We’re proud of our own Dr. Leslie Roberts this week – she was featured on Global Calgary‘s Woman of Vision series on May 2! Watch the video below to find out some of Dr. Roberts’ inspirations and experiences starting and running GoForth Institute, Canada’s leading online education for entrepreneurs.

We’re proud to announce our new national partnership with Canadian Innovation Centre (CIC) to make entrepreneurial education more accessible nationwide.

CIC has been helping innovators and entrepreneurs transform their ideas into successes in the market for over 30 years. With this new partnership, these visitors to CIC will have the option of taking GoForth’s small business training program before receiving the more advanced technical training that CIC offers.

For more information, check out our press release.

Join Dr. Leslie Roberts this February 10 – 11 at The Entrepreneurs Summit! Dr. Roberts will join a truly outstanding panel of small business experts at this event, where entrepreneurs at all levels can share expertise and opportunities.

Tickets for The Entrepreneurs Summit are just $10 and it’s entirely via teleconference – this means no traveling for busy small business owners! You can pick and choose which sessions you want to hear, as well.

For more details and for tickets, visit The Entrepreneurs Summit website.

GoForth Institute’s first newsletter of 2011 is out now, and we’re excited about it. Not only do we discuss how to develop a sales forecast and have a discussion with our Module Four instructor Nathalie Callender, but we also tell you how to create a strategic plan in just 10 steps.

Creating a strategic plan for your small business – whether you work from home or are at the helm of a high-growth venture – is critical for success. How else will you know where to take your small business in the coming years? A small business strategic plan will make sure your business grows exactly in the way you want it to.

Here’s a sneak peek of what you’ll see in the feature on our 10-step strategic plan:

1. What is the purpose of my business?
2. What is my vision for this company?
3. What are my business values?
4. What are my business’ SWOTs?
5. Do a STEPC analysis.
6. Set overall corporate goals for the year.
7. Set strategic objectives in marketing, finance, human resources and operations.
8. Create tactics in marketing, finance, human resources and operations.
9. Implement the plan.
10. Re-visit your plan.

Check out our January newsletter for complete information about these 10 steps, as well as more great news and tips for Canadian entrepreneurs.

We hope you enjoy it!

Just back in Calgary from an appearance as a regular panelist on BNN’s The Pitch, a weekly live venture capital pitch show airing Wednesdays at 11:30am EST, 9:30am MST. If you didn’t catch the show, you can stream the January 12 videos from the BNN website.

This week’s pitchers, Warren MacKenzie (Weigh House) and Roger Nahas (Best Body Bootcamp) represented the diversity of the Canadian entrepreneur population. Warren wants to give investors a fighting chance at good rates of return in their portfolios by offering commission-free advice and wealth management services. Roger has built an Ontario-based fitness bootcamp business that he now wants to expand across Canada. Cool.

Different business models and concepts, but I had the same two issues with both businesses. My issues were scalability and proof of concept, both topics we cover in our online small business training.

Small business scalability

The first issue – scalability – refers to the ability of the existing business to grow, and I mean really grow, from one location to many, from one geographic area to several, from hundreds of customers to thousands of customers virtually overnight (which is why investors love technology companies).

Both Weigh House and Best Body Bootcamp need people to scale their businesses – wealth management consultants and excellent personal trainers – to hit a home run. To scale a business that relies on people as a critical factor is tougher to do. Not to say it won’t happen; it’ll be just be harder for Roger and Warren to attract VC money.

Small business proof of concept

The second issue I had with both businesses was “proof of concept,” or displaying a business model that has proven its ability to make revenue and profit. We teach the difference between a business model and a business plan in our online education for entrepreneurs, so if you want to know more you’ll have to buy the course! (I’m in business too!)

At what point is a concept “proven,” you ask? The point at which the new business has a steady supply of customers, returning customers, great customer evaluations and lots of opportunity to grow. And of course, different options for growth such as franchising, market or geographic expansion, international sales, new products, and so on.

