{"id":4740,"date":"2013-11-27T21:11:08","date_gmt":"2013-11-28T02:11:08","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/?p=4740"},"modified":"2013-12-11T13:43:40","modified_gmt":"2013-12-11T18:43:40","slug":"entrepreneurs-share-highs-lows-and-giving-back-at-conference","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/entrepreneurs-share-highs-lows-and-giving-back-at-conference\/","title":{"rendered":"Entrepreneurs share highs, lows, and giving back at Conference"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Brock Weir<\/strong><\/p>\n

It\u2019s not easy staying both resilient and ahead of the curve in today\u2019s rapidly changing business landscape, but many local companies in York Region have done just that \u2013 finding their own unique ways to stay relevant, profitable and involved.<\/p>\n

Entrepreneurs from across York Region heard the success stories of three of these companies at the recent YRBiz Series, held at The Mansion on November 15 in a seminar lead by Bruce Buchan of Aurora\u2019s Clean River Recycling, Sean Stephens of Treefrog Interactive, and David Rae of AIC (Allied International Credit). <\/p>\n

All three business owners have experienced the highest of highs and the lowest of lows, and had similar war stories of how to get back on track and back in the game. <\/p>\n

\u201cYou get lucky sometimes,\u201d said Mr. Rae, relating back to an earlier presentation made by Frank Stronach, founder of Magna International.<\/p>\n

Mr. Rae was speaking of the leap of \u201cblind faith\u201d and hope he took starting out his business and not being able to sleep in those early days thinking about not being able to make payroll. <\/p>\n

\u201cOne thing I learned coming out of that was the importance of cash flow management,\u201d he said. \u201cTo this day, I still get a cash flow report on what is happening with our businesses around the globe, so I know how much money is in every bank account, I know what our receivables look like and I know how much money is going in. I learned that lesson by almost going out of business.\u201d<\/p>\n

Mr. Buchan also underscored the importance of payroll management, but also the importance of being able to give back to the community. It is \u201cvery easy to write a cheque\u201d but another thing altogether getting employees engaged in their community. <\/p>\n

While they do this through community tree planting, engagement is also something they have had to address at a high level in the workplace \u2013 himself.
\n\u201cThat was one of those things I learned a very valuable lesson and that was one of the basics back to Forrest Gump playing ping pong \u2013 never take your eye off the ball!\u201d he said. \u201cThat was when my back was up against the wall and it was a valuable lesson for me.\u201d<\/p>\n

For Mr. Buchan, re-cycling and environmental sustainability are two principles that are not going away anytime soon. There was a time, however, when people just didn\u2019t know how to get a handle on it. That\u2019s where they came in. He expressed his \u201cpride\u201d in what his team has developed right in Aurora to leave their mark on the environment. <\/p>\n

While he said Canadians are never ones to toot their own horns, two things everyone can agree with are hockey and coffee.<\/p>\n

The company works with Tim Hortons, an iconic Canadian brand, and also partnered with the NHL on their Winter Classic Legacy Program. <\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s this kind of experience of working with top companies that has allowed us over the years to gain the attention of organizations,\u201d he said. \u201cWhat is really fascinating about this industry is if I was selling investment products, we wouldn\u2019t get a lot of call-backs. When you\u2019re talking about sustainability, the doors open wide. There isn\u2019t a door we haven\u2019t been able to get through.\u201d<\/p>\n

That being said, as an entrepreneur, he still considers himself a risk taker, but, with success, he\u2019s now a risk taker with a pretty good arsenal of tolls at his disposal \u2013 and he\u2019s putting them to good use.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen you are successful, we do have the privilege like many others here of supporting the community,\u201d he said. \u201cThe one I take the most pride in is Project Nest Box, which started with [local environmentalist] David Tomlinson,\u201d he said. \u201cIt\u2019s a very creative way to tie philanthropy to business, making the boxes, getting them to the schools, where they put them all together, set them up, record [the bird] data and they are actually learning about many of the different areas of business.\u201d<\/p>\n\"Facebook\"<\/a>\"twitter\"<\/a>\"mail\"<\/a>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It\u2019s not easy staying both resilient and ahead of the curve in today\u2019s rapidly changing business landscape, but many local companies in York Region have done just that \u2013 finding their own unique ways to stay relevant, profitable and involved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":4741,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[26],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4740","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-archive"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/11\/2013-11-27-05.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3D2k4-1es","publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-04-24 09:55:47","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4740","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4740"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4740\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4741"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4740"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4740"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4740"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}