• CYBF went to the Canadian Aviation and Space Museum in Ottawa to promote The Prince’s Operation Entrepreneur program.
• CYBF COO Terry Campbell along with Sarah Hashem and Lesley Wilmot attended the LRC Awards held at local CYBF entrepreneur Maverik Wine Bar last week to honour some GTA volunteers. Photos here and here.
• CYBF entrepreneur spotting in Manitoba mall, photo evidence here of Lisa von Sturmer of Growing City.
• We’re even more excited after speaking to Ron Tite, keynote for our #SMIF13 Accelerator Celebration and looking forward to hearing him speak on May 28. Get your tickets here.
  • Eyewear Evolution: where are they now? after $50K #financing & #mentoring from Spin Master Innovation Fund

 Lots of upcoming events!

• Join us on May 28 at the CYBF Spin Master Accelerator Celebration and hear a keynote from Ron Tite.  Spots are limited so RSVP today!
• Are you ready Ottawa? Join Start Up Weekend Ottawa on May 24-26 to pitch, build & launch a start-up in 54 hours #SWO3
• Entrepreneurs, check out three things to consider when entering the @TELUSBusiness $100k Small Business Challenge Contest.

CYBF (and partners) in the news!

• Innovation, Technology and Entrepreneurship
• Budding entrepreneurs ready to make pitches. Congrats to four CYBF entrepreneurs making the cut!  Read the Winnipeg News article.
• The entrepreneurial journey of @CYBFCanada Chair, Clearwater Seafoods founder John Risley: here.

Great contributions from our outstanding volunteers:

• Five tips for working from home by CYBF Entrepreneur-in-Residence Dominik Loncar
• Tips on commercial leases/contracts for small business owners by CYBF mentor Karen Milde
• Great managers: measuring is just as important as they say it is by CYBF mentor Terry Thompson

Messages to tweet!

• Today is the last day for #SMIF13 applications! Get your apps in for #50K #mentoring #CYBF http://shar.es/lBD7z
• Less than 1 week to apply to The Prince’s Operation Entrepreneur by May 26! http://shar.es/l9M3Y  #canadianforces
• Get your ticket for #CYBF #SMIF13 Accelerator Celebration on May 28 & see Ron Tite’s keynote http://bit.ly/11SDEiT

Find out what happened in our regions this week:

British Columbia

• On Tuesday, May 14 BC held its provincial elections. This was the headline from the Vancouver Sun on the results: “Christy Clark’s B.C. Liberals pulled off a shocking and historic upset Tuesday, winning a fourth consecutive majority government over a New Democratic Party that has been leading in the polls for almost two years.”
• We are holding our Business Plan Bootcamp today, Wednesday, where we engage with our interested entrepreneurs at a local co-working space in Vancouver.
• We are a supporter & in-kind sponsor of Dignity Vancouver: Celebrating the Spirit of Entrepreneurship happening today, Wednesday. The event features many local entrepreneurs and great local support organizations.
• We launched our regional Facebook page – like them here! We’re also ramping up our twitter – follow us @CYBFBC!

Alberta

• CYBF Alberta team attended a great Provincials Skill Trade Show May 15 and 16. They had a great turnout with over 1,400 competitors and attendees from around the province. Check out a photo taken of a plumbing competitor here.

Saskatchewan

• Congrats to the top three @WilsonCentre #i3IdeaChallenge Saskatchewan Entrepreneurs – @FarmAtHand  #OnathaStudios @frozengear! Can’t wait to see your businesses grow into thriving enterprises. Great photos here and here.

Manitoba

• CYBF Manitoba’s Joelle Foster congratulates the rural winner at the Dragon Quest. Impressive group of entrepreneurs. Check out photos here and here.

Ontario

• CYBF Ontario team was in Belleville with Trenval Business Development Corporation last week celebrating entrepreneurship with stories of successful young entrepreneurs. Photo here and news coverage here!
• Ontario attended the @thefundingroadshow in Ottawa last week. Great presentations. Find out when they will be in your city here.

