Starting Your Own Business Successfully
I get a lot of questions from people who know I have been successful in the private sector - they all seem to ask many of the same questions in regard to starting their own business. Let me start by saying I actually enjoy these questions and I love helping people out, but sometimes the truth hurts.
What starting your own business is not:
- A way to get rich quick (usually)
- Easier than your current job
- A way to avoid being told what to do
- A way to a more flexible lifestyle
Starting you own business is:
- Something that requires almost every waking moment of your time
- Sometimes not taking a paycheck
- Accountability to your employees
- Being told what to do by your shareholders, suppliers, lenders and anyone else you are reliant on
The reality of being a business owner especially in the startup stage is not pleasant. They say life imitates art, I think business imitates life - most businesses are short, brutish and poor. Most businesses fail in the first year. Most business owners walk around with a debt load after this happens and many are scared to try again. I am writing this because I believe small business is the key to the future of Haldimand's growth and employment.
The first thing you have to do is make sure what you are starting is either unique and in demand or in such demand finding customers will not be difficult. A plumber for example will rarely find it hard to get steady business here but a steel drum salesman might. Know your market and most of all know yourself. Right now transportation and warehousing are booming across Canada - these could be good things to get into but they are also high over head.
Know your means and dont live outside them. I have seen so many people fail because of money; they either spend it all or they dont have enough to begin with. Do not get into a business where you are shipping things FOB from China if you cannot afford to float your orders for weeks at a time or you may close shop. Don't cheap out on important things like Insurance - when the boat sinks you will want you money.
Don't overhire. I am pushing job creation here as my agenda but I want your business to work. For the first while you are going to be everything from the janitor to the CEO. Hiring people should be planned and should be done in very small doses until you learn the flow of your business. The alternative is to hire a bunch of people, realize half the year you only need half the people and then you lay them all off (not the best case scenario).
Location and Advertising - people need to know how to get to you and your goods and also need to know you exist. This is again something not to be overlooked. A clean modern professional retail space will go a long way in building customer loyalty (and allow you to charge accordingly). Advertising is an experimental thing that requires time to find what works best for your business - a consultant may be the best bet.
Make a business plan. Yes it is like homework, but without one you are flying by the seat of your pants. It doesnt need to be formal but it has to be the where, when, why, and how of your business. Why is your grass seed better than the competition? When is your grass seed going to be purchased the most? What happens if your supplier goes out of business? How do you plan on Advertising? You could go on for hours; but plan it to the point that you know what you will do if you get in a car accident on your way to work. I suggest you consult with the Business Development Bank Of Canada (BDC) they can help with everything including money.
Starting a business is a huge undertaking, buying a franchise may be a better option for some as they usually hold your hand through a lot of the tough stuff. The hardest part is figuring out WHAT you want to do, WHY you want to do it, WHERE you are going to run it and HOW you are going to get it off the ground.
I wish everyone success. I have met with a few successful small start ups in the county whom I am very excited for. We need more and we need to facilitate entrepreneurship at the municipal level as well as lobbying the provincial and federal government to help.
Running without fundraising
I am not sure if any of you follow municipal politics close enough to know that there is a cap on how much you can spend - but there is. For mayor in Haldimand it works out to just under forty thousand. That sounds like a lot of money (and it is) but its also only about a dollar a person.
Most candidates are put in a tough position, not only do they need to knock down doors to get their name out, but they also have to knock down doors to try and get money. The most a single person or business other than yourself or spouse can contribute is $750.00. For a mayoral candidate that means a lot of fundraisers; the best ones being 10.00 or less because receipts don't need to be issued.
I am not raising funds for my campaign not because it is difficult or because I can't, its because I don't want to feel like I owe a company something. I know that not the case (in an ideal world) but we are human, it makes it difficult to do anything for your contributors because it may be looked on as a conflict of interest. I am going to attempt to run on as much of a shoestring as possible and you can all be sure that my loyalties will lie with all of the citizens of Haldiamand County and not the ones who "tossed me a few bucks to get in".
Comments Are Back
I have decided to re-enable comments on this site. I felt that it was getting a bit off track and I didnt have the time to moderate the posts properly. I now have that time and will heavily monitor the comments - not if someone disagrees but rather if they go on a tangent or are offensive in anyway. I am hoping for some substantial and productive dialogue this time around.
