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Ripple Effects is the business, and we're the Aboriginal Awareness Training Company,
and we've been doing this for 19 years.
In 1984 I went to work for the Department of Indian Affairs as
their Districts Superintendent for Economic Development and Planning,
and as part of that process I realized that if first nations were going to develop
economically on the reserve, there was a tremendous need for learning, skills,
capital, marketing,
and the only people that could really bring that there, was in a partnership
arrangement between the private sector and the first nation community.
In that process there was a lot of learning and comfort that had to be built.
There's certainly a lack of information.
From my experience, 5% knows a little bit,
and 95% know absolutely nothing.
That's a pretty big market.
So between curiosity and the fact that nobody knows where to go to get this
information,
these organizations will bring me in.
I did this to supplement or enhance the work I was doing with government,
now it's so busy that I have to do it full time, on my own, I don't really have time
to go out and work part-time for somebody else. Now it's on contract and it's
incorporated and part of my business.
We have two basic workshops that
we facilitate live, one is Aboriginal Awareness Training, the others is Outreaching
Recruitment and Retention for Aboriginal employment.
And we also have an Aboriginal Awareness Training program online.
If a client comes in and wants one workshop, I charge $4500 a day,
and anything over 10 workshops is $3500 plus GST,
travel, and accomodation.
I've worked in Philadelphia, New York, Portland, in Canada, from coast to coast to
coast. We work with oil sands groups, like Syncrude, Shell Canada, Duke Energy,
The Royal Bank, BHP Diamond Mines in the Northwest Territories, and so on.
For smaller companies and individuals we have our
Ripple Effects online program, this is more generic, and all encompassing.
If an individual wants to come online, we provide them with a username and
password.
They have access to that online training for four months, and I charge them
$500 plus GST.
For a corporation that wants us to take the online awareness and customize it for
them, we sign a three-year contract, we charge them $40,000 a
year which includes updates, and maintenance, and all of that,
and whether you have 80 employees or 40,000 employees, we don't care.
The Royal Bank for example, came to us and said, "Robert, we have
60,000 employees and we need them to take your training." Well at 20 a day, that
works out to 187 years.
We had to build the online awareness training, we customized it, we had to
incorporate a video of their CEO, their aboriginal relations initiatives and
programs, policy statement, statement of principles, and then we loaded it on their internet.
Now there are 60,000 employees that can go on there and use it any time they want.
We signed a three year contract with them so it turned out pretty good.
These organizations will bring me in,
they might be small oil companies, survey companies, environmental companies,
and I talk to them about how to build trust relationships with the people in the community,
so that they can communicate and actually do business. We incorporate all of
their programs and the kind of things that they do with aboriginal communities,
where they market to, into a customized program.
Sometimes they want to focus on the recruiting and retention for aboriginal employment,
sometimes they're looking for how to structure joint ventures and
partnerships, to do business with aboriginal communities, where there's Metis
settlements or off reserve
first nation businesses, or wherever it may be, it doesn't matter if it's a
corporation or an organization like the Chamber of Commerce or the Conference
Board of Canada. They're looking for business opportunities.
(clip of a workshop)
When it comes to marketing my business, I would say about 65% of
my business comes from word-of-mouth, they recommend me to a different company or
organization, and if I go in and I get paid, they get a finder's fee. I pay
$500 for every one and I pay out thousands and thousands of
dollars to people across the country for saying,
"Hey!, I think you should hire Robert to come in and do an Aboriginal Awareness Training
program."
And if I got the word from Jimmy over there,
Jimmy gets a check.
Every accountant, and lawyer, and financial adviser I have ever talked to,
have always told me, "Robert, you cant't operate without a business plan." Absolutely critical,
I agree.
I don't have a business plan,
never have, and I won't,
but I think for all of the new entrepreneurs and young business people that are going to start,
you should get one.
You are a risk taker,
you're putting it all on the line, you're going to deliver a
product or service, hopefully find a market for it, have passion to get it done.
Security is unheard of,
continuity–
not even possible,
persistence–
absolutely critical,
and be prepared to risk everything.
I really try hard not to earn more than $250,000 a year,
because if I do, it means I'm working too hard,
and something else has to give. We have very limited capacity to do more because
I'm the only one that really facilitates, so that's my limitation, which is ok.
Bigger isn't necessarily better, once I start growing, then I start infringing on
my lifestyle,
and I'm not prepared to do that, you have to manage growth, and you manage greed.
I can pay my bills, stash a little bit away, take a holiday on occasion, and I
get by just fine.