Accessibility Quick Links
Transcript: Small business strategies
Josh O'Kane:
<00:00:02> Good afternoon, everyone, and thank you for joining us today for a discussion about small business recovery. I'm Josh O'Kane, I'm the Small Business Reporter with the Globe and Mail Support on Business, and I'll be moderating today's discussion. If you're experiencing any technical difficulties, please enter your question into the tech support Q&A box and your question will be answered as soon as possible. And if you have a question for today's speakers, please type it into the Q&A box on this webcast. We'll take a few of your questions at the end of the discussion and I'll try to remind you partway through the discussion. Everyone who registered for the webcast will receive a link to the recorded version and so you can view the event again at your convenience. That recording should be ready in about a week.
<00:00:42> During today's webcast, we'll explore some of the challenges small businesses are facing due to the pandemic and the ways they're responding. We have a great lineup of speakers to cover the issue, so let's introduce them.
<00:00:54> Suzanne Barr has become one of North America's most respected chefs, with a passion for local community, food security and advocacy for people of colour in LGBTQ communities. In the fall of 2019, Suzanne embarked on her latest venture as Head Chef and Owner at True True Diner in Toronto.
<00:01:13> Next, we have Andrew Turnbull, Senior Vice President of Business Banking with CIBC. Now, Andrew leads a team focussed on entrepreneurs and professionals. Previously, Andrew led CIBC's Direct Investing Business, Investor's Edge, and was Chief Administrative Officer for its Wealth Management division.
<00:01:31> Also joining us is Marie Chevrier, Founder and CEO, Sampler, a tech company helping brands like L'Oréal and Nestle deliver samples online and build one-to-one relationships with their customers. Sampler has reached over 50 million consumers globally in 24 different countries.
<00:01:47> And last but not least, we have Shawn Bonnick, President of KinsBrae Packaging, a full-service packaging company in Cambridge, Ontario. KinsBrae serves a growing roster of customers in the food, wines, spirits, beer and nutraceutical sectors.
<00:02:04> All right, so thanks very much, everyone, for joining us today. I'm going to sort of launch into the discussion. I'm just going to start with a general question I hope everyone can answer. So, let's start with, really, the beginning of the pandemic. What was your first reaction to the pandemic's economic shutdowns as a business owner? And for Andrew, what have been the main concerns you've been hearing from business owners? So, first we'll start with Suzanne. What was your first reaction to the pandemic's economic shutdowns?
Suzanne Barr:
<00:02:37> [Laughs] I laugh only because I feel like I think anyone on this panel and many people that are watching and at home that can honestly say that it was kind of – it's been a bit of a rollercoaster ride. It was initially a bit of a surprise. I think there was a lot of possibilities of oh, maybe this will just be a few weeks, maybe this will be a month, who knows? There was a lot of unknowns, you know, trying to communicate with my staff as often as I could in the beginning and then having to explain to them what it felt like and what it meant to actually lay them off but yet that they were going to receive support through the government. And I think there was a lot of shock, there was a lot of, like, well how long is this going to last for? And how are we going to come out of this as restaurants if this sector that is so important to the economy and then billions of jobs that have been lost? And how are we going to look on the other side of this?
Josh O'Kane:
<00:03:39> Okay, I think we're going to be picking up on just about all of those threads as we get into the conversation, but I'd love to offer the same chance to Shawn. What was sort of your first reaction as a business owner to the pandemic and the shutdowns that happened?
Shawn Bonnick:
<00:03:56> I, honestly, was shocked. It was the unknown of is this going to be a day, is it going to be a month, is it going to be a year? What does this mean for our business? What does this mean for our families and just everything? It was just – it was literally like staring into a blank abyss, just not knowing how were we going to be able to react. What are the new protocols on how to react? Are we even going to have our doors open tomorrow?
Josh O'Kane:
<00:04:23> Mm-hmm. Okay. And Marie, I'm curious what your experience was when all of a sudden back in February and March when things were starting to shut down. What was your reaction as a business owner about the future of your business?