Québec

• A beautiful day for the national championships of the Concours québécois en entrepreneuriat here! Many great inspiring projects. Next week in Québec City: second part for the “Service to Individuals” category!

Atlantic

• Calling all Moncton entrepreneurs and mentors – Get your ticket for the May 22 Entrepeer event at The Keg here.
• CYBF entrepreneur Moses Robicheau interviewed on Startup Kitchen here.

Benefits of rental space versus owning

George is currently renting the space that he does business out of and would definitely consider himself to be an excellent tenant, as his ongoing lease hold improvements raise the value of the property he is in. However, he is striving to become the landlord so he can turn all that hard work and resources into equity.

Tips on commercial leases for small business owners

Write your ideal lease and negotiate with your landlord. If you are going to be a good long-term tenant they should be willing to compromise on your behalf so they don’t have to worry about constantly having a vacant space. Make sure however, that you’re not liable for major components of the building such as the foundation, roof, insulation and so on as this could prove costly.

Overcoming location challenges

Overcoming location challenges is even easier than it was in the past thanks to the advent of social media. You can sell the customer on the experience even before they have entered your door. Take the time to engage your customer and make coming to visit you worth the trip every time.

Effective workspace management

Give your managers and staff the tools, training, and environment to do their jobs properly. Make communication and procedure very clear so that everyone knows what’s expected of them and how to keep all workspaces running properly. Keep the team inspired in moving the business forward for everyone’s benefit and they will treat the workspace as their own.

“Things are challenging. After having opened our boutique coffee shop seven months ago, we’ve fulfilled about 60 to 65 percent of our monthly sales targets. We decided to hold two ultra-creative, themed promotional events with media coverage that would help make up for previous months’ missed targets.

The events were exhilarating! We received extremely positive feedback. It was inspiring to see how the mission for our unique coffee shop was being fulfilled. We fell short of our target by $400 which meant we delivered on 80 percent of our target for the two events combined. Even if we had fulfilled 100 percent of our goal, it would not have been enough to make up for lost revenue from past months.”

I asked how their mentoring relationship was going and they answered, “Oh the mentoring relationship is okay. My mentor’s given me ideas on how to increase sales. That’s been our main focus – as it should be. Sometimes I’m less motivated after our meetings. At the end of the day, he wants to see profit and little else matters.”

Let’s reflect on the above scenario:

The tempo/rhythm of our conversation was heavy, slow and clumsy to begin with (talking about missed targets can do that to anyone!), but at the mention of promotional events and seeing the business mission materialize, the entrepreneur’s face lit up; she spoke faster and had a lighter tone.

What information does this give me?

It tells me this entrepreneur’s motivation to succeed in her business is still alive and well. As her mentor, I know she is motivated by her business’ mission and I would ask myself, how could I help her make a more relevant and obvious connection between her sales targets and her mission?

Is the glass half empty or is it half full?

1. Glass half full: The entrepreneur would like her mentor to recognize and appreciate the positive outcomes from the past seven months. To her, as a first time business owner, she has made great strides. She successfully launched a coffee shop and has been in business for seven months. That’s something worth celebrating!

2. Glass half empty: to her experienced mentor, this entrepreneur needs to meet or surpass her sales target to have a sustainable business.

Here are a few next steps I would consider:

1. Suspending concern for the entrepreneur’s business and start meetings by joining in their celebration of successes by:

• Initiating a conversation about their successes;

• Bringing positive media reviews to the next mentoring meeting;

• Posting their successes on social media to show support.

2. Using positive language to help the entrepreneur help themself:

a) Address the missed sales targets by encouraging them to brainstorm creative ways to increase revenue through existing streams, and choose one to follow through with. For example, extend coffee shop hours so that it opens earlier to catch the mid-afternoon coffee run.

b) Ask the entrepreneur to think of ideas for new revenue streams and choose one that has the most promise (which would involve the least amount of money, time and effort). For example, could the space be used by other businesses during the day?

c) Consider two sides of the same coin. When sales aren’t creating enough cash flow, ask them how they can reduce their costs to make more money available. For example, consider holding a friendly contest with staff to identify cost-cutting initiatives.

