We hope you had a safe and happy holiday season! This time of year, many businesses are getting back to normal after a busy holiday retail season, others are just getting back to work after a welcome break. As we all look ahead to what 2024 may bring, it is common to make resolutions for the coming year. These usually involve some form of self-improvement. Businesses are no different. If their fiscal year lines up with the calendar, right now, they are setting up their resolutions—or goals and targets—for the coming year. What are your business’ resolutions? Don’t have any? Maybe we can help you think of some.
We hope you had a safe and happy holiday season!
This time of year, many businesses are getting back to normal after a busy holiday retail season, others are just getting back to work after a welcome break.
As we all look ahead to what 2024 may bring, it is common to make resolutions for the coming year. These usually involve some form of self-improvement. Businesses are no different. If their fiscal year lines up with the calendar, right now, they are setting up their resolutions—or goals and targets—for the coming year. What are your business’ resolutions? Don’t have any? Maybe we can help you think of some.
Also in this episode:
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JGB January Cohost
Al: [00:00:00] I'd like to welcome my cohost for this month. Rick Stephan. Rick, welcome back to the podcast.
Rick: Thanks for having me Al. Good to be back.
Al: Did you have a good New Year?
Rick: I did in my new house.
Al: That's right. Congratulations on becoming a homeowner.
Rick: Thanks. So what's the theme of the month?
Al: Well, since it's January, I thought our theme should be New Year's resolutions.
Rick: Makes sense.
Al: So do you have any resolutions for 2024?
Rick: Yeah, I actually do. This year, I'd, like to get to the gym a bit more and check my phone less.
Al: It's hard to imagine you going to the gym more.
Rick: What? What's that?
Al: Where's the beach, Rick?
Rick: Uh, that way. Why?
Al: If only this were a video podcast.
Rick: Hehehehe, funny guy. What about you? What are your news resolutions?
Al: Well, I suppose entering a gym might be a step in the right direction for me.
Rick: What about for this podcast?
Al: Well, I'd love to continue to grow this podcast.
Rick: I don't see why not. You've got your target set for the year.
Al: And that's a great segue to what I wanted to talk about today.
Rick: Which is?
Al: Well, not only are you my co host this month, you're also the Director of Digital Channels at Moneris.
Rick: That is correct.
Al: Which makes you my [00:01:00] boss.
Rick: Sure.
Al: And literally last week, we, as a team got together to review our goals and targets for 2024.
Rick: Yeah, that's it. We did.
Al: So why is that important to do?
Rick: mean, important for us to give the team direction and obviously something to focus on and have goal posts for the year.
Al: That makes sense.
Rick: And targets give us something to measure progress against. And at the end of the year, we know whether or not we've been successful and use that to plan for next year.
Al: Goals, targets. These sound a lot like resolutions.
Rick: Yeah, I guess you're right. I mean, just like you and I have personal goals of the year, businesses should have business goals.
Al: Right. And while profit should be a target, there are other goals that can be set up to helping incrementally improve your business.
Rick: do you have any examples of these goals?
Al: Sure. Well, I mean, Forbes recently posted their five practical small business resolutions for 2024.
Rick: Well, that's timely. What were they?
Al: The first one was embracing digital transformation.
Rick: Uh, yeah, that's been a big one for the past few years now, and obviously a very important one.
Al: Yeah, and that could just mean [00:02:00] revamping your website, or integrating e commerce, or leveraging social media more, or adopting digital tools that can streamline your operations.
Rick: I'm sure AI is probably a big part of that transformation as well.
Al: You know it. Now, the next resolution was investing in growth.
Rick: It's always important.
Al: As inflation slows, hopefully interest rates will start coming down again. And this could be an opportune time for that expansion that maybe your business was putting off or simply updating equipment or expanding capacity or even entering new markets.
Rick: Yeah, it sounds good. So what was number three?
Al: One of my favorites, engaging with the community. You should be looking for opportunities to foster relationships with your local community, like getting involved in events or business groups and other collaborations.
Rick: Ah, I like that one too.
Al: And the fourth resolution was focusing on sustainable practices.
Rick: That is becoming more and more important each year.
Al: So, 66 percent of all consumers consider sustainability when making a purchase, and that number jumps up to 75 percent among millennials. So, you may want to set some goals to [00:03:00] adopt more eco friendly practices in order to gain that competitive advantage.