Gloomy Weather and Economy
Yes I did just use pathetic falacy for the first time since grade 9; but the weather has been nothing but gloomy. For the last week it has either rained or teased raining; the week before that was insanely hot and humid. This is really bad weather for farmers. The intense heat doesnt bode well for keeping moisture in the dirt and the intense rain floods the seed. I took my ATV down to one of my fields today and saw that my stream had flooded half of the field - on a side note I saw a turtle so big I thought it was a sea turtle. Turtles live a long time and have very few preditors, so they are symbolically seen as strong, patient, stable, enduring, protective. Like owls turtles are thought to be the wisest of souls in the animal kingdom. As a political candidate, potential mayor and human being I can learn from the "one day at a time" approach that the turtle represents; taking wisdom and slowly applying it, being slow and sure to attain success.
I received an email from one of my former employees who just accepted a position in the city because he is hard up for cash. All of my former employees now are working except one who is taking his time being picky. The job the guy took is in the same industry but is scary because it is a start up being run out of someones basement. The unemployment rate this month is currently at 8.1% which does not sound that encouraging when you think that almost 1 in every 10 people you know is unemployed. The biggest growth sectors last month where warehousing and transportation as well as the service sector. Small and medium sized private companies employ a high percentage of workers. Whether it is in a start up phase in a basement or in an office tower, these companies are the foundation of our economy.
Here in Haldimand we have to develop a service based economy in order to increase employment and demand for our area. The eventual development of part of our waterfront would be a dream project that would help bring jobs from engineering to construction to gerontologist. Development in our towns and surrounding areas would be exciting to all. Commercial parks providing skilled well paying jobs seem like a dream. It takes someone with vision and the ability to make things happen to accomplish such lofty objectives.
There is a profitable future in Haldimand, there are partnerships to be made all around us, we can make this county a better place for our children our happiness and our property values.
Memorial Day and Biomimicry
For everyone unfamiliar with Memorial Day it is a version of our Remembrance Day but was specifically for the Union soldiers who died in the civil war and was later expanded after WWI. I see on my logs that my American friends read this site diligently for some reason (maybe they are still wondering why I am trying to trade business for government). Regardless, I would like to ask my American friends and even my Canadian readers and hopeful voters - to remember those today who died to protect freedom, spread freedom or at the very least died on the orders of those in charge of the county they love. Love it or hate it America has become the dominant power on the planet earth, and while controversy continues to fly surrounding the current operations in the middle east, we must remember the men and women bravely follow orders of the leadership. The reception the Vietnam veterans received when they returned was deplorable. In Canada I feel we are at least doing a good job honoring our soldiers who fall in Afghanistan whether or not I believe we should be there, they have elected to put theirs lives on the line to protect their country. To my American friends I will quote General Patton today who said: "It is foolish and wrong to mourn the men who died. Rather we should thank God that such men lived."
In a completely unrelated topic that we have the freedom to talk about because of the lives of these men, I want to discuss biomimicry. Biomimicry is not just a word that my spell check doesn't pick up but it is also a concept that is unfamiliar to many people. There is actually an interesting article on it in the Toronto Star today - it will be on their www.thestar.com online paper, just search biomimicry.
What is biomimicry? It is quite simply technology emulating nature. If you think about technology that we have invented that have stood the test of time you will see nature. The wheel for example, the circular shape and rotational motion is mimicry of a shape found throughout nature (just cut a tree into small sections) and the rotation of the earth on its access, and around our round sun with our round moon rotating around us - its a wonder it took so long for the shape to be played with and put into use.
Janine Benyus is the scientist who coined the term (Biomimicry) and has many theories involving observing evolution in nature - though I usually shy away from theories based on theories I find elements of what she has to say compelling. She explains when we look at Nature we see water being used at the universal solvent and very few other inputs which is not what we see in nature. The article in the star discusses how automakers have observed fish and birds to make their vehicles more aerodynamic. They mention a wind turbine company using humpback whale inspired design to produce their turbines. She is working on new solar cells that would be affordable and wouldn't rely on existing processes; simply by observing and mimicking how a leaf converts sunlight to energy (okay, maybe not so simple).
