Road To Seven

“What matters most to your longevity as an entrepreneur is what you do when the going gets tough.”- Shelagh CumminsIt’s not always rainbows and unicorns when we’re building our businesses.When the going gets tough, how you react and the choices you make can have a huge impact.Entrepreneurs tend to love sharing the highlights of their businesses — those breakthroughs that help them tap into their ideal audience, bust through revenue plateaus, or come up with the perfect offer.And it’s great to have that inspiration, don’t get me wrong! I love a good success story as much as the next person.But we don’t often see the lowlights of running a business — the obstacles and setbacks that every entrepreneur deals with on their Road to Seven.Learning how to deal with the lowlights is just as important as celebrating  the highlights!This episode is all about exploring those lowlights — especially the ones that have popped up for so many of us during the last year. You’ll learn key survival strategies for keeping up your

“I will give anyone advice on their images and what they should be doing.”- Trina TurlCould branding photography be the missing ingredient your business website needs?Trina Turl specializes in capturing vibrant, stunning images that help small businesses and brands stand out from the crowd!A former wedding photographer, Trina shifted to photography for small businesses, shooting interiors, products, and small groups. She also provides magazine-quality stock images at accessible prices through her new business, Clio & Fox.Branding photography is a specialty Trina shifted to after joining small business communities on Facebook and realizing the value she could bring. “Once you become part of the small business community, you kind of see what they need, and it’s not really being addressed by strictly commercial photography. It’s a nice blend of the wedding, in the way that you’re interacting with people,” Trina explains, “But there’s also a lot of planning and thinking ahead of time that goes into it, which

“Today, we’re talking about increasing your sales, but our strategy to do this is not necessarily what you think it’s going to be!”- Shelagh CumminsIncrease your revenue, and you’ll be able to invest in your business, serve more people, and make an even bigger impact. But you don’t want to increase your sales by doubling the time that you’re working or holding gimmicky flash sales where you decrease the value of your offers. In this episode, you’re going to learn the secret to increasing your sales... without increasing your hours, creating more offers, or making more pitches!There are a few things that contribute to your sales: your offers, your pricing, your lead generation, and your positioning. Of all of those things, positioning is the most important.Your lead generation is made up of things such as webinars, launches, landing pages, and ads, but the reality is that there is no point spending money on those things if your positioning hasn’t been perfected!Your positioning determines how you and your offe

“This group, despite all the impact they have, remain the most overlooked and undervalued sector of the economy by banks, by investors, and the general public.”- Shelagh CumminsDid you know that more than half of all new businesses are run by sole proprietors, with two employees or fewer?These microbusiness operate on a smaller scale with leaner operations, and tend to use contractors, rather than employees. They’re often dismissed as “cottage industry” or cute little “side hustles.” Not everyone believes in their power. Investors generally don’t consider them and Canada’s COVID-19 support passed them by.Even though microbusinesses are widely overlooked by banks, investors, the government, and even the general public, they play a huge role in the economy, at both local and global levels.A huge percentage of microbusinesses are run by women entrepreneurs, and they often hire other women entrepreneurs as contractors — helping these other women grow their own microbusinesses and earn more money!When women succee

“We offer all of our team a day every month that they can go and volunteer at their favourite cause, and we’ll pay for that.”- Desirée BombenonHow do you shift from a profit-driven business to a purpose-driven one? And what are the benefits?Desirée Bombenon wanted to become a community builder — so she made a commitment to utilizing her business as a force for good.Her company, SureCall, is a former after-hours virtual reception service that has transformed into a global business optimization company. Part of this transformation included levelling up the company culture, something Desirée achieved through developing strong company values, encouraging community involvement through PTO for volunteering, and hiring a Culture Champion.“We have all of these engagement KPIs that we utilize,” Desirée explains. “And that Culture Champion, their role is to ensure the team understands how to utilize these platforms, how to stay engaged, how to use the volunteer hours, all of those things.” In‌ ‌this‌ ‌episode of the Ro

