INSPIRE – Celebrating Entrepreneurship
Date: October 1, 2015
Name: INSPIRE – Celebrating Entrepreneurship
Presenters: Terry McBride, Kate Ross Leblanc, Arran Stephens, Sean Clark, and Christine Day
October is the month for entrepreneurs to celebrate their contributions to their local communities. Moreover, it is important for entrepreneurs to take time to inspire the success of others. Small Business BC presents INSPIRE event to provide opportunity for local entrepreneurs to inspire other successful entrepreneurs’ strength, determination, and passion. The panel includes Terry McBride, the CEO and Co-Founder of YYoga, Kate Ross Leblanc, the CEO and Co-Founder of Saje Natural Wellness, Arran Stephens, the CEO and Co-Founder of Nature’s Path, and Sean Clark, the Co-Founder of SHOES.COM. Entrepreneurs will also get the opportunity to listen Christine Day, the CEO of Luvo, to discuss her journey and experience of entrepreneurship. Moreover, entrepreneurs will receive their personal advices in this presentation and discover the key aspects of a becoming a successful entrepreneur.
The Masterclass Panel
Every companies have their own culture. People can sense the culture. Kate Ross LeBlanc believes culture can attract light-minded people. Culture can identify the real values, and values should not mainly focus on aspiration. LeBlanc believes companies want to connect deeper and meaningful values. If people show they care, they will nurture the culture.
The setback can be different for many entrepreneurs. Terry McBride shares that there was a time when he sold his house to ensure capital for his business expansion. Many great leaders lead by example and they all make decisions from love and passion. Moreover, love and passion are natural characteristic of leadership.
Success does not come easy for Sean Clark. He mentions he started his business in his basement. He never gave up of becoming an entrepreneur, and he did all he could in order to make his dream into reality. The process allowed him to learn the value of dollar in business. Entrepreneurs need to focus on sales because cash flow will run out one day. For many entrepreneurs, they will face the outcome of either bankrupt or becoming the next billionaire.
The tipping point for Clark is to when he made the decision let go all his staff. Clark took the opportunity to search deep about himself and the business, which made him grow. Clark encourages entrepreneurs to spend time on personal development.
Arran Stephens believes success only fail when entrepreneurs give up. 80% of entrepreneurs fail and only 20% of entrepreneurs will continue. Furthermore, 80% of those 20% who continue will succeed. The value and principles are important, and entrepreneurs should never sacrifice money for quality. Stephens suggests entrepreneurs should only expand until they are in control.
“Entrepreneurs build business to last, not to sell”
If business is at the point of sell, McBride believes finding the person who will move forward for the business is significant. LeBlanc and Clark both agree that the person must add values, create values, and align with mission of business.
In order to maintain strong relationship, LeBlanc suggests entrepreneurs to share the right values because the right values will lead to the right direction. When there is disagreement, Stephens believes it is a good thing. Disagreement can help people understand the differences. As long as there is generous heart, entrepreneurs will find the way to resolve disagreements.
Entrepreneurs have their own ways to motivate. For Clark, it is wine. McBride will do yoga and Stephens will do garden and meditation. McBride will mediate 4 or 5 o’clock in the morning. 15 minutes of meditation is equivalent to 4 hours of energy rest. Moreover, Stephens understands meditation will inspire and energize for entrepreneurs to make better decision.
LeBlanc ensures her employees understand the values in corporation. A part of orientation for Saje Natural Wellness is to ensure the new employees are clarified with the corporate values. Clark encourages his employees to hashtag the values because it will help them reinforce the message.
“Align the value with people is critical”
The biggest challenge for McBride was when he took off the training wheel for his business too early. The result of that costed him a significant amount of learning curve. Stephens shares he once opened up a breakfast cereal company, but it failed. However, He did not give up and soon the company has silver lining. LeBlanc had once lost her trademark. Because she could not able to downsize the company fast enough, it took her years to recover the damage. Stephens also mentions there are many incubators in the industry to help startups. Moreover, they will learn by challenge their mistakes.
“No such thing as mistake; mistake is opportunity”
Stephens recommends entrepreneurs to reinvest themselves, prepare to change and change every mark. Clark recommends entrepreneurs to implement system and think big all the time. LeBlanc recommends entrepreneurs to document everything and create the right structure. McBride wants entrepreneurs to understand instead of holding what they had, they should throw it out open and understand the emotional behaviour of their customers. They need to have dialogue with customers and understand who they really are.
Keynote Presentation
Christine Day, the CEO of Luvo, believes her career journey in StarBucks and Lululemon have strengthen her to become what she is today. By helping these top brand corporations, she learned that her path of entrepreneurship does not get easier, but she gets wiser.
Day will share her top great values she learned from her experience.
Great #1: Purpose
Employees will join with the right purpose. With the right purpose, they are able to share branding experience and create loyal customers. Purpose can help people engage, and employees will challenge new problems to align the purpose. When employees are inspired with the purpose, they will stay. Day believes every entrepreneur needs to live the value and share the value. Moreover, public companies with good values create opportunities.
Great #2: Differentiation
Entrepreneurs should not be afraid to go first. They will seek what they need to accomplish their purpose. Entrepreneurs will look for white space in the market to add value to the exiting consumers. They look for patterns and analyze insights. Connection and communication are important for entrepreneurs because it can help them scale with multiple global systems. Day believes by mastering customization for consumers, entrepreneurs will seek new disruptive opportunities.
“Speak the patterns and differentiate with others”
Great #3: Knowledge
Entrepreneurs need to know the business, the frontline, and the scale. They need to know what it takes to survive in their market. Entrepreneurs need to be clear what good looks like. Entrepreneurs need to build models with good qualities. Efficient and effective are two drivers for entrepreneurs. By knowing what matters, entrepreneurs can make decision that match with the brand.
“Do not run your business with average”
Great #4: Team
Successful entrepreneurs engage with high potential team. The team can help entrepreneurs to develop strategic planning. When entrepreneurs create opportunities big enough for their team, they will build the better values. Entrepreneurs should always hand off opportunities to others and allow them to perform. Sometimes strong culture can prevent people from reaching potentials. Day believes team should not be any contests; instead, it should be collaboration.
Day believes all entrepreneurs have these 2 abilities.
- The ability to make future
- The ability to create opportunity for others
Entrepreneurs will make risks into values and allocate resources to accomplish the purpose. Great entrepreneurs know themselves well and take on great responsibilities. Entrepreneurs lead themselves and other. They also teach and coach others how to lead and manage. Entrepreneurs develop internal talents and never disconnect to themselves out of the market.
Sometimes ego can get away from ideas for leaders. When people are treating them as authority figure, they are not connecting in business. Therefore, Day suggests entrepreneurs to listen and embrace awareness and values from other people’s talents.
“Be bold and brave; if not, you will be talking about someone who does”
The scariest thing for Day is the fear of failure. Day conquers the fear by trying her best, and have confidence that purpose will get her though. The advice she will give to old self is to dream a bigger dream.
Feedback is a gift and it is the responsibility for entrepreneurs to tell others to perform well. Day advices small business owners to be nimbleness, authentic , and proximity to the truth. Many big corporations are stuck with their legacy traditions. They could not get away from the brand they created. Day believes small business owners can scale up their business by creating new attractions to inspire new consumers to buy. Do not be afraid to create new attractions.
“nimbleness, authenticity, and proximity to the truth”