Awards Gala

The Chinook Entrepreneur Challenge Committee is excited to announce the winner of the $15,000 cash prize plus over $5,000 in in-kind services for 2007.

The winner is:

Titan Contract Welding – Kerry Weiland, Wardlow, AB

This year the runner up for the grand prize was Wendy Devent owner of Paws on the Run Pet Services Ltd, a local company that has just recently opened its doors. As Jacquie Penner, Dean of Business at Medicine Hat College and judge for the Chinook Entrepreneur Challenge said, “the contestants’ plans must go through an intense screening and judging process to make it to the Awards Gala. Even though both plans did not receive the grand prize, just getting this far is a testament to the quality of their business plans.”

The top two finalists presented to a crowd of more than 50 at the Awards Gala in Lethbridge this weekend including the sponsors, screeners, mentors, judges and local business people who made the Chinook Entrepreneur Challenge a success.

Chris Lindeman, Chinook Entrepreneur Challenge Coordinator said, “it was great to see such a wide variety of plans come in this year from such a wide area. We expanded this year and got registrations and business plan entries from every new area. It was exciting to see a contestant win from outside of the Lethbridge and Medicine Hat which are the major economic centres in the area that the Chinook Entrepreneur Challenge encompasses. It just proves that the Challenge is reaching the smaller areas and diversifying Alberta’s rural economy.”

The winner received $15,000 in cash to be used within their business as well as services from Meyers Norris Penny LLP and KICK Creative Group. – which will assist them to promote their goods and services. Congratulations again to Titan Contract Welding and Paws on the Run all look forward to seeing their businesses develop and grow!

Seminars Are Over

Hello,
On behalf of all the program partners, sponsors, and those affiliated with the Chinook Entrepreneur Challenge, I would like to thank Craig Milner for the great job he did over the past two months. I would also like to thank all the participants of the CEC for their continued support and for their business plans.

The screening round will officially start at the end of this week. I wish everyone who submitted a plan the best of luck.

Seminars Winding Down

This is the final week of seminars. I hope they have proven useful to everyone who attended. As promised by Craig last week there is a teamwork article and example of an offer letter posted on the website. Also, here is the link to the Human Resources site he was talking about... http://employment.alberta.ca/cps/rde/xchg/hre/hs.xsl/4339.html. I have looked at it and it is quite thorough.

We have this weeks seminar then the business plans are due on August 10th. Good luck finishing your plans. I hope it all goes off without a hitch. See you on Thursday.

Financial Help

Hello Everyone
As promised there is a website that will help you gauge your business by comparing your financial statements to those of the industry norms all across Canada.

It is called Performance Plus. In their own words:

"Performance Plus is an on-line performance benchmarking tool. It provides detailed financial and employment data on more than 600 business sectors across Canada, including more than 30 performance benchmarks to help small businesses determine how they measure up against their competitors.

This tool uses the Small Business Profiles (SBP) created from a sample of Revenue Canada tax returns for both incorporated and unincorporated businesses operating in Canada.

Performance Plus gives instant access to benchmark financial data that can help small businesses construct a business plan. This tool also helps new and established firms find out where they stand as compared to a relevant industry average. Performance Plus assists small businesses in making the best operational decisions - quickly, simply and effectively."

The website is http://SME.IC.GC.CA. It is an interactive website to tailor to your business/industry. To use it first click on build your own profile, then use the 2004 data because it is the most recent. Then select the area, business type, and expense data units (I recommend $ instead of %). In the next screen you will need to choose and industry. Then simply keep narrowing it down until you have only on left to choose and click create report.

This is an amazingly powerful tool and great to compare your business to the industry for projections.

Seminar Material

We are under way with finance material. Last night we learned the different avenues to raise capital from a senior partner in the top 10 accounting firm MNP. Next week we will address the different financial statements that need to be included in your plan.

