Put Up or Shut Up

Introducing Janice MacPherson and Pomodori Pizzeria

We have all had the experience to being unsatisfied and it isn’t a great feeling. For some of us though, being dissatisfied can be the catalyst to creating something great. Take this week’s Boiling Point guest, who would end up ordering local fast food in order to get something on her table, but would often end up complaining to herself about what she received. Instead of just accepting what she got, she decided to “put up or shut up” and get into the fast food business for herself.

Janice MacPherson is the co-founder of Pomodori Pizzeria in Rothesay, New Brunswick along with her husband and previous BP guest, Steve Goddard back in 2008. Prior to Pomodori, Janice was running an independent internet service provider in British Columbia named Net Idea Telecommunications, which offered ISP services to people in Nelson, BC.   However, after becoming pregnant with her second child, she decided to move home to the Maritimes and work for the ISP remotely. During this time, she ended up eating out often but was often left unimpressed with the service and food she was receiving. The answer was to fix her problem herself and as a result Pomodori was founded. Now in business for around 8 years and after being rated 8th best in the world in the World Pizza Championship in Italy, Janice was able to turn dissatisfaction into a thriving business.

Find out how you could do this as well in the episode of the Boiling Point.

In this episode

• Greg and Dave are treated to some fantastic pizza from Pomodori.
• Janice tells us about the ups and downs of opening a new business two months before the greatest recession of our time.
• Janice also tells us about the work she does with the Wallace McCain Institute and her four-year stint interviewing entrepreneurs on CBC radio.
• We hear about how she got involved in an ISP years before the local telecommunication companies did in BC.
• She tells us of what prompted her to get into the food business after returning to New Brunswick.
• We understand Janice’s thought process when deciding on how Pomodori was to be set up and why she decided to go the route of fast counter service versus a full service restaurant.
• Janice tells us what prompted her and her business partners to enter the World Pizza Championships and the outcomes that resulted.
• We also hear about Janice’s human resource philosophies and how she is able to get teenagers to take on real responsibility so that they are able to gain true confidence.
• There is also a discussion on why we don’t see more healthy fast food options.

Links

- Pomodori's Website

- Pomodori on Twitter

- Pomodori on Facebook

- Janice on Twitter

- Janice on Facebook

- Net Idea's Website

- