PROFIT BusinessCast

On this week's episode of the PROFIT BusinessCast, Alyssa Lioutas and Jennifer Love, partners at Toronto-based Duet Public Relations, give out tips on when companies should consider hiring a PR firm and how to know if you're getting what you need once you do.

So, how do you choose a PR firm from the sea of supposed PR pros out there?

1. Look at their image. If there's sloppy work on their website and they don't know how to speak with you on the phone, then that's how they're going to represent your business.

2. Look at their portfolio. You may turn to someone with less experience in exchange for a great deal, but you want to at least see that they've been able to achieve results with a company similar to yours

3. Chemistry. Most firms will have a website boasting their various successes. In the end, trust your gut. And make sure the person who sold you on the agency–the one you trust–is the person you'll be working with, not another account rep.

Once you've signed up with an agency, what are some red flags that they're not getting the right results?

You may get a bump of press initially, but then things become stale, say Lioutas and Love. You should see results at the three month mark, and again at six months and a year. You should expect a quarterly report with solid numbers showing your ROI. For solid results, it takes time: you won't see a big jump in the first 3 months. But there should be consistent growth. If things are tapering off, you need to have a conversation with your PR pro.

That said, there's some work required on your end to make this work. If you don't have time to feed your PR pros interesting things about your company and build a relationship with them so that they get what you do, it won't work.

Why would you choose to outsource versus using your in-house communications team? And how do you find these firms? Listen to the podcast to find out.

On this week's PROFIT BusinessCast, advice for Canadian business leaders looking to expand into global markets from an entrepreneur who has succeeded in doing just that. Greg Patterson is president of Technicraft Product Design, maker of Shutgun, a device that shuts off fire sprinklers fast to avoid water damage. Canadian designed and created (manufactured in China) Shutgun is selling very well outside of North America.

Patterson says the biggest challenge is letting people know that this product exists and that they need it. Fin The only way is to work with distributors you can trust, who know their market well and can understand your product and its fit in that market.

How do you assess them? Ideally, you've met them and seen their facilities. But that's not always possible. Patterson finds Skype just as effective. He also finds that the negotiation process generated by insisting on an extensive written agreement gives you the chance to assess a distributor's business sense and ethics.

In just three years, Patterson has developed a vast distribution network in markets from Australia to the Middle East to Hong Kong. He's learned some valuable lessons about dealing with foreign distributors.

His top five tips are:

1. Partner with someone you can tryst and is a fit with your product (they should have the know-how in your industry)

2. Have a written agreement that lays out exactly the roles of each party and the expectations—"it's a lot easier to negotiate over a written agreement than it is trying to reverse things after the fact"

3. Know the culture and the etiquette of the country that you're approaching for business

4. Keep on top of your distributors, preferable face-to-face (virtually via any number of online chat apps available) and check that the consistency of your brand is being upheld. Your product's pricing should be set in the written agreement. That, along with look and feel, should be consistent across every market.

5. Get paid in advance and if necessary use a letter of credit

Finally, don't commit without doing your research. "The biggest surprise to me is the value that various countries put on a life," says Patterson, who found out that the U.K. and Europe don't require fire sprinklers where others would. You don't know that a product selling well in one market will be needed or wanted in others.

Lean is the new black. Lots of companies will say they're in a "lean stage" or call themselves a "lean startup." In this week's episode of the PROFIT BusinessCast, Robert Gold asks Derek Szeto, who founded and sold redflagdeals.com ten years ago, what it really means to be lean.

"It's being close to the customer," says Szeto, whose latest endevaour, Dossiya.com, is currently in beta mode. The site replaces the Google research most people do before meeting with a contact they don't know, pulling from social media to create a dossier on anyone.

"Rather than going out and pitching an [existing] product you think is great, you first go to the customer, talk to them about a concept that you're exploring," says Szeto. He's onboarding new users to the beta version on a daily basis and studying their usage patterns to help discover what markets are worth targeting. "First and foremost, you're tyring to learn and you're trying to iterate," says Szeto. "The faster you can iterate, the faster you're going to be able to win your particular market—you're delivering what the customer wants versus what you think they want."

