Last week the Senate finally passed the Federal budget bill, and the new government funding programs proposed back in April will soon be open for applications (estimated start date August or September 2021). Among the new programs: national funding to help adopt hardware and software, continuation of the emergency subsidies and more.
The new digital adoption program is expected to be in high demand. Contact us for a free pre-assessment to be ready when the applications are open.
Current status: ON HOLD. Expected date to resume: September 2021. Be prepared!
What’s important to know.
Canadian Export Grants (CanExport) is an amazing opportunity for Canadian companies to grow with the return higher than 40 times on the invested funds. (source: CanExport)
Here are some reality about Canadian Export Grants:
less than 0.15% of the 1.18 million of Canadian employers (source: Industry Canada) have used it.
56% of them couldn’t achieve additional sales in the first year (source: CanExport)
The key reasons for the unfavorite results of most companies include:
Missing growth strategy for global markets;
Little efforts spend on the export project preparation;
Lack of information needed to provide for successful approval of the applications;
Marketing approach and materials are not matching selected markets business culture.
Sub-standard expense tracking and quality of the supporting documents.
The good news are…
As of August 22, 2019 CanExport funding limit was increased finding limit to $75,000 to cover up to 75% of eligible costs.
To utilize the opportunities this year you must hurry up…
First, the program is very competitive.
Second, the funds are limited.
Contact us as soon as possible for a complimentary review to see if you can be qualified for this program.
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The Business Experts will assist you to
Align your strategies for global expansion;
Strategies your marketing campaign;
Design market approach and materials to conquer selected markets;
Here is the top 7 challenges that manufacturing companies are facing:
Most employees are working at a productivity percentage of 40% – 60% of their potential (www.qnnect.com Jan2018).
2 out of 3 clients will leave a manufacturing supplier to pursue another company who offers the same services due to feelings of apathy from their current supplier (www.forbes.com)
Labor Shortage: Due to the Baby Boomer generation retiring, manufacturing industry lacks skilled labor and will have 2 million to 3.5 million unfilled manufacturing jobs by 2025 (www.dolittle.com)
approximately 22% of skilled manufacturing workers (almost 2.7 million valued employees) will be retiring within the next 10 years. (source: The Manufacturing Institute and Deloitte Consulting LLP)
Project Management Challenges: To get products to market manufacturing companies must adhere to extremely tight and stressful timelines. In the manufacturing space, projects are typically time, cost and quality sensitive and as a result tend to be tightly controlled and rigid. Manufacturers that miss deadlines risk losing out on millions of dollars in potential revenue and profit. (www.us.hitachi-solutions.com)
There’s a pressure for manufacturers to use the Internet of Things to its full potential. It’s not enough for them to simply implement the technology into their products and service – there needs to be a strategy. Systems need to be in place to collect, analyze and translate this data. If no clear strategy is set, manufacturers will not be able to improve their decision making in a way that is beneficial. (www.cerasis.com)
Today’s manufacturing employees want updated systems that help them improve job performance. Updated systems typically provide greater insight, flexibility, and speed that allows employees to utilize the applications to perform their job more effectively and efficiently. This allows employees to use the system as a tool to complete their job rather than hinder completion of tasks. However, the existing AS/400 systems that many in the manufacturing industry continue to utilize cannot provide the user experience that today’s workers demand. (www.us.hitachi-solutions.com)
Not sure how to start to improve productivity? That is where we come in. At the Business Experts, we create the metrics, training and communication platforms your company will need to excel at every turn and challenge facing your growth.
Simply provide us with your email address and we will provide your company a complimentary report of the customized insights needed to achieve the productivity you envisioned when you opened your business.
Enter your email address here:
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and the questions to begin will be sent to your email address that will provide us with what we need to return insightful unlimited value to you including the steps to be taken to achieve excellence in the synergy and growth in your business.
Manufacturing Employees perform on average at only 40-60% of their capacity because most companies do not know the 5 keys to measuring profitable productivity
Manufacturing companies often struggle to compete in today’s market because the majority of their sales prices are fixed based upon what the markets will pay, while their internal costs continue to fluctuate in labor and daily expenses of doing business. This creates a pressure cooker internally that if not properly addressed, can greatly restrict the ability of the business to grow, capitalize on other opportunities, and in some dire cases, cease to operate at all.
5 keys to measuring a profitable productivity in manufacturing
The most surprising causes of these stressful realities lies at an even deeper core: Failure to understand the 5 Key Factors by which to measure productivity. These five keys will allow you to make better decisions, create accurate strategic projections and ultimately begin to position your company from where you are, to where you want to be.