What does this mean for us as entrepreneurs or workers or business owners in Haldimand? This is the forefront of technology, every "problem" we can think of probably already has a simple process that exists in nature. It reminds me of the guys out in the rainforrest looking for new anti-biotics; there is no money in it for pharma companies so rogue scientists have to lead the search. One scoop of soil has enough life to keep them busy for quite some time, they find many antibiotics, but they are looking for ones that are stronger than the strongest ones we have. This of course is no biomimicry but looking to the world around us for solutions to problems whether is is process, economy or resource is becoming ever more relevant in a resource hungry world.
Haldimand can step up to the plate and design some processes that dont exist yet - we have the brains and the resources, and together we can turn this decade into a prosperous and developmental era the likes of which have never before been seen.
No complaint… is more common than that of a scarcity of money.
Money has become a dirty five letter word. The subject is an Adam Smith quote (Not to be confused with Joseph Smith the father of Mormonism). For those who are unfamiliar with Smith he is known as the father of Capitalism, which is unfair, he is more the father of modern economics (Wealth Of Nations was written in 1776). Smith was also a moral philosopher so it is unfair to peg him as a thieving capitalist, though his work is often used side by side with other "power executive" books like Sun Tzu "The Art Of War".
Smith wrote about the "invisible hand" which guids the free market economy (the one we almost live in). Supply and demand set prices and the market regulats itself. His most famous passage in "Wealth of Nations" is : "It is not from the benevolence of the butcher, the brewer, or the baker that we expect our dinner, but from their regard to their own self-interest. We address ourselves, not to their humanity but to their self-love, and never talk to them of our own necessities but of their advantages." Self-interest is what drives the economy; I think there is a huge difference between this and greed, but when addressing the problem of an under developed economy we need a few more of people acting in their self interest to stand up and kick start the economy. The opportunity exists for locals to take advantage of the wide open maket in the county and build wealth - as a municipality we need to make it accessible to those who are willing to work for it.
I often talk of "opportunity cost" which is an economic term which measure the amount of opportunity lost by perusing another opportunity. Adam Smith pioneered this by saying "real price of every thing ... is the toil and trouble of acquiring it". Modern economics looks a little bit more in depth, lets say the cost of going to school for three years plus the salary you miss from not working and then amortize that over your career and see if the cost was higher than the return. This is real cost. If we look at what Haldimand has or hasn't done over the last many years I am sure the real cost of things are either too low or off the wall. When you factor environmental considerations into the cost the calculation gets a lot more real (and realistic). Thankfully cities arent taxes on their carbon emissions yet - but I wouldnt but it past the provincial government; that cost might not just be measured in pounds of carbon emitted but in dollars and cents.
We need real solutions, we have real problems, and I will work with council to tear through the books, ensure the budget is balanced, and ensure that there are no surprise tax increases to our residents.
Religious Partisanship
I have taken a bit of a break from writing on this website. I have continued speaking with the community in person as I encounter them, but I have paused mostly for silent reflection. There have been some who have suggested that I promote my religious affiliation in order to help garner votes. I feel this is incorrect for any candidate. I am not ashamed of my beliefs in any way and I am sure most people of faith are not ashamed either. We however, live in a democracy not a theocracy and whether one is Muslim or Christian, Buddhist, Jewish, Atheist or Hindu - one's religious belief or practice should have no significance on one's ability to lead. We are all fallible and not one of us represents a tradition completely, none among us are Jesus, Buddha, Moses or Krishna so not one of us can do anything but try.
Municipal Politics are an interesting level of government because it really has to do with the little things that make the big impact in the quality of one's life in their respective city. The Province holds the purse strings to a lot of major development as well as law making and power distribution to the municipality; above that is the Federal government that deals mostly with law, international relations and trade as well as distribution of power and funds to the province. So given the scope of municipal power a mayoral candidates views on abortion, euthanasia or the criminal code is really just as irrelevant as the God to whom one holds oneself accountable to.
This job really comes down to the person whom is going to be able to lead the city in the right direction; at least for the next three years and hopefully beyond. I encourage everyone who is voting to base their votes on the platforms of the respective candidates and not on how they look or how they pray. I would hope that every candidate in this election is in it for the good they feel they can do for the county, for most of us it is a financial sacrifice and emotionally leaving oneself open to some brutal criticism.
