Risk/ Reward: The Entrepreneur’s R&R- Savon Populaire

Savon Pop Chai Soap

I am hitting on a theme lately: woman entrepreneurs who have given birth to new businesses around the same time as starting their families. I just interviewed Alysia Melnychuk, owner of Savon Populaire, a Montreal based organic cosmetics (soap etc.) company. Like Kim Fuller of IDG Communications, Alysia started her business just before the birth of her eldest child more than six years ago. And like many entrepreneurial moms, she used her maternity leave time to further develop her ideas so that when she returned to work she was rearing to go.

And she has been going strong ever since. Even the birth of her second child almost 5 months ago hasn’t stopped her. Though this time, she wishes she could pull back more. Her biggest challenge has been finding a way to replace herself. Her solution, by necessity, has been to farm out various aspects of her role to four different people on a part-time or project basis. Not surprisingly, no one person had her entire skill set. Parcelling out her roles and caring for a small baby has necessitated that this entrepreneur truly assume her company management role, leaving technician type soap production issues to others. As it is, she is putting in 20-25 hours a week still (often at night when her children go to bed).

It is hard for me to let go because I pride myself on creativity in our soap making and on quality. This is forcing me to do it and it’s good practice.

Her current situation also made her question her ability to continue with the current company set up. And selling is not an option as Alysia is too excited to walk away as the company is poised for a growth spurt. After very careful consideration, her answer is to create a co-operative.

Over the coming months, Savon Populaire will become a co-op with 3 partners who have an equal voice. There will be a lot more “letting go” to come for Alysia. Fortunately, her passion for creating body friendly, environmentally friendly products and her love of working in collaboration with people instead of in a boss/ subordinate role will continue to drive her. Savon Populaire will be all the better for it as one of the new partners is a herbalist who brings many innovative ideas and know how. Happily, the third partner is a current employee who is being groomed to step into a partner role.

The biggest risk Alysia ever took in business was to start the company in the first place. She did it with no capital and no cash flow. There were some very lean years at the beginning where Alysia’s resourcefulness is all that kept her company going. She told me of how she retrofitted a clothing iron to be her product sealer in order to save $300. It seems there have been many ingenious moves like this. She’s most proud that she has created something that now has worth in terms of brand equity and company assets that she could sell.

Alysia’s biggest failure (and greatest learning) came from realizing that remaining foggy on details where money is concerned is a recipe for big problems. Her initial naïveté didn’t serve her well and she’s now very careful to stipulate clear terms when money is involved.

Soon Savon Populaire will move from their Montreal Parc Extension workshop and manufacturing shop to new larger retail location (TBD) with local shopping traffic and launch a whole new product line. With two new partners, a new retail location, a new product line and a great deal of enthusiasm for what is possible, we can expect to see great things coming from Savon Populaire in 2010.

Risk/ Reward: The Entrepreneur’s R&R: IDG Communications

Kim Fuller is the mother of three. Her oldest is a corporate communications company called IDG Communications. After giving birth to IDG ten years ago, she went on to have two sons, aged 9 and 6.  It was Kim who said her business is like a child that she “raised” from conception to maturity.  She makes parallels to the dedication required, the thousands of hours spent, the messiness, the nurturing and the tough decision making along the way.

Having two real children while building her communications company was the biggest risk she has ever taken. Interesting, she links her biggest risk to what she is most proud of: controlled and steady growth.   Kim says that the attention her children demanded required her to be steady and cautious about how she grew her business.  And the controlled growth is what created a rock solid foundation that she and her team are building upon ten years later.

And rock solid it is. Now the clients are more prestigious.  And they come with bigger budgets, wider scopes of work and bigger expectations.  Meanwhile, IDG Communications stays quiet about their successes.  You won’t see them self promoting at awards shows. They are too busy serving their clients and creating deep business relationships that ensure that the marketing work they create truly works for their clients.  Some of their most rewarding work is done through Phil Communications, a division of IDG Communications focussed on the not-for-profit sector.

If up until now you are thinking that Kim is a quiet, risk averse mom, make no mistake. She’s a driver! She told me about wanting to reach a place of stability in business and then quickly self-corrected when she realized how the entrepreneur part of her would actually find stability quite uncomfortable.

