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Author page: Laura Bechard

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Match Making – Unemployment and Entrepreneurship
May 18, 2016
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Match Making – Unemployment and Entrepreneurship

Low oil prices and recent wildfires will have some individuals making decisions to move away from the Fort McMurray region. Some will see this as a benefit with sons and daughters returning home to take up residence. For many years, we’ve seen our Saskatchewan farm kids fly off to work in the Fort McMurray region. As a result, farm operators have worked longer hours and looked to temporary foreign worker programs and immigrant workers to fill staffing requirements. Many sold their operations when potential successors moved away with no intentions of returning to carry on the business. They may now be having regrets. No one has a crystal ball that shows an end to the economic downturn and the return to a stable job and financial market. Statistically the rates of entrepreneurship increase with higher unemployment rates. When People cannot rely on corporate jobs, they create their own job. While…

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May 18, 2016
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Successful business with your spouse
May 9, 2016
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Successful Business With Your Spouse

Successful marriage. Successful business. Neither happens without commitment, growth, resilience, grit and hard work. As I reflect on the value of the conversations we engaged in during our marriage preparation courses, I can’t help but wonder how useful a “business preparation” course would have been. My husband was in business when I met him. When we were married, I joined him in the business. As time went by, we invested and expanded the business and are now planning to pass the business to the next generation. In speaking with other business owners who are also married, it’s become apparent that many businesses that are owned and /or operated by spouses encounter challenges related to being married AND in business together.

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May 9, 2016
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Why Don't We Give Each Other A Break
May 3, 2016
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Why we Don’t Give Each Other a Break

Managers and supervisors often struggle to understand the motivation and rationale behind employee behaviours. When those managers also own the business, the fundamental attribution error often drives decisions rather than the effective habit of “seeking to understand”. Communication, team work and collaboration are significantly enhanced leading to improved productivity from team members when the fundamental attribution error is kept in check. Give someone a break today and be more benevolent. What is the fundamental attribution error? In essence, when we look for motivations behind behaviour, we, as humans, attribute the behaviour to an underlying reason. When we think about others, we tend to overestimate the impact of personal factors (traits, abilities, motives, etc.) and underestimate the situational factors. We do the opposite when we think of ourselves. I always have a good reason for my behaviour. The devil made me do it; however, you have a personality defect. If everyone…

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May 3, 2016
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If you're like many children whose parents started a business or carried on a family business, you either want to jump in as a successor or you want to move as far away as you can from it.
April 26, 2016
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My Sister. My Brother. My Friend. My Business Partner?

You think you know your sibling and that s/he knows you. You’ve already shared many common experiences that built trust. You’ve worked through conflict and know that your backgrounds, although different, were similar. You may think you can smoothly enter into a business relationship with your sibling with all the relationship protocols intact. Chances are you have no past experience in a business relationship with your sibling. There will be bumps along the way. “If you want to do really important things in life and big things in life, you can’t do anything by yourself. And your best teams are your friends and your siblings.” Deepak Chopra When you build a business with your sibling, you improve your success by being intentional about business topics. Talk about these five topics in your planning process. Come to agreement and play to both of your strengths. Write down your agreements! Don’t rush…

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April 26, 2016
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happy, family, entrepreneur, business, grow, fast, Patience, respect, party, show, people
April 22, 2016
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Rethinking the Family Biz

If you’re lucky enough to have a business in the family, the local economic health might be prompting you to re-think your mindset about its value. If you’re like many children whose parents started a business or carried on a family business, you either want to jump in as a successor or you want to move as far away as you can from it. As layoff numbers mount, Albertans with family businesses are more resilient and see more opportunities to continue working than those who come from families of wage earners. They see opportunities to strengthen the business, perhaps through growth or through operational improvements. This is empowering! If you’re the founders of a family run business, you might be wondering how you get out of it, entice your children into it, retire, or sell it. This is a key learning moment to talk to your children, family members or…

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April 22, 2016
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5 Tips for Knockout Testimonials
March 20, 2016
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5 Tips for Knockout Testimonials

It rarely works when you sing your own praises, but can be extremely impactful when others do. You have to earn a testimonial AND ask for it. Marketing experts agree that using testimonials is a great way to build credibility and trust with potential new customers or prospects. Many business owners have a tough time asking for testimonials and even fewer have a system that helps customers write effective testimonials. Earn One Do amazing work. WOW your customers by exceeding their expectations. Edit with Care Real language works best. You may correct some typos and make some grammatical improvements, but you want the testimonial to be authentic. Never fake it. Include “Negative” testimonials Nothing is more powerful that hearing from a customer who was not initially happy with a product or service. The testimonial shows how you responded to their concerns and converted them into a fan. Ask for a…

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March 20, 2016
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identify, opportunities, business, profit, margins, clients, idea, dreams, impact, networking, network, miniature, meeting, handshake, figurine, executive, employee, corporation, corporate, connected, conference, concept, circle, chart, businessman, success, business, people
March 19, 2016
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From Idea to Impact