I hope you’re ready for a spicy episode today! This week’s topic is gender equity in the workplace.My guest is Paul Harrietha, co-author of the excellent book ‘The Invisible Rules: What’s Really Holding Women Back in Business—and How to Fix It’, which is based on the personal insights of 50 senior female executives, including some high-profile Canadian business leaders. Paul’s wife is a senior executive at a large corporation, and Paul became interested in gender equity after realizing that she and her colleagues faced unique challenges and setbacks when climbing the corporate ladder… while their less experienced male peers received promotions into senior leadership positions.This prompted Paul to do some soul-searching and identify some of his own hidden biases.While Paul’s expertise is on gender equity in the corporate world, there are a shocking number of parallels to gender equity in entrepreneurship.In‌ ‌this‌ ‌episode of the Road to Seven podcast,‌ ‌you’ll discover:‌ ‌Why so many women leave the corpora

Women entrepreneurs are absolutely vital to the global economy… and there are more of us than ever.We are starting businesses at a faster rate than men. The Road to Seven is dedicated to removing barriers to business growth for women entrepreneurs of all ages, races, sexual orientations, religions, and creeds. Our clients have a common goal: to build a profitable business that fuels their dream lifestyle and creates financial security for themselves or their families.But their businesses also help the wider community.Women predominantly create service-based businesses that support other people — this includes coaching, consulting, and freelancing.They also predominantly create smaller businesses. 97% of women entrepreneurs remain under $1 million in revenue.These micro-businesses are often dismissed as side hustles, hobbies, or cottage industries — but they form a microcosm of women entrepreneurs making a tremendous impact on their families and communities.But their impact doesn’t end there. Micro-businesses,

Nita Tandon started her company for what she calls a selfish reason.She left her career in biopharma after the birth of her child, the same year Canada issued a ban on BPA in baby bottles.As a pharmaceutical scientist, she was well aware of the dangers posed by BPA and other chemicals, and wanted sleek, non-toxic food containers for her family.Despite her efforts, she couldn’t find any that she loved.“If I couldn’t find the products I wanted, I decided I was going to create them,” Nita explains. “No company was going to take me seriously, so I said ‘why don’t I just register a company name, and let me see if I can make these containers for myself?’”The next thing she knew, she had two products under her belt. She signed up for a booth at the Baby Time trade show shortly afterward. When another woman urged her to apply for the start-up award at the show, Nita did so, intending only to get a few more eyes on her products.To her surprise, she won!Since then, she’s secured financing through SheEO, developed more

“I didn’t have a lot of clients, so I set aside two weeks and created a six-week course... That was my first launch. I had like 4 people…and then I had 8… then it was 20.”— Danielle BinnsDanielle Binns has achieved the entrepreneur’s dream — a business that lands her sales while she sleeps.As a nutritionist and picky eating expert, she helps families push through mealtime frustrations.It’s a niche she fell into accidentally, after attempting to launch a business supporting new mothers in a more general way. When a brief story about her daughter’s pickiness resonated with her audience, Danielle niched down into picky eating consulting, which was exactly the right move for her business.Her first lead magnet? A list of high-calorie foods for underweight kids.Her unusual approach of focusing on “how to eat” in addition to “what to eat” helped establish her as a leader in her field and attracted an audience eager for her expertise, which she supplies via a set of low-ticket digital products.“I do wake up in the mo

Hailey Verity has made multiple enormously successful entrepreneurial pivots. Her secret? A knack for tapping into the needs of her community and developing solutions that resonate. Hailey left her job as a classroom teacher after the premature birth of her son. Through speaking with parents on the playground, she discovered a need for a half-day kindergarten enrichment program in the area.Hailey launched a kindergarten enrichment program out of her home — her first entrepreneurial venture. Her only marketing effort was an email sent to a handful of other parents in the community.She was booked solid within just three days.Years later, after learning that her area was transitioning to full-day kindergarten, Hailey signed with a direct sales company. Rather than using the pushy hard sell, she sold in alignment with her values — becoming a top seller!Hailey realized that many women her age struggled to feel good about themselves and their clothes. She wanted to help them express themselves through their style a