Keep in mind that we have a very small amount of time and a very large amount of material to cover. Therefore, a lot of the material will be surface level material. If you wish to delve deeper into some particular subject matter, ask questions during the seminars. I am supremely confident in our instructors, guest lecturers, and other resources at hand to answer your questions. I also can guarantee, that if you have a question, at least one other person has that question as well. Also, it gives the instructors something else to work from other than there slides, and perhaps the real world examples that come out of questions may be very useful to you.

On another note, this blog is designed to be a discussion board. It is dynamic so if you would like to post a comment or question here click "comment" on the bottom of the blog and I will respond as quickly as possible. If you have tried this in the past and failed, I have changed the settings to allow anyone to comment on the blog. So if you have a pressing question or hate speaking in the midst of a group, post a comment on here, and I will respond either by email or the blog itself.

Have a safe long weekend.

The Foundation of Success

The author of the best selling book series Rich Dad, Poor Dad Robert Kyiosaki, said, "Education is the foundation of success. Just as scholastic skills are vitally important, so are financial skills and communication skills."

In his books Kyiosaki had two fathers. His own father, a very prominent government worker in Hawaii, well respected and with a big income. However, he never was truly "rich". This dad was awarded for spending money and hiring people. He also had a very close friend who's dad was a smart investor and wise business man. He was truly "rich". He was awarded to cutting costs and maximizing profits. Growing up with both allowed him the unique experience of being able to choose between both lifestyles. He chose his rich dad's lifestyle, he doesn't have a traditional job, but is one of the most successful men in Hawaii. Granted, he started buying land and starting business during Hawaii's tourism boom, but still. The gist of his books is invest in something that will get you where you want to go and invest wisely.

Since reading his books I have realized, almost to late, that if a penny saved is a penny earned...a penny wisely invested is a dollar earned. (I even came up with that saying myself)

You are all investing in your business. This entire Blog Post was building up to this. Invest wisely. If you're financial statements don't work, perhaps you have to revise before going ahead with your idea. Even if you have the best idea in the world, make sure it is feasible. Owning a business is only good if it can support you (and your family). I'm not saying give up, just rework/rethink the details. This is where the mentors come in and if they say this may not work, ask why, don't get mad at their opinions.

Finance Templates

If you remember, I said I was going to post some financial templates on the website. I was in the process of drawing some up when I was directed to a website that had everything we will need and more. It is http://www.score.org/template_gallery.html. This website has every financial template that will be included in your plan with explanations and answers to FAQ's. It is more in depth than I was going to go and all around a better format. I encourage you to take a look at them, even if you are not planning on using them, they may still remind you of a hidden cost or a cost you may not have thought of.

I will see you all Thursday for the 4th seminar.

Legalities

For the last several weeks I have been trying to put into perspective the benefits of our seminars. I have emphasized the fact that you cannot get classes like this except in a university setting, and then it would cost you upwards of $500.

I cannot put into words how valuable I believe these seminars are in developing a solid business plan which is the base for a solid business. However, there are some things that we may not cover because we simply do not have time. Because each industry is different, legal issues are big issues we expect that you will know.

If you are a regular reader of this blog you will know that Found|Read is an insightful resource I quote constantly. It is geared toward tech businesses but is applicable to any industry.

The last article I read was about a big time case being held in San Fransisco right now. It is at http://www.foundread.com/view/greg-reyes-day-in. Anyways, it made me realize how important it was to "cover your butt", so to speak, and make sure your actions or the actions done on behalf of your company are legal. This applies to every facet of your business. Employment, benefits, pay, incentives, and financial statements are increasingly under review by watchful government human rights/business officials.

Remember, as Eliot Spitzer, current Governor of New York, stated, “Never talk when you can nod, never write when you can talk, and never, ever, put anything in an email.”

On a different note, I have been asked some questions about some business plans. To be fair and to remain impartial about every business plan entered in the competition here are the answers that I gave to the questions.

If you are in doubt about the content of your business plan, have an outline of the bare essentials, it will help keep you on track. If the business is expanding, you need to give your best judgment and weigh the plan between the expansion and the current business. Remember, the judges need both background on the current business and details on the proposed expansion. If you are opening multiple businesses I will answer in the form of a question to get you on track... What is your main business? Are you opening business A to support business B or vice versa. If they are two separate entities all together, I'm sorry, you have to choose only one to enter the competition.