Rick: And the final resolution?
Al: Enhance employee training and well being.
Rick: Uh, take care of your people.
Al: Exactly. So recruiting, training, and retaining good employees is a constant struggle for small businesses. So it should also be a constant focus. If you invest in your staff by providing development opportunities, wellness initiatives, flexible work environment, they'll reward you with increased productivity, higher job satisfaction, your business will overall be more successful.
Rick: Those are all really great suggestions.
Al: Yeah. I'll post a link to the Forbes article in the podcast show notes for anyone who wants to read more.
Rick: Awesome. I'm sure a lot of people appreciate that. So what else do you have store for us in this episode?
Al: Well, keeping with my goal to grow this podcast, I'm introducing a brand new segment this month, and it's called Merchant Journey.
Rick: What's that?
Al: It's a multi part series that takes us through the process of setting up e commerce on a small business's website.
Rick: Is that the project you were working on with Sydney last year?
Al: It is.
Rick: Oh, I'm looking forward to this.
Al: I can't wait to share it. And if you're a small business who [00:04:00] might have a resolution this year of adding e commerce to your website, I think you'll find this series of particular interest. So here's part one of Merchant Journey.
And now it's time for a brand new segment called Merchant Journey. I'm joined by Sydney Lupton. You might remember her from the summer. She was a marketing intern and, was a cohost on a couple of these episodes. Sydney, thank you for joining me again.
Sydney: Yeah, no problem. I'm super happy to be back.
Al: Now, let's talk just really quickly about the origin of this segment, the Merchant Journey. Back in the summer when we were talking, you had mentioned you had a friend who had a business and, might be looking for a payment processor.
Sydney: Yeah, so, me, my mom and her friends, and she was having a conversation with me about the small business that she had just started. And she was telling me that her website was Wix, and then it kind of clicked in my head. Oh, the Moneris Wix launch just started, I could probably get her started with that.
Al: So what's the name of the business?
Sydney: it's called Saving Graze and it's a charcuterie board company
Al: And Graze is G R A Z E, not C E.
Sydney: Yes.
Al: Okay. I'm [00:05:00] looking at their website right now. You sent me the link and it's a gorgeous looking website. I'm getting hungry just looking at it.
Sydney: Yeah. It's really nice. They did a good job.
Al: Yeah. So, what's your friend's name?
Sydney: My friend's name is Sam.
Al: Okay, Sam, started this business has this beautiful website, but, right now How is she taking her orders?
Sydney: So she actually does not have an e commerce solution set up. So at the moment, it's a web form that customers will fill out with their email and contact information, and then they'll get a bill with that.
Al: And then payment is probably done with...
Sydney: usually e transfer. Yeah.
And she was telling me, that she'll have, , like a thousand, fifteen hundred visits to her website a month, but only maybe ten or twelve orders just due to the fact that, you know, e transfer might not be as convenient for people as, you know, a debit transaction would be.
Al: Yeah, and right up front, this web forum is asking a bunch of questions and who are we sending our information to and so on and so forth. So, they seem like a great candidate for, a Moneris online solution.[00:06:00]
Sydney: Yeah, I figured it was the perfect opportunity that they were already set up with Wix.
Al: Okay, great. So you a chance to, chat with Sam, about her business and kind of her needs. So why don't we, take a listen to that right now.
Sydney: Hey Sam, how are you doing?
Sam: Great!
Sydney: Okay. So I just had a few questions for you today. just as an introduction. so the first thing Alan and I were wondering is why charcuterie? Why is that what you picked for your business?
Sam: it came to us about a year and a half ago. It was just after Christmas and, Lindsay and I often, when we get together, we would just. Make up, graze foods, boards, appetizers, that kind of thing. And, you know, we weren't into big meals. And so we would do that. Especially we would go up north to our parents place. And we would bring all our food up.
Make it, when we got there, went down to the dock. And ate charcuterie and wine. And we thought, concept of boxes sort of hit us. Saying, oh my god, wouldn't it be great if we had a box. People could buy it and bring it up north and so that three hour drive you just go right down to the dock with your wine and you're done, you don't have to prep [00:07:00] anything so, we kind of came up with the concept of prepping food for people to make it much easier , because a lot of people don't want to be in the kitchen all day long.
