BETA-i Canada launches World’ s First Acquisition Incubator to Support Black Entrepreneurs

BETA-i Canada launches

W o r l d ’ s F i r s t A c q u i s i t i o n I n c u b a t o r t o Support Black Entrepreneurs

Did you know that, according to a report by McKinsey and Company in 2020, only 4% of Black-owned companies in the U.S. survive past the launch stage, even though 20% of the Black Americans are business owners? The pandemic also forced several businesses worldwide to shut. And this, in turn, led to around 58% of Blackowned businesses facing financial distress in the U.S. The report also states that 41% of such businesses closed their doors between February and April 2020.

In another study by the advocacy groups, The Main Street Alliance and Color of Change, 40% of Black-owned ventures could have only another six months as compared to around 55% of their White-owned business counterparts. But several Black-owned businesses even boomed during the pandemic, all thanks to the right step by the owners. Start-ups are sprouting and the future of Black entrepreneurs is looking better in every way.

BETA-I Canada resolved to find an approach which would help the Black entrepreneurs improve their success. It started through an Acquisition Incubators which is aiming at equipping the Black Canadians with the right tools for becoming the CEOs of existing smallto-medium sized enterprises.

What’s its Objective?

BETA-i engages the proven ETA model to expand and enhance all the needs of the Black searches for a successful business. It offers the right kind of support to substantially allow the searchers maximize their rewards in the business-front.

1.BBoost awareness regarding the search funds and maximize the number of the Black searchers in Canada.

2. Increase the success of the searchers in finding, closing and managing small-to-medium high potential businesses.

3. Deliver unrivaled training, guidance and support to everyone from their in-house mentors, advisors and investors.

4. Incorporate the structures which are culturally diverse in its training techniques, and focus on the mandates which are generally overlooked but have had great success solutions in the past.

5. Significantly turn the odds of success in favor of all the Black searchers.

About the Incubation Structure of BETA-I Canada

BETA-i, being the first non-profit organization to enhance the Entrepreneurship Through Acquisition (ETA) model for Blackowners, provides the tools and knowledge that are needed to pursue the entrepreneurial dreams of the aspirants. The ETA model was first developed in 1984 at Harvard University and later on standardized at Stanford Graduate School for Business. Soon after, it started spreading its wings to different business schools and entrepreneurs worldwide. BETA-i primarily focuses on the Black entrepreneurs and its search fund incubator will act as a step which will eventually allow the Black entrepreneurs to find, acquire, manage and grow a privately-held business.

Wrapping it Up,

BETA-i provides one-on-one mentorship and coaching for the searchers and works closely with them. They take into account the expertise of different professionals and search experts. This is one critical principle which they follow from the very beginning of a search till the closing of the deals. Their approach is truly beneficial for the Black entrepreneurs who get the right guidance for achieving what they need. They also can get more focused on achieving the best deals and then navigate through the business transactions in a successful manner.

About BETA-i

BETA-i was founded in 2020 and it is the first-ever Black-focused acquisition incubator in the world and the very first search accelerator in Canada. It influences the ETA model to expand and enhance the needs of Black-owned businesses. Their model also offers extensive training, resources, support in financing, and providing world-class proficiency in search. It aims at increasing the probabilities of success dramatically for entrepreneurs to accelerate their time in finishing the ETA journey and becoming most successful CEOs right in the beginning of their careers. Please visit www.betaicanada.org to know more about them or to support the evolution of Black entrepreneurship in the country.

H O W T O TRANSFORM TALENT MANAGEMENT

F O R T H E B E T T E R I N T H E K N O W L E D G E E C O N O M Y

By Mostafa Sayyadi

Management Consultant | Business & Technology journalist

Mostafa Sayyadi, CAHRI, AFAIM, CPMgr, works with senior business leaders to effectively develop innovation in companies and helps companies—from start-ups to the Fortune 100—succeed by improving the effectiveness of their leaders. He is a business book author and a long-time contributor to HR.com and Consulting Magazine and his work has been featured in these top-flight business publications.

Today, the question remains, how can we establish the relationship between talent management and knowledge management? Well, executives can play a critical role in developing interactions and relationships. One way is by implementing more effective changes at all levels of the organization. Executives can also serve as an ideal vehicle to provide further opportunities for talent to explore new ideas and knowledge. In addition, executives can create new ideas and knowledge for innovation and motivate talent to effectively solve organizational problems. Executives today realize that knowledge is the one of most strategic factors for SMEs from a competitive standpoint. Knowledge management is a necessary precursor to creating new knowledge and ideas within SMEs. The creation of new knowledge is a process and can be essential to identify the needs of talent and also recognize changes in the business environment. Therefore, executives can effectively use knowledge management to identify and satisfy talent through increased talent satisfaction.