Objective Management: You must manage your staff strictly by setting clear and written objectives in motion. All progress reports, conversations and written tasks must be outcome oriented and focused solely on the proven tactics required to achieve it.
Metric Measuring of Internal Productivity: All progress reporting and final objectives must have a metric form of measurement. Without this feature you are leaving the progress and overall success of the departments and employees solely up to the work ethics of each employee. Ethics that in 90% of cases, fall drastically short of the expectations set by the Executive and Management staff.
Establishing Feedback Communication Lines: Simultaneous with the setting of outcomes, metrics and accountability, is creating the environment for constructive feedback. This structured outlet will allow your employees the opportunity to expound upon and provide improvements to the processes that you have implemented. In this system, the productivity almost always increases because the employees are acknowledged and rewarded for taking ownership of their role and respond positively to the significance of being heard.
Measuring overall sales production: Your sales staff also needs very solid, well-articulated outcomes and best practices by which to achieve them. Without documented rules of engagement, you cannot accurately demand quantifiable results which over time will drastically diminish sales production.
Metric Measuring of Service Productivity: Regardless of the client and/or situation, you know that there is a cultural way by which you expect the service aspect of your company to be handled. These parameters need to be in documented form and articulated in a way that allows variances in conversation, but adherence to the ultimate outcome. Only when properly documented, can you hold your service team accountable to the outcomes that you are expecting.
We understand that the most glaring and major issue with the above 5 points is the development and implementation of them. At the Business Experts, this is exactly what we provide for our clients. To receive a complimentary evaluation of the specific areas of your business that are in need of optimization, please enter your email address below
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and allow us to supply you with the tools, free of charge, that will allow you to assess your organization and begin the steps to optimization.
Insurance Brokers lose as many as 2 out of every 3 leads, and it’s costing millions. Here’s Why…
Lose leads is the worst nightmare for any broker. Here are the top reasons why and the three things you can do to prevent it from ever happening to your business.
It is commonly accepted knowledge that insurance brokers work hard to provide the customer service, research and education to their clients regarding the proper coverage on policies that directly affect their professional and personal assets.
Losing Leads. Why?
Unfortunately, if the proper internal systems for communication and detailed client interaction do not surround the activities of your employees, you can lose up to 67% of your potential business due to two primary unchecked factors. (source: www.insuranceleadsguide.com)
1. Speed to Contact 2. Presenting a Unique Value Proposition
While the concept seems simple, you will need to add to the above items a systematized, practical, and implementable pathway so simplified, a new employee can easily follow it and become productive within the first ten days of hire.
Further, you will need to establish internal software programs customized to provide you with the metrics and KPI data that will allow for proper oversight and success measurements.
With these tools and systems in place, you can systematically restart the process of regaining momentum and capturing the other two-thirds of your business pipeline that is seeking the same services elsewhere at companies where they feel that the aforementioned has been mastered.
At the Business Experts, we provide you with the strategic direction you need to begin for free. To get started on your ascension to this level of business mastery in the Insurance Brokerage industry, allow us to provide you with insightful strategies, specific to your business and its needs by entering your email address here:
Upon receipt of your request, we will immediately provide a brief non-invasive confidential questionnaire so we may begin to supply your company with the best known strategies in the marketplace that will take your business from where you are, to where you want to be.
How the Best Insurance Brokers Keep Their Clients. Even When Their Top Producer Walks Away
Top producers are the lifeblood of any profitable business. We look for them, make concession for their style and imitate the best practices that we see working on our clients. However, the downside is that you are now a “student” of the producer instead of a business owner seeking to gain stronger market share through your branding and systems.
Top Producers can walk away with over 50% of your business clientele if systems are not in place to prevent such from happening.
Here are the top 3 ways to ensure that your Insurance Brokerage doesn’t find itself relying on “a few good men”, and thereby suffering when one of them departs to find their future somewhere else.
How to keep clients when top producers leave
There are several ways by which you can “producer proof” your business, and change the culture from relying on a “few good men”, to placing systems and metrics in place that will give your staff both the tools it needs to be effective, while providing you with the transparency you need to measure and maintain the momentum and morale needed to solidify a pipeline of profitable business.
1. KPI Documentation: Every position in your company needs to have clearly defined roles that outline exactly what needs to be done, in what order, and what the results should look like in a specific time frame. This provides your employees with the solid written direction they need to feel certainty that their role is being performed according to what is required.
2. Internal Metrics Software: Having a customized software program that provides “the facts” at a glance will be invaluable not only in providing you with the information you need to monitor the quality of service your staff is providing, but also in providing the direction your staff will need to remain focused on the key factors that will contribute to the growth of your organization.