I hope this helps.

Seminar 3

Just a reminder that seminar 3 is this Thursday. I am working on mentors for those who wish to be paired with them.

Hopefully everyone has started researching market information as we talked about last Thursday. Another thing to think about and research is competition. We will talk more in depth about this during seminar three, but just to get you started...

There is direct competition and indirect competition. For example, if you were to open a movie theater. Direct competitors are other movie theaters. However, there are other ways people may wish to spend there evening rather than watching movies. They could go to the driving range, go carts, horse races, the list goes on. Those may not be the same business as yours, but they are an equally effective way to entertain one's self for an evening. So... you may be the only one with your product or service, but you will always have competitors.

This is important for raising capital. If you say there are no competitors in your field, you may want to rephrase that to there are no direct competitors in your field. If you simply say there are no competitors it tells the people you are making your pitch to that maybe you didn't do your homework well enough.

This is only one topic we will cover next seminar. I hope to see you there.

Marketing

Many people think that marketing is synonymous with advertising. The truth is advertising is only a small part; a single step in a never ending process.

The American Marketing Association defines marketing as:
"the process of planning and executing the conception, pricing, promotion and distribution of ideas, goods, and services to create exchanges that satisfy individual and organizational objectives."

This is obviously a very important part of planning your business. Therefore, in our seminars there are two weeks allocated for marketing, the 4 P's (product, price, place, promotion), target markets, SWOT (strengths, weaknesses, 0pportunities, threats) analysis, market potential, product life cycle, etc. All these things are crucial to knowing the environment your business is currently in and planning for "what if" scenario's.

In our seminar last night one of our speakers mentioned statcan.ca. This is a fantastic website to do some research on your market, its potential, and your place in it. There is another government website that I would like to direct your attention to; Industry Canada. It is a website with fantastic resources that goes more in depth about what we were talking about last night and what we will talk about next week.

Specifically, http://strategis.ic.gc.ca/epic/site/stco-levc.nsf/en/h_qw00016e.html talks about marketing if your still a little hazy. On the right hand side there is a link that takes you to an interactive worksheet that helps you to assess your strength in the market. One thing the government does is make pretty decent websites for the people needing more business information.

There is tons, literally tons, of information on marketing and examples of anything you may want about business plans, online. This wealth of information does come at a cost. Sometimes it is not a reputable site. Just be aware of this fact. Usually government websites are pretty reliable, so they are a great starting place.

Good luck marketing and I hope to see you next week.

Great Resources

At our seminar last Thursday Craig reminded everyone that research is a key component of the business plan. In my mind, if you do not do research on your business, market opportunity, or target market, you are unprepared. If you are struggling with research the Chinook Entrepreneur Challenge (CEC) website has some great resources at http://www.chinookchallenge.com/Resources.html. There is everything there from sample plans to assistance in financial planning to government research pages (stats can). I have not had the opportunity to browse all 70 websites, but I will direct you to some that encompass what we talked about this week.

I would like to draw your attention to the Business Development Bank of Canada (www.bdc.ca). If you browse it you will find:
You can customize the site to your industry sector
Step by step how to guide to start your small business
Sample Plans
Financial templates (very in depth)
but also....
A self Entrepreneur assessment.

All these things will give you a great understanding of what you are up for.

Also, for research purposes, the government has some excellent statistics. On the CEC Resources site there are over a dozen sites that would help. I hope this gets you started in the right direction. See you at the next seminar on Thursday, June 14.

Seminars Started

Seminars officially started Thursday, June 7. It was a success... minus the technical difficulties. I would like to thank everyone who spoke and attended and invite all those who may want to learn more about starting a small business. They are free to all those who are looking to start a small business in the area (See http://www.chinookchallenge.com/Participant%20documents/Chinook2007Handbook/index14.html to see if you are in the CEC area).