3. End the meeting on a positive note – an emotional high that inspires and leaves the entrepreneur wanting more:

a) Consider doing a quick check-in at the end of the meeting to discuss how valuable the meeting was for the entrepreneur

b) Revisit and highlight the entrepreneur’s successes and build confidence in their ability to meet those targets through praise and encouragement.

In this scenario, the entrepreneur’s mentor is concerned about her sustainability. However, focusing only on the missing pieces can de-motivate entrepreneurs. If mentors start their meetings by discussing the entrepreneur’s successes in the past months, it can set a more positive and helpful tone for the hard-to-get solutions.

By Linda Morana, Mentor-in-Residence, lmorana@cybf.ca

Discussing the myriad of different items that could be measured is obviously beyond the scope of these articles. However, the following are measurements that I have found are often missed that were critical to the success of the businesses that I have managed in the past.

1. Budget for and track new sales volume and existing sales volume separately. Do not blend the two. This will require you to define what “new” versus “existing’ business is. The reasons for doing this are that:

a) The actions you take to set and achieve targets for the two are often very different (i.e. acquiring new business is usually much different from the retention and/or maximizing of existing business);

b) It better allows you to determine where you may be off plan and what actions need to be taken. Better than expected retention could be offsetting poor ‘new’ business results and you would not know this if you were blending the two;

c) Different people are often responsible for new versus existing business results. Unless you measure them separately, they do not know if they are doing well or poorly.

2. Gross margin by type of service, product line, region, customer etc., whichever is appropriate for your business. Gross margin can contain a number of components and may be as simple as sales dollars less material costs but can also include labour, shipping etc. so long as these are measured separately. Gross margin measurement in total is almost never missed, but I cannot tell you how many businesses do poorly or fail because they do not measure gross margin in sufficient granularity to know if they are pricing their products/services appropriately, and whether they are making or losing money on individual product/services, clients etc.

In my last business we provided a service that was labour intensive. One of our most useful measures was gross margin dollars per hour. This was calculated for each or our service providers and by customer. We could then allocate our variable costs (e.g. labour, fuel etc.) per hour and determine if we were making an appropriate return on the assets devoted to those clients, and which service providers were performing up to standard.

3. Cash flow versus budget. Most companies only set targets for, and monitor, profitability. Unfortunately, although extremely important, profitability is only a key component in the most important measurement – cash flow. Accordingly, not only should there be targets set for sales, expenses etc. but there should also be targets set for all items that affect cash flow – e.g. accounts receivable, inventory, accounts payable, capital expenditures, etc. Cash flow components should be monitored as closely as profitability, if not more so. Probably the number one reason that otherwise successful businesses fail is that they do not manage these items properly and then run into financial difficulty.

Upgrading the measuring, budgeting and monitoring of the above-described results in the businesses that I have managed significantly improved our decision-making, profitability and cash flow.

Should you have any questions or feedback regarding the content of this article please email me. ©

Terry Thompson, Surrey, BC, CYBF Mentor, tthompson112@roadrunner.com

Start working at the same time each day. Studies show that people who are consistent with the time when they wake up and start work are more productive. It may seem comforting that you can go to work in your pajamas but there is something to be said about changing into work clothes. Someone I knew who worked from home would begin his day by changing into his business clothes, grabbing a coffee from the nearest coffee shop, and returning home to begin working. The morning is a productive time of the day.  When I was in sales, for every two clients I reached in the morning, I would reach only one in the afternoon.

Set clear boundaries. When people call to chat, because they know you’re at home, tell them you’re working and you need to get back to a project, but that you would be happy to talk to them in the evening or weekend etc. When you set boundaries and let others know they will begin to take you seriously.

Multitasking is a fool’s game. Don’t get tempted to do household chores while doing business. It may seem like it is more efficient but in his book, Brain Rules, molecular biologist John Medina notes that multitaskers experience a 40 percent drop in productivity across the board. In addition, they also take 50 percent longer to accomplish a single task and make up to 50 percent more errors.

