Resources for the Entrepreneur

I wanted to share the website for Small Business Enterprise Centre in Brampton.  It offers a wide variety of services to existing entrepreneurs as well as budding entrepreneurs.  If you are not a Bramptonite, don't despair; similar resources exist in other municipalities of the GTA.

I was introduced to SBEC by another networker who had her own consulting business, went corporate and - following a down-sizing - returned to operating her own consulting business.  I knew nothing of being an entrepreneur, and learned more than just the basics by attending the seminars put on by SBEC.  Heck, just 'taking a peek' at the reading material they have available always had me there for 2+ hours.

Here is a sampling of the seminars they conduct regularly:

• Introduction to Entrepreneurship (free)
  
• Exporting Seminar (free)
• Introduction to Marketing
• Introduction to Business Planning
• Canada Revenue Agency: HST Seminar
• Start up Financial Plan
• Understanding Social Media
• Ask the Experts: 30-minute sessions for existing businesses

SBEC has an impressive list of resources on-line and offers an amazing line-up of youth programs for the young entrepreneur. 

Their blog is Foundations for Small Business

I hope this piques your curiosity and - maybe - gives you the courage to launch your own enterprise!

Grand-maman Rose’s Ninetieth Birthday Celebration

When Grand-maman Rose turned 90, her children organized a grand party for her. As luck would have it, her birthday was on a Sunday that year. None of her children were working. I can’t remember any of my cousins being absent. No-one was missing. This time, though, the babies were ours, leaving our parents free to indulge in as much silliness as they wanted.

The party was set up in a church basement, one that we often reserved for our large family get-togethers. At 90 years old, Grand-maman Rose had more than 100 direct descendents. All of us together with our spouses (the current ones), a few friends, and the family priest, and the room was full and noisy and alive.

When Grand-maman Rose arrived, she was rolled in by her sons who had built her a throne on wheels topped with a canopy.

Grand-maman Rose flanked by my daughter in the pink dress and her second cousin, my son in the white shirt, and Oncle Raymond with a cigarette in his hand, and his grand-daughter on his knee

The entertainment committee had a full slate of talent to show off. Grand-papa Meno, gone 16 years before, couldn’t serenade Grand-maman Rose with her favourite songs and monologues. But Tante Mimi or Yolande or Pierrette would begin a song, and three seconds later we were joining in. Many texts and poems, produced for just this occasion, were appreciated by all. Great-grand children showed off their talents, and if one hadn’t prepared but was moved to participate, there was room in the program for it all. No-one was left out. It was fun and funny, touching and tender, unpolished but so sincere.

The best part of the show was put on by Yvan. Yvan trained with the Cirque du Soleil when it first started up, then joined a troupe of mimes and clowns, with its brand of acrobatic theatre. In the years leading up to Grand-maman Rose’s birthday, he was often out of town, producing or participating in shows all over Europe and the Pacific Rim countries. We were all so happy to have him with us. I was especially pleased he was there. After all, he was part of my gang of cousins from our growing-up years.

He mimed his whole show, using our children as volunteers in his skits. He did an amazing balancing act, and other bits of silliness requiring great strength and skill that succeeded in awing us while still making us laugh. He juggled balls and pins and rings. He even got Grand-maman Rose to help him juggle.  She sure wasn’t shy about flinging those pins and rings at Yvan. And she had pretty good aim, too.

As the show slowed,  Yvan reached into his pocket, brought out a long, skinny balloon, blew it up, twisted it into a hat, and put it on his head. He reached for another balloon, and made a sword that he tucked under an arm, and a poodle that he tucked under the other. More and more balloons took shape. He needed a helper, so he waved Oncle Raymond onto the stage. Oncle Raymond, taking the cigarette out of his mouth to make smart-aleck remarks, was given the balloon shapes to hold as Yvan made more and more of them. Oncle Raymond couldn’t hold his cigarette between his fingers without dropping the balloons, so he put the cigarette back in the corner of his mouth as his arms filled. The little ones, our children, were seated in the front row, enthralled, as the balloon shapes piled up in Oncle Raymond’s arms. I could see they were all coveting one.

Then Yvan stopped. With a large wave of his arm, he presented Oncle Raymond and the balloon shapes to the crowd... and halted. He craned his neck toward Oncle Raymond, pointing to the cigarette drooping at the corner of his mouth. Yvan gestured for permission to take the cigarette out of his mouth, which Oncle Raymond granted with a raspy laugh.

