VANCOUVER – For B.C.’s small business community, 2010 was a year of moving slowly but steadily out of the grip of a harsh recession.
Many firms were profiled in The Vancouver Sun over the past 18 months, with optimism the order of the day despite timing that, in some cases, couldn’t have been worse for a launch.
Brian Bonney, the Canadian Federation of Independent Business’s director of provincial affairs for B.C., said such confidence was typical for B.C.’s small and medium-sized businesses, which were generally more optimistic than their counterparts across the country as reflected in the CFIB’s business barometer.
“In general terms, 2010 was a transition year for many small business owners,” Bonney said in an interview. “They had high hopes around the Olympics and thought the transition out of the recession would be faster and swifter than what they experienced.
“But it was a year of readjusting and realizing they wouldn’t have this swift return to prosperity, but instead a steady, slow return to a stronger economy.”
Bonney said many small businesses still aren’t out of the red and hope 2011 will return them to prosperity.
“We had a roller-coaster ride in 2010. We went from being the most optimistic province in Canada to the seventh most optimistic in the fall. Then we shot back up in November to the second most optimistic province. So the year ended with a bit of momentum.
“In December, they’re starting to see the turnaround. They’re optimistic, but cautious. They’ve got that twinkle in their eye again.”
As a way to gain the upper hand in recessionary times, many small businesses augmented their main business plans by branching out into new areas. Others simply latched onto an idea – or product – that helped their business grow throughout the year.
For Chris Levis, who lost his job in the health-club industry in early 2009 but took the opportunity to open a sporting goods store in Langley geared to hockey and lacrosse, the big-ticket item was a high-tech Blackstone skate-sharpening machine – used by 20 NHL teams – that has customers coming through the door in droves.
He told The Sun in January that while it wasn’t easy launching his store during an economic downturn, he saw a “gaping hole” in Langley for team sports equipment and decided to take the plunge.
But Levis told The Sun this month that 2010 steadily improved as he grew his client base.
“This year, we’re in a much, much better position,” said Levis, who bought an established store and, with his wife Shelley, re-christened it Levy’s Source for Sports in mid-2009.
“We’ve pretty much doubled our sales. Our skate-sharpening is up three times since last season.
“But last year, I had to be very optimistic. I had a ton of conversations with my mother [and] father-in-law, just quelling their fears.”
Levis, who spent $22,000 on the Blackstone machine, which among other things allows skates to hold an edge longer, said that launching during a recession can be difficult but that great service and offering something unique is the best way to build a loyal clientele.
“Everyone sells gloves and shoulder pads,” added Levis, a two-time lacrosse Champion’s Cup winner. “But at the end of the day, if you don’t offer something different you’re the same as everyone else. And if you have good services, then you get people coming back to buy gloves and sticks.
“The local sports teams are now coming in here for all their services.”
In November 2009, Kanako Heinrichs, who immigrated from Japan to Canada three years before, started a very different type of business – Queensberry Flower Co. Inc., a flower kiosk at Vancouver’s Granville SkyTrain Station, with a $30,000 loan.
Heinrichs also was helped by S.U.C.C.E.S.S. – one of B.C.’s largest social agencies, which among other things helps new immigrants get their Canadian grounding – by signing up for the agency’s self-employment program.
The free three-month program for unemployed Canadians provides workshops in such areas as business, sales and marketing, financial planning, manual and computerized bookkeeping, word processing, web design, the Internet and much more. Heinrichs, who was profiled by the Sun earlier in 2010, said recently that December sales have doubled over December 2009, with more customers and bigger orders.
She’s also branched out into weddings since opening.
“We were only doing walk-in clients in the beginning. Then we decided to branch out into the wedding sector. There’s a huge demand for affordable wedding flowers. We also started doing deliveries in May.”
Heinrichs said she now gets about 130 customers on a busy day and she’s planning to expand to other locations, although not in the immediate future.
“This has met my expectations, but it will probably take another year to exceed our expectations. We’re very happy with the outcome of 2010.”
Meanwhile, specialty guitar maker Philip Cook said that while the final four months of 2010 haven’t exactly been music to his ears, the first eight trended on a much higher note.
“The year has been good,” said Cook, who in mid-2008 launched Liquid Metal Guitars, a company that produces guitars made from aircraft aluminum. “We’ve signed up three new dealers in the U.S., one in Germany and one in England. And sales were above last year, just over 100 guitars so far this year. Our best month ever was in August, but it’s slowed down since then.”
Cook, who said his guitars have a very clean sound because of the acoustics of their aluminum construction, added that building a business during a recession wasn’t easy.
“I think our timing couldn’t have been worse for a high-end guitar, but we’re quite unique.”
Cook said the biggest change this year is the fact that more of his guitars are sold through dealers.
“It was almost all through the Internet [when the company launched], but now 70 per cent [of sales] are through the dealers.”
Cook said he’s aiming for a 50-per-cent increase in sales in 2011 through an expanded dealer network.
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