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July 17 – July 30, 2008 Vol. 5, No. 14

Growth strategies: How Revision Eyewear built its platform for global expansion

Financing: A new source for startup capital

Great Ideas: Find the opportunity in sales objections

Management: Are you still the right person to run your company?

Peer-to-Peer: How can I encourage my team to go the extra mile?

About PROFIT-Xtra


Growth Strategies

How Revision Eyewear built its platform for global expansion
By leveraging his company’s flexibility both in its production and management, Jonathan Blanshay, CEO of Revision Eyewear, has proven he has what it takes to thrive in new markets. Here’s how his little company from Montreal conquered tough military markets worldwide, and grew to become one of the biggest military eyewear developers in North America — and one of Canada’s Fastest-Growing Companies.

FULL STORY


Financing

A new online community wants to connect more startups to capital
Venture investors have a long history of scolding fund-seekers for their failure to relieve a real “pain” in the marketplace. Now a group of investors is planning to walk the talk with VenCorps, an online community built to relieve startups’ great ache: finding the financial and human capital they need to gain a footing and grow. It hopes to accomplish this by applying mass collaboration to venture investing. The best part? Anybody can get involved.

FULL STORY


Call for entries

Why Innovators Alliance?
Our members say it best, like Murray Gamble, President of The C3 Group of Companies: "I have been a long-time member of Innovators Alliance and have found it to be the absolute best business resource for high-growth companies. The C3 Group has been fortunate to experience more than a tenfold increase in revenue over the last decade, and my association with Innovators Alliance was a key in overcoming several barriers to growth along the way."

Visit www.innovators.org or call 1-877-799-5001 to learn about our vibrant CEO network, connecting like-minded leaders of growing firms in seven chapters across Ontario. Proven solutions are but an IA meeting away!


Great Ideas

Find the opportunity in sales objections
Most salespeople view objections as roadblocks, says Linda Richardson, a Philadelphia-based sales training specialist, in Perfect Selling: Open the Door. Close the Deal. But objections can be the road to closing sales, if you can resolve them. Richardson offers four keys to turning an objection into a sales opportunity.

FULL STORY


Management

Changing of the guard
If you head up a growing business, writes Brian Scudamore, you’ll eventually have to ask yourself: am I still the right person to run this company? In this eye-opening PROFIT column, the CEO of 1-800-GOT-JUNK? tells us how he faced that question when he realized he was too buried in operational details to keep 1-800-GOT-JUNK? going full steam ahead.

FULL STORY


Podcast

Get paid faster!
What types of payment processing are best for your business? Business Coach podcast host and PROFIT editor Ian Portsmouth speaks with Brian Green, Senior Vice President of North American Marketing & Gateway Services for Moneris Solutions Corporation, about the benefits of switching from traditional accounts receivable processes to direct payment. Don’t miss this revealing episode and many others at PROFITguide.com.
 
LISTEN NOW


Peer-to-Peer

How can I encourage my team to go the extra mile?
The CEO of an Oshawa, Ont.-based wholesaler writes to ask PROFIT-Xtra readers:

"My company has grown from five key staff members to 30 employees in seven years. Because we’re a small company, I’ve tried to instill in my employees the value of pitching in to get the job done regardless of job description or pay. Yet, day in, and day out, my staffers go home at five on the nose, even when there’s a major deadline or a lot of work to still be done. If I ask them to stick around, I run into resistance and attitude. We can’t pay as well as our competitors, but I reward my staff in other ways, such as opportunities for career advancement, flexible hours and company BBQs and Christmas parties. My senior sales team and I do not carry this nine-to-five, “that’s not my job” attitude. How can I encourage my team to be more entrepreneurial? Why don’t they care more about my business?"

If you have experience or advice to share, send it to Peer-to-Peer. If we publish your answer in next week's issue, you could win a copy of Executive Genius: How to Build a High Awareness Company by John Selby & Ahmos Netanel. (Respond anonymously if you wish. Published answers will be edited for length and clarity.)

Have a question for your fellow entrepreneurs? Send it to Peer-to-Peer.


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Editor: Ian Portsmouth

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Questions, comments or story ideas? Please contact PROFIT-Xtra.

ISSN # 1712-1701 PROFIT-Xtra

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