Fitness instructor Reena Parekh runs a thriving Instagram community of South Asian moms, offering fitness classes and speaking frankly about important topics that are stigmatized in her community, such as maternal mental health, inequity, and pelvic health.How did Reena build such a strong following? A few years ago, Reena realized that her entire feed was full of thin, white women. She knew that fitness leadership in Toronto was very white, despite the city’s diversity. There was a need for new faces in fitness leadership, and there was also a niche that deserved attention — new mothers. She started looking for other South Asian people in fitness and followed them on Instagram, eventually building her incredible base.“When I realized that my feed was looking the same over and over again, I realized that I was striving to also be that ideal. I’m never going to be that ideal, and that’s okay,” Reena explains. “My whole life has been about trying to fit in and assimilate. But the more I recognize how much my cu

“I’ve heard one too many of you call yourselves a failure because you’re not able to keep up, and many of your worlds right now are completely upside-down.”—  Shelagh CumminsSo many entrepreneurs right now are struggling to manage homeschooling, running our businesses, and keeping on top of all of our other obligations — all at once. If you added up your To-Do List right now, chances are it exceeds the available hours in the day!And yet so many of us are considering ourselves failures if we can’t keep up with the impossible expectations we’ve put on ourselves.I’m here to tell you to stop!If you’re expecting to be able to handle all of the new responsibilities that lockdown brings — along with your regular work of building and growing your business — then I urge you to start being kinder to yourself.You will not be able to do it all the way that you want to… but you CAN take steps to make amazing progress without running yourself into the ground.In this episode, I’ll be sharing tips and strategies on how to br

A former wildlife biologist, Carla Wainwright now helps women connect with the divine feminine.Carla believes that the wisdom we tap into when reconnected with our bodies and the divine feminine can guide us in running our businesses, navigating our relationships, and raising our children. “When we recognize that the body has this wisdom that we can listen to, this really then begins to radically shift how we operate in the world,” Carla explains. “Because we are able to connect to the deeper ‘felt-sense’ — that inner knowing.”Leveraging this connection helps us as entrepreneurs, as we will operate from a place of deep inner knowing, rather than just letting our egos make guesses... and hoping for the best!Carla herself made an unlikely decision based on this wisdom. The day after deciding to make the leap from biologist to bodyworker, she received an offer for a government job — one that just a year earlier would have been a dream job! But Carla knew that it wasn’t what she needed to do. She turned it down a

“It’s not the programs that you offer or the products that you sell… it’s about the bigger picture.”—  Shelagh CumminsDoes your brand need a refresh?I’d known for a while that something intangible was missing in my business, but I couldn’t quite put my finger on what.I’d run my business under my own name for over ten years. And honestly, I’ve been THRILLED with its success, the revenue it’s earned, and — most of all — its impact on my clients.But deep down, I’ve been feeling an itch to expand my business and add a new vertical — and I realized I was having trouble figuring out what that could look like within the Shelagh Cummins brand.That’s when it hit me: my business had gotten much bigger than me.My role in my business is as the visionary. My goal has been to become a global leader in educating, supporting, and financing women entrepreneurs.It was during an education session for my clients that I myself learned something new!I hosted a seminar on branding for a group of women entrepreneurs, and listening t

“My biggest challenge is probably myself... in terms of growing, I think I felt like ‘Who am I to get too much bigger?’” —  Laura BonnettIf you discovered your true, fulfilling purpose in life, would you be ready to embrace it?My guest for this episode, Laura Bonnett, is the founder and CEO of YellowTree Grant Writing. Laura worked for the federal government for nearly 10 years and now uses that experience to make an incredible impact on the world by helping organizations access grants that help them effect change.Shifting from academia to entrepreneurship meant letting go of structure and embracing a level of fluidity. While she was used to a requirement of absolute perfectionism in her former career, she found that entrepreneurship is more fluid and adaptable — and you’re allowed to fail and learn from it.As she grew, she developed her own structure by putting systems in place for bookkeeping and time management, and creating a schedule that worked for her.But what she really struggled with was believing th