Marie Chevrier:
<00:04:37>Yeah, we got a wind that this was going to impact our industry in general. We help consumer product good brands distribute product samples and so we're in the retail space, and we got a wind of that when a large trade show that we participate in got cancelled, and that was kind of the first time that we were thinking about, oh, my God, this is going to impact us, so we started planning right away for pretty much every single scenario. But at the end of the day, actually, Sampler is one of the few lucky companies that have actually seen an increase in demand during this time because we deliver product samples directly to consumers' homes. So as brands can no longer hand out samples in grocery stores or on street corners or festivals or conferences, they're actually leveraging Sampler to do so direct to home.
Josh O'Kane:
<00:05:33> Mm-hmm. And I think that makes a lot of sense. And your business model is really interesting and I hope we can chat about it a little bit after we get through these introductory questions. You know, Andrew, as I did have the question specifically tailored to you since you're speaking with entrepreneurs, yourself, maybe, what are the main concerns that you've been hearing?
Andrew Turnbull:
<00:05:51> Yeah, Josh, thanks so much for having me. You know, CIBC conducted a poll last month, and polls are very hard to show all of the emotion that I think we're all going through, that rollercoaster and not knowing what we're going to be facing. But what the poll really did evidence was that the major concerns among business owners is clearly that business volumes are down and therefore uncertainty of cashflows. Fifty percent of business owners cited a reduced level of demand. Twenty-eight percent of business owners cited that they weren't sure how they were going to pay employees.
<00:06:27> If you extrapolate for the size of business in Canada, that's 400,000 businesses, and that's probably 2 million employees of small businesses, so just a massive impact and so quickly. But we also saw a lot of optimism with three quarters of businesses showing optimism for a full pivot and rebound. And, you know, I think that's really what this webinar is all about today, is that rebound and recovery mode that we're all entering now.
Josh O'Kane:
<00:06:57> Mm-hmm. And, you know, I wanted to follow up with individual questions for everyone, and I'd love to know, you know, what sectors of small business have you seen the most impact in? Which sectors are the most optimistic about a rebound? I'm curious. I'm sure a lot of people want to hear about sectors they're not in and strategies that they may want to employ themselves.
Andrew Turnbull:
<00:07:22> Yeah, Josh, I mean, I'm happy to answer. You know, we obviously have the benefit of seeing that sort of data, and clearly the most hard-hit sectors would be the obvious ones that we see on storefronts, whether that's food or beverage, hospitality, travel, and the service sectors in particular, you know, professionals, whether that's doctors or dentists or therapists. I think any neighbourhood that we walk down on our streets in Canada today we see businesses that have either had to shut down entirely or have had to significantly modify the way that they can provide that service or that product in today's environment, and I think there's so many great examples that we're seeing of innovation coming out as a result.
<00:08:10> So while I think it's a terrible situation that we're in through this pandemic, I think there's also been just amazing shoots of green that we've also seen amongst the innovation in our economy as well.
Josh O'Kane:
<00:08:25> Okay. So, I'd like to go back to Suzanne. Just sort of pick up where we were leaving off. You know, for many restaurants, take-out has been a chief source of revenue with dining rooms shut down, but I understand that you were never set up for take-out and I'd love to get a sense of how have you been faring during the pandemic because of this? And how have you been keeping customers engaged over the last few months and how your thinking might have evolved over that time?
Suzanne Barr:
<00:08:57> Yeah, you know, it's interesting, you know. The first few weeks after we – you know, we were offering a service of ritual, which is a pick-up and take-out, but because of the pandemic, we obviously couldn't offer that. So, you know, the take-out model for us was something that we had always envision that eventually we would be able to jump on board and offer to our customer base. But, you know, it was literally week-to-week that we were, like, should we do it, should we not? Is this going – are they going to open the gates? Is, you know, how safe is this? How safe can we actually keep our – make sure that our staff is being cared for?
<00:09:43> And a lot of our staff had already made it very clear to us that they didn't feel comfortable and confident enough to go back into the restaurants or leave their homes. And I myself am home with my partner and my son, and he and I both agreed that we don't even want to take the risk in the very early beginning months. But I think that it had been, and it still is this process of trying to figure out what makes sense for us right now and how can we actually offer a service to our customers and be smart about it and be effective? And it's a business model that, yes, we've talked about, but is this is a growing business model that we can continue to carry on?