These seminars are invaluable, and FREE. We have lined up excellent speakers and seasoned entrepreneurs to give advice and guidance. We also have a mentor program that teams up participants in the Chinook Entrepreneur Challenge to business people in the community. They are their for support and guidance during the business plan writing stage. If you would like a mentor please let me know during the next seminar, June 14.

Some food for thought....

I read a post today on FoundRead.com. It is an amazingly insightful blog site where seasoned entrepreneurs of the very fast paced web industry in Silicon Valley post their thoughts and ideas. If you are an aspiring entrepreneur, in the web industry or not, I strongly encourage you to read the articles.

Outcomes vs. Activities by Chris Michel struck my interest. He said that it is critical for founders to know the difference between activities, the means to an outcome, and outcomes. The reason for this is that people, especially founders, should ensure the essential outcomes of your business are complete and stay focused on those outcomes. He states, and everyone can attest to this, that it is easy to get sidetracked and waste a day or two, or more, on activities that are not as important. In other words, it is easy to stay busy, but stay busy doing the things that matter most to your business.

Entrepreneurs especially need to keep this in mind because there are so many things pulling them in so many directions that it is easy to lose focus. For the full story go to: http://www.foundread.com/view/outcomes-vs-activity.

These are some of the things that our instructor, a local business owner himself, talked about during our first session. Next week we will learn about analyzing your business and its opportunities. I hope to see you there.

FREE Seminars

Some food for thought...

"...it’s important not to confuse perfectionism with success. Endlessly pursuing the perfect product can mean never delivering a good product, or the right product. Successful start ups are about effective use of limited resources. While it’s critical never to limit the vision of what the company can be, having the discipline to package that vision into manageable pieces is perhaps more important still. "(For the complete story go to http://www.foundread.com/view/go-ahead-push-the).

This is true of entrepreneurs; people get caught in the vision of what might be, and lose focus of the primary objective of their company. Their endless visioning and farsightedness may be their downfall. Lack of demand is not the only reason for a new company to fail. The great entrepreneurs can take the good ideas, set goals, achieve them, and move on; not make goals, make more goals, make still more goals, and then achieve the first goal.

This is why a business plan is so important. It keep the visionaries on task and focused on the issues at hand. That is why the free business planning seminars are such a useful tool. We have an amazing instructor and some great guest speakers from professionals and long time business people.

Our FREE Pre-Business Planning Seminars start in 2 weeks. They are every Thursday from 6:00 pm to 9:00 pm starting June 7th. They cover everything you need to include in your business plan. You must be registered to take the business planning seminars (its free, we don't even ask for a credit card number)

The calendar of events is online at www.chinookchallenge.com. Also, all the information is in the Handbook at the same site.

Off and Running

Well, we are officially launched and the 2007 campaign has been kicked off with a success all over Southern Alberta.

Keep an eye on your local paper and and ear tuned to your radio to get more information on the Chinook Entrepreneur Challenge.

Now that we are getting down to business, I would like to share some useful online resources with all aspiring entrepreneurs. There is a start-up business blog. The founder said, "the lessons I am learning [from starting my own business], thousands have learnt before, and might actually have a wider (and better) perspective on trials and tribulations of being a founder of a business. Not just a tech start-up, just any business. Why isn’t there a resource that captures this tribal wisdom? What if we could build one – one that can be shared by one-and-all?".

The idea is a breakthrough and it gives advice by people that have been there and have been through the turbulent start-up stages of entrepreneurship. If you are interested and want more information, the site is: http://www.foundread.com/view/introducing; or if you want to jump right in: http://www.foundread.com/.