Executives can also develop organizational communications aimed at providing valuable resources for SMEs. They can enhance knowledge sharing among organizational members and stipulate knowledge to be shared around the organization. The new knowledge is shared with other SMEs and synthesized with an aim to providing higher quality products and services. This process can potentially improve organizational performance through increasing customer focus, improving the quality of products and services, and enhancing organizational revenue. Knowledge management can also build an effective learning SME in which internal talent can continuously engage and develop both personally and professionally. Knowledge management could, therefore, positively impact talent retention, by meeting the goals of intellectual stimulation and personal development. Knowledge management can, therefore, enable SMEs to close a gap between satisfying talent, and meeting customer needs. In addition, when executives show concern for the talent needs, individuals begin to contribute more commitment and they become more inspired to put extra effort into their work. This extra effort also improves the quality of products, customer satisfaction, and impacts the return on assets, sales, shareholder value, and eventually improves executive operational risk management.

Executives can also reconfigure organizational knowledge to meet new challenges and environmental changes as they occur. Knowledge reconfiguration can enable SMEs to actively engage talent to respond to environmental changes through developing interactions with the external environment. Thus, executives can use knowledge management to increase organizational performance by improving the quality of products and putting internal talent at the top. In conclusion, this article can offer several implications for practice. First, this develops a new and dynamic concept of the integration between talent management and knowledge management within SMEs. Importantly, this approach advances the current business literature on talent management by offering novel insights into how knowledge management affects talent identification, satisfaction, and retention. This article suggests new insights to identify knowledge management as a primary driver of effective talent management for SMEs.

5 Ways Small

Businesses

Can Make Mental Health a Priority in the Workplace

Did you know that a report by the Canadian Mental Health Association (CMHA) and Business Development Bank of Canada (BDC) stated that 62% of business owners feel anxious and depressed at least once a week? And when it comes to poor mental health amongst entrepreneurs, the percentage is a lot higher in the US.

Mental health plays an imperative role in the overall growth of a person. And workplace well-being is not only about being fit physically but also a lot about feeling good emotionally. It’ s more of a holistic approach towards being perfectly fine inside out. After more than a year of lockdowns, quarantines, and loss of loved ones clubbed with economic uncertainties, it’ s essential for the companies to support the mental health of all the employees. Anxiety, stress, and fear can appear anytime. But in light of the pandemic, the worries have escalated to a higher level. For small business owners, who do not have the right budget to provide expensive therapies for the employees, the situation might feel despairing. However, there is a lot that even a small business can do to support their employees mentally.

Here we will learn about a few very creative ways to help your employees fight mental issues so that they can be their best version at work, always.

Model Healthy Work Behaviors

’t just say that you are aware of mental health issues at work. Try to follow the same and model it through yours and your team ’ s behavior. This will allow your employees to feel that they can always prioritize their mental health even inside the office. This is important for you too, as the manager or the owner, as most of the time, you forget to take care of yourselves. Prioritize a staycation, go for walks in between, take a therapy session (if required), and talk about these openly at the workplace.

Create an Accepting Work Culture

The first thing which small business owners need to do is normalize mental health at the workplace. Being vulnerable to their employees ’ mental wellbeing is imperative for a more inclusive workplace ethic. The pandemic has taught us how uncertain life could be. And it has affected almost everyone in some way or the other. So, being honest about what everyone is feeling inside their head could be the first step towards having an accepting work culture. Even the Harvard Business Review ’ s work report on Mental Health, 2019 derives that having an open and compliant work culture is what the employees wish for. Simply put, it is important for your employees to feel safe and comfortable going to you or their supervisor to talk about their mental struggles. They should be made aware of the fact that they can always reach out to you or someone else to just talk it out without getting judged.

Offer Flexible Work Options

All thanks to the pandemic, we now have the option to work remotely. However, it is essential for employers to have full trust in their employees even when they are working from a different location. For a lot of remote workers with children, working for a set period of time might be a little difficult. So, it’ s on you to offer them flexibility in scheduling their work as per their feasibility. This will result in better productivity as they will be able to plan their work during the times of least interruption. This will, in no way, mean that you ’ll have to lower your standards of work. If you can empower your team members to set their own work schedules, you will allow them to work more efficiently. This will make them feel more confident about their work and they will be less stressed about the whole thing.