Her biggest lesson came in year two when a major account ended and necessitated that she let go most of her staff to stay afloat.  She not only learned to diversify, she also learned to stand up for herself and the company. The big account was keeping the company busy but was too demanding to be profitable. In asserting her company’s needs, she lost the account but opened up many new opportunities to do things differently.

Finance has been a challenge for Kim who has a degree in Fine Arts and not Accounting! To respond to this gap, she surrounded herself with smart people and a management accountant who is integral to her business success.  Ten years later, she may still be a creative at heart and she knows her ways around her books too.

She’s most amazed at the trust her staff place in her decision making ability. I reminded her it is not by accident that she garners trust. She has proven herself time and time again and her people know they can count on her.   She calls her current team a “dream team” which says to me it is time to systematize business processes to ensure that if key people leave, the business is not vulnerable. 

These days, Kim is more business development (BD) and less art direction and creative. BD is the hat that is needed and she’s more than capable of wearing this hat.

2010 will see IDG launch a new offering that helps their clients through the marketing process. Her team likens it to a microbrewery who carefully crafts their brew with careful attention to every step.  I won’t reveal more.  You can check out their offering early in 2010.

Are you ready to Tungle (in the time jungle)?

I had the pleasure of interviewing Tungle CEO Marc Gingras a few months back.   Tungle is a free calendar accelerator… that helps you schedule meetings online and publish your free/ busy calendar (so your clients and colleagues can see when you have free appointment slots, for example, without having to call or email you).  This short video on Tungle’s capabilities will impress you:

While Tungle is a great fit for any business professional, I see a fantastic opportunity for coaches and therapists who run a busy practice and want to make client appointment scheduling much easier by having clients book their own appointments online.

For Marc, Tungle is his way to positively change the world.  His goal is to have all business people using Tungle to schedule their meetings.  His biggest obstacle is the status quo.  Changing people’s entrenched behaviours is challenging so his team works to make Tungle easier and easier to adopt. 

The key to running a successful business, according to Marc, comes back to people almost everytime: having the right people in the right positions, creating a “get it done” attitude at Tungle, and aligning all the people (management, employees, the board and investors) toward the same objectives. 

Getting the right people is not about technology, marketing or the competition; we need people with the right attitude and we have to put them in the right spot so they can shine.

Sometimes the people who are great at the start up phase are not the people who can build a successful mature company, Marc has learned. 

Letting go of one of my initial start up people was the hardest thing. The reward is that the company turned around 100 percent so my decision was the right one and it was confirmed right away.

He’s proud of the team he has built and how he has transformed Tungle from a successful start up to a successful company.

Marc started his web career in 1998.  During the time the tech bubble burst, he was managing a team of 30 at another company. While he feels that he let them down as he didn’t see it coming, he knows he won’t get caught like this again.  He’s  rounded out his finance and R&D expertise with sales and marketing know-how, surrounded himself by amazing people and now pays close attention to financing and budgets.  Business lessons are painful AND effective!

And now what would Marc like most? Having more money to enable things to move faster and having more people using Tungle to reach a tipping point toward Tungle’s objective of having all business professionals scheduling their meetings through Tungle.   

Be a part of this tipping point. Save yourself time every time you schedule a meeting .  Avoid the time jungle. Tungle. 

Bonus: Marc’s book recommendation for CEO’s on the move: From Good To Great by Jim Collins

Coach Buffet: A Satisfying Soup

CANCER (June 21-July 22)

Soup is your metaphor for the week, Cancerian.  Symbolically speaking, it’s the key to your personal power and a model for the approach you should take in everything you do. On the most basic level, you might want to eat some soup every day.  That will make potent suggestions to your subconscious mind about how to mix lots of ingredients together so that their value and beauty as a totality are more than the sum of their parts. Not just in the kitchen, but in every area of your life, blend little miscellaneous things into one big interesting thing. 

You might think it flaky for a business coach to start a post with her kooky horoscope.  Not so in my books.  Metaphors like this are rich and are not to be overlooked.