<00:10:27> It's wonderful to see folks that are doing pantry items. They've expanded their business model and I think that that's what we've had to do as business owners, think outside of the box; think innovatively of how we can still gain access to our customer base. I myself have offered – begun offering cooking demos through our web page on our web site as well as Instagram and a few other things. And I think it's been effective. (Non-related conversation to the side.) It's been effective because our guests have really been able to engage with me one-on-one. Because out of everything that's happening right now, folks are home.
<00:11:15> I've, as a chef myself, I've never been home so much with my son to have dinner and it is a pleasure and an honour to cook for him and to be home with him. So there's so many highlights that have come out of all of this, but I think at the end of the day, like, you know, having the screen time with him with me cooking and our guests jumping on the feed and telling me, oh, my gosh, that's how you make the biscuits, or that's how you make those pancakes, I'm coming back in, when are you opening? That engagement for me is so exciting because I feel like this is first time that we've ever been able to really engage in a different way and have a real future in continuing to engage with our customer base.
Josh O'Kane:
<00:11:53> That's really fantastic to hear that you've been able to sort of have that engagement in spite of obviously the sort of terrible situation that your business has been put in, and I hope that will translate into an increased volume of customers going forward.
<00:12:09> For Marie, we were talking about this a little bit a moment ago, you know, in-store product sampling largely came to a halt with the pandemic and my understanding based on how Sampler works is, you know, you may have been able to intervene and offer some assistance to organizations that were no longer able to do that kind of sampling. Can you walk us through sort of how that worked and sort of how things might have changed for you in terms of the volume of business that you're doing?
Marie Chevrier:
<00:12:38> For sure. And I loved, you know, what Andrew was saying around how so many companies have had to innovate during this time, and that's certainly very true for Sampler. We've implemented not only a ton of more volume on our current model, but we've actually looked at new models. But what I'd say is as it relates to Sampler with Costco, LCBO, all of these different retailers completely cancelling in-store demos, the ability to deliver a product sample to a consumer is nearly impossible right now for our brand unless they're actually doing it direct to consumer.
<00:13:20> And so an opportunity came about for Sampler to really leverage this opportunity to talk about a model that – and I want to say this for all the entrepreneurs on the call – that has been around for seven years. We've been working on Sampler for seven years but, you know, this is our time where more than ever brands are starting to realize, you know what, contactless sampling or direct-to-home sampler or in-home pop-up experiences are really, really valuable and allow the brand to do it safely but also continue the conversation with the consumer past trial, versus someone just picking up a piece of cheese at a grocery store and walking away.
<00:14:08> So it's really posed itself as an opportunity; so for us it meant let's be really attentive to the market and we developed a new business model throughout this time. Not only did we do the B to C sampling, but we also launched retailer sampling. So if you're an emerging brand who was hoping to get listed into whole foods, you can't go to a conference during this time to meet with new retailer buyers, so Sampler is actually sending retail buyers a box with product that they should discover so that from home they can actually taste them and start listing them. So it's been a really exciting time on that side.
Josh O'Kane:
<00:14:50> Do you anticipate – I'm curious – do you anticipate continuing the new things that you've learned and tried once things settle down and become normal again?
Marie Chevrier:
<00:14:59> Absolutely. And I think that that's what we can expect from everyone. We all have picked up new patterns. We saw in the first month of the pandemic 30% of consumers who joined a grocery app had never before tried grocery delivery at home, right? So a lot of people are adopting new behaviours and they're here to stay. They say it takes, what, 60 days to build a habit? We're well into 60 days. So yeah, we are going to continue on that path and think that our brands are also going to not really want to go back after they see the benefits.
Josh O'Kane:
<00:15:42> Okay. All right.
Andrew Turnbull:
<00:15:44> Josh, if it's okay, I'd love to pick up on what Marie was just saying. You know, I think it's – we have to differentiate between there will be some customer preferences, some consumer preferences that will just change for, you know, the short term. But we think many of these are permanent, right? A more cashless society, more digital commerce. You know, there's the surge in baking and in puppies and in delivery and all of these things that we've all seen in our neighbourhoods. You can't get flour in the grocery store any more.
Marie Chevrier:
<00:16:16> In health and fitness more.
