote Frankston’s Christmas Festival and bring more people to our wonderful city? The FREE event begins in the afternoon on Saturday 30 November and is expected to attract 45,000 visitors in and around the Frankston Art Centre, Beauty Park, Playne Street, and surrounding areas including the City centre. Kick starting Christmas celebrations in the City there will be a range of entertainment, activities, rides, music, and food. Fireworks will be launched from the Civic Centre carpark about 9:15pm. We’d love local businesses to get involved by sharing posts to promote the Festival on your socials, displaying posters in your shop window, or attending!  Please reach out to the events team for digital assets or hardcopy  posters and help us put Frankston City on the map as the place to be this Christmas! 

Business Directory 

Get FREE promotion with Council’s Frankston Business Directory this Christmas! The platform now has more than150 local businesses listed and allows local Frankston City businesses (registered or located in) list and promote their businesses for FREE! Whether you are looking to book a local business, trade or service or you are a business keen to get listed for FREE, this directory is what you need to shop and sell local. Designed to help support, connect and promote local businesses within the Frankston City municipality, the directory is a trusted source for residents and other businesses to find local trades, retailers, services and home-based businesses. During December we will be boosting promotions of the directory to consumers to help keep dollars local and provide free advertising for our hard-working Frankston City businesses this Christmas. Can't find your favourite local business on the list? Send them the link and they can reap the benefits too! Pic: Colossal Studios.

Frankston Business Collective Excellence Awards Gala Dinner

Do you want to find out who are the best in the biz? Frankston Business Collective are hosting the 2024 Business Excellence Gala Awards on 29 November from 6.30-10.30pm at the Frankston Arts Centre. The awards recognise outstanding businesses in a wide range of categories such as; Social Change Maker, Sustainable and Environment, Trade and Construction, Educational Excellence, Hospitality Excellence and Emerging Industry. Finalists have begun to be announced on Frankston Business Collective's Facebook page. Stay tuned to see which exceptional businesses will be celebrated! This event is proudly sponsored by Platinum Sponsor – Commonwealth Bank and Floral Sponsor, Flowers for Jane. 

Update your details! 

Here is a friendly reminder to update your ABN details on the Australian Business Registration website. It is your responsibility to ensure all the details are up to date including the ANZIC codes. You may be missing vital information or correspondence relating to your industry. 
Updating your ABN details is important to ensure:

• the right people have the right permissions to act on behalf of a business
• government agencies have up-to-date information – which can be used by emergency services or other agencies to contact businesses or provide targeted assistance in times of emergency
• you’re ready for new government services when they become available
• your ABN accurately reflects the range of business activities you undertake.

Branding Workshop 

Here at Frankston City Council we offer a huge range of hands-on FREE business training workshops to help you upskill and assist your business with growth and sustainability. 
Next workshop; 
Branding for Business Growth - Knowing your where and when:
21 November, 2024, 4pm @ Burst Branding Agency, Seaford. 
Brand Goal Strategies, Brand Awareness Strategies
Presented by Sam Grigg - Burst Branding Agency, you can learn brand goal strategies and brand awareness strategies to help you connect with the right people, in the right way.
But what is the right way? This session will give insight into how to tackle this and some simple tricks to simplify  into practical bite size bits that a business of any size can takeaway and implement. Get in quick, only a few spots remain in this popular session. 
This event also provides an opportunity for a casual chat afterward aimed at forging new business connections.

Journey from School to Work event

Are you passionate about the Frankston City community, workforce, economy and helping to shape the future of our city? As a business leader, you can play a crucial role in shaping the future of young employees. Following the success of the School to Work forum earlier this year, Frankston City Council and FMPLLEN (Frankston Mornington Peninsula Local Learning Employment Network) are excited to present the FREE Journey from School to Work Forum early next year at McClelland Sculpture Park and Gallery (date TBC). The Forum explores how you can help positively impact the future workforce and discover how you can engage dedicated, passionate and enthusiastic young staff members who could potentially have a bright future in your industry.  Whether it’s  placement, casual or permanent employment, this FREE forum will bring together teachers, career advisors and local business owners to explore the important role we can all play in shaping the future workforce and building our local economy. 

Digital Solutions Program 

Connect with the Digital Solutions program to help grow your small business. The Australian Government's Digital Solutions program supports small businesses with 20 employees or less to unlock opportunities and grow in the digital economy. Participants can access free workshops, webinars, and self-paced tutorials.
Services cover a range of topics including:​​​​​​ 
▪ digital marketing
▪ social media
▪ websites and selling online
▪ business software
▪ cybersecurity.
Additionally, for a small fee, you can receive four hours of personalised digital advice from an experienced business advisor.

Imagine Frankston 

With a vision set firmly on economic growth and transformative development, Frankston City has a clear view of the future. From pinpointing opportunities for sustainable development, to elevating our arts and culture scene, engaging our vibrant community, embracing the quality of our health and education and continuing to develop our visitor economy is all part of the bigger picture. And what else do you think forms the overall success of Frankston City? You. Our business owners, our investors, our backbone. The ones who back Frankston City, love Frankston City, believe in its potential and those who put their hard earned dollars into creating, making, developing, buying, selling, discovering and exploring. 
To help us strengthen our visitor and investor attraction campaign, we need your help to spread the word about how much you love doing business here. Drop us a line or post a video or photo and tag @imaginefrankston to help us with our plight.  

Franchisers want in on Frankston City!

Despite current economic struggles throughout the country, Frankston continues to be a popular hot spot for new businesses opening. 
Even franchises want in on the action, advertising their desire for opening stores in the city by the bay which is expected to have 20,000 more people living here by 2041. To cater to the growing population, most of which is expected to be young families, franchisers are reaching out to us to find new franchisees interested in taking up new opportunities! 
The latest is popular restaurant Little Ramen Bar!  Director Sanjay said Frankston City is calling for Ramen! 
"The business has been in operation in Melbourne’s CBD for over 10 years and is constantly rated as one of Melbourne’s best Ramen destinations," he said. "It's time for the South East to experience Little Ramen Bar's menu which includes Gyoza (dumplings), chashu fried rice and other dishes that can be enjoyed all year round." If you are looking for a new venture, get in touch with our Investment Officer today! 

Call for Testimonials 

Have you had a positive experience with us, Frankston Council's Economic Development Team, recently? Or maybe you've enquired about something for your business, received help from us about a permit,  regulation or expansion? Or maybe you've just reached out to us and we have provided you with some business support, resources or information or put you in touch with our FREE business mentor program? 
We are looking for testimonials to include in some of our reporting and we would love your feedback! 
Help us continue to provide you with the best customer service and business support we can by letting us know about your experience.