Efficient and Impactful - Prodigm Inc.
Interested in starting your own entrepreneurial journey in consultancy but unsure what to expect? Then read up on our interview with Peter Coy, President of Prodigm Inc., located in Belleville, ON, Canada.
What's your business, and who are your customers?
Prodigm.ca is a Zoho Partner based in Ontario, Canada. We have been in business since 1992 and a Zoho Partner since 2011. Why Zoho? It is a great system for small businesses to run the entire business with just one login. Sales, Marketing, Accounting, Inventory, Workflow, and process management, Online sales, Analytics, Team management, Meeting event, coordination, shared and secure data storage, mass emailing, word processing, and much more.
Pro Tip: Here is a link to Quora relating to how sales force automation (SFA) can help your business grow.
Tell us about yourself
I invented a simple CRM approach called Entity-based systems, which I wrote in the Pick Databasic language and relational database. It seemed logical to identify the important entities for your business and store them once, then share that file of key entities with other applications that needed the same information. That got me started in forming a company that started supplying packaged vertical solutions to professional associations and business magazines. We had well over one hundred installations of that software and twenty employees.
What's your biggest accomplishment as a business owner?
Hanging in for this long! No, seriously, I would identify two big accomplishments: Designing and developing an AI insurance selling system that sold over $60 million in premium income per year with no salespeople and developing a new system for calculating the T3 underlying distribution of assumed mutual fund profitability, tracking the effect of that distribution on increasing the ACB (thus reducing eventual capital gains on final sale) and producing a consolidated T3 for tax reporting for 30,000 members of a trade association. That's the most creatively satisfying. But making the payroll each month is something else that makes me proud!
What's one of the hardest things that come with being a business owner?
Allocating my time between coaching and managing staff, selling to new clients, managing the marketing initiatives, and completing the various government reporting and payments.
What are the top tips you'd give to anyone looking to start, run and grow a business today?
- Do something that you really enjoy doing. I love being creative and helping smaller businesses thrive with creative systems.
- Test your assumptions and research your possible market; if you don't have something that you can consider a "Unique Selling Proposition," you may want to reconsider.
- Compete this statement: "People choose to do business with me because........." and don't just say "We are the cheapest" because that is not any guarantee of success.
Is there anything else you'd like to share?
Plan for replacing yourself. Be generous. Keep a careful watch on your Bank account and stay within credit limits; at some point, you will have to fire someone who works for you. Be kind, and explain how they are not suitable for your position and how you will be much happier doing something else.
Where can people find you and your business?
Website: https://www.prodigm.ca/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ProdigmInc/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/ProdigmInc
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/prodigm-inc./
If you like what you've read here and have your own story as a solo or small business entrepreneur that you'd like to share, then please answer these interview questions. We'd love to feature your journey on these pages.
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