And that’s when, the burning cigarette held in the tips of his fingers, Yvan turned to us: Joanne, Daniel, Diane, Denis, Lison, Chantal, Carole and me. He grinned wickedly, and with a quick stab of the cigarette on each balloon, Yvan burst them all.

Our children in the front row were stricken, breaking into wails or tears.

But Joanne, Daniel, Diane, Denis, Lison, Chantal, Carole and I, we roared! This was triumph! This was our revenge for the burst balloons on New Year’s Eve 30 years earlier. Yvan had succeeded in getting Oncle Raymond back for the nasty trick he’d played on us when we were 7, 8 and 9 years old.  We laughed uproariously.  Our children, distraught and confused by our glee, could not be consoled. 

I think Yvan spent the next hour making balloon shapes for every kid in the room.  He made whatever they wanted.  But neither he nor we could wipe the silly grins off our faces for the rest of the birthday celebration.

Balloons

I had way more cousins than anyone else I ever met. I was the fifth grandchild and part of the Joanne-Daniel-Diane-Yvan-Denis-Chantal-Lison-Carole group. The younger cousins were just taggers-on: the brothers and sisters we couldn't always avoid.

The year we were 7, 8 and 9 years old, the corner store sold balloons for a nickel. They were tough to blow up, and we had to ask our young Oncle Pierre and Michel for help. But once they were blown up, they were marvellous: long, fat balloons that we could use as hobby horses, or swords, or witches' brooms. And they had swirls of colour down their lengths, making them much more exotic than the uni-coloured balloons we usually got. The cousin who gave up a nickel's worth of sweets for this balloon made us all jealous.

That was the year we all got a balloon as a gift on New Year's Eve when we assembled at Grand-maman Rose’s. We were excited, battling with our swords, scoring goals with our hockey sticks, floating in the sky on our magic brooms. The lead-up to midnight was filled with fun and food and races up and down the corridor. There was music and dancing with plenty of partners to go around. The house got hot and smokey, but the beef barley soup and the rice krispy squares kept coming.

The hinge moment – the moment of solemnity – came at midnight, when we all gathered together in the living room and my eldest Oncle Adrien asked his father to bless us all. The children and women all knelt, the men all in the more manly one-knee pose, and Grand-papa Meno gave us our blessing.

I call it the hinge moment because what came before was a crew of children full of energy and a crew of sober, watchful adults; what came after was a crew of grumpy, tired children and a crew of merry adults whose babies were asleep and whose drink or three gave rise to increasing silliness.

That year, Oncle Raymond’s silliness took the shape of a dare: whoever put their balloons on the tip of his cigarette without it bursting would get a nickel. And the lure of that nickel was great, as evidenced by the line-up: Joanne, Daniel, Diane, Yvan, Denis, Lison, Chantal, Carole and me. Oncle Raymond laughed his raspy smoker’s laugh as one after another the balloons burst.

Our precious gifts gone in an instant! There were no more hockey sticks, or hobby horses, or witches’ brooms. The fun was gone. We were inconsolable, wailing into our parents’ shoulders. I remember a glower or two thrown in the general direction of Oncle Raymond – but since he’d played the same trick on his own children, also inconsolable, the glowers weren’t very effective.

Oncle Raymond laughed at our expense and we were helpless in the face of his mischief. There was just nothing we could think of to get him back, and we sent him our black thoughts for weeks. The balloons lost their magic, and we reverted to getting penny candy from the corner store.

But every so often, as year after year we cousins met, reconnecting on Mothers' Day or New Year's Eve, or sometime in the summer, the subject of those balloons would come up. There would be a moment of surliness. It was a memory our younger cousins didn't share. They didn't understand why we would glower at Oncle Raymond. Joanne, Daniel, Diane, Yvan, Denis, Lison, Chantal, Carole and me - not one of us forgot.

Cousin-ness

As an army brat, I was the envy of my many cousins.  I lived outside of Montréal: Petawawa, Valcartier, Esquimalt, Germany.  And I travelled: New Brunswick, Québec, Ontario, British Columbia, Germany, France, Belgium, Holland and Luxembourg, Denmark, Sweden and Norway, Italy, Switzerland.  And I was trilingual: French, German and English.