This could potentially give you some insight into your future business and perhaps help your business plan be more sustainable. This site, coupled with our 8 pre-business planning seminars should give you the insight for a great business plan. For more information on the Chinook Entrepreneur Challenge contact info@chinookchallenge.com or visit www.chinookchallenge.com

You are invited to attend the open houses for the Chinook Entrepreneur Challenge. The open house schedule is:

-Crowsnest Pass: Monday, May 7th 12:00 pm at 12501 - 20 Avenue, Blairmore, AB

-Lethbridge (2626 South Parkside Drive)/Medicine Hat (202 - 556 4th Street South East)/Taber (5324 48 Avenue): Wednesday, May 9th 11:00 am (Video Conferenced)

-Drumheller: Monday, May 14th 12:00 TBA
-Hanna: Monday, May 14th 12:00 Hanna Learning Centre

-Brooks: Tuesday, May 15t 12:00 TBA
-Strathmore: Tuesday, May 22th 11:00 TBA

There will be an overview of the Chinook Entrepreneur Challenge and a Q&A session. Previous winners will be there for comment in Lethbridge and we will have information packages for those interested. For more information contact me at info@chinookchallenge.com or visit www.chinookchallenge.com.

Win $20 000

Would like to have $20 000 in start up capital for your new business or for a new product line for an existing business and are located in southern Alberta, Canada? Then here is your chance.

The Chinook Entrepreneur Challenge is a business planning competition that promotes developing a solid business plan. There are 8 free seminars to teach you how to write a business plan; then all you have to do is submit your plan. It will be judged by experts throughout southern Alberta, and the winner will be announced October 13.

There are two categories, agriculture and general business. A winner in each category will receive $15 000 cash and $5 000 in in-kind services from sponsors in the community including free accounting services and free radio advertising.

You need to register with me by emailing info@chinookchallenge.com in order to submit a business plan or attend the seminars. For more information visit www.chinookchallenge.com.

What have you got to lose, and by the end you will have a great business plan ready to kick start your dream of being your own boss.

Your Hired

Do you feel like sitting across the board room table doing the hiring and firing instead of being hired and fired? We can help.

Own your own small business! This challenge is designed to assist those who have a viable business idea to get that business off the ground. The winners get $20 000 in cash and prizes. However, the seminars to assist you in developing your business plan are free, so at the end, you are one step closer to your small business dream. Because a well developed business plan is key to starting a small business.

To register go to www.chinookchallenge.com or email me at info@chinookchallenge.com.

Have a great long weekend.

Expansion

Hello,

This is an exciting time for the Chinook Entrepreneur Challenge. Not only are we trying to give away $30 000 in start up capital for new or expanding businesses and $10 000 in in-kind services from businesses that sponsor the Challenge, we are in the process of expanding the area we reach. Previously we were only in the areas of: the City of Lethbridge, the City of Medicine Hat, and the Counties and Municipal Districts of Newell, Vulcan, Cypress, Willow Creek, Pincher Creek, Ranchland, Lethbridge, Cardston, Warner, Taber, Forty Mile, Crowsnest Pass, Waterton, Special Area No. 2, Special Area No. 3, and the MD of Acadia. The special areas stretch up just north of Oyen.

The New area includes The Community Futures Regions of Wild Rose, and Big Country (Strathmore and Drumheller respectively). If you are curious if you are in the area, check out our new 2007 handbook at http://www.chinookchallenge.com/Participant%20documents/Chinook%202007%20Handbook.pdf, or check out the Community Futures network location finder website at http://www.cfnsa.ca/cfna/public/find_cf.html.

Hopefully, next year we will expand further north toward Red Deer area. We will keep you posted. If you are in a new area, or just wondering about the Challenge in general send me an email at info@chinookchallenge.com.

Welcome

Hello and welcome to the Chinook Entrepreneur Challenge, the only business planning competition of its kind in Canada to be held in a non-metropolitan setting. Set in Southern Alberta, Canada, this competition is designed to encourage new entrepreneurs, small businesses and start ups to act on their business ideas, their talents, and their energy to produce tomorrow’s leading firms. Through seminars, mentors, and this blog, participants will have guidance and support while preparing their plan. This blog will be the spot to learn of upcoming events, tips for business plans and updates on the competition. To register for this years challenge go to http://www.chinookchallenge.com/ and fill out the online form. Keep checking this blog for updates and helpful links. Good Luck.