So, making it convenient for people. Yeah.
Sydney: Okay, yeah, so you mentioned Lindsay, how did you meet her?
Sam: Lindsay and I worked together. We worked together at the Halton District School Board and we became friends and, we, the same things. We just started getting along and we're good friends. So we kind of started that way.
Sydney: When did the company first launch?
Sam: We came up with the concept January 2022, and we got, public health involved, and kitchen space involved, , end of March 2022, April was when we launched it, yeah.
Sydney: So it was pretty quick after. Okay. And then, so when you're talking about kind of this whole setup process, we know that you are already set up with Wix, , for your ordering process, but since we are a payment company, we are wondering, , how come you didn't set up a payment solution at the beginning?
Sam: Part of it was we wanted to see where it could [00:08:00] go and we started it as a hobby. , because we were working full time at the same time. So it was sort of an online adventure, social media thing, with friends, recommending us. And then Really, the fall Christmas last year, it exploded. so we would do e transfers or cash, and we still are right now, just while this gets going. and so we wanted to make it more convenient for people using credit just to because it can definitely help with an online business. We don't have a storefront, but we rent kitchen space. So we are literally an online business only. And when we have pickups, we do have pickup windows, but we do a lot of deliveries. And, , since it's an online business, we thought we should go full on online so that it can be more convenient and fluid for people. Yeah.
Sydney: Okay. So, , on average, how many visits to your website versus how many orders would you get?
Sam: in a given week, we might have, maybe 50 people go to the website. Like I don't typically, it's a weekend and we may have four or five orders come through [00:09:00] there.
Sydney: So at Moneris, we do have a product, called Moneris Online. Uh, it basically just makes setting up your online store super easy and secure. Uh, and it also provides a great, end user experience. Does that interest you? You think that would be good for you?
Sam: That will definitely help. I think adding sort of a shopping cart system into our website will definitely help boost business. Yes. That sounds great.
Sydney: Okay. So if you are interested in Moneris, Al and I were talking and we think it would be really interesting to tell your story. You know, just so the other small business users can listen and just hear how easy it is to get it set up with Moneris.
Sam: That sounds great. That's okay with you? No problem. I love that. Sure.
Sydney: Okay. Well, that's great. I will put you in touch with one of our salespeople. And they will talk to you very shortly.
Sam: Thank you so much.
Sydney: Yeah, no problem. Thanks, Sam.
Al: All right, so this is great. We've learned about Sam and partner, Lindsay. Uh, it sounds like, they could use, Moneris services. so what should we expect over the next few weeks?
Sydney: Yeah, so I think the best way, for us to lay this out, throughout the interviews is to speak with someone in sales. So just kind of talk [00:10:00] about, okay, how does this process get started? Reaching out contacting, you know, all that communication. and then we will move on to speaking with someone from the web designing team to also talk about how that process is going to work. In episode four, we will actually have the reveal and, we'll be able to see how Sam and Lindsay's ordering process, has changed now with the new e commerce added to their website. And then our 5th and final episode, we'll have a couple months go by and we're going to speak to them and see, how sales have changed for them.
Al: Okay, great. It sounds like we have a series now, , I'm looking forward to doing this with you and, thank you so much for, you know, bringing Sam and Lindsay to our attention and I'm looking forward to telling their story.
Sydney: Yeah, I'm actually really looking forward to it. I think it's going to help, a lot of entrepreneurs and small business owners, feel less intimidated about the whole process. because, you know, adding a whole e commerce solution to your website can seem. a bit, intimidating. So, this will definitely help.
Al: Perfect. looking forward to next month.
Sydney: yeah, me too. Talk then.
Al: That was the first installment of merchant journey. Rick, what'd you think?
Rick: I think it was a great introduction. I'm definitely looking forward to [00:11:00] following along.
Al: Yes. And it was a fun project to work on with Sydney. Uh, and that's all we have for this month. I'll post links to the Forbes article and to saving graze in the show notes. If you're listening right now and have any questions about anything business related, you can email us at podcasts at Moneris. com and we'll try to answer them in future episodes. Thank you for co hosting Rick.
Rick: Thanks, Al. Anytime.
Al: On behalf of Rick, myself, and the rest of Moneris, it's just good business saying thank you for listening, and see you in February.