Off the Ground Blog
Planning for Success: Aboriginal Small Business Success Starts with a Business Plan
June marks a time in Canada to remember the contributions and assets of the Aboriginal community to Canada’s history, economy and enriching culture. As we approach National Aboriginal Day being officially observed Saturday, June 21st, we wanted to offer an overview of a distinct measure of success among our Aboriginal businesses – the business plan.
Learning Initiatives for Rural and Northern BC: 2014 - Apply Now!
Learning Initiatives for Rural and Northern BC (LIRN BC) is a collaborative approach to building on the capacities of rural, remote and Northern British Columbian communities. The Irving K. Barber Learning Centre is proud to partner with government and non-government organizations to provide and facilitate workshops to promote community learning and collaboration in rural and northern communities.
Concierge Service Guest Blog: a new service provided by the National Research Council of Canada
The Government of Canada offers a rich amount of resources to support the abundant sector of small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs). It offers so many programs, in fact, that it can become overwhelming and tricky to navigate. Guest blogging for SBA is Erik Kaas, our local British Columbia advisor for the National Research Council Canada to introduce the Concierge Service to our readers.
Supercharge Your Startup With These Killer Customer Interview Secrets—Video Content Roundup
You’ve defined the problem. You’ve created some hypotheses. You’ve looked over more industry research and market data than any sane person should ever read in a lifetime. Now that you’ve finished the necessary groundwork, all you need to do at this point is throw your thoughts on paper and you’ll have a viable business plan that will take the world by storm, right? Not quite.
Happy BC Craft Beer Week!
We are excited for all craft brewing enthusiasts to come together and celebrate the strides that have been made in the brewing industry around British Columbia! For a list of events that are happening throughout the week, visit this site and enjoy invigorating conversation about your business venture over a delicious beer.
5 Important Factors in Measuring Social Enterprise Value
Assessment of the social value of your organization can be labor-intensive and costly. Usually the positive effects are felt outside of your organization and in the greater community, making it difficult to measure and outside of the usual assessment domain.
Industry Overview: Nonprofits
The non-profit industry is a diverse industry composed of entities focusing on technology, education, health, the arts and many other areas. There are several terms used to refer to non-profits, such as charities, not-for-profit and social enterprise, making it somewhat confusing to figure out how your non-profit idea should be categorized.
Industry Overview: Tourism Business
British Columbia is world renowned for its countless tourist treasures, and the tourism industry is designed to fulfill the vacationing, traveling, and sight-seeing needs of tourists to our province.
Resource Review – Statistics Canada’s Newsletter for Small and Medium Sized Business
Statistics Canada’s Newsletter for Small and Medium Sized Business is a great resource to stay current with trends and statistics in the Canadian market and consumer demographics. [UPDATE: see below]
Customer Retention: Four Ways to Fight Churn – Video Content Roundup
When startups invest in marketing, they usually devote most of their energy to finding new customers. This makes sense: after all, fresh sources of revenue allow a business to grow, so why not try to court as many customers as possible? However, true as this may be, it’s important to remember that acquisition is simply one side of the marketing coin—and the other is retention. It’s significantly more expensive to sign a new customer than it is to keep an old one, so it’s crucial to find ways to keep your rate of churn (i.e. the frequency of customers jumping ship) as low as possible.