But I envied my cousins.  They all lived in the same city, and were often together.  They treated this togetherness so casually.  For me, every trip, every stay in Montréal, was magic.  At family gatherings – around Easter, Mothers’ Day, New Year’s Day – surrounded by Joanne, Daniel, Diane, Yvan, Denis, Lison, Chantal, Carole, I was immersed in my cousin-ness.  It was joyous and transcended temper and moods and childish hurts.  I wasn’t the new kid in town. I wasn’t a stranger.  I was family.  I belonged. 

In the summer, we congregated on the city sidewalk in front of the row of triplexes with their postage stamp front yards and their exterior wrought iron staircases curling up to the second storey front balconies.  These apartments were sought after, with their three bedrooms, double living rooms, formal dining rooms and large kitchens.  Grand-maman Rose’s place was even better because she had a corner apartment on the second floor.  That meant each room had a window. 

When we got bored with playing cops and robbers or 1-2-3 red light or skipping rope, we would clamber noisily up the staircase, burst through the front door and follow the long corridor that bisected the front bedroom tucked under the third storey stairs and the double living room, exploding into the dining room, and then through the short hall to the kitchen where Grand-maman and the adults assembled with the babies.

They made us wait for meal times, but sometimes there was a treat.  The best was getting a dime each for a visit to the corner store to choose penny candy, or two chocolate bars, or five long ropes of red liquorice.

We’d slowly walk back to someone’s house, comparing our haul of candy.  Then we’d sit on the front steps, and savour that candy.  Together.  All the cousins with a few neighbours thrown in for variety.  But mostly Joanne, Daniel, Diane, Yvan, Denis, Lison, Chantal, Carole.  And me.

Various and Miscellany Advice for Job-Seekers - Part III

I started talking about an early Saturday morning job-seekers meeting I attended recently where I found myself interrupting people's stories to interject comments.  Several seem to be obvious, but evidence that they need to be repeated keeps cropping up.  I have given you some comments in Parts I and II about personal presentation, introductions and résumés as well as about interviews, recruiters and listening for feedback.  Here is the last installment:

Follow up e-mails or phone calls
You can't guess if the recruiter or the hiring manager is going to appreciate your follow-up e-mail or phone call.  They might find you very resourceful, or they might find you annoying.  It's a risk either way.  But hey, job-seeking is not for the faint of heart.  Just do what feels right for you.  If your approach is not working, examine the possible reasons for it.  Do you sound desperate or arrogant or tentative?  Use the leaving-yourself-a-message to try to figure that out.  In any case, if it's not working, back off.

Back off and move on
If it's not working, back off and move on.  You need to focus on what’s happening in your search.  That means you have to be pushing several activities concurrently, otherwise your pipeline will be very empty.  That might be why you find time to dwell on your lack of success.  Remember that success is defined by how you deal with failure.  So get busy filling your pipeline.

Fill your pipeline
You can fill your pipeline by
- applying for jobs
- targeting specific recruiters
- targeting specific companies
- attending networking events
- catching up on your technical reading
- attending industry events (where you are likely to meet employed people in your field)
- updating your training
- having informational interviews
- finding new trends in your target industry

Every time I went to an interview and they asked me what I did while I was "off", I was able to tell them what an amazing time I was having, books I was reading, the groups I was chairing, the interesting people I was meeting, and the things I was learning about myself.  My interviewers were invariably impressed with how up-beat I was; my sense of the possibilities was infectious.

The really, really obvious stuff
And then, there's the really, really obvious stuff: make your résumé public on Workopolis, Monster.com and monster.ca, and Careerbuilder as well as on those sites that cater to your area of expertise.  For example, I had my résumé on all reputable HR recruiter sites.  Join groups in your field on LI.  Make sure you subscribe to job posting lists or are on distribution lists of all the groups that share job postings in your field.  You should also have your résumé on the Company web-sites that you are targeting.  Don't forget to subscribe to eluta.ca and indeed.ca.  Did I really need to say this?

Go to the well, lean on the rock
Go to the well to fill yourself up.  Your well can be your family, your friends, your favoured activities.  It may also mean new friends and activities.  And lean on your rock for support and understanding.  Your rock may not be your spouse.  In the beginning, mine wasn't for me.  He was so nervous about our dwindling funds, it was hard to manage my own see-sawing emotions, let alone his.  I had to temporarily find myself another rock.  And yes, I am still happily married to the same man I was married to before the job loss.  He is still my main rock.