If you’re like me, you have no shortage of ideas for your business but you struggle to move them forward. You know you can’t implement all of them – at least not all at once. You also might not be sure which of the ideas to implement for impact. Without a structured process to take you from problem / issue to execution on a solution, you’ll fall into a repetitive cycle of “putting out fires”. Problem solving, at best, returns your operation to the status quo. Why not leverage the problem as the push or catalyst you need to assess root causes, see the big picture and identify opportunities to take your business to the next level? Common Issues: Shrinking margins New ways to penetrate the market Need to do more than just fixing problems Understanding customers better Differentiating ourselves? What’s our “secret sauce”? Processes that aren’t working very well.…

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March 19, 2016
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Motivation is what gets you started. Habit is what keeps you going. John Ryun
March 6, 2016
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The Next 100 Days: A Simple Process to Realize Your Goals

Achieving your goals requires a daily commitment and reflection to celebrate the successes and steps made towards achieving the goal as well as time to reflect upon and strategize about the struggles. Think about the next 100 days. What one goal do you want to accomplish in those 100 days? Now, break this into 10, 10 day segments and start a daily routine to accomplish each small step on the way to achieving the goal. “If you really want to do something, you’ll find a way. If you don’t, you’ll find an excuse.” — Jim Rohn Every morning: Write down what you are grateful for Recommit to your goals… In 99 days, I will: Commit to today’s #1 focus Write down 1-2 actions you’ll take today to get you closer to your goal Commit to what you will have accomplished by the end of the day Write down your action…

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March 6, 2016
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Are you ready to strip … down to the bare essentials?
February 28, 2016
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Are you Ready to Strip… Down to the Bare Essentials?

Here’s a little exercise for you to do. Think about the KEY business objective for the next 100 days that will have the most IMPACT on achieving your vision. Now, reverse engineer the optional paths to get there. Can you break this 100 days into 10 – 10 day smaller projects? Select the optimal path – the one that gets you there quickest with the maximum return on effort or resources spent. Eliminate all steps in your existing routines that do not add value – can you use some LEAN principles to improve your results? Strip away the excess “noise” in your routines. Improve your processes by making them more efficient yet still effective. You’ll gain time that you can re-direct into profitable activities or those that bring you satisfaction. At ProVision Coaching Network, our coaches help you audit your processes to make them LEANer and we’ll help you manage…

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February 28, 2016
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create, increase, profitability, profit, vision, ideas, priorities
February 21, 2016
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7 Steps – From Great Idea to Results!

Entrepreneurs are known for seeing opportunities and generating business ideas. They’re not all GREAT ideas, but without walking through the steps to evaluate the idea, you’ll just never know. Here’s a simple process to help you identify which ideas will yield the greatest results. Great ideas are evaluated in terms of business impact: Do they create increase profitability or help you achieve your vision? Generate as many raw ideas as possible – brainstorm! Plot the ideas using a matrix or tool such as the one below: Determine “where you want to be” on the map and eliminate ideas that are not aligned with your priorities. Keep them for another time. Take only 6 of the “yes” ideas and use your intuition to evaluate them – they need to be specific, action-oriented and solution focused. These are your “Good” ideas. Remember that the priority is for business results. Further filter your…

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February 21, 2016
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Collaborating with us can help you overcome your challenges by leveraging your successes. Impactful business routines and strategies can help you.
February 16, 2016
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Obstacles – Going Over, Under or Through

I was reminded today of a children’s story/song, “We’re going on a Bear Hunt” where the family encounters many obstacles on their hunt for the “big one”: long tall grass, a deep cold river, a swirling, whirling snowstorm, a narrow, gloomy cave and thick oozy mud. Achieving your vision for success in your business is just like going on a bear hunt. You encounter many obstacles along the way: some you are prepared for and anticipated when you started out on your hunt and others that surprise you along the way. Whether your obstacles are cash flow, know how, staffing, sales, facility or seasonal, there are many ways to overcome them. Just as the family in the story went through, under, over and around their obstacles, solutions to your challenges can be found. Collaborating with us can help you overcome your challenges by leveraging your successes. Impactful business routines and…

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February 16, 2016
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small, business, smallbusiness, succession, success, entrepreneurs, entrepreneur
January 24, 2016
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3 Routes to Small Business Succession

I was talking to three entrepreneurs last month, all of whom had succeeded their parents in running a family business. These conversations always peak my interest because we operate in an industry that traditionally was 100% family run: agriculture. As a business owner, succession is a key conversation for you to have regularly with your coach and your leadership team. Replacing Yourself It’s human nature to think that no one can replace us. As a business owner, you may have several people succeed you as you move out of operations / production and into leadership / business development roles. When you are in “start up” mode, you are often doing everything. As your business and cash flow grows, you begin to either outsource or hire a team to replace you in various roles or tasks. You learn to focus on what you love and do well and those parts of…

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January 24, 2016
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Leveraging Your Success