EQ Journal

Category

Negative Cost Selling Solar Arrays

School Board Pays Negative Cost for new Solar Panel Installations Rex Parris, Mayor of Lancaster, California doesn’t like to lose. It must come from his class-action lawyer background where he won almost $1 billion in claims for his clients and himself. Three years ago he decided to make the city where the sun (almost) always [...]

Ottawa Sports Hall of Fame Acceptance Speech

By: Bruce M Firestone, Founder, Ottawa Senators Date: June 6, 2012 Thank you for inviting me here tonight. I can’t tell you how excited I am to be here with my family, friends, colleagues, Sens fans and executives as well as Board of Directors from the Ottawa Sports Hall of Fame. I got word that [...]

How did Ross Video Experience 21 Consecutive Years of Growth?

(Portions of this article originally appeared in Ottawa Business Journal, March 30, 2012: http://www.obj.ca/Opinion/Bruce-Firestone-5444.) The sky is falling, the sky is… Many observers of Ottawa’s tech scene seem to think it’s the end of Silicon Valley North but try telling that to David Ross, 90% owner of Ross Video. The other 10% is owned by [...]

Bottom Up Versus Top Down Selling

If you look at the diagram below you will see one of the most common mistakes made in sales—the top down sales method. In this scenario, lazy salesperson X in Organization A, knowing that their President or CEO is friends with the President of Organization B, asks him or her to call/text/message/Facebook/Tweet/email/meet with the other [...]

70 Ways to Raise Bootstrap Capital

There are certainly hundreds or even thousands of clever techniques entrepreneurs and intrapreneurs are using to raise cheap/free capital, aka bootstrap capital. No list is ever going to be complete. But here is our summary of what people are doing these days to self-capitalize their new products/services/enterprises. If you would like to add to our [...]

Raising Capital by ‘Issuing’ Script

(Plus Tapping Sponsors/Co-Branders/Strategic Investors and Partners for Free Capital) There’s nothing new about raising money by issuing script. The Reynolds Brothers ran a sawmill (established in 1870 by Orson L. Reynolds) in the Adirondacks that in addition to central logging and operating their mill also ran a company store and developed other sources of income [...]

How Do I Beat The Competition

Professor Carlisle Adams at the University of Ottawa’s Faculty of Engineering challenged me to train his second year class on how they can build world class enterprises in a tough competitive world and then sustain them. In an hour and a half no less. Case studies I use include: Rick Hunter’s Mont Cascade and Pro [...]

Entrepreneurs Handbook II: Foreword

(Here is the Foreword to Entrepreneurs Handbook II, coming out in March 2012. Stay tuned.) Do you want to learn how to create significant value for yourself and your family in an enterprise that you own and control—value that can provide you the freedom and security to realize your lifetime goals? Then read this Handbook [...]

Institute of Entrepreneurs

Introduction Exploriem.org is launching the Institute of Entrepreneurs (IOE) this year. Why? To bring advanced research, education and mentoring to student entrepreneurs and intrapreneurs from self-capitalized and forward-looking enterprises across Canada and around the world. IOE provides access to research, education and a network of high achievers that you just can’t get anywhere else. The [...]

Can You Create Successful TV Programming from a Home Base in Ottawa?

(Portions of this article originally appeared in Ottawa Business Journal, Jan. 23, 2012: http://www.obj.ca/Opinion/Bruce-Firestone-5444.) I recently interviewed screenwriter Sharon Buckingham best known as writer/producer and creative force behind Sticks & Stones, a movie for television for the CTV network. It won both the Shaw Rocket Prize for Best Canadian Family TV program and Best Foreign [...]

Need Startup Capital? Get Some from your Clients

(This article, written by Journalist Greg Markey, first appeared in Ottawa Business Journal, http://www.obj.ca, Jan. 17, 2012) When Bridgehead began renovating its new location on Preston Street, the locally headquartered coffee shop chain turned to the community for funding. They established a program called ‘plant a bean,’ whereby customers buy gift cards in amounts varying [...]

25 Steps to Entrepreneurial Success

I am often asked: “What are the keys to success?” I have developed some ideas on this over the years and, like any list in this area, mine is incomplete. Worse than this, many of these ideas for success are contradictory. Things that I learned from my Dad, Professor O. J. Firestone, like “Never take [...]