Interested in starting your own entrepreneurial journey in business development but unsure what to expect? Then read up on our interview with Rod Valdes, Founder of Seventis, located in Edmonton, AB, Canada.

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

At Seventis Business Management, we focus on building and expanding small and medium-sized enterprises in Canada.​ For companies that need to improve how they operate today, we help them be more effective by optimizing their operational performance. For companies that want to create growth, we build capacity and expand their market presence.

To improve how you operate today, we perform a complete business diagnosis to evaluate internal performance and operational structure. This is achieved by assessing the operational, financial, marketing, sales, HR, and management functions throughout the organization. ​

If you're looking to expand or create growth for the future, we assess business capacity to ensure it is aligned with the market demands required for regional or international growth. This is accomplished by identifying the complete scope of the market, determining product or service requirements, and gauging operational readiness for expansion.

Tell us about yourself

I have over 25 years of experience in both the private and public sectors, and it has all been focused on corporate growth and operational improvement. Working in several different industries and at executive levels, my experience was always focused on how a company could improve its operational efficiencies and how it could grow in both regional and international markets. With operations, we assess seven internal categories, and with growth, it's a complete capacity assessment.

I provide companies with the guidance they need to either improve or grow. Our work is even better, in my eyes, of course, because we don't just give you a generic plan or strategy and send you off on your way. We dig into what your company needs, and we implement the solutions and processes with you.

What's your biggest accomplishment as a business owner?

My biggest accomplishment so far is getting a medical company to be a vendor of surgical facilities for a large health provider.

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

There are always a lot of challenges with being a business owner, but one that I always have to be the most conscious about is maintaining strong engagement with our past customers.

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

  1. First, before anything, build a business plan. Focus on the financials, operations, and marketing. It doesn't have to be anything elaborate; make it simple for just your own internal planning purposes, and don't worry about the fluff. When you do this, you get full transparency on how much costs and profits would be, all the processes you have to deal with in your operations and your market, and the platforms you can reach it with. You get a 360 view of your financials and the demands of the business.
  2. Focus at least 60% of your time on getting clients, if not more! Don't worry whether your website is perfect or your marketing is exactly how you want it. Driving your revenue should be your priority, as you'll find out that all the perfection you spent five months on didn't get you any clients and revenue. If you don't feed your operational costs, all that preparation to present yourself to the world would be for nothing.
  3. Refer to tip 2; you will learn the operational needs as you go. If you end up having too many clients or too much work, you can always scale back. It's what you would call "a good problem to have."

Where can people find you and your business?

Website: https://www.seventisgroup.com/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/seventis/

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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