I hope you had a great Thanksgiving this past weekend! Other than the Blue Jays winning and enjoying a wholesome dinner, Thanksgiving as always- was a great time to enjoy with friends and family but also – reflect.

I look at Thanksgiving as a time to say thanks to my dear ones and my associates for the favors they have done for not just myself but for the organization. There is no better time of the year than the approaching holiday season for company owners to spread gratitude to the people who have contributed to the business all year long. This includes the amazing employees who embody the culture, vision and soul of an organization. Showing appreciation should be a regular practice for any organization but the end of the year is a great time to step up the expressions of gratitude and go above and beyond.

Here are five simple ways to say thank you to your people:

1. Give thanks.

Find a way to let members of your staff know that they are not just numbers but an important part of the workplace family and that you, the business owner, care about them individually.

2. Stage appreciation events.

Every employee, every team member makes some sacrifice to be part of the organization and sometimes that sacrifice comes at the expense of spending time with their family members.

Say thanks with a company outing, a party or a huge get together that celebrates your people, their families and your organization.

3. Plan an outing

In our organization we pride ourselves in working hard and playing hard. Find some time by organizing a day off for your team. Every year we do a team outing in the summer and the beginning of the year. Although I’d like to do more of these – there’s nothing better than taking a day off with the team and experiencing something unique.

4. Send personal notes.

Sending love and appreciation to a team member can be as simple as sending a note. It doesn’t have to be a long letter and can simply be a note of thanks for the contribution this individual makes and your gratitude for the hard work and loyalty.

I hope these tips help. Regardless, thanks for taking the time to read.

I give thanks …

Frank.

The 4th quarter is here and I couldn’t be excited for the final stretch! What goals have you set aside for yourself to ensure that you finish off strong? The fact is that three quarters are now gone and the only thing that matters now is your ability to finish the 4th quarter strong.

The good news is that there’s still plenty of time and opportunity to reach your goals, exceed your sales targets, and close any execution gap. However, if after 3 quarters, you find yourself below target or unhappy with your individual performance then you must wake up to the reality that your current mindset, choices, habits and strategies are not producing the results you want and need. Expecting to get better results from the same old behavior will only succeed in making your current situation worse.

Ask yourself. How can I finish this year off strong?!

Set crystal clear goals and raise the bar, not just for yourself but for your team members as well. The moment you decide to get serious, to raise your standards, and commit to finishing the 4th quarter strong is the moment everything changes in your life. Commitment always precedes action which means, you will make rapid advances towards your goals ONLY after you decide to get serious about doing everything in your power to finish the year strong.

Don’t let a poor year-to-date bring you down. Every set back deserves a comeback. Every great achievement and comeback in history has been the result of the choices, the determinations, and the creations of the human will. Are you capable? When you are down or below target other people will write you off. Do not let them define you – maintain your dignity, commit to the goal of finishing the year strong, and refuse to give up!

Expecting to get better results from the same old behavior will only create insanity. Therefore, finishing the year strong necessitates new and better execution skills. In short, things need to change, and when faced with a need for change you can either do different things or you can do things differently.

As you work towards the goal of finishing the year strong, you must understand that there will NEVER be a day that will not require discipline, dedication and determination.

So, sweat the small stuff as each day counts, and everything, regardless of size or intent, has bottom-line consequences which move you towards or away from your goals!

It’s not over, till it’s over …!

Frank.

We’re just a couple days away from Small Business Month! What a time to be Canadian. Although the economy has seen some downside recently, its another opportunity to reflect and plan ahead for the future. Small Business Month celebrates the important contributions entrepreneurs make to the Canadian economy and to their local communities.

