Interested in starting your own entrepreneurial journey but unsure what to expect? Then read up on our interview with Iliana Rocha, founder of Clubnet Solutions Inc., located in Toronto, ON, Canada.

What's your business, and who are your customers?

Our mission at Clubnet Solutions is to be a partner of leaders looking to transform and scale their businesses profitably. This encompasses many areas – from improving one's own leadership skills to managing team performance to purposefully designing the next stages of the business to ensure it continues to thrive and mature. We know what is required to effectively and efficiently run a company and partner with leaders to develop action plans to scale and transform their businesses.

We work with entrepreneurs a lot and have found that many organizations get stuck before exponential growth because their leaders don't know how to plan ahead. Whether they are looking to grow the business scale in a manner that allows them to retain control, get access to capital, or get acquired, it is important to optimize their strategy and operations. For a company to truly take off, a leader needs to lay the groundwork and put in place the building blocks that are required for long-term success.

That's where we come in. Planning for business growth cohesively allows leaders to make sure that each and every decision and change support and re-enforces the rest. I have observed the successes and, more often, failures of large and small organizations alike and have developed a system of best practices for ensuring that all parts of a business work well together. Once the day-to-day business management is taking care of itself, leaders can go back to doing the things they are best at – being the visionary and focusing on the problems and challenges only they are uniquely equipped to handle.

We also consciously focus on helping small to mid-sized businesses. We truly believe that small businesses have the potential to contribute to society and their communities tremendously. Time and time again, small businesses behave more responsibly than large ones. They treat their employees better and tend to retain them even in difficult times they create jobs and therefore sustain local economies. The list goes on: when the middle class and small to mid-sized businesses thrive, so do economies and communities.

Tell us about yourself

At Clubnet, I work alongside business owners and leaders to optimize and grow their businesses. I have over a decade of experience; I am certified as a Professional Certified Coach (PCC), Project Management Professional (PMP), and Agile Coach (ICP-ACC).

I have been working in small and large organizations for the better part of two decades in functions such as project, program, and portfolio management, operations, strategic and business planning, financial management, and more! When I worked for small organizations, I remember thinking to myself that the folks in the big leagues must have all the answers and never fail… Well, that's not really the case.

Regardless of industry, certain things hold constant. Any organization that I've been a part of has been deeply dependent on its employees for its success. And let me tell you – those folks are just like you and me. They go through their work lives trying to make the best decisions they possibly can with the information that they have. They aren't exceptional business gurus – they have backgrounds in specific areas. They have to find out how to contribute to the inner workings of the big operational machine.

Small business owners struggle because they don't have a large talent pool to draw on for information. They often cannot hire a strategist, an operations expert, a performance management professional, or a project manager extraordinaire. And so, a lot of business decisions are made from a single point of view and through only one lens. That is how small business owners come to find themselves feeling stuck or overwhelmed even though they are running a business with high potential. They put tremendous efforts into their business but lack results.

The issues pile up, they get caught up in the minutia, and at the end of the day, they feel wiped and like they didn't achieve much. Other business owners and leaders are caught up in solving the hard issues, a do-it-yourself vortex, with an inability to let go of control. These observations inspired me to start up Clubnet Solutions and help other entrepreneurs build thriving businesses without all the overwhelm.

What's your biggest accomplishment as a business owner?

Our team launched Clubnet, and then we were promptly hit by the pandemic. So we, as a company, didn't have a customer base to fall back on and had to do business development from scratch at a time when businesses were pulling back on spending. Therefore, remaining in business and being able to source customers has been an accomplishment in its own right.

What's one of the hardest things that come with being a business owner?

Not giving up. Like other business owners, I often hear no, sometimes struggle to get new clients, and often feel like there is so much to do and not enough time and money to do so. I think every business owners knows well the days when you are ready to throw in the towel. So not giving up and persevering, despite feeling demotivated at times, can be difficult.

What are the top tips you'd give to anyone looking to start, run and grow a business today?

  1. You can't expect everyone to strive for excellence or the business to grow if you aren't willing to invest in your own leadership skills. When you focus on continuously improving yourself, you set an example for your team and weave continuous improvements in your company's DNA. That is a recipe for growth!
  2. Hire and grow a high-performance team. I talk a lot about how to identify top performers and how to manage and grow them so that they remain loyal to your organization. Many leaders seem to think that if you really invest in your people, they'll take the learnings and go to greener pastures. That's not the case – high performers value how they are managed over pay-based incentives. I encourage business owners to identify and grow the future leaders of their companies. That way, when the organization scales, they have the right people to help manage the more complex structure.
  3. The last takeaway I'll include is around performance managing your organization. A lot of leaders either don't keep a pulse on how the internal and external environments are changing or simply report on these changes but don't adjust their course of action. That is a mistake. The organizations that do the best are the ones that, at any given point, know where they stand and have contingencies in place to adapt to whatever changes in the environment happen. That may be recognizing changes in leading indicators and engaging in preventative action, or it could be understanding that the environment is more favorable than anticipated and truly leveraging that opportunity. One way or another, adaptability is key!

Where can people find you and your business?

Website: https://www.clubnet.ca/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/clubnetsolutions/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/clubnet_inc
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/clubnet-solutions-inc/

If you like what you've read here and have your own story as a solopreneur that you'd like to share, then email community@subkit.com; we'd love to feature your journey on these pages.

Feel inspired to start, run or grow your own subscription business? Check out subkit.com and learn how you can turn "one day" into day one.