Andrew Turnbull:
<00:16:18> Yeah. Yeah. And so I think some of these things are really here to stay and, you know, in terms of assessing your own situations as an entrepreneur right now, it's about understanding how can you actually pivot your business model. And I think a number of speakers on this panel have great stories of how they've quite quickly pivoted the business models to be able to open up to either new channels, new distribution channels, or actually even change the product that they offer to conform to some of those new preferences.
Josh O'Kane:
<00:16:53> And actually, that, I think, really leads into sort of what I wanted to ask Shawn at KinsBrae, because I remember when we were chatting before, you know, a significant amount of your clients are in the food and beverage industry, and I'm curious how you had to react and if you'd say that it was a pivot? Shawn?
Shawn Bonnick:
<00:17:13> Yeah, absolutely. We definitely did have to pivot. Our business historically has been about 70% retail packaging with 30% in the beer, beverage, wine business for the actual aluminum cans and the package that literally the liquid would go into. Over this pandemic, that 70% just dropped off the market. Obviously, people weren't going into the stores, they weren't doing their impulse buys. Obviously when you go to a mall, those don't exist as far as anybody's concerned right now. So any of our packaging that went into there literally just dropped.
<00:17:48> So we drastically had to change our thinking process within the business and accelerate our manufacturing processes so we could keep up with the 30% that then suddenly became 100% of our business very, very quickly. So not only did it become 100%, it also drastically increased as well to offset the lost business that we had in retail, so we too were one of the fortunate ones that our business has done very well throughout it. We haven't had a massive increase, but we also haven't seen a decrease because we've been able to leverage our new technology that we've been having in our facility over the past year-and-a-half here. So it's really increased the sales on that aspect of things.
<00:18:34> The challenging aspect of that, though, comes with the cashflow for it because it's a very expensive piece of equipment with a lot of input costs to it that to build up that cashflow it was a three- to a five-year plan to get to the point where we are today to slowly build up. So, you know, with Andrew's help there and his team, we were able to overcome a lot of those financial difficulties in a very quick time and fashion and it got us to skyrocket into where we wanted to be in the three- to five-year range, doing it right away.
<00:19:07> So it was great in that sense, but we also had to look at new revenues of income as well, and obviously a big thing with the whole COVID aspect is hand sanitizer. Right off the bat, we were sitting on about 600,000 little PET dropper bottles that we actually distributed for free across the market to all of our distillers that we currently work with and said, "Hey, we'll support you here doing whatever we can, here's these bottles, get it out there. We'll figure out the world after, but we need to work together."
<00:19:38> So it was nice that we were able to do something like that for our local economy and make sure that the frontline workers had their hand sanitizer, as well as just the general public that they were handing these out to. Not to mention our customer themselves were doing it, so it's been – it's been definitely a different pivot and the retail still hasn't come back so I don't even know what paths we're going to be taking in the near future as the retail comes back, which there's no doubt in my mind it will in a different form or fashion. But how we're going to react on that, I'm going to have to come up a new business plan with my partner and go okay, how are we going to tackle this? What do we need to do differently and how do we need to be better because we've actually taken a different look? Instead of maintaining what our customers are telling us, we've really tried to focus on what their customers are telling them so we can be on the forefront and have some sort of an indication of the trends of what our customers are going to need.
Josh O'Kane:
<00:20:39> Do you – I'm curious – in terms of the business plan, obviously a lot of people are trying to redraw theirs. Have you started thinking about that now or are you still sort of focussed on making sure that your pandemic "pivot" is sort of ready to be sustainable while you work on a plan? I'm just curious.
Shawn Bonnick:
<00:20:59> We definitely worked on the plan. The problem is that there's a lot of open roads that we really don't have answers for, so there's a few, I wouldn't call them dead ends because they're not, they're very just wide open with the, okay, if the market goes this way, we can continue down that plan. So, you know, we also have to account for our business from that 30% that grew to be 100% of our business, is that also going to be sustainable long-term? Is that just a blip in the radar right now and we are going to drop back down to maybe 50%?
<00:21:30> I do think it's just consumer trends, beer, as people have already said on the panel here that consumer trends are now finding it significantly easier to order your product online, it shows up at your house and that's it. There's no wasted time after work having to go to a store. People now get to spend more time with their family. Myself included, I find it easier to order online and get it delivered to my house.
