Ask For Directions – Business Training

Ask For Directions Business Training

Who is it for? Entrepreneurs who are starting and growing their businesses

This program has been inspired by the Grow Vantage training program. For the past 17 years, we have trained entrepreneurs to start up and grow their businesses, in an in-person environment. The program is consistently updated and taught by experts who are also entrepreneurs with their own businesses. We train the practical side of business and during the past year of the pandemic, we’ve updated and expanded the information we teach – adding 60% more content and sequencing classes from the idea stage to exit strategy.

What is the program made up of?

7 Modules of classes (from 5-6) released once per month:

Set Up Your Business: 3 modules – covering business concept, set up and registration, initial marketing approach and brand, insurance and financial guidelines

Grow Your Business: 4 modules – covering communications, personality profile, and personal skills, sales, marketing strategy and vehicles(advertising, media, PR), rules and regulations (including HR, privacy rules and contract guidelines), financial planning, accounting and cash flow.

Weekly group coaching calls throughout the program for mentorship, advice, analysis, strategy and peer mentorship.

A private Facebook group to enhance community collaboration

When does the program begin?

Doors will open on May 21st and the program will begin with a group call on May 19th

Registration: Will open soon

For More Information Contact: 

Patricia Dent, Business Mentor, Grow Vantage

[email protected]

Bus: 705-727-0789
Cell: 705-229-4969

 

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Building Blocks to Business Bootcamp

Building Blocks to Business Bootcamp: ** (Friday May 14 – Saturday May 15)

When: Friday May 14th12:00 noon, and Saturday May 15th

Do you want to start a business? Or have you started one but aren’t sure that you are on track?

Think about it: are you tired of the extra pressure of working for someone else? Of doing the work that someone dumps on your desk? Work that may have very little meaning? (At least to you?)

You may already be working from home. Wouldn’t you love to stay there – only be doing something for your family, doing something that has an impact on the world, or working on your own business – for your family and for you? Putting your family’s schedules and needs first?

Is this the right time to start a business…. In the middle of a pandemic?

Well… yes. It can be. Why?

Businesses have learned a lot from this pandemic – how to get around restrictions and what is needed to grow – even in this environment

Vaccinations have begun to be distributed widely which means although we’ll be restricted for a little while – it giving new businesses time to prepare.

Finally, typically an economic downturn is followed more often than not by accelerated business growth. The economy actually began to recover last summer as businesses opened up…

And BDC (the Business Development Bank of Canada) has projected a growth rate of 4.5% GDP this year (assuming vaccinations continue).

Now is the time to learn what needs to be learned to start a successful business!

But: What if you don’t know where to start?

What if you aren’t sure about what’s involved?

What if you could benefit by learning how to reduce the risk of starting a new business as we come out of a pandemic?

Building Blocks to Business Bootcamp is a 1 1/2-day event from May 14 – 15th in which we will prepare potential business owners to start their businesses with confidence. Note: our original time frame was postponed a week to allow people to better manage their schedules in a lockdown.

Building Blocks to Business Bootcamp:  what you need to know:

What will you accomplish?

  • Turning your dream into reality
  • Stages of becoming an entrepreneur
  • Identify your resources and skills
  • Reduce risk
  • Maximizing money (investments, pricing, revenue)
  • Determine what you’ll need to plan and prepare
  • Develop your entrepreneurial mindset
  • Tools and techniques
  • Where do you start?
  • And more … including case studies

You are invited to a webinar.
When: May 14, 2021 12:00 PM Eastern Time (US and Canada)
Topic: Building Blocks To Business Bootcam
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Fee: $197.00 + HST ($221.61)

Register in advance for this webinar:
After registering, you will receive a confirmation email containing information about joining the webinar.

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Canada Job Grants Program

keyboard key with the word Learning

For the last number of years, each fiscal year, (April 1st to March 31st), the Canadian government provides funding to employers to invest in training for their employees. 

The Canada Job Grant provides direct financial support to individual employers or employer consortia who wish to purchase training for their employees. It is available to small, medium and large businesses with a plan to deliver short-term training to existing and new employees.

The federal government works with each province to roll out these grants.  The particular programs we were able to locate were; the Canada-Alberta Job Grant, the Canada-Ontario Job Grant (COJG) and the Canada-Saskatchewan Job Grant

Generally, employers can get up to $10,000 in government support per person for training costs. It is important to note though, that in the Ontario program at least, municipalities are not eligible for this funding.  So while each program is similar, eligibility criteria can vary from province to province so be sure you check the program offered in your province. 

If you’re a Canadian employer with a particular skills demand, the Canada Job Grant might be right for you. 

And, if you’re a muniSERV member don’t forget you’re eligible for member discounts off any of muniLEARN’s digital training solutions that ensure your investment in training is aligned with today’s expectations for your people and your organization.

Contact us and we’ll help you find the right courses to address your needs.

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Free Webinar – Understanding & Managing People from Different Cultures

Understanding & Managing People from Different Cultures

We’ll discuss;

  • Different Levels of Culture;
  • Cross-Cultural “Do’s” & “Don’ts”; T

Teams; Management; Front-Line Employees; Recruiting; Inclusion; Tools

Date:  Feburary 28, 2020 at 1:30 PM Eastern Time (US and Canada)

Join me at this link and use Meeting ID 594-361-235

See my profile to learn more about how I can help your municipality.

Logo for Cultural & Generational Training

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Managing Difficult Client & Situations Public Workshop

This course qualifies as one prerequisite towards CCSS© designation

Does your organization work with difficult clients? Are you interested in learning how to manage your stress and handle complicated circumstances while at work? If you answered yes, then this program is for you.

This workshop is designed to teach you all about the art of dealing with difficult customers and scenarios while at work. You will learn how to manage conversations, empathize with clients, identify triggers, negotiate, and most importantly, protect yourself physically, emotionally, and mentally on the job.

February 27 2020 – 9:00AM – 4:30PM

For more information, please click here

To Register, please click here 

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The Art of Story-Telling – The New Marketing?  

Everything I’ve been reading lately tells me that people love a good story and that story-telling is a way to position yourself as an authority in your field.

Anyone who know me well, knows I’d much rather tell a story than create marketing material.  Full disclosure here – marketing is not my forte and marketing to me often feels forced and unnatural.  That’s just not who I am.  I want to help people, not “sell” to them!

However, I do recognize that marketing is critically important to the growth of any business.  After all, people need to understand what you’re selling and how it can help them, if you want your business to succeed. 

So, let’s give this a try.  I thought you might be interested in knowing why I created muniSERV and why I’m so passionate about helping both municipalities and my professional members alike.

In case you didn’t already know, earlier in my career, I was a municipal Chief Administrative Officer (CAO), in small and medium-sized municipalities in Ontario.

We wanted to continually improve service delivery and operate more efficiently but with shrinking funding and legislation constantly changing, we were increasingly under pressure to find new and innovative ways to collaborate and streamline operations.   

Frustration #1

It used to drive me crazy when I needed to get 3 or more quotes in compliance with my purchasing by-law, but I didn’t know where to find companies or professionals who provided the services I needed and often couldn’t find one!  (I’m dating myself here, but the introduction of Pay Equity legislation comes to mind as an example).

I’d call a neighbouring municipality to see “who they used”, but every municipality’s needs are different, so a one-size consultancy doesn’t necessarily fit all.  We couldn’t afford the large firms but were legislated to comply the same as larger municipalities who could afford them. There was nowhere to search for more servicing options (i.e. smaller, independent consultancies, early retirees, etc.).  The result of this frustration – the development of the Find Municipal Experts & Services database.

Frustration #2

The RFP process also frustrated me (still does actually). RFP documents were time-consuming to develop, costly to advertise and opportunities for exposure were limited, with no focus on my target (posting in newspapers comes to mind). This resulted in limited and often no responses. A big waste of time and money! The result of this frustration – municipalities can post their RFPs, Bids & Tenders for free on muniSERV and our partnership with bidsandtenders gets them broader, national exposure and tracking of plan-takers capabilities, resulting in more responses and ultimately, more competitive quotes.

Frustration #3

Fortunately, in the municipalities in which I was CAO, we didn’t have too many job openings.  In fact, I am pleased to note that some of the folks I placed in positions after restructuring almost 20 years ago, are actually still working in the same municipality!  But, when we did need to post a job, the price was high, there were limited places to post it and the ROI was low, often with no one responding to the job ad.  The result of this frustration?  Working with municipalities to develop muniJOBSCanada’s only online recruitment and career platform that brings municipalities and talented people together.

Frustration #4

I’m a big believer in coaching and mentoring people to become tomorrow’s leaders.  But, sending someone away to a course was out of the question by the time you considered; the cost of the course, the travel, the accommodations, meals, and time away from the office.  The result of this frustration?  muniLEARN – that provides digital training solutions for today’s environments.

There are numerous other resources, tools and strategic partnerships we’ve developed along the way and I don’t want to go through each one here. But by now you’ve guessed it – the common theme here is that every one of them was developed out of a frustration I felt in the CAO role – and I knew I was not alone! 

CAOs are busy people. They don’t have a lot of time to research things and in smaller municipalities they often don’t have the staff resources to do this for them either.

It seemed to me to be a no-brainer that municipalities should be able to go to one platform and quickly and easily find what they need – all in one convenient location.

But that’s not the end of the story!

All of this led me to thinking though, well, then how does a new or smaller consultancy or someone with a new municipal product or innovation for municipalities, reach municipal clients?

When I first entered the consulting world, I’d often hear complaints from professionals, that they couldn’t get past the gatekeepers in municipalities and that attending municipal conferences was cost-prohibitive for them as a new consultancy or business just starting out.

Then, when CASL (Canadian Anti-Spam Legislation) became law, this further eroded their ability to reach municipalities because it eliminated their ability to send emails to them. (and honestly, with my CAO hat back on here for a minute, if I didn’t know who was emailing me, it went straight to my trash folder) 

I realized there was a real disconnect here. 

Lightbulb moment!

The result of these two merging pain points; a) municipalities not being able to find consultants and services, and, b) consultants and professionals not having one location to market effectively to municipalities, is the premise of muniSERV.ca – “Connecting Canadian Municipalities and the Businesses That Serve Them.”

So, there you have it.  That’s my story.

I hope it helps you understand my passion for helping you, why I’m always working on your behalf to find new ways to do things – and why I will continue to always think outside the box! 

Please feel free to reach out to me at [email protected].  I’d love to hear Your Story!

Susan Shannon is the Founder & Principal of muniSERV.ca, muniJOBS.ca & muniLEARN.ca

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Free Webinar – Cultivating Collaboration

I am very excited to extend this special invitation to register for Emergenetics Canada’s Complimentary WebinarCultivating Collaboration presented by Bridgit Parise, COO and Master Associate, Emergenetics Canada.

October 24, 2019 at 1:00pmEST / 10:00amPST.

Learn how to leverage the process of divergence and convergence to realize the potential of cognitive diversity.

Effective collaboration is much more than harmonious agreement or efficiency. Collaboration requires teams to navigate ambiguity, unearth bold ideas, and embrace new ways of working – one that harnesses the power of diverse perspectives and creative thinking to push past the obvious, safe solutions to the truly innovative ones.

Register Here.

If you have questions, please contact us at 905.636.0797

Gail Green
President
Emergenetics Ontario
[email protected]
(905) 636-0797 – Work | (905) 749-4444 – Mobile
www.emergeneticsontario.com

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Top Business Apps: 15 Apps That Will Make You Insanely Productive

Testing out the top business apps to use as a freelancer can take a lot of time. The good news though, is that I’ve done the work for you!

After spending several years as a self-employed biz owner myself, and working with a team of 3-4 people, I’ve tested out lots of different tools and apps to help streamline our business process.

This has allowed me to be more productive, as well as earn more money in less time.

From managing financial goals, to working with clients, to balancing everything on the go, we all want to work smarter not harder.

Likewise, you have big business goals and to accomplish them you need some serious apps to be more productive. And you want tools that stop you from wasting a lot of time and money!

To that end, here are the top business apps that will make you insanely productive so you can run your biz like a boss. They can help you make your business a massive success this year!

Read the whole article here to find out these time-saving tips!

By: Carrie Smith Nicholson

https://www.carefulcents.com/

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