When we had our IT Consulting business our offices were in Cabbagetown; the beautifully refurbished old Victorian neighbourhood of Toronto. Let me take a quick detour. Cabbagetown is east of Parliament, bounded by Wellesley to the north and Gerrard to the south. It used to house the Toronto Zoo and now has a working farm. So when your country cousins come to stay take them to the farm; that is an experience they probably can’t have at home!
Detour over. One of our business neighbours in Cabbagetown was a newly started catering business called Daniel et Daniel. They also had a store front from where we bought our daily dose of calories in the form of delicious croissants, delectable pastries and unique mouth watering salads. Their other claim to fame at that time was catering our staff and client functions. Why am I going down this memory lane? Because the Toronto Star Business Section recently highlighted Daniel et Daniel as one of Toronto’s business success stories.
The story contains some real nuggets of advice for any small business owner. Here are some:
• The company wound down its wholesale operation to focus on its thriving catering business ~ the lesson, find your niche and get better and better at servicing it.
• One of the two partners looks after accounting and sales; the other the kitchens and food ~ if you want a successful business partnership make sure you have very clear roles and responsibilities.
• Success didn’t come overnight ~ building a successful business is a journey not a quick fix.
• They originally opened the store front to generate cash flow ~ cash flow is what keeps companies alive.
• To quote one of the partners; “we never stopped learning and improving what we were doing”~ that is the joy of being a business owner.
And by the way. When you go for a walk through Cabbagetown don’t forget to drop into Daniel et Daniel; they are on the north side of Carlton just west of Parliament; you will not be disappointed! To read the whole article go to http://bit.ly/d5g2nP