<00:21:53> So I do think a lot of that business is going to continue that way, so we just have to be prepared for, you know, our packaging aspect and a lot of our shipping boxes is also going to increase. There's no doubt in my mind as we go through this that we're going to have to come up with new ways to protect the products of our consumers for the end user.
Josh O'Kane:
<00:22:12> Okay. Now I want to open up the discussion, I have a few questions that we can sort of all take part in for the next 10 or 15 minutes and then we're going to open up to audience questions. So this is also serving as a reminder to folks in the audience; if you have any questions, make sure you text them into the Q&A box.
<00:22:30> So for everyone, and I'm very curious, you might have given a lot of thought to this or maybe the answer is simply just yes or no, but the plans that you set out at the start of the pandemic, did they shift over the last three months? I think some of your responses earlier coloured this a little bit but I'm just curious: any other detail that you might have though of just oh, my plans started and I'm going to adjust my business model in this way and then it turns out that consumers were acting differently and it might have affected you in a different way? I'm curious. So because I just rambled a bit. I will
Marie Chevrier:
<00:23:07> I can start.
Josh O'Kane:
<00:23:08> Yeah, sure.
Marie Chevrier:
<00:23:09> I can start, yeah. So for us, actually, we talked a little bit about how consumers might react to receiving product at home and shipments, right, and the first thing we wanted to check was: Will consumers be afraid of receiving packages at home? Will people be afraid of the transmission via packages? And it turned out that very quickly, as we already highlighted, we realized that receiving a package at home is actually the most exciting part of the day, right? The mailman knocks on the door and me and my husband run, we're just so excited.
<00:23:44>So, you know, we had to plan for a worst case and we had to plan for a best case. And I think that as we report back to our board, as we report back to our bank, we are always showing now, you know, what does our business look like at -20% in revenue, at -10% in revenue, at +10% in revenue, +20%. And I think as founders and business owners or business leaders, I think we will have learnt that having that kind of total view of these external factors that can impact your business will forever be instilled in us and I think it's just going to make us better business leaders in the future.
Josh O'Kane:
<00:24:35> Okay. Shawn, do you have any thoughts on that?
Shawn Bonnick:
<00:24:39> You know, we absolutely thought about this one right at the start and we came up with a plan. And the one thing I constantly remind myself about is, you know, there's going to be bad days in this, it's part of the life of being an entrepreneur, but it's not a bad life, and every time we've had to go over a hurdle, a new opportunity has arisen. So with the positive mindset that we've been able to have throughout the company, our initial plan was to just hunker down and keep with it, and very, very quickly we had to change, even internally.
<00:25:16> A lot of our employees' roles changed. We wanted to keep as many people employed as humanly possible, so we actually had some of our front office workers running our equipment in the back warehouse just to help keep up with demand and everything. So our business plan absolutely changed, positions changed. I found myself working evenings and weekends on the line myself.
<00:25:42> So it's definitely changed and now as we're coming out of it where our sales reps are now allowed to go back to being a sales rep and I'm going back to more of the front office, those roles are changing as well. So it's and ever-evolving change right now to sort of go with the flow but also make sure that we're doing what's needed for the betterment of our employees.
Josh O'Kane:
<00:26:04> Okay. Suzanne, I believe you had left for a moment. If you're back…
Suzanne Barr:
<00:26:11> Yeah, I'm back.
Josh O'Kane:
<00:26:13> Okay.
Suzanne Barr:
<00:26:25> Yeah, absolutely. You know, I think, like most working parents, working from home with your children has become the new norm. Becoming a parent that is also homeschooling has become the norm now. So at the beginning, and even the weeks after the pandemic and we closed our doors, I think we've always been kind of aware of the trends that are hitting the industry, and I think we've also been very conscious of how we want to expand and offer our products to not just our walk-in customers or our reservation-based customers. I think we've always thought about other ways, whether it's offering take-home products, whether it's launching a bakery, all of these things have always kind of been in the back of your mind but now it's kind of like everything gets sped up to 100 miles an hour. And it's like if you're not kind of engaging in thinking outside of just that service-orientated offering that we do, you're missing out on a huge opportunity just to see the shifts of, like, how things are moving.