In my case, the biggest soup I have been cooking lately is Coach Buffet. My co-chef is Tanya Geisler.  We hosted our first ever Coach Buffet in Montreal last night.  And late late, after everything was wrapped up, with our mouths yawning and our eyes half closing, we read evaluation after evaluation. The verdict: Coach Buffet #1 was a resounding success.

The recipe:

Creativity to dream a vision the guts and drive to make it happen

A business partnership and coaching every step of the way

12 great Montreal life and business coaches who formed the “Coach Buffet”

Participants (professional and business owners) who, as early adopters, showed up fully…hungry for coaching and possibility

Friends and family who supported us through our first event (i.e. for registration, time keeping, photography/ design, spreading the word, access to venue and encouragement)

Openness to the miscellaneous things that will make this “soup” better and better and better

Back to the horoscope. I haven’t been eating soup daily.  Frankly because I like making it for others far more than I enjoy eating it myself.  Coach Buffet was this for me.  We made the metaphorical soup and while others feasted, we were nourished.

Now, metaphors aside. We are building a scalable business franchise model. You will hear more about Coach Buffet.

Coach Buffet Toronto takes place on Tuesday, November 17^th. Register online.

All you can – - -?

They are Chinese and Indian many other ethnicities.  You often find them in hotels and on cruise ships.  They are often overflowing with plenty, and some would say they are wasteful. Many people overeat at them.  What are THEY?

Buffets, of course.  They sound like a great idea when you are really hungry and you often regret it very quickly after when you have eaten too much and realize the food all tasted the same.

Why, you might ask, am I discussing the merits of a buffet in a blog focussed on coaching for small business owners and professionals?  Some of you know the answer because I have been talking about it incessantly for a number of months now! Yep. Coach Buffet. It’s a new kind of buffet. Coaching is on the menu and we are serving possibility. 

My partner Tanya Geisler and I are launching Coach Buffet as a new format for coaching (and a new business venture for us) to show professionals and business owners the power of coaching and to help prospective clients and coaches find a great coaching match in a very short time.

So if you will be in the Montreal area on Thursday evening (Oct 15th) and want to deal with a real life or business issue in a fun and meaningful evening out, join us at the buffet!  Our line up of Montreal coaches—whose flavours range from start up business coaching to intuitive life coaching–will leave you feeling full of possibility and no regrets.   

Coach Buffet hits Toronto on Tuesday, November 17^th, 2009.

Lead From Your Primary Aim

Over lunch I read three disperate things and somehow decided they were all connected (or that if they weren’t, I was going to find a way to connect them!).  Aim…Aim is the common theme I see.  And the three things I read are:

1)      Chapter 12 of Michael’s Gerber’s The E Myth Revisited (E stand for entrepreneur) outlining the importance of  “your primary aim”

Gerber insists that before considering building a business, we must ask ourselves these questions:  What do I value most?  What kind of life do I want? What do I want my life to feel like? Who do I wish to be there?  Great people have a vision for their lives and they work “on” it each and every day. Like Gerber, I am a firm believer that one’s “primary aim” is the vision necessary to bring a business to life and one’s life to the business. I guide my coaching clients to develop their primary aim/vision.  I have one too. I call it into question often. It frustrates me to no end sometimes when I don’t know how to live it. Nonetheless, I am happy to have it be my guide.

2)      An announcement for a new book my coach colleague Lynn Harris has authored called Unwritten Rules: What Women Need To Know About Leading In Today’s Organizations;

While I doubt Lynn’s books follow the same tack as Gerber’s given the different focus, I am betting that the leaders she interviewed had unfailingly articulated their aims to become women leaders long before they became women leaders. I am betting their aims were clear about what leadership would look like, taste like and feel like to lead long before they were in the actual positions they now hold.

3)      A short blog post called The biggest spiritual challenge of your life is opening a business.

Perhaps this one is a bit of an outlier.  The way I see it though, it is precisely in the doing of business ownership/ leadership and in being a business owner/ leader that one is faced with huge spiritual challenges that send us reeling from time to time.  Many of the challenges are practical.  Some are existential. The true leader will go to the hard places to find answers.   The true leader will frequently sharpen his/ her aim. 

Carlos Castenada (as quoted by Gerber) said this,

The difference between a warrior and an ordinary man [woman] is that a warrior sees everything as a challenge, while an ordinary man sees everything as either a blessing or a curse.   

Be the warrior.  Lead from your aim.

Risk/Reward: The Entrepreneur’s R&R: The Little Red Riding Hood of Cupcakes

Citron & Cerise

This a.m. I sat at Cafe Momus in Old Montreal and enjoyed one of the best cupcakes of my life. It was creamy and chocolaty and just the right texture and consistency.  Across the table from me was Nadine Spicer, the woman responsible.  She owns Les Cupcakes du Chaperon Rouge  (Little Red Riding Hood Cupcakes) .  Her cupcakes are made with fresh ingredients, precision, creativity and love.

Immediately I liked this woman. Her cupcake business, which she started 1.5 years ago, was inspired by her grandmother with whom she used to bake. Her grandmother died three years ago and the cupcake business idea was born after. 

Nadine’s story shares many parallels with Michael Gerber’s fictional character Sarah who runs a pie shop.  In his famous book The E Myth Revisited (E is for Entrepreneur), Michael encounters Sarah when her business where she is up to her eyeballs baking pies because she hasn’t yet designed the business to be a “mature business” in which she doesn’t have to be the chief pie maker, entrepreneur and manager all at the same time.   At the moment, Nadine is the chief cupcake maker, marketer and business manager.

Nadine has grown incredibly as a person during her first years in business. She has become a skilled networker who can speak proudly of her business and her product. She’s had success securing corporate clients who love her cupcakes for events and she has become a regular host of a cupcake workshops at Ateliers et Saveurs, a cooking school in Old Montreal.  I note that while her next workshop is already sold out, there were 5 spaces left for September 27th when I looked! She also does cupcake parties for kids and adults.

Her biggest flop and her biggest lessons came from baking 30 dozen cupcakes to sell at a sampling event and selling only two dozen.  She felt devasted at the time but learned a great deal.

I learned that people don’t buy a dozen premium cupcakes for dinner that night just because they had a bite.   Tasting can lead to orders but it’s not necessarily immediate as premium cupcakes are for special occasions.  Anytime I do sampling going forward, it will strictly be sampling and I will take orders.

What keeps her up at night is cash flow and how to wow her clients (all her cupcakes are original designs and she often creates special recipes and decorations depending on client need).  And what’s been harder than she ever imagined is how much time everything takes to accomplish.

When I asked her what she feels she needs most she said that beyond money she feels she needs an advisor or coach to help her put everything together.  She knows her product inside out and she knows what her clients want.  Now she just needs to take it to the next level. 

My recipe for Nadine is straightforward:

• Get really clear on her vision going forward
• Put everything she knows about her business on paper in the form of a business plan that will take her to the next level;
• Focus on one niche (and at most two) to build Les Cupcakes du Chaperon Rouge;
• Take time every week to strategize, initially perhaps with the help of a coach or business advisor; she could consider group coaching if her budget doesn’t allow for one-on-one coaching right now
• Find more help with baking and decorating to free up her time to work “on the business” instead of “in the business” to the extent that she does
• Continue to create cupcake masterpieces and become known as “the” cupcake woman to ensure that many more people get to enjoy the delight I had this morning

Au chocolat

I end with Les Cupcakes’ tagline: Grand-maman les aurait adorés, si le loup ne l’avait pas mangée (Translation: Grandmother would have loved them if the wolf hadn’t eaten them!!).  May the Little Red Riding Hood of Cupcakes ride on!

Choosing and Using the Right Coach

This article was written by Peggy Grall, executive coach and author of Just Change It.  The article was shared with me by Corry Robertson, a performance leadership coach who is participating in our upcoming Coach Buffet on Oct 15th in Montreal and November 17th in Toronto.

Choosing a coach is a lot like shopping for shoes, and can be almost as frustrating. You start out with an idea of what you want; pick a few stores, and the hunt begins. It’s relatively easy to tell the ones you don’t want, that becomes apparent as soon as you slip them on. But finding the perfect fit is important. 

 So, with the legions of coaches out there, how do you choose the right one for you? Most coaches offer 15 – 30 minute complementary sessions to help you both decide if it is a fit. Here are some factors to consider:

Chemistry: Coaching is like dating, there has to be chemistry. Oh, not the breathless variety, but the coach and coachee have to like, respect, value and be energized by each other. Chemistry also speaks to personal style. Some coaches hail from the ‘kick-butt’ school of coaching, while others have a more relaxed, ‘Zen’ quality about them.

Part of your initial conversation is about getting to know each other’s approach and style; look at the pace in the conversation, do you feel ‘heard’ and does this coach having something to offer you?

Credentials:  Not everyone who calls himself or herself a coach, is a coach.  Coaching has gained popularity as a tool for achieving stretch goals, both personally and professionally, and the need for coaches to be well-trained is taking centre stage.

Find out the training and background of your prospective coach. Ask if the coach is certified through the International Coaching Federation and find out what other academic qualifications the person brings to the coaching.

Clarity:  Find out if the coach has coached other clients like you.  Ask about their experiences with former clients.  You can also ask for references or testimonials; items which a professional coach should happily supply.

A coach is not a counselor or a consultant. This is an important distinction. Knowing the type of support you can expect will eliminate confusion and/or disappointment down the road for both of you.

Charges: Of course, no professional engagement is complete until the money question has been settled.  Coaches offer their services in all sorts of creative ways; you can hire a coach by the hour or session, the week or month or even by the project.

For example, you could sign up for  ‘just in time’ coaching services; that’s when a retainer is paid and you call the coach for brief, laser-like, mini-sessions.

Contract: Be prepared to sign a contract with your coach in which you will determine what your goals are, what you want to achieve through the collaboration and what success will look like to you.

How do you make the best use of their services once you find a coach?  Be clear on what you want to achieve and use the time together strategically. Throughout the sessions together, you will determine the agenda and when you have reached a goal or are satisfied with your progress, you can call the shots and take a breather.

Having a great coach in your corner is the best insurance for success I can think of, and there are coaches with a variety of backgrounds and experiences.  If you’re in the market for a coach, take your time, ask questions and then give it all you’ve got!

Risk/Reward: The Entrepreneur’s R&R-Trois Crayons…Cards That Make a Difference

On Friday I met two very special people—Melanie and Julie Cherrier—sisters and partners in Trois Crayons , a Montreal company specializing in custom greeting cards. Three years ago, Melanie, Creative Director and original founder, bought out her two partners.  Julie stepped in as a stop gap measure to help her older sister through the transition. It worked so well that Julie is now a full partner and Director of Business Development.

Their product is striking—beautiful designs by Melanie and flawless embossed printing. What is more striking though is their relationship. They truly love working together and it shows in the way they finish each other’s sentences and laugh together.

Melanie is most proud of the quality of their product and the way they treat their clients,

Every card is perfect. Those with even the slightest imperfection are not used. And for our clients, we show up as ourselves, the same we are in life.  In this way, our business doesn’t ever feel like work.

Trois Crayons’ biggest failure came this year when they lost a major corporate banking client who traditionally relied on them for all their printed cards (i.e. Christmas, condolence, birthday etc.).  Melanie and Julie agree,

We know this decision isn’t about our designs or our service.  The financial crisis drove the bank to centralize everything with their advertising agency. We had come to count on this business so we were taken off guard.  Happily though, this wakeup call has opened an opportunity to refocus on retail which is something that really excites us. We might have missed this if we hadn’t lost the bank.

Their biggest challenge is sales.  Both Melanie and Julie have some fear of sales and this is a stumbling block to growth. Fortunately, they are open to developing their sales skills . It is the strong business owner who recognizes what she needs to work “on her business” and sets out to find it.  To create their vision of selling in the European market, having a retail operation in Quebec, and expanding offerings to include gift wrap and stationary, sales skills will certainly be needed.

The Cherrier sisters and I share a love of beautiful stationary and the art of letter writing. Melanie does a funny imitation of a an electronic greeting card and then asks me,

Do you want to send a 5 second email greeting that gets deleted or a beautiful, quality lasting gesture?

They feel very strongly that their corporate clients protect their image by sending quality and consistent messaging.  I couldn’t agree more. I just had a batch of note cards designed and printed for my own coaching business as I truly believe that nothing says thank you more effectively in business than a sincere hand written note on a beautiful card. 