Get out and meet people regularly. Many entrepreneurs don’t realize how isolating it can be to start their own business. Set up regular appointments to meet people for lunch, network in the evenings, join an association or go out and meet someone for coffee. If you‘re an extrovert this will be particularly important to you and if you’re an introvert this will help you break your comfort zone in a way that can help your business grow.

Create a proper workspace. Have a separate office area. During the day you can have a messy desk and a stack full of paper but once the day is finished put everything away. Not only will you be better organized but psychologically your mind and body will know you are no longer in work mode.

Working from home can be particularly rewarding when you put the proper measures in place. Disciplined flexibility may seem like a contradiction but it just means you value your time and so does your business.

By Dominik Loncar, CYBF Entrepreneur-in-Residence, dloncar@cybf.ca

• Up to $50,000 in financing;
• Two years of business mentoring;
• An exclusive Innovation Workshop;
• Expert advice from key business leaders; and
• Access to helpful business resources & CYBF’s community of over 5,000 members.

In its third consecutive year, CYBF and Spin Master Ltd. have teamed up to offer this exclusive fund to up to ten innovative start-ups in Canada to help launch and build successful businesses, and yours could be one of them!

As a way of showcasing the amazing successes of past Spin Master Innovation Fund recipients, CYBF launched a “Where Are They Now?” campaign which follows the paths of several young entrepreneurs who took their idea to the next level including:

• Montreal’s Eric St. Pierre and Awane Moufide Jones, founders of Merchlar & Jenviev Azzolin, founder of pplconnect;
• Toronto’s Andrew White, founder of CHAR Technologies & Ilana Ben-Ari, founder of Twenty One Toys
• Ottawa’s Ryan MacGregor, founder of SweetSeat
• Manitoba’s Sean Sylvestre, founder of Eyewear Evolution

Full details, including eligibility, are available at www.cybf.ca/innovation.

Deadline to apply is May 21, 2013.

(Click on image to enlarge)

Read more about Sean’s success story and check out his blog post about his SMIF experience.

If you’re an innovative entrepreneur, apply to this year’s Spin Master Innovation Fund today! Deadline is May 21, 2013.

• Only 2 weeks left to apply for The Spin Master Innovation Fund! There is $50k financing, mentoring & expert advice
• CYBF attended the Enactus competition which came to an end at the 2013 Enactus Canada National Exposition. Congrats to all teams. Check out some pictures of teams and the forum. #ECNationals
• Ontario budget: @SousaCharles includes a welcome $45M fund to further boost youth entrepreneurship to create businesses and jobs. More info here.

Lots of upcoming events!

• Join us on May 28 at the CYBF Spin Master Accelerator Celebration and hear a keynote from Ron Tite Spots are limited so RSVP today!
• Get ready Canada @HYPERDRIVE151 is hitting the road Stops in Vancouver, Toronto & Waterloo Region. Find out when they’ll hit your city here!
• The 2013 Funding Roadshow Events across Canada for funders & entrepreneurs Find out when its coming to your area
• Are you ready Ottawa? Join Start Up Weekend Ottawa on May 24-26 to pitch, build & launch a start-up in 54 hours #SWO3
• Win $100,000 by explaining how you would overcome your biggest business challenge! Contest ends May 27 #smallbizchallenge @TELUSBusiness
• Entrepreneurs, check out three things to consider when entering the @TELUSBusiness $100k Small Business Challenge Contest.
• Want to perfect your pitch? @CYBFCanada is partnering in Fundica’s Canadian roadshows to teach entrepreneurs how to pitch.

CYBF (and partners) in the news!

• CYBF and Northwest Business Centre celebrate the business launch of Little Oak Wellness in Kenora
• Where Are They Now? Spin Master Innovation Fund celebrates past recipients

Great contributions from our outstanding volunteers:

• Is a home office right for you? Check out what CYBF volunteer Rose-Marie Almond had to say
• Commercial lease trends: things to consider by CYBF mentor Ellis Orlan

Messages to tweet!