<00:27:43> I think every, whether you're a take-out only exclusive restaurant or if you're a sit-down fine dining or if you're a casual comfort restaurant like who we are, I think we really had to put that model into, like, okay, this is what's going to happen, and I think we started planning out how we're going to do that. And that physical manifestations, like physical changes in our space, like, how are we going – where are we going to put the products at? How are customers going to be able to come in, pick up something and then take it out?
<00:28:15> And so it takes us, you know, it's taken us many weeks and lots of brown paper on our wall to actually write out some new missions and some news ways of how we can be able to offer our product out to our guests. But I think in addition to that is we opened our kitchen to community rescue cooking and I've been cooking for many community centres and retirement homes, and that is something that I think is a part of my social advocacy work and just feeding people that aren't always heard, that aren't always seen and that are forgotten, and making sure that going through all of this that we know that there are still people out there that need support and they need help, they need anything that anyone can put together. That was a big thing for me to be engaged in. I was happy to be a part of a few organizations here in this city that were already doing that and then just making sure that the food that was in our fridges weren't going to waste and to be able to think how we can get that to them.
Josh O'Kane:
<00:29:27> That's fantastic. And I think that sort of helps set us up for the next question, because I think we need to look ahead a little bit as we sort of move towards audience questions in a few minutes. You know, even as some provinces reopen, we're not quite getting close to getting back to what would be considered normal business. I'm curious what you folks think about what changes do you think will be permanent for entrepreneurs after this crisis? And what parts of running a company will need more focus? Now, I haven't chatted with Andrew for a while if you'd like to go first.
Andrew Turnbull:
<00:30:01> Well, look, I mentioned obviously there are certain things that I think we're seeing trending towards permanent, which is really the willingness because so many people have been able to now try digital commerce for the first time and maybe weren't as comfortable with it before. So I certainly think that a number of, I'll call it revenue channels, or go-to market strategies, are ones that maybe more traditional bricks and mortar businesses were seeing pivot towards. And, you know, as you've pointed out, because there is still so much uncertainty, it's very hard to paint a picture of exactly what the plan or strategy should be for every business that's on this webinar.
<00:30:42> It really comes down to understanding your own situation, what province you're in, what city you're in, what type of business you run, you know, what type of storefront you have if physical or virtual. And really understanding what do you think are the various scenarios that could play out for your own business based on everything that you know, the fact base that you have from your province and from the federal government for your business, then translating that into a set of tactics. What are you going to do to both be resilient to possible downside scenarios, as well as to be opportunistic about where you can grow the business in the environment that either is going to be here for a few years or is going to be here permanently, to your point, Josh.? And then I think it's all about putting it into action.
<00:31:32> And, you know, I think wrapped up in all of that is making sure that don't feel alone in this. I think the reason we've got this webinar today is because there are hundreds of thousands of businesses that are facing very similar situations across the country. We're in this together and, you know, surround yourself with a great peer group and trusted advisors to really help you think through: What is it I need to do? What are the solutions I need to put in place? And where can I get the support? And, you know, I think that's what's most important right now.
Josh O'Kane:
<00:32:06> Okay. Does anyone else have any thoughts about what parts of running a company might need more focus or what you think will be changing for you as a business owner after this?
Suzanne Barr:
<00:32:16> Yeah, I would love to jump in. I think as a business owner and as a chef and a person of colour, I think that we can't deny that there is a lot of movement happening around in regards to racism and race in this world, in this country and the US. And I think that we really have to, as business owners, make sure of our message and that we are seeing people for who they are within the workplace and that we're giving opportunities within administrative management teams to people of colour and opening ourselves up to not just limiting to the faces that we continuously see all the time. Because these spaces, these opportunities, these real moments as a business, this is when you see the businesses that are going to grow and excel and those that are just going to really be put on the firing line as far as, like, where is your accountability? Where is your statement towards where you stand within your efforts within the Black Lives Matter movement, within the Indigenous Lives movement specifically in this country?