And then you get the job

And then you get the job.  You are excited.  You are happy to work hard.  You are so relieved that it feels natural to put in extra time and effort. And ... you wake in the middle of the night, swamped with a wave of certainty that you will lose this job, too. 

Well, thank goodness it’s impossible to sustain these kinds of feelings, because it sure would be hard to get back to work every morning!  It’s normal for self-esteem to be shaken periodically.  Make sure you save time to go back to the well and lean on that rock.  Firmly close any book of pain you might have lying around open.  Put that book back on the shelf – it does have its uses, but not now.  And open the notebook you keep of all the compliments you have gathered from people you trust and respect.  Read that.  Read it again.  And enjoy your new job.

Thank you for reading these three posts on Various and Miscellany Advice.   I hope it helps you or someone you know.  I look forward to your anecdotes and stories of what has worked for you in the land of Job-Seekers in the comment section below.

Various and Miscellany Advice for Job-Seekers - Part II

I started talking about an early Saturday morning job-seekers meeting I attended recently where I found myself interrupting people's stories to interject comments.  Several seem to be obvious, but evidence that they need to be repeated keeps cropping up.  I have given you some comments in Part I about personal presentation, introductions and résumés.  Here are more:

 

It’s the interview that gets you the job
If résumés get you the interview, it’s the interview that gets you the job.  To get the job, they have to like you.  They already know from your résumé that you have the knowledge, skills and abilities - although if they are diligent they will check this out.  Now you need to prove to them that you are a fit.  To fit, you need to solve their problems.  If you don't appear engaged and knowledgeable as well as approachable, you won't win.  Here is how you prepare to succeed:

• Answer all of the 64 Toughest Interview Questions.  Every. Single. One.  Write out your answers.  Use the STAR format (situation - task - action - result).  If you're a talker, get to the point immediately by using the RATS format (result - action - task - situation).  Figure out which questions are easy for you.  Spend extra time on the questions that scare you.  (Google 64 tough "questions", download the PDF version.)

• Once you have worked on the scary questions, phone yourself and leave the answer on your voice-mail.  This serves several purposes: Do you ramble on longer than 2 minutes? Do you enunciate and speak clearly?  Do you use appropriate vocabulary?  Do you sound confident and upbeat?  If you identify problems with this, keep on practicing and refining and practicing until your responses sound fluent, not canned.

• Some interviewers are not practiced.  If you are fluent in the 64 Toughest Interview Questions, without robbing the interviewer of his role (he needs to remain in charge), you can provide your STAR responses in the course of the interview as great examples of how you contributed in the past to solving similar problems that face the interviewer.  Use (or create) the opportunity interviewers offer at the end of the interview to showcase those really strong and pertinent STAR responses.

Most people don’t bother with this tip.  It is the single most important thing that you can do for yourself.  It is what you can control, so don’t leave how you represent yourself to chance.

Eliminate negative speak
Eliminate negative speak.  If you need to let off steam, do it with a trusted family member or friend.  In public, DO NOT EVER speak of anyone in a disparaging manner. 

Treat recruiters with respect
And as you eliminate negative speak, treat recruiters with respect.  This applies to corporate recruiters as well as to recruiting firms.  They may not call you back, and you'll never know if it's because they're overwhelmed with work or because they don't want to give you the bad news.  Unless you call them.  Keep it professional.  No whining allowed.  Of course, if you insist on shooting yourself in the foot...

Ask why
If you find out you didn't get the job or the interview, ask why.  This is the best source of feedback you can ever get.  The people you are asking have seen you in action and can provide valuable insight into the manner in which you represent yourself.  If you don’t ask, you will never know.  If you ask, your recruiter or the hiring manager will feel obligated to give you a response.  They may frame their response diplomatically, so examine that response carefully.  Be brutally honest with yourself on what you can do better.  Then go back to practicing those 64 tough questions.  See It’s the interview that gets you the job above.



Stay tuned for more Various and Miscellany Advice.   In the meantime, I welcome your anecdotes and stories of what has worked for you in the land of Job-Seekers.  Feel free to comment below.