October seems like it will never come, but it will be on us before we know it. I strongly hope change will come to this county one way or another; I know that I would be able to economically turn this county around, develop infrastructure and innovate. I strongly believe Haldimand County can stand on its own and be know for something other than south of Hamilton north of Lake Erie.
Marketing Blitz
Some of you may have read the "About Me" section and learned that my background is in marketing and advertising - specifically using emerging and traditional technologies. In the scope of this election, you may find a letter in your mailbox, a message on a billboard or a voice on your phone. There might even be people dressed in ape suits at every major corner in the county holding signs - anything to get people out to vote.
Some of you may have received a message from me today (some people received it twice - I apologize the technology is an adaptation of the American version I used to use). I am trying to get the message out as clearly and plainly as I can; it is time for change, it is time to hand over the reigns to a new generation of socially and business minded individuals. The people I have had the opportunity to meet and speak to through phone or e-mail are the people that keep me going. I hear instances of people merging old technology with new, bringing their farm online or having dual jobs, farming or mechanical and technical or the teacher with the small home based business. There is incredible diversity in this county and I am especially excited by the younger generation who have written me telling me they want to find a way to be able to stay in the county - it breaks my heart when I hear them say they want to stay and help their parents hopefully be able to keep the farm.
Not everyone around here lives on a farm and I use farms in many examples but the same problems exist in the more urban centres. There is an incredible lack of even part time jobs for youth let alone full time jobs when they are done school. We need to encourage innovation and small business development. I know of two young guys in Caledonia who have just started businesses this year, and both of them have at least 6 employee's - it is remarkable people like them that will help mold our future.
Thank you for listening to my perspectives, I know many of mine are shared by many of you. To those of you who disagree with my positions, I respect your opinion and I will represent you the best I can no matter who you decide to vote for.
Lawn Signs and Volunteer Positions
It is probably the worst possible time to announce this considering we are going into a long weekend - but I just made the functionality available on the site and though I might as well announce it. If you look in the top list of options on this site right next to "Contact Information" you will see "Lawn Sign". You can also go to http://www.ryangeddes.com/lawn-sign/or to volunteer http://www.ryangeddes.com/volunteer/. Any help anyone in the county can provide would be most welcome, a lawn sign alone does a lot for the campaign (voting being the most important). If you believe in what I have to say and would like to see some new blood in city hall then please request a lawn sign. If you have even more energy and would like to get involved please volunteer - this is going to be a big election and I can use all the help I can get.
Thank you all.
Haldimand or Dixieland
There is a little known factoid about the etymology of the word "Dixie", most people attribute it to the Mason-Dixon line (the line negotiated by Mason and Dixon which essentially set boundaries for Pennsylvania and Maryland but more importantly separated the north from the south). In the deep south, banking institutions issued ten dollar bills that had the french Dix written on them; the English speaking Americans coined the term Dixies for these bills obviously ignorant to the french pronunciation. The more appropriate application of the word is when one is speaking of the south - where the slave trade thrived.
The confederate flag as shown on the t-shirt in the above comic, is a flag that many people don't understand the meaning behind. I shake my head when I see these things being sold at gas stations or as stickers for pickup trucks. The Confederate States of America were a group of southern states that separated from the United States and formed their own country. The main reason for their succession was the right to keep slaves. The confederacy does not represent anything positive or progressive. Some have kept it around such as the state of Alabama which didn't stop flying it until 2001 and arguably this was to remember their position in the civil war, but to many in our modern society it is akin to a swastika. Alabama was also the last state to recognize interracial marriage because they felt through their interpretation of the constitution they didn't have to. It wasn't until 2000 that they finally legally recognized interracial marriages, some 1600 of which had already taken place, some had been married for over 20 years.
I'm not going to draw any parallels between our county and dixieland other than the fact that some of our residents paint their barns, outfit their trucks or fly the confederate flag. It has no relevance to Canada, and all it does is express age old bigotry and hatred which is nothing but ugly. I look forward to the day where I can drive through this county and hopefully see Canadian flags in their place.