• May 21 deadline is fast approaching for CYBF’s #SMIF13 You could be the next big innovative start-up! Apply now http://shar.es/lBD7z
• Transitioning Canadian Forces member & looking to start a business? Apply to The Prince’s Operation Entrepreneur by May 26! http://shar.es/l9M3Y
• Entrepreneurial boot camp means business for Canadian troops # POE http://bit.ly/YpSTAV   #POE
• Un camp d’entraînement entrepreneurial qui se traduit en entreprises pour les troupes canadiennes http://bit.ly/ZB1rCI  #OEP
•  Join us on May 28 at #CYBF #SMIF13 Accelerator Celebration and hear a keynote from Ron Tite! http://bit.ly/11SDEiT

Find out what happened in our regions this week:

British Columbia

• CYBF BC welcomed Paulina Lipska, Business Development Manager to the team! Find her on @CYBFBC and tweet a welcome.
• Last week CYBF BC held Entrepeer events in Victoria and Burnaby. Both had great turnout despite competing with gorgeous weather. Victoria pictures here, Burnaby photos to come.
• Jill Earthy spoke on a panel last week in Victoria at the CCSBE Conference on “Building Entrepreneurial Communities Through Collaboration” which was also moderated by CYBF’s Mentor-in-Residence, Linda Morana.

Saskatchewan

• Discover why Saskatchewan CYBF entrepreneur Megan Paul says the best things in life are free so take advantage of them!

Manitoba

• Joelle Foster from CYBF MB shows off her husband’s new holster, bought from CYBF entrepreneur Lennard Taylor. Proud picture here.
• Congratulations from CYBF to all the winners at the Company Program Awards night! Photo here.
• CYBF MB welcomes Elaine Palson, Business Development Manager to the office!

Ontario

• CYBF ON attended a great roundtable with Ontario Ministers @BradDuguid and Eric Hoskins on Ontario’s Youth Jobs Strategy. Entrepreneurship is a key ingredient!
• CYBF ON Team is excited to head to Ottawa next Wednesday & Thursday. On Thursday, we’ll be at The Funding Road Show. Find out more info here.

Québec

• FCJE attended a networking event organized by Communauté SAJE.  A FCJE  YE Chocolats Geneviève Grandbois inspired everyone with her presentation that your brand should be about your own values and your mission. See pictures here.

Atlantic

• CYBF Atlantic wished @gscottsmith @enactusSMU @ENACTUSCanada good luck at the at the 2013 Enactus Canada National Exposition!

Here are some tips to help you secure the perfect location for your business:

1. Setting the terms; get representation. Be sure to clearly lay out the terms of your lease so there is no misunderstanding with the landlord. Also, get representation so you can get the most updated information and best deals. It’s always nice to have someone represent you, or consult a lawyer for legal advice.

1. Understand the terms of the rent. Take some time to understand what your contract covers because your rent might not include everything. Read every clause and all fine print so you will not be shocked by any “hidden fees.” Everything on your lease is negotiable and there is no set standard for what should be included.

1. Protect your business. Include clauses that will protect your business interests. These clauses might include sublease clauses, in case you need to expand your business, and exclusivity clauses, to prevent competitors to be located directly near you.

It’s always better to consult with a professional and get legal advice. You want all the necessary information in order to make an educated decision when it comes to negotiating a commercial lease.

By Karen Milde, Reframe Marketing, Vancouver, BC, CYBF Mentor

About: With over 8 years of experience in Marketing and Communications, including a stint as Marketing Director, Karen Milde is all about the bottom line and marketing ROI. She is a go-getter, and prides herself on being technology savvy.

When your team starts to grow, a home office can quickly get cramped. While it may be possible to spread your team out, it’s likely that you probably want to keep a little more control over your business activities. Also, you should consider the way your business is perceived by clients and your competition. While working at home may keep overheads down and give you some tax benefits, it may also affect your business reputation as you begin to grow.

A final thought to consider is how you work as an individual. Are you easily distracted by your family or those little things you forgot to do around the house? When your home and work places are the same, many people find it difficult to separate their personal and work lives, causing both to suffer as a result.

By Rose-Marie Almond, Toronto, ON, CYBF volunteer