Make a Mandatory Vacation Policy

Having a mandatory vacation policy will allow your employees to take a break from work no matter what. You can create a few set vacation days a year when the employees will have to go on a holiday or spend time with their loved ones the way they wish to. It could be a week off or more than that, depending upon your work schedules. And this can have an amazing result in your overall work culture. When your employees come back from the vacation, they will be better renewed mentally and will have a healthy sense of purpose at work. Why is this necessary? Well, even though attending the office is important, a lot of the job can be done over the phone. So, even if they are on leave physically, they might have a hard time coping with work as they will be reached out on phone. So, when you have a mandatory leave policy, they will know that they can simply put down their phones and have fun.

StayConnectedinaFunWay

Feeling connected with your coworkers can immensely boost both mental and physical health. It’ s just as important as maintaining a healthy relationship with friends and family. Work and family are intertwined and managers should always lookout for ways to bond well with the employees even at work. How to do that? Well, you can fix 1:1 meetings every week with each one of them. Or you can maintain a greet session everyday where each one of them will have to greet their fellow workers with handmade cards, and so on. These simple activities can foster a sense of community and connectivity.

Wrappingitup

The last year and a half have induced the feeling of anxiousness in almost all of us. It has always made us more aware of how important mental health is. Losing loved ones or seeing so much despair everywhere isn ’t an easy thing to fathom. Hence, apart from maintaining physical hygiene, it’ s super important to take care of one ’ s emotional hygiene as well. And prioritizing workplace wellness is the first step towards building a positive and inclusive working community. To know more about such tips for maintaining a healthy work-life balance, do not forget to subscribe to the CanadianSME Small Business Magazine.

5 Ways to Supercharge

Your Small Business with Creativity

Running a business, big or small, isn

’t an easy task. Growing a business is all the more challenging. Whether you are a start-up or an established business that you wish to expand, you will require some strategies to supercharge your business. The new year is coming and it could be an amazing opportunity to make a fresh start in your company. Even if things are looking good, a few more steps can put you on the correct path to further improvements. In this article, we have curated the 5 easiest ways to help you ensure that your business will not just survive, but will thrive in the years to come. Implementing these changes will put your business in great shape to enter 2022, and will improve a lot of things for the start of a new year.

1.CreateanEnvironmentofNon-stopLearning

For you, as an entrepreneur, you also need to be a good learner. And that learning you should be able to instill within your team. Learning from mistakes is something often overlooked by business owners worldwide. But you should always remember that in order to be a successful manager of your team, you should be able to acknowledge your mistakes, understand what went wrong, and improve on your shortcomings. This not only works for yourself but also for your team, which should focus on continuous learning.

2. EstablishaCultureWhereNobodyFearsFailure

Being creative in your approach also means that you are not afraid of failures. Being an entrepreneur also means that you ’ll have struggles in your path. But you should also be able to take those failures in your stride and gear up with a more positive attitude. This works even within a team. Take into consideration the ideas put forth by your team. This will make way for a better understanding of one another. Also, it will keep the fear of making mistakes at bay. Working together towards one single goal would make you all stronger as a team.

3. BeaMultiplier&BuildConnections

Being a business owner would require you to broaden your horizon. You should know that you cannot gain success alone. Rather, being an entrepreneurial genius would mean that you are ready to bring forth the capabilities and smarts of everyone in your team. Leaders should know their job of building a lot of connections along the way. Also, it will be a good idea to make your team feel responsible and have a stake in every common issue that may arise in your company.

4. BeanAssertiveDecision-maker

One of the key fundamentals of being an effective business owner is to be an assertive decision-maker. Your employees will never be comfortable working with you if you are slow at making decisions and frequently change your mind regarding the same. In order to be a quality manager, you should be able to make decisions quickly and should also stick to those.

5. BuildandMaintainTrustAmongstAll

Being a good manager would require you to set good examples in front of your employees. Also, you should always do what you say. Demand from yourself the same kind of professionalism and dedication which you seek from others in your team. Trust your employees and maintain that trust. Trust, once broken, can never be restored to its original state. It is also the most fragile attribute of management and leadership. Keep this in mind while maintaining your team. WrappingitUp

In order to be an effective small business owner, you need to keep in mind the abovelisted points. Focusing on the metrics of clicks and likes on social media isn ’t enough. You should also be able to successfully integrate your business functions for creating a kind of brand experience that your customers would love. You should always remember that you can do much better. And in order to keep growing positively, you should be able to integrate a few very essential elements to supercharge your business.

For more such amazing business tips and tricks for your small, medium, or large-scale business in Canada, subscribe to our monthly CanadianSME Small Business Magazine.