I left the interview at Trois Crayons with a smile on my face and a bag full of beautiful cards.  I have already given one of them to someone important.   It was received with a big smile and a hug. That never happens when I send emails!

A portion of Trois Crayons Christmas sales proceeds are given to The Marie-Vincent Foundation in support of children who are maltreated or sexually abused.  The Foundation focuses on prevention, education and support to those who have been mistreated and their families.

A Fearful Finch Flies From the Nest

This is a departure, dear reader, from my usual topics of business, coaching and a side of tango.  It is with great delight, that I break tradition and share with you a Dr. Seuss style poem instead.

Image from Wikipedia

This poem is very dear to me as it was written by a special client I have been coaching after I read her “Oh the Places You’lll Go” by Dr. Suess during a coaching session. I don’t typically read Dr. Suess to my clients but Danielle is lyrical and creative and the moment called for the famous rhymes of the dear doc.

The poem’s author is Danielle Babineau. She has given me permission to share her poem and her name. I would not  divulge such private information otherwise.  She will be famous some day.  She doesn’t believe it yet though I believe it to be true.    Oh the places she will go!

Share her poem to the fearful finches in your life.  Reach out to her at www.livelovely.ca  She’s as lovely as the name suggests.

 

Fearful Finch

By Danielle Babineau 2009

Woe is me, I’m ten times three,

And don’t know what to do!
I’m stuck upon a branch, you see,

And my feet are fixed in glue.

 

The sun may rise, the sun may set,

But here I sit and sit,

I just keep on sitting, as if I’m knitting,

Yet, I’m quite fed up with it.

 

My tree is old, my branch is small,

The view is dull and bare,

Yet others tell me, I’m very lucky,

To have a tree to share.

 

“Others,” they tell me, “have not a twig

To sit upon all day!

“You should be thankful to have a branch

You should not dismay!”

 

So here I sit on my prickly branch,

And do my best to sort,

The bugs, the leaves,

While shooting the breeze,

And dreaming to, in short:

 

Leave my tree for greener palms,

Leave the other birds behind.

Soar to greater heights and feel the sun,

And no longer be entwined.

 

Yet, when I start to contemplate,

This daring proud endeavour,

I soon turn pale, “What if I fail?”

And crouch back on my branch forever.

 

 I cannot see the ground from here,

It is far too dark and black,

And once I leave my safe wee branch,

I’m afraid I can never come back!

 

Afraid to leap, too scared to jump

Into that deep unknown,

What if cactus needles, or long horned beetles

Await with crocodiles full-grown~!

 

What if I fall flat, making one huge ‘SPLAT”

Upon the cold hard ground?!

What if monsters, ghouls or taxmen come

Demanding my flesh – one pound!?

 

It’s safer to stay and serve those

Who dwell on nicer leaves,

I’d rather count their grubs each day

Than take the chance to leave.

 

No one notices this little finch

Nestled on her tiny twig,

No, no one sees her pretty plumes,

No one gives a fig.

 

I’m all curled up, my wings held tight

Motionless as a rock.

But, all of sudden, I’ve had enough

And at last I let myself drop.

 

From the branch, my feet uncoil

And down the rabbit hole I fall.

The bark above looks somewhat bleak

And I’m glad to be far from it all.

 

The beaks above tweet “Where are you going?”

To that I cannot reply.

But since I’ve dropped, I must concede

I’m going somewhere in the sky.

 

I’m tumbling down and down

And wonder will it ever end?

Will the creepy crawlies get me?

Do I die at three times ten?

 

I cover my eyes and wait for the big KA-THUMP!

It no doubt will arrive.

But as I peak from beneath my feathers

The speed has ceased from the dive.

 

Wait a minute! The drop has stopped!
I’m floating in mid-air!

Holy cow, I’m still alive!

I’m flying! I declare.

 

I can feel the warmest sun,

The wind that helps my flight,

I’ve never felt so delightfully free,

I’ve never felt so light!

 

My rainbow wings are now stretched tip to tip.

I’m soaring in the sky,

Why I hadn’t taken this leap much sooner,

I will simply never know why.