That customer interaction early on is one of the three crucial lessons for any entrepreneur, says Szeto. His three tips:

1. Be close to the customer so that you can learn from them and iterate

2. Get a great advisory board that can provide practical, real world advice

3. Be passionate about the problem you're solving: if you would use your product, that helps

BusinessCast listeners can try the beta version of Dossiya.com for free with access code "businesscast." Download this week's episode by clicking the iTunes icon below.

On this week's episode of the PROFIT BusinessCast, Drew Green, CEO and founder of shop.ca, talks about where ecommerce is headed in Canada. A 15-year veteran of digital media and ecommerce, Green ran shop.com until it was acquired, and then turned his attention to the underserved Canadian market. He couldn't understand why billions of dollars were being spent across the border online when that money could be staying in Canada. "About half of the purchases we make are on U.S. sites—that's about $11 billion last year," says Green. So he created a shopping site specifically for Canadians, mimicking the more transparent, straightforward design of American shopping sites.

The opportunity for ecommerce in Canada is massive, says green. Based on his site's stats, Canadians are getting more comfortable buying bigger items online.

Right now, ecommerce accounts for only 2-3% of the retail market in Canada—in the U.K., it's closer to 25% of all purchases. That will slowly change, as more Canadian businesses invest in etail. Green welcomes the glut of accelerators and incubators moving into the ecommerce space. "We have a ways to go, and no one company can make it happen. Whether it's accelerators or incubators or entrepreneurs, the more investment we make in the consumer experience, the better all businesses will do," he says.

Green's advice to other entrepreneurs looking to get into ecommerce? "Think big. Not having a bold objective is a missed opportunity."

Click the iTunes button below to listen to the full podcast, which includes Green's advice on moving into global markets and enticing people to buy online for the first time.

When you think of great chains, a few things probably come to mind: Great branding. Consistent product and service offerings. Spot-on marketing. Streamlined operations.

Do you really need all these things solidified at startup? The partners behind a new Toronto venture think so. In this episode of the PROFIT BusinessCast, they share their strategy.

Craft Dogs is a gourmet hotdog restaurant started by restaurant veterans Brian Morin, Kathleen McGinn and Craig Smith. Currently, its empire is contained to one location. But its founders plan to add four or five more branches in the next three years—and, hopefully, many more after that.

And they've already built the foundation to support that growth. Every element of Craft Dogs has been structured to be scalable, including its branding, promotion, staffing, sourcing and manufacturing. It's an approach the founders are confident will make this niche business stand out in the wildly competitive restaurant industry.

To find out more on their strategy—and decide whether you agree with it—click on the iTunes icon below to listen to the podcast.

In this episode of the PROFIT BusinessCast, sales guru Adrian Davis tells the story of "Jeff," a sales rep that was having trouble pushing to the next level. The one piece of advice that Davis said propelled him to sales superstardom? Think at C-level.

Davis is president & CEO of Whetstone Inc., where he works with the CEOs of SMEs to focus on what they want to achieve and then drive sales. He says the number one thing sales reps need to do is think like a boss: be strategic rather than just tactical. "They need to understand their customers' strategies, then figure out how they can be strategically relevant to that company, not just focus on a product," says Davis.

Davis lists the five qualities that help great sales people achieve that mindset. Among them? Self confidence. He says a less talented rep with more self confidence can surpass a talented rep who is selling himself short. "There are always setbacks and that can be crushing," he says. "The star performers get over it."

Davis says even the best reps don't stand a chance if there are problems at the organizational level. "Companies can become internally focused instead of staying focused on the value they want to deliver to the customer," he says. That will hold a great sales person back.

For more of Davis' advice about becoming (or creating) the ultimate salesperson, listen to the podcast by clicking on the iTunes icon below.

Who better to ask for advice about startup success and product development than Theresa Laurico? She has not only built a successful brand in social enterprise sociaLIGHT, but she has launched a handful of solid products based on it. She launched in 2011 with the SociaLIGHT Conference and in 2012 won Innoversity's Digital Media Story Telling and Transmedia award, as well as the Toronto Lean Start Up Machine award.

