Nobody tells you how strange it feels
You sit in a chair. Someone clips a microphone to your collar. The lights are brighter than you expect. And then someone asks you to tell your story.
I have given hundreds of presentations. I have stood in front of rooms full of entrepreneurs and talked for ho...
Acquisitions look simple from the outside
You hear that a company acquired another company, and the story sounds clean. Strategic fit. Expanded capacity. Broader reach.
From the inside, it is never that clean.
When Solpak welcomed Bartrol Packaging into our operations, the most important conversa...
Ten years is not a milestone. It is a proof of concept.
In the early days of Solpak, I was not thinking about years. I was thinking about months. Sometimes weeks.
Getting through the first year. Landing the next client. Making payroll without borrowing from tomorrow to pay for today.
Ten years...
The invitation I almost turned down
I got a message asking if I would contribute a chapter to Ma Résilience en Affaires, a published anthology on entrepreneurial resilience in Quebec.
My first instinct was to say no.
Not because I lacked stories. I had plenty. But I was not sure my story was the...
The entrepreneur is back... 25 years later.
I'm confused.
I am familiar with the leather smell and the luxurious space I find myself in. Yet, as I barely come out of a deep sleep, the surrounding darkness disorients me.
Where am I?
I hear knocking at my window. As the diffused nois...
The outcome
Summer is ending, and I am finishing up my last projects.
During the season's first few weeks, I finally replaced Frank with another more competent and less goofy painter. I came to an agreement with Peter and Jocelyne to buy decorative elements to compensate for the artwork soi...
The new beginning
Back to that chilly night. It's almost ten o'clock in the evening when Patrick wakes me up with his repeated knocks on my car window.
He must talk to me. He is perplexed to see me in this state, especially after speaking to my mother. Anyway, he tells me he is going on va...
The Crisis
One night, I come home exhausted. Running a business is much more demanding than I could have imagined. Not to mention that I am under constant stress at home, never knowing when I would get lectured or yelled at about my incompetence.
I have a flashback: Even my teachers used t...
Startup and tribulations
Winter is ending.
I'm on fire during my franchisee training, asking many questions and taking even more notes. A whole universe opens up to me: marketing and sales techniques, employee management concepts, customer service fundamentals, all subjects fascinate me. E...
The veto and the decision
The weekend's coming up. I choose the best time. She seems in a good mood; it's my time.
I tell her the happy news of the Student Painter's offer. No congratulations! She laughs and doesn't take this project seriously:
"An organization doesn't give a franchi...
The offer
Throughout the franchisee operator selection process, John detects in me a strong passion, excellent sales skills, and a very organized spirit, conducive to a promising management role.
He tells me I stand out among the twenty candidates for the local territory as the strongest one...
The business opportunity
It all started with THE opportunity.
The opportunity is perfect.
On this chilly fall day, I get excited as I see a franchising booth at the career fair in the main hall of my preparatory college.
Obtaining and operating a Student Painters franchise at 16 woul...