Once a business concept is proven, and the ability to “scale” the business to greater revenue is there, you’ll have no problem attracting angel or venture capital investors to help you get there.  The trick is getting to the proof of concept stage. Remember, over half of small businesses don’t get to the second year – they fail before the concept proof stage. Sad.

But then, that’s why we created GoForth – to give the emerging entrepreneur 100 Essential Small Business Skills to help them through start-up and early growth stages of any business – construction and trades, real estate agents, artists, coffee shop owners, dog walkers.  If you’re a small business owner, we can help you succeed.

If you’ve got a great early-stage business and want to appear on The Pitch, shoot me an email!

PS. A little backstory – at the end of the show I mentioned that I was “a little bit of an alley cat” on one of the ideas.  That was a secret shout out to four of my all time favourite University of Calgary students, Allison Onyett (Ally) , Catharine McMechan (Cat), Jalene Ippolito and Heather Baker who I had the pleasure of teaching when I was still an entrepreneurship professor. Today, they are no longer former students, but are friends of mine, and I’m grateful for their love and support.

Just when you think you know, have seen or done it all in business – blam! The humble frying pan from the sky clocks you one. Of course, holding Canada’s first PhD in entrepreneurship helps me suffer from this situation more than most. The “But, dammit Jim, I’m a doctor” excuse doesn’t mean much in the small business world.  “So you’re a Doctor in business – which likely makes you more of an idiot in business than most.”

With each frying pan to the side of the head came new understanding, new approaches, new strategies and more humility. Babies and businesses are particularly adept at teaching us who rules. So, this retrospective rant highlights my favourite frying pan moments of 2010.

If we build it, they will come. (They didn’t.)

We spent two years and over $600,000 researching, developing, testing and perfecting our online education for entrepreneurs. We launched. Nobody noticed. Nobody bought. Change of plan.

There is no one right strategy for a small business.

If something doesn’t work, it’s not throw in the towel time – it’s dig in and dig deep time. Try something else. Figure out what works. Do more of that and less of what sucks. Entrepreneurship is for winners, not quitters. If you’re going to run home to mamma every time there’s a setback, don’t leave home (easy for me to say – I wanted to run home many times this past year but I’m glad I didn’t – success was just around the corner).

Starting a business will cost three times the money and take three times longer than you think.

Okay, maybe four times. Or more. The reality is that entrepreneurship and starting a new venture is full of uncertainty and unknowns. Plan for the worst, expect little – you may be pleasantly surprised.

If entrepreneurship were easy, everyone would do it.

Most dream of being their own boss but very few actually take the plunge. It took me 15 years to rationalize the choice. Only about one person in every 1,000 aspiring entrepreneurs actually does something about it. Good for us!

I’d be a better professor now than before.

Classrooms can be magical, particularly if the teacher knows what they’re talking about. How many business profs have run a company? Not many. I’d throw away the textbooks and teach from experience and the lines on my face. Way more valuable than following the bouncing ball of a strategic planning chapter.

Eureka! We have found it. (Didn’t know we lost it.)

Perseverance, determination, true grit – that’s what it takes to build a great company. It’s not easy, not even close.  I’m humbled by the help and advice I got from some of the “greats” – the men and women who laid it down long before me and built multi-million dollar businesses – who helped me through some rough GoForth patches.  They are my heroes.  I, too, will give back and help others cross the chasm when the time comes.

It’s January 1, 2011 now and so far, no frying pans. I’m getting better at ducking. To all you entrepreneurs, aspiring or otherwise, hats off.  Wishing you mind-blowing success this year!

Hope you enjoyed Wednesday’s episode of The Pitch on BNN, which marked my second appearance as a panelist on the show and the first The Pitch show taped at BNN’s very cool new studios in Toronto. The set is brand new and everyone was getting used to camera angles, lighting, sound, new microphones, places and marks (where we, the panelists and the two pitchers stand). A little bit of a learning curve behind the scenes – but a really great show.

