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BDC Small Business Week: Member Pivot Profiles

19 October 2020

To kick-off BDC Small Business Week, we’re sharing Edmonton Chamber Members’ stories of perseverance, strength and resiliency throughout these uncertain times. Throughout the day, we will showcase local business’ journeys as they adapted to the pandemic and how they continue to forge their way forward.

Be inspired by reading their Member Pivot Profiles.

Company Name: Grand Canada Enterprises

Industry: Food Manufacturing & Processing

When international demand declined due to the pandemic, Canada Grand Enterprises (CGE) had to quickly diversify! By introducing their local organic oils to local Edmonton customers and end consumers, CGE made a local breakthrough for their business.

Healthy eating can be simple and Canada Grand Enterprises (CGE) is here to help! As a local oil and grain producer in Alberta, CGE manages the rigorous production and quality control that represents their promises to customers – natural, healthy, and safe. Their featured products are cold-pressed, organic canola oil and flaxseed oil; all of the ingredients are sourced from Canadian farms!

Every year, CGE participates in a variety of trade shows, trade missions and exhibitions around the globe to promote Canadian agriculture and showcase their products to distributors. However, the majority of the events were disrupted due to the pandemic; additionally, the international demand was also impacted due to the possibility of delayed shipments.

While the pandemic slowed down CGE’s pace, it also gave them an opportunity to diversify the ways to approach customers. They introduced our products to the end consumer on Amazon Canada in March; meanwhile, the research of going into a local farmers market was a work-in-progress and CGE’s store front finally opened this July at the Bountiful Farmers’ Market in Edmonton. It is a new journey for CGE to market the products to the end consumers at home.

“It is indeed a difficult time for small businesses; stay together and support each other – selling on Amazon and the local is overall a breakthrough for us and we love connecting with other local entrepreneurs and online sellers to learn and share!” Joning Yu, Canada Grand Enterprises Inc.

Company Name: Funky Petals North Edmonton

Industry: Retail

When their storefront was forced to temporarily close, Funky Petals North Edmonton focused their efforts online and on saying ‘thank you’ to local supermarkets by donating extra flowers to their locations.

As a small boutique flower and gift shop, Funky Petals North Edmonton carries local products from Edmonton and surrounding areas.

Once non-essential businesses were forced to temporarily shut down, Funky Petals closed their storefront to the public and temporarily laid-off staff members.

As a result of the pandemic, Funky Petals begin to advertise more aggressively online. They also started offering online classes and donating some of their extra flowers to the staff at local supermarkets and other organizations as a way to say “thank you” and help spread some cheer during the difficult times. Funky Petals also offered free delivery for March and April plus curbside pick-up until their doors were able to re-open as part of Alberta’s Relaunch Stage 2.

After re-opening, Funky Petals was able to bring back their staff and even hire an additional staff member as business had picked-up! Plus, as another silver lining, their social media presence and online sales continues to grow!

Company Name: Town Square Brewing

Industry: Hospitality & Beverage Manufacturing

When the COVID crisis hit, Town Square Brewing Co. pivoted overnight. This local craft brewery built an online store & delivery program (not only craft brews but frozen pizza too!) – plus partnered with local artisans to offer their products online.

Town Square Brewing Co. is a local Edmonton craft brewery and taproom. They create artisan beers and pizzas in a family-friendly environment.

The pandemic forced their taproom to close; as such, a large portion of their revenue generation was affected. The closures had also completely ceased Town Square Brewing’s draft distribution to restaurants and bars – forcing them to get creative with their produced beer!

Overnight, Town Square Brewing pivoted and channeled their creativity to stay afloat and keep their staff employed. They initiated an online store and delivery program; delivering not only their crafted beer, but also frozen artisan pizzas and other goods they could package for deliveries. And it doesn’t just end there! Town Square Brewing also partnered with local artisans and offered their products on their online store.

While it was a quick transition and a steep learning curve, Town Square Brewing developed a new arm to their business with an online store. They also developed relationships with local partners that share their same passion and love for their craft and community. This pivot not only allowed their employees to remain on payroll, but also created jobs!

“Support local has been major for us and we are forever grateful to all the people that have supported Town Square Brewing Co. and our amazing team” says Brandon Boutin, Town Square Brewing Co.

Company Name: Punchcard Systems

Industry: B2B Software & App Development

Punchcard Systems, a developer of B2B software, remained agile throughout the pandemic! Not only did they increase their online engagement, but also created projects to support other businesses with emergency planning.

Punchcard Systems is an Alberta-based technology firm that focuses on partnerships over profits. They develop digital software solutions that help other businesses collaborate, streamline their work, and capture efficiencies.

At the beginning of the pandemic, Punchcard saw an increase in contract cancellations due to the economic environment. Like many Alberta businesses, they saw a significant fluctuation of their revenues throughout the pandemic and had to adapt quickly.

Since so many companies were in turmoil during the onset of the pandemic, Punchcard decided to make a number of pivots. Not only did they adapt to becoming a digital-first firm, they also created projects that informed and assisted businesses with emergency planning and response. That’s how COVIDContinuity and Pandemos were born.