What do you have to let go of in order to create a bigger impact?My guest Laura Beauparlant ran a custom stationery business for 12 years. She was highly successful, and her innovative wedding invitation designs had been featured in many magazines.Laura was making good money and building a name, but she knew that she wanted to leave the wedding industry. She wanted something bigger and better. She’d been doing design work for small businesses and soon realized she was making more money from small business branding than from her wedding invitations.She knew she needed to shift where she put her energy.In November of 2015, she quit doing wedding design completely and within 5 or 6 months she’d launched her new company, Lab Creative, and started her Brand Camp program.The lesson? Sometimes, you need to let go of something in order to grow.As Laura scaled up, she realized that couldn’t move beyond a certain revenue point without hiring a team and letting go of having full control.She needed to recognize that her

“‘One day’ doesn’t have to be far away. ‘One day’ can be today.” —  Shelagh CumminsI’ve been thinking a lot lately about the importance of flexibility. Perhaps you have, too.2020 was full of new challenges and new problems, which required new solutions and ways of thinking.In this pandemic age, it’s important to cultivate flexibility in what you offer, how you offer, and how you show up. The truth is, we don’t know when or if things will ever go back to “normal.” It is very likely that they won’t.We need to start living flexibly in this new reality.Think of the fable of the oak and the reed — one bends with the wind and survives, while the oak tree falls. As an entrepreneur or business owner, the way of the reed is the route to success.I see many store owners who are hesitant about moving online or speakers who are resisting moving to delivering speeches online.They tell themselves that they’ll do it “one day.” And this “one day”-ism isn’t exclusive to the pandemic — it’s always been a way to avoid the things

2020 was a very tough year for most of us. A devastating year for others. Personally and professionally, we’ve all been trying to weather the storm.But 2020 has also presented us with a number of hidden gifts.For many of us, the pains of 2020 are still too fresh and it’s too soon to appreciate these silver linings — and that’s okay! For those of us who are ready, I’d love to look back on the way that this challenging time has changed us for the better, revealed new strengths, and highlighted the importance of support.We’ve tapped into new heights of RESOURCEFULNESS as we figure out how to evolve and work around brand new challenges. We will not go back to life as we knew it — so now is the time to make amazing pivots and shifts, rather than waiting for the old normal to return.We’ve tapped into the power of COMMUNITY by reaching out to members of our own community or joining new ones. We’ve found new ways to socialize and come together online, making new connections with other women entrepreneurs and gaining

“The human side of your team and business can sometimes be the hardest to manage.”—  Shelagh CumminsLaura Tolhoek grew up in a family that owned a small business, so from an early age she was familiar with the tenacity, resilience, and hard work that go into growing a livelihood. After going to school for HR, she worked for large companies in hospitality and food service.She desired a healthier work-life balance and requested that her role be made part-time — a request that her then-employer balked at.She looked at different part-time opportunities, but realized that she was already doing a lot of unpaid consulting work.So, she decided to strike out on her own.Laura realized that many small businesses can’t afford or don’t need a full-time HR person on their payroll, but could still benefit from having someone they can turn to for HR support.She started her own agency offering flexible and customized outsourced HR options.It wasn’t an instant success.When she first launched her business, it took some time to

“I started Green at Home by accident. It was not something that I intentionally knew; that I was going to launch my own business.”—  Emma RohmannWhen it comes to creating a life that will fulfill you, passion is everything.Running a business focused only on making money will eventually just feel like a job — it will be hard for you to show up, let alone show up as a leader.A business focused on money and passion? That’s the key to fulfillment.In 2015, Green at Home founder Emma Rohmann left her corporate job to pursue her passion. And it all started with a blog. Emma was working on a research project to discover how to make healthier choices for herself and her family while on maternity leave with her second child. Her blog served as a record of this research and a space where she could make sense of the information she learned.She realized that she wasn’t the only mother with these interests, and that there was a hunger out there for information about green, healthy, eco-friendly products.So, how did she mov