I pride myself in being a part of a growing organization and remember those days in which I only had 3 employees in the office. This October I encourage small business owners and entrepreneurs to take the time to develop your business ideas or to find new and exciting ways to improve and grow your business. Here’s some tips that I’ve listed below to help you with your goals:

1. Never Stop Networking. Don’t Give Up, never stop networking, and never stop pushing. It’s easy to give up when everybody around you is telling you ‘you can’t do it’. You have to be around positive people.
2. It’s all about mindset and positive thinking. Our first three years were brutally tough. Every day was about survival. Your mind is everything, yet it’s not what you know, but rather how you deal with it. It is about your mindset and positive thinking.
3. To Get PR, Offer Yourself up as a Thought Leader. If you are a local small business, look at local media for PR. Read those publications, forge relationships, find out what types of stories the journalists are covering, and offer yourself up as a thought leader on a topic.
4. Put Processes in Place in Your Business to Ask for Referrals. Put processes in place in your business that ask for referrals. And make sure the customer experience is above expectations.
5. Your Sales Pipeline Should Qualify Leads at Every Step. You need to set up a process to convert the most leads possible. Put them in a sales pipeline and add checkpoints to determine those who are qualified, versus those who aren’t.
6. Reach out to Mentors and Peers. Entrepreneurship is one of the loneliest professions in the world. The entrepreneurs that are really successful reach out in networking groups and peer associations or just to one person. They need that thought partner. Make sure you engage with someone you look up to and ask them for mentorship. This will go a long way.

I hope some of these suggestions help. If you’re starting a small business I’m happy for you. It’s not an easy journey but trust me it’s worth it.

Have a great week.

Frank.

What a time to be at the Wish Group! I’m loving the energy that’s happening at the Company. Fresh off a Summer Reunion we were able to receive some great news! We made the Profit 500 again for another consecutive year!

I’m very proud to be amongst some amazing individuals who day in and day out inspire me. I love the fact that we’re growing. It shows that we’re going down the right path. I’ve come to realize that life is about staying positive and celebrating the wins as they come. It’s definitely a long and rough path as you build, but trust me it’s worth it. By taking time to celebrate every success, no matter how big or small, it will build your confidence and make it easier to keep pushing to reach those ‘big picture’ goals. Not to mention, a celebration can give you closure on goals you have been working toward for a while, provide encouragement to continue and make every success even more worthwhile.

It doesn’t end there. It’s a stepping stone. It’s great to know that you have accomplished that goal, but are you ready to celebrate? Your celebration doesn’t have to be a big deal. It can be something you do alone or something you share with others. It just has to make you feel good and help you enjoy your accomplishment. Teams and organizations that focus on and celebrate success create more success. Success becomes ingrained in the culture and people naturally look for it, focus on it and expect it. That’s why certain football coaches and business leaders are always successful. They implement systems and principles that create a culture that celebrates and expects success and this drives behavior and habits that create successful outcomes.

So when you celebrate a ‘Win’, just take a deep breath. Share the news with people who actually care such as family and friends. Most importantly, reflect on the path you took and thank everyone who helped and supported you. Trust me – that goes along way. Lastly, never forget to support someone else in reaching his or her goal as well. It’s very important to give back – believe me, it will come back ten fold. Keep in mind that in order to get the most out of your celebration, you should do it immediately after reaching your accomplishment and before moving on to your next goal.

What do you do to celebrate your success when you accomplish a goal? Let me know, I’d love to know your thoughts!

If you’re reading this, keep working hard in silence and let success make the noise.

Yours,

Frank.

Winning is a beautiful thing. It really is. In the competitive marketplace sometimes its all we strive for in order to reach our goals. I’ve learned from the past that in order to positively make progress in obtaining your goals you must set realistic ones – early on. By doing so, you not only gain your confidence by obtaining small wins, but it also gives you the experience needed to plan accordingly and aim higher.

The climate is always changing. In fact, currently they say we are in a ‘recession’ and as a business owner these times can definitely be tough. For the most part, you have to stay humble regardless of how big you win because as you know – there’s always that down time. On a daily basis its important to ask yourself, “what progress have I made?”

Even when progress happens in small steps, a person’s sense of steady forward movement toward an important goal can make all the difference between a great day and a terrible one. Studies show that small wins often have a surprisingly strong positive effect, and small losses a surprisingly strong negative one.

On days when people have made real progress in work that matters to them, they end the day feeling more  motivated based off their interest in and enjoyment of the work. There’s plenty of research showing that, when people are more intrinsically motivated, they are more likely to be creative. This means that when your employees or colleagues have pulled off a real accomplishment, they may be more open to new, challenging work that calls for creativity. Trust me, employees want to succeed and they want to make a contribution to something. Work is not just about business. It is very personal to the people doing it.