The two pitchers were well prepared, well-rehearsed and had some serious passion goin’ on in their pitches. I like to see confident people behind a company – their confidence helps to instill my confidence in their business and their plans moving forward. However, that doesn’t stop any of us on the panel from pointing out the gaps I found in their business models or strategic plans going forward. See my comments to each of them at the end of the show in segment three (look for the videos marked December 8).

It doesn’t end there, though. The pitchers only get 90 seconds to make their pitch, and a short amount of time to answer questions on-air. But after the show wraps, I like to hang around in the green room and debrief the pitchers – how they thought it went, or if they had any questions about what went down on the show. We usually agree to a follow-up Skype or phone chat so that I can offer some guidance to help them work through some of the issues that are raised by me or the other panelists. That’s one of the fun parts of the show for me – working one on one with the pitch companies after the show is over. I also enjoy the emails I get after a show from the BNN audience at home – the armchair venture capitalists who want to weigh in with their opinions.

If you haven’t watched The Pitch, watch it. It’s real, not entertainment. We have a genuine interest in helping the pitchers succeed, and this extends off the air to what goes on behind the scenes.

I’ve been asked how I prepare for my appearances as a panelist on BNN’s new show The Pitch.  There’s nothing like a live national television show on the most respected business news network in Canada to motivate me to do some homework!  I have the regular “do I have broccoli in my teeth” fear of appearing on national television, but I also fear not being able to help move the pitcher’s business forward – even just one small step.

So, the week before each show, the producers give me a one-page outline of the pitcher and his/her company. From there, it’s up to each panelist to prepare for the show as they see fit. My approach is to learn the pitchers’ businesses well – understand their business model, revenue model, competition, key differentiating feature and unique selling proposition (that secret sauce or element that makes them so special), addressable market – all the usual.

Having taught MBA courses in strategy as a professor in my former life, I know the points of analysis, but the trick is to prioritize my questions for the pitchers – knowing that the other panelists are likely to drill down in the same places. My background in market research makes me gravitate toward the market, addressable market and marketing research foundations of their business plans. To me, all good things come from our customers – sales and revenue (obviously), testimonials and word of mouth advertising, but also great product ideas.  I like to see proof the pitchers are engaged and listening to their customers.

Hats off to BNN for creating a great show! My next appearance is this coming Wednesday, December 8. The show airs at 11.30am ET/8.30 am PT, but it’s available online very soon after it airs. Tune in next week and see which pitch makes the cut. And if you’d like to be on the show yourself and pitch your ideas to an expert panel of businesspeople and financiers, email us!

The Pitch is Business News Network’s new show, in which growth entrepreneurs pitch their next great idea to a panel of small business experts and financiers. At the end of the show, this panel will decide which pitch gets the green light, or doesn’t.

GoForth’s President and founder Dr. Leslie Roberts was on the show’s rotating panel this Wednesday, and you can watch the entire episode for free on BNN’s site, right here (the episode dated November 10).

Did you see the show? What did you think of the pitches? Did Dr. Roberts and the other panelists make the right call?

Thanks to BNN and host Andrew Bell for having us – it was exciting!

Starting a small business is tougher than you may think – 1/3 of Canadian businesses cease operations within their first year. Studies have shown that this failure rate is attributed to lack of basic business skills. You can’t afford to be ill prepared, so why not let GoForth Institute teach you our 100 Essential Small Business Skills? Our online course is fast, comprehensive and convenient. It’s already affordable at just $295, but we’re offering a promo code for $25 off!

Email us with the word “Promo” in the subject line for your code. The offer ends on November 1, but you (or a loved one) have until the end of November to sign up for training. Spread the word! We’re entrepreneurs too and we’re here to help!

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In other news (although it’s relevant to this post) Allison Onyett has written a post on Alberta Magazines’ blog highlighting the benefits she received from our online small business training. You can read the post here – thanks Allison! We’re happy to have helped!