<00:33:29> And I think that as a woman of colour in this industry, we specifically have so many disadvantages that are happening right now and not just from not being able to always have access to funds, not always having access to spaces, not always having moments and opportunities where we can actually explore, and the education and the information. Like, I want to be able to share as much information that I've gained over the years being an entrepreneur and share that to many young, aspiring people of colour and bi-pop because I think that when we look into the future and we look to see who is really going to be running businesses that are going to be making impacts on the global sense, it's our commitment to where we stand within race relations and where we as a business really align ourselves with our beliefs and put our beliefs into practice and opening up spaces for those people that really need this opportunity and they need their voices to be heard.
Josh O'Kane:
<00:34:35> I think it's really important to commit to opening up opportunities, particularly around entrepreneurship, for a greater number people and now is obviously the right moment to be thinking about that as everyone is rethinking exactly structurally how they're not just running their business, they're living their lives.
<00:34:51> We're moving a little bit towards audience questions, but I want to ask one last question of the panelists that kind of flows through what you were just saying, Suzanne, which was have you learned anything from dealing with this pandemic that has made you rethink your own approach to running a company or running your life as an entrepreneur? And when we were talking about this beforehand, there was a big focus on family, that people are starting to realize. "Oh, I really want to continue spending this amount of time with my family and have downtime and recharge and think." And I'm curious, you know, what lessons you think that you've learned over the course of this? If anyone wants to start?
Shawn Bonnick:
<00:35:33> There is a – I can jump in on that one to start off with there. I've got two young girls myself, literally that I named my company after, and that was the entire intent when I started the company, was to give me a little bit of financial freedom but more so the freedom to spend that time with my girls. And to be honest with you, I completely lost focus of that over the past several years as I grew the company; just more and more of my time was spent with the company and away from home. And since this whole pandemic has happened and I've been home earlier when I can and there's a lot more time on the weekends, it's honestly been a much more enjoyable time and it really brought me back to why I did this whole thing in the first place, why I even started the company. Why I have the employees I have was because it's very family-based. And, you know, to make sure that we are dealing with our employees and making sure that family is first to them and they know that myself and the business partner understand that and are focussed on that now.
<00:36:39> It's one of the things that we really need to keep that focus on, that, you know, honestly money is one of those things that if you work hard you can always make more of it and, you know, at bare minimum get by. But those moments with your family and especially your kids are things that you just can't get again. So the moments I've had with my daughters over the past two months has been absolutely amazing, and on an ongoing forward basis I'm going to make sure that it stays that way as far as I can until my wife tells me that I'm getting out of line again.
Josh O'Kane:
<00:37:12> All right. Does anybody else have any thoughts sort of about what dealing with this pandemic has made you rethink your own approach to running a company or how it might intersect with other parts of your life?
Marie Chevrier:
<00:37:22> Yeah. For us it's definitely got us thinking a lot about balance, for sure. And as you said so well, Shawn, it really is about what is the workplace's job and making sure that we encourage our teams to have balance. And that could mean balance in, you know, how they are between their work-life balance but also balance in some of the issues that we need to have a voice in as well as on top of the pandemic. The social injustice that's happened over the last little while has really taught us a lot of the role that we can play in supporting our teams during this time, and so I take that responsibility more than ever as one of the biggest lessons that I'll take out of this really difficult time.
Josh O'Kane:
<00:38:23> Okay. Andrew, have you been hearing things from folks on the ground? I'm curious.
Andrew Turnbull:
<00:38:30> Well, look, even within a large organization like CIBC, we're a very purpose-driven organization and it's moments like this where I think an organization's true colours come. I think, you know, to Marie's point, it's also about getting balance. It's very hard to separate work and life when we're all working from home, the temptation to check your email in the middle of dinner. And, you know, I think we're all stretching ourselves and our team members to work way beyond what we are traditionally used to.
<00:39:03> So I think as we get into a sustained mode – we're now in months, not weeks anymore ¬– it's about how to help create boundaries so that we can get the most balance for our team members and make sure that the phase that we're now entering of recovery is something that's sustainable for us so that we can grow businesses, but that we also are not draining our own team members. So I think that's really something that every entrepreneur should be making sure they're thinking about, is how to create that balance now that we're entering a sustained period.
Josh O'Kane:
<00:39:41> Okay. So we've got about five minutes left and we've got a number of audience questions. And actually, a number of these are for Suzanne and I'm going to condense a few of them into this one question, because I think that a lot of them are quite interesting but we only have a little bit of time. The restaurant sector has been very hard hit by the pandemic and the audience is wondering: How do you envision the recovery looking like?
Suzanne Barr:
<00:40:08> You know, I think the recovery right now for myself, and that's really who I can speak to, it's challenging. You know, I've been on web sites within the government to try to understand these new mandates. Within the restaurant industry, we are probably the most equipped with understanding the health and safety practices because of already what we have to put into our own practices in being able to operate as a business. So I think that whether it's between the PPE, the additional PPE that we're going to require for each staff member and plus all of the precautions that we'll have within the space, whether it's the markings on our ground, the physical process of doing that is one part.
<00:40:52> And then there's the other part of it where it's how is that going to get funded? And I'm so happy that CIBC is with us on this call and I would love to ask the question, you know, in this area where a lot of the times businesses, restaurants cannot get funding from banks because we are too high of a risk, is this an opportunity, is this a time, do you think, that I can walk into CIBC and say, "Yes, hi, I'd love to be able to get some support to be able to set us up so that we can build and grow and be able to utilize this conversation as a platform to be able to set a new standard of how as a restaurant, a small business owner, we can actually go to a bank and actually receive funding?" Because it's historically not happening anymore and I've never, ever approached a bank for many reasons because of the concerns around the high risk within restaurants.
Andrew Turnbull:
<00:41:49> Yeah, so awesome question, Suzanne. And I think a couple of thoughts. I'll come back to maybe the specific question around financing. One of them is, we have a COVID microsite that we've created at CIBC.com/business, and we're constantly enhancing it so that the resources available to think through these issues and understand how to tap into financing options is readily available.
<00:42:16> Specifically for restaurants, I'm really pleased to announce that today we've launched a program at CIBC called Revival Rewards. Revival Rewards. And what it is, is it's to help bring more consumers back towards patronizing restaurants and take-out, both eat-in and take-out, by doubling the points on CIBC's credit cards. So what we're really trying to do is help create a rebound in the economy for the most hard-hit sectors, and we've announced today that we're doing that with restaurants.
<00:42:48> And then I think third to your question, Suzanne, let me just cover some of the mechanics of the government programs here, because you're right that there definitely is a challenge for restaurants in particular. And the government programs that have been created, in particular one that's a Business Development Bank of Canada co-lending solution, is one that has over $20 billion ascribed to it, and it's there for businesses like yours to be able to go to your primary bank – so if it's CIBC, you would come to CIBC, if it's a different bank, you'd need to go to that bank that you already bank with in order to be able to apply for a loan – and it would be underwritten on the basis of what your financial situation was before COVID. And so it's a great way of opening up being able to take on financing to make the retrofits that you've described that you need for your restaurant, and being underwritten based on how the business was faring before COVID started.
Josh O'Kane:
<00:43:54> All right. So we do have a couple of other audience questions left, but unfortunately, it is time to wrap up for the day. So I apologize and hopefully we can continue this dialogue online on Twitter and any other forums and we'll also be continuing to cover these issues at the Globe and Mail.
<00:44:15> So thank you very much for joining us today, we are going to leave it there. In lieu of speaker gifts, the Globe will make a donation to a charity of each speaker's choosing. So we'll be making a donation to the 519, a Toronto organization dedicated to the advocacy for the inclusion of LGBTQ2S communities on behalf of Marie; to Cystic Fibrosis Canada on behalf of Shawn; to Food Share on behalf of Suzanne; and to the Canadian Cancer Society on behalf of Andrew.
<00:44:44> And a reminder to the audience that you will all receive a link to the recorded version of the webcast in about a week. And I would like to thank our speakers for taking the time to share their insights and all of you for listening in. So thank you very much, Suzanne, Marie, Andrew and Shawn. Thanks very much for joining today.
Marie Chevrier:
<00:45:01> Thank you so much.
Shawn Bonnick:
<00:45:03> Thanks, Josh.
Suzanne Barr:
<00:45:04> Thank you.
Andrew Turnbull:
<00:45:04> Great to be here too.