3. Leadership Training: Teaching your staff “how” to think, instead of simply what to think will create an entire culture of top producers. When you have a culture of top talent, the fear of losing clients to one Top Producer is greatly diminished. Instead, with an entire staff of professionals, the internal culture becomes stronger over time as they will begin to sharpen the skills of each other in order to maintain the metrics (#2) in alignment with the KPI documentation (#1) for their position.
At the Business Experts, we provide all of the above using a customized platform that will gather, analyze and review the most important aspects of your business while providing the data you need to make the best decisions in the shortest amount of time. Our complimentary evaluation will further provide you with the strategic direction you will need to create a culture of top producers and professionals that are focused on the growth of the company as a whole.
To begin, simply advise your email address and we will send you our simplified questionnaire to gain the necessary points of insight that we will utilize to provide you with unlimited value in our comprehensive strategic report.
Enter your email address here:
[contact-form-7 id=”1259″ title=”Questionnaire Request”]
Upon receipt of your request, we will immediately provide a brief non-invasive confidential questionnaire so we may begin to supply your company with the best known strategies in the marketplace that will take your business from where you are, to where you want to be.
Non-Engaged Employees rank on top as the primary source of profit drainage in small businesses. Learn the 5 reasons why and the top 3 things you can do to prevent it.
Burnout and Fatigue and lack of internal systems rank as the top reasons employees are non-engaged in the workplace, and it is costing business owners as much as half of their potential profits. (www.kronos.com)
Due to lack of leadership and system development to create the environment for both the application of knowledge and accountability, businesses suffer overall fatigue from repeated verbal directions being dismissed and/or not executed, and lack of accountability from the omission of systems that define the roles of each position.
Stress at the Leadership Level come from not having access in “real time” to the metrics that measure successful execution and accountability. These issues, combined with the ever present challenge of bringing in new business, create a stressful work environment that has shown over 70% of today’s employees not working at a level of productivity even close to their full potential (www.inc.com)
Non-engaged Employees is the primary source of profit drainage in small businesses
However, here’s what you can do about it to stem the tide and start bringing your teams back to the productivity you know is possible:
Use Performance Metrics: Utilize digital platforms and systems made specifically to monitor and provide the data necessary to measure and guide the performance of your team.
Leadership Training and Development: Learn and utilize the leadership skills that empower your team through proper training and the leveraging of the tools immediately available to not only understand the vision of the company, but also to inspire your staff to follow your leadership in the execution of that vision.
Internal communication platforms: Provide the direction and tools necessary to give each position the environment and necessary information needed to execute the objectives designed for productivity. Commit the anticipated productivity to the metrics noted in point #1 and you will have created the right environment for the profitability you seek.
Not sure where to begin implementation? That is where we come in. At the Business Experts, we create the metrics, training and communication platforms your company will need to excel at every turn and challenge facing your growth.
Simply provide us with your email address and we will provide your company a complimentary report of the customized insights needed to achieve the productivity you envisioned when you opened your business.
Enter your email address here:
[contact-form-7 id=”1259″ title=”Questionnaire Request”]
and the questions to begin will be sent to your email address that will provide us with what we need to return insightful unlimited value to you including the steps to be taken to achieve excellence in the synergy and growth in your business.
“I don’t set trends. I just find out what there are and exploit them.”
Dick Clark, Radio personality
Digital Technologies have changed customers’ behavior and preferences that already affected many industries. Now, it’s time for Property & Casualty Insurance. According to surveys, 60-70% of insurance customers would consider purchasing insurance products from organizations other than insurers. In next 3-5 years the industry will be changed significantly and forever.
Will Insurance Brokers survive? How will they adopt these changes? What can be done to succeed?
Because we are dependent on Insurance Brokers as clients, we have commissioned the report to analyze current trends. Also we did our research of best practices and solutions every broker needs to know to succeed.
Can everyone succeed? No. And the reason for this not every broker is ready to leave their comfort zone now.
However for those who are ready, our experts have designed some strategies how to minimize the negative impact.
We put the report in a form of presentation and will be happy to present it to members of IBAO (Insurance Brokers Association of Ontario) at no charge. If you are located in Canada outside of Ontario or in U.S., but have been intrigued by the report, feel free to contact us for details. This report is based on public and internal researches. Some business performance metrics is our know-how and cannot be disclosed to the public.
and the questions to begin will be sent to your email address that will provide us with what we need to return insightful unlimited value to you including the steps to be taken to achieve excellence in the synergy and growth in your business.