Laurico worked with Product Accelerators to apply the lean method to the way sociaLIGHT innovates, and says it's crucial to start with a clear picture of who you want to serve with your product, and then test beta versions with that group---something many entrepreneurs with a new product in development fail to do.

In this episode of the PROFIT BusinessCast, Laurico talks about how to launch your next product. Whether it's a tech app, a physical product, or a service, Laurico runs through the three things any entrepreneur needs to do when launching a new product.

1. Get out of the building. Don't create in a vacuum. Talk to your potential customers and collect market intel.

2. Be agile---don't be unwilling to change your idea. "A lot of entrepreneurs think they have the greatest idea and they end up spending all this money only to realize nobody wants it," says Laurico. "That's because they failed in the early stages to see that maybe it wasn't such a great idea in the beginning."

3. Have courage. Don't fear failure---that's what separates wannabe entrepreneurs from the success stories. With the proviso: get help! Know your weaknesses and your strengths and build a team that can move your dream and product forward.

Listen to the 12-minute episode for more of Laurico's advice.

Federal Minister of State for Science and Technology Gary Goodyear stopped in to talk about something he says is critical for every entrepreneur, no matter how long they've been running the business and what type of business they're in: R&D.

Over the last decade, Canada's productivity and innovation capacity have been declining. "Experts will tell you that's directly related to declining business expenditures on R&D," says Goodyear.

It's complicated problem, one for which government and the private sector share responsibility. At the base of the problem, says Goodyear, is Canada's risk-averse nature. Why do so many Canadian tech companies seek out funding from Silicon Valley? The U.S. is more willing to fund risk-takers. Goodyear says studies have shown that CEOs in Canada aren't as comfortable with risk as their U.S. counterparts.

Canada's banks aren't so willing to take on risk, either. "On the one hand, Canada's economy is doing well party thanks to our banks," says Goodyear. "Where we fall behind is our innovative capacity; our ability to mitigate risk."

The federal government is looking at the entire ecosystem and potentially making some fundamental changes. Part of solution may be to reconsider Canada's bankruptcy policies, says Goodyear.

But along with those systematic changes, the cultural issues need to be addressed.

"We need to go into grade schools and discuss what it means to take risks and fail," says Goodyear.

As for those already running businesses, Goodyear says they need to understand the importance of cutting-edge tech to their company. "About 60-70% of businesses in Canada think we're talking about the other guy, not them. Well we're not," says Goodyear. "Whether you're a hair salon or a multinational automotive company, if you're doing anything that is the same as three years ago---if you're using the same material, if you're assembling a part the same way---you're probably already in trouble. The world has moved that fast. The development of new technologies is very fast and in Canada we're very slow at adopting new technologies."

In this episode of the PROFIT BusinessCast, Alex Savva, co-founder of PharmaFreak Sciences gives his top three pieces of advice for any entrepreneur looking to launch a niche product in their industry.

Savva and his partners develop and sell sports supplements, a very specialized niche within a very competitive space. It started when they identified a gap in the market. As users of these types of supplements, Savva says they weren't satisfied with their potency. "We found they were overhyped and over-marketed but not delivering," he says.

They developed their first product (which they tested on themselves) and used it as a springboard to launch a successful business.

PharmaFreak is also a little-known Canadian export success story, with healthy global sales, particularly in the European market.

For Savva's story and his advice, listen to the podcast.

If anyone knows about brand mania, it's Jonathan Sinden. As manager of digital content and social media for Maple Leafs Sports and Entertainment, Sinden is responsible for heavy-hitter brands the Marlees, the Raptors, the Toronto Maple Leafs and Toronto FC. No question, there's massive enthusiasm for these teams in Toronto, and even nationally. How to tap into that mania? That's what they pay Sinden to figure out.

On today's BusinessCast, Sinden shares some of his social media secrets, including his team's strategy for making sure online momentum builds before, during and after a game. Sinden describes what they do during a game as "trying to capture lightning in a bottle."

Sinden talks about how he deals with any negative sentiments expressed about the brand on social networks, and provides a few expert tips entrepreneurs looking to promote their brand through digital content.

"Don't forget," says Sinden. "Everything you're doing is content and there's an audience for it."