5 BOOKS EVERY

ENTREPRENEUR MUST READ

Did you know that the wealthiest people in the world have one thing in common – 88% of them read for at least 30 minutes a day and 86% of them love to read. If you are a business owner or if you are all set to launch your business anytime soon, this is one habit which you must inculcate too. Reading is something which can support your growth in so many ways, both personal and professional. Books make it easier to think, to ask questions and to find solutions, all at the same time.

If you are an entrepreneur, or aspiring to be one, here are 5 must-read books for business owners which you should definitely grab hold of.

Enchantment

by Guy Kawasaki

As an entrepreneur, you should know the ways of taking care of your customers. Don ’t you think you, as a business owner, should spend your money on something which will give your buyers ultimate delight? That’ s what Enchantment is all about. Guy Kawasaki, in this book, unpacks this simple, yet difficult, concept in a way that will leave you nodding along with his propositions. You will know the tricks of taking good care of your customers. More than this, you will find a lot of other things which you know about being an entrepreneur.

Key Takeaway:

In this book, Guy mentions,

‘There are two kinds of people and organizations in the world: eaters and bakers. Eaters want a bigger slice of an existing pie; bakers want to make a bigger pie.

” Basically, the world already has ideas and as an entrepreneur, you should know how to make those ideas bigger in your own way. And you shouldn

’t limit yourself by thinking that it’ s all been done before.

The $100 Startup

by Chris Guilllebeau

To start your own business, you needn ’t be a lucky one. Or you

shouldn

’t be someone with pre-loaded money. You could just be an accidental entrepreneur who will make success in the long run out of the right opportunities and circumstances. Guillebeau gives several examples of people who turned their passion into something profitable. He promotes creative thinking and asks the readers to leverage a natural talent or a loved activity into a successful business model.

Key Takeaway:

In this book, Guillebeau says, “Who are your people? You don

’t necessarily have to think of them in categories such as age, race, and gender. Instead, you can have them in terms of shared beliefs and values. ” He wants all entrepreneurs to forget the oldfashioned demographics while researching their target audiences.

Purple Cow

by Seth Godin

The book was first published in 2003 and then revised & expanded in 2009. Godin is one of the supreme entrepreneurial minds worldwide. In this book, he advocates building something which your customers can ’t ignore. He, in a way, launched a movement of creating a truly remarkable product which is worth marketing in front of the world. This book is not only limited to the business owners or would-be entrepreneurs, but targets anyone who has something relevant to show to the world. There are a number of other lessons in this book which you will surely take multiple notes of while reading.

Key Takeaway:

He writes,

“You must design a product that is remarkable enough to attract the early adopters – but is flexible enough and attractive enough that those adopters will have an easy time spreading the idea. ” And it sums it all up.

The Fire Starter Sessions

by Danielle LaPorte

If you want a little motivation to start your venture, or if you have been looking for that extra push to market your brand, read this book to get motivated the right way. LaPorte writes 16 beautifully crafted sessions of motivated goodness. The way she writes everything, her passion, will actually grab you by your shoulders and will shake you back into action. She provides several personal anecdotes which will make the read all the more relatable. This book is essentially not only a must-read but a re-read one for all aspiring business owners as well as existing entrepreneurs.

Key Takeaway:

You won

’t find any specific favorite in this book. Rather, the whole book is kind of a takeaway for the readers. She writes, “Make generosity part of your growth strategy. Don ’t wait. Don ’t

wait until your stuff is selling or you ’ ve got enough of a cushion

in your bank account. Don ’t wait until you ’ ve got more time. Give

now. ” And this says it all, isn ’t it?

The 4-Hour Workweek

by Timothy Ferriss

Once you start reading this book, you

’d be all fired up to start something new. With several tools and techniques, this book will help you to create and automate your own muse of income-generation. This muse will, in turn, help you to pursue your other business plans better.

Key Takeaway:

Ferriss makes a strong point in his book that you need to surround yourself with positive people, as well as the ones who are a little unambitious, pessimistic and disorganized. They are the ones who would help you to become stronger. He mentions that if you wish to win the race, you should have a group around who would push you to go further faster. He writes, ““ …you are the average of the five people you associate with most, so do not underestimate the effects of your pessimistic, unambitious, or disorganized friends. If someone isn ’t making you stronger, they ’ re making you weaker.

Wrapping it Up

It doesn ’t matter whether you

’ ve just started as a business owner or you are already an accomplished one, there are always ways which can help you along your path to success. Reading books is one of them. And with this simple and crisp list of the best books for entrepreneurs, you would surely get the motivation and the support that you might have been looking for all this while.

For more such amazing guides, tips and reviews, subscribe to our monthly CanadianSME Small Business Magazine.