Furthermore, there will be small wins. We all know that. Just ensure that as you build towards your goals and succeed, be prepared for minor or major setbacks as that is just the nature for any entrepreneur.

Don’t forget. You’ll either win or you’ll learn.

Have a great week.

Frank

In any entrepreneurial endeavour it’s likely you’ll have a team that’ll play a fundamental part in sustaining and developing key aspects of your entrepreneurial enterprise. As it is with any group, you won’t find any two people that are exactly alike, so differences in personality/sentiment might arise that aren’t akin to fulfilling the goals of your team. Not to say that when you’ve got a group of different folk that that necessarily means there’ll be strife, but it might lead to some subtle inefficiencies you’ll be happy to do without. So here’s a few suggestions I have that are excellent team-building activities so you can improve your business and bring it to the next level.

Volunteering is a great way for your team to go out and do something that is meaningful and helpful in your local community; it’s a time to leave the office, eliminate the formalities of ‘office talk’, and truly give your team a chance to participate in more one-on-one time, which’ll likely result in a tighter-knit team. Field trips will also be in tune with building team bonds that’ll likely contribute to improving performance in the office. It’s a time to relax, kid around, and be on more friendly, impersonal terms with fellow teammates. And last but not least, professional development actives, such as any kind of icebreaking exercise, particularly if your team is fresh and everyone doesn’t quite know all too much about one or the other, then this’ll do you a world of good—starting off a team of newbies on the right foot, where everyone gets to know a bit about everyone else, will lead to greater relatability and hence a more prosperous team dynamic.

Remember. There’s no ‘I’ in team.

For all you entrepreneurs out there, I’m sure you know there comes a time when you simply overworked yourself. You had a great idea, a great plan, but the execution  wasn’t easy by any means—and that’s where burnout might eventually set in. By no means there’s nothing to feel bad about if you’re going full speed ahead and eventually your energy runs out. It’s likely, however, you’l be in the dumps over slowing down and not being as prolific as you were before, and as a means to counteract that, you might stubbornly continue to plod along, risking eventual failure. So, at this juncture, when you  feel you’re not your hearty self who can work 18-hour days and still retain that feeling of when you started, slow down—take a break. What you’ll find is, by giving yourself some breathing space, allowing something else to preoccupy your time, whether it be going to see a Jays game or watching your favorite show on Netflix, I’m sure you’ll find how a little room for r&r will provide you with that much-needed rest that’ll pay dividends once you get back to what you’re doing best: giving it your all in the pursuit of the entrepreneurial dream. Have some fun while you work ..

Frank

Day in and Day out I live by the statement to ‘Trust your Journey’ and through it all there has always been someone who’s helped me along the way. When embarking on building a company, I cannot stress enough how important it is to have an inspirational mentor throughout the journey as you build from the ground up. There are too many benefits for me to describe in this post about what you can gain from a mentor, but I’ll list a few that are of practical importance.

To me, a mentor is a source for building a more expansive network. Typically, your mentor will have extensive experience in an industry, and as a result of that experience will likely grow a vast network in which opportunities, trends, contacts, etc. can  be utilized for your benefit and help your career prosper. You’ll also come to see that an inspirational mentor is there for moral support. When you are in a trying situation, and lack the experience or know-how to make the right move, you’ll find a mentor is likely to have had similar experiences in the past that they can reflect upon and use to provide insightful guidance that will help you make a sensible decision under such stressful circumstances. Luckily, for myself I’ve been blessed with some amazing mentors who’ve helped in hard times.

My last point, which is probably the most practical one, is a mentor is usually free. Think about it . . . without a mentor you have to resort to paying an arsenal of specialists, whether they are coaches, consultants, etc. who more often than not will have you pay through the nose for services that a mentor provides free of charge and are likely to be more impersonal, dispassionate, and formal—all factors which remove the humane factor that is integral for trusted, long-term business relationships. And remember: only a mentor can share their wealth of knowledge on an ongoing basis; there is no product or service they want to sell you, so you’ll find, no matter how volatile business dynamics become, you’ll have a constant source of support that you can continue to learn and grow from. Trust me; the great ones never learned on their own. In order to be the best, you must learn from the best.

Frank.