Various and Miscellany Advice for Job-Seekers - Part I

I attended an early Saturday morning job-seekers meeting recently and found myself interrupting people's stories to interject comments.  Several seem to be obvious, but evidence that they need to be repeated keeps cropping up.  Here are some of these comments, with more to follow in subsequent posts:

You are always on display
You are always on display, even in networking get-togethers.  Others who attend may be unemployed, and the atmosphere may be informal, but please spend some time on grooming.  Those of us who become employed may very well remember you not for your qualifications, but for the raggedy jeans you always wore, or the Saturday sweat shirt.  Always dress the part of a conscientious job-seeker.

Your Elevator Speech
Your elevator speech has to be tempting.  You only have 30 seconds, so say what you are passionate about.  Sure, you are leaving a lot of great stuff out of the speech, but if that 30 seconds is packed with what you are passionate about, you will have captured your audience’s attention and – guess what – they will clamour to know more about you.  Don’t forget to return the favour and listen to what they are passionate about.

Functional résumés don't work
Functional résumés don't work.  This is because they seem to hide a multitude of sins, like gaps in your résumé or how old your actual experience is.  As an HR professional, I sometimes pass these résumés along if the experience or educational qualifications seem to fit, but hiring managers are usually just as frustrated as I am.  It's too much effort to figure out if you are worth bringing in to interview or not.  So make it really easy to be chosen.

If you don't know how, get help
If you don't know how to explain gaps or the age of your experience, get help.  Your job-seeking network can point you to some excellent resources. Feel free to leave a comment below, and I will be more than happy to make recommendations.  By the same token, if you are nervous about interviewing, get help.  There is no shame in being smart in your job search.  I’m an HR professional, and you’d think I had the interviewing thing down pat.  I didn’t.  I got help.  Now I am a much stronger interviewee.

Résumés get you the interview
Speaking of résumés, they get you the interview.  If you are experiencing a lot of activity, chances are your résumé works.  If you are not experiencing activity, get help.  See If you don't know how above. 


Stay tuned for more Various and Miscellany Advice.   In the meantime, I welcome your anecdotes and stories of what has worked for you in the land of Job-Seekers.  Feel free to comment below.

Gérard

In the summer, my aunts and uncles would spend all their time outside. This was a good thing for Grand-maman Rose since she always had a baby on her hip and loads of cooking and washing to do to keep the household going.

Gérard was a popular boy and was always good at any games going on in the park where he played with his friends from the neighbourhood. Although not many of them had been to the pictures, Cowboys and Indians were all the rage. The game was a bit of hide-and-go-seek, with house rules that included whooping and hollering (to stay in character) and using borrowed rope to tie up the unfortunate captives.  Indians divested themselves of their shirts, Cowboys didn't and they were off.  The game lasted for a good while with the kids using the trees and shrubs and walkways to hide and ambush their prey. 

Supper time came and the kids went home.  Gérard scrambled off, because being late meant going without.  Having spent the day outside, he ate with dedication.  It was only as his appetite was sated that he heard his mother remarking on the thunder clouds and wondering where the heck Raymond was.  She paced from her seat to the kitchen counter to the balcony window, becoming increasingly worried about Raymond's absence.

Gérard froze.  He hurried through his meal and he fidgeted in his seat, waiting until everyone was done - only then would he be excused.  "Hurry, hurry, hurry up!" he chanted to himself as his brothers and sisters took their time finishing the meal.  They sat around while the skies opened and the rain hit the hot summer evening in sheets.  The thunder clapped and the lightening flashed, and finally, with a worried frown and another look out the balcony window, Grand-maman Rose sent everyone off to their evening activities.

Gérard bolted out of the kitchen, down the hall and burst out of the house. Unheeding of the rain and the mud, he raced back to the park where his little brother Raymond, shirtless, was tied to a tree.  Gérard untied him and Raymond, afraid of thunderstorms, was shaking so hard he couldn't put his shirt back on. Gérard hustled his brother home, threatening to clobber him good if he told Grand-maman Rose anything about being tied to the tree.

Raymond, already frightened enough by the storm, took a tongue lashing from his mother and was promptly packed off to bed.

Gérard confided the story to Grand-maman Rose years later.  She smiled at him mischieviously.  "What?" said Gérard.  "When I found your wet clothes in the pile of laundry that night," Grand-maman Rose said, "I figured you'd learned your lesson!"