CovidContinuity is a resource hub that provides help for businesses navigating the challenges and opportunities associated with operating during the COVID-19 pandemic. Pandemos is a secure, physician-only platform where healthcare providers from around the world share and access valuable pandemic-fighting tips in real time.

Punchcard also pivoted to focus in internally developed projects. This allowed them to seek grants and keep their staff engaged while maintaining financial security. One of their higher-priority internal projects is AlignTime, which is an AI-driven business intelligence tool for professional service firms. AlignTime is a software platform that connects time tracking services (eg: Harvest) with synchronous communications tools (eg: Slack or Microsoft Teams) to benefit project managers, team leads, and HR professionals.

Since the beginning of the COVID pandemic, they’ve drastically increased online engagement and communication to ensure transparency and support within the company. In addition to adapting to online meetings, sprints, team-building exercises, and planning and resourcing sessions, Punchcard also helped our customers adapt through the transition. This has helped them maintain a consistent workflow and guide their customers through their process.

The agile nature of Punchcard during the pandemic has accelerated their five-year plan. Many of the planned internal projects to solve remote workplace problems are becoming more in-demand as the need for remote work solutions and online communications increase. Overhead costs are also lower, as office space, travel budgets, and expenses associated with customer meetings have decreased due to online communication!

Company Name: Alyson Connolly

Industry: Voice and Public Speaking Coach

Learn how this voice and public speaking coach transitioned her coaching methods and workshops online. “Working virtually has given me the opportunity to help clients from all over the world” - Alyson Connolly.

Alyson Connolly works with clients to help them become great presenters. From those clients who need to brush up on their presentation skills to those who dread giving any form of a speech, she is here to support! Alyson provides workshops and also works with clients on a 1-1 basis.

So when the pandemic hit, Alyson immediately lost all her caseload and work.

Before the pandemic, she had a few clients who she worked with remotely. “That’s when I should have bought stock in Zoom!” Alyson laughs. Once the pandemic hit, she quickly researched how she could coach and provide workshops virtually. She then purchased a ring light, webcam, a good microphone, and she was ready to roll!

Then, as people realized that this pandemic was not going anywhere anytime soon, clients started booking sessions again.

Before COVID hit in March, Alyson had filmed 14 lessons based on her book, “Public Speaking Skills for dummies.” Then, while in lockdown, Alyson had the time to work on the lessons and now, she is pleased to share that her online course will be up on the Teachable website by early November!

On the upside, Alyson states “working virtually has given me the opportunity to help clients from all over the world.” While she looks forward to working with people in person again, online services will now be offered regularly!

Company Name: JaxonLabs

Industry: Consulting & Development

Once the COVID-19 crisis hit, JaxonLabs, a local brand development company, focused their efforts on helping businesses pivot. By leveraging online tools and working with clients remotely, they supported their clients’ creativity and adaptability.

JaxonLabs is a brand development company that works with organizations and people to maximize their value. They help businesses align corporate objectives with the technologies, brand assets, and marketing initiatives necessary to achieve growth and sustainability. Their platform is built on an agile foundation – believing in a build/test/optimize process that helps businesses grow efficiently.

As a company that operates with a digital philosophy, the pandemic didn't change too much in terms of how JaxonLabs worked with their clients. They were leveraging many productivity tools as they worked with clients remotely with scheduled onsite visits. In many cases, their client's businesses were disrupted, so they needed to be creative and help them adapt.

During the pandemic, JaxonLabs’ focus was aimed at helping businesses pivot.

For Seven Summit Snacks, an Edmonton startup focused on creating chocolate-based snacks for athletes, JaxonLabs supported their transition from selling in boutique stores to building their e-commerce. They created assets used for Seven Summit’s crowdfunding initiative through the ATB BoostR program. They raised 110% of their funding goal, which helped them go into their first round of production, and they are now making sales on their website.

For Salus Technologies, a digital safety solutions provider, JaxonLabs supported their marketing pivot in offering their safety platform at no-cost to any construction company that wanted to transition away from paper-based safety programs. This campaign ran for 60 days, signing up over 70+ new companies to the platform – many have stayed on. Salus has almost reached 8x growth in revenue this year due to the extraordinary determination of everyone involved.

Not being able to meet with clients face-to-face added some challenges to the content creation and media development component. However, JaxonLabs eventually found a way to do some of this safely.

Some people pre-pandemic were reluctant about virtual work sessions over Zoom; however now are much more comfortable with the idea. In some cases, it increased their productivity levels going to virtual work sessions thanks to screen-sharing and working on live documents together.

“Coming out of this pandemic, we will find ourselves in a better position to be one of the go-to resources companies look to when trying to adapt their business to the changing times.”

Company Name: Bliss YogaSpa

Industry: Health & Wellness

At Bliss, clients receive a sense of peace, harmony and wellbeing. Bliss’ 8,000 square foot facility is designed to flow from their hot yoga studio to their 11 treatment rooms that include couples massage rooms and medical laser rooms.

Once non-essential businesses were required to close to protect public health, Bliss was closed their yoga studio in early March; then chose to close their spa a week later.

Bliss immediately pivoted to launching their online store for skin care, make-up, yoga clothing and accessories. They also started recording yoga classes and launched a Vimeo library so their yogis could practice at home. Bliss also chose to renovate, paint and perform a deep clean the entire facility.

Since reopening in June, their operations have had to continue to adjust as they had to remove many of the blissfultouches that set them apart. They have also had to increase their PPE, sanitation logs and processes to follow COVID provincial guidelines and practices.

While these last months have been challenging, Bliss has found improved efficiencies. They have tightened their schedule to maximize support staff and bookings. Plus, they have modified their inventory levels to only carry the bare necessities and have empowered Bliss staff with responsibilities for keeping their space sanitized along with contract tracing logs.

Company Name: Workplaces

Industry: Business Coaching & Consulting

Discover how Workplaces continued to support local entrepreneurs and businesses on their scale-up, start-up and fix-up strategies throughout the pandemic. Plus, how their client base has grew over the last months because of it.

As a consultant and business coach, Workplaces is committed to supporting entrepreneurs and local businesses on their scale-up, start-up and fix-up strategies. Workplaces works with business owners mitigate risks while maintaining profitable growth. In their efforts with start-up businesses, Workplaces has supported them from concept to market entry to ensure past lessons learned are applied to ongoing solutions.

Hit by the pandemic and stay-at-home measures, a large part of Workplaces’ client base ceased overnight.

Quickly, their business had to pivot to offer their services remotely. By leveraging technology, video calling, and remote support, they were able to extend their reach to clients. Which not only allowed them to persevere during the pandemic, but also extend their client base over the last several months.

Workplaces transitioned their traditional methods of business coaching and consulting online and was able to continue their profound impacts on businesses, their owners and teams.

Company Name: Tenfold HR Solutions

Industry: Human Resources - Outsourcing

“After going through this year with all these changes, we feel it made our team stronger. If we can get through this, we can get through anything!” – Tenfold HR solutions. Learn how Tenfold HR was turning around advice for clients in real time throughout the pandemic.

At Tenfold HR Solutions, they focus on tailoring their HR services for their clients. Whether a company needs an entire HR department, or staff simply need HR support and assistance, Tenfold HR offers scalable solutions to meet business needs.

The spring of 2020 overwhelmed Tenfold. Their team of HR professionals were processing a great amount of information, in a very little amount of time. As the government issued announcements and subsidies, the Tenfold team was turning around advice for clients in real time.

Uncertain of the future, their team made the difficult decision to not hire to replace a partner about to go on maternity leave; they also let go of a full-time recruiter as there were no requests for recruiting assistance. All hiring for most companies were a full-stop. Their team reduced costs and focused on their core service offerings – supporting clients remotely as well as on site.

“With COVID-19, there was an increase importance of mental health, we helped clients make use of tools at their disposal like EFAP programs.” And while they helped clients make difficult decisions, such as layoffs, they also helped clients find efficiencies and cut costs – bringing solutions to survive these times of uncertainty. Tenfold continues to work with clients to support them in getting ahead of the curve and supporting their workforce with an HR strategy to ensure a healthy culture.

“After going through this year with all these changes, we feel it made our team stronger. If we can get through this, we can get through anything!”

Company Name: Clip 'n Climb

Industry: Sports & Recreation

As a facility that offers an experience, the COVID-19 restrictions caused Clip ‘n Climb Edmonton to temporarily close. In researching the latest disinfectant tech, learn how this climbing gym reopened their doors & uses an electrostatic machine to disinfect their entire space.

As a climbing gym unlike any others, Clip ‘n Climb Edmonton’s bright colours, bold themes, and elements with varying degree of difficulty is a recreationists dream! Their facilities use auto belays, coupled with the BelayMATE technology for harness-to-belay attachment, exclusive to Clip ’n Climb. This creates an unparalleled safe and autonomous climbing environment, and truly maximizes one’s climbing time!

However, as a facility that offers an experience rather than tangible goods, the COVID-19 restrictions caused Clip ‘n Climb to close their doors for three months. During that time, they focused on what their facility would look like once allowed to open again – sourcing disinfectants, researching the latest technology to disinfect a vast space, and establishing processes to ensure the health and safety of all climbers upon reopening.

Upon reopening, their booking processes was adjusted to ensure the hourly limits met the mandated indoor numbers for the Alberta Business Stage 2 of re-launch. Their team revised their protocols for enhanced cleaning, safe distancing, and mandatory face masks.

With the goal to uphold the highest cleanliness standards, Clip ‘n Climb purchased an electrostatic fogging machine to disinfect their entire space. Their enhanced cleaning measures and electrostatic fogger (disinfectant) have proven to be of comfort to many customers, knowing that their facility has an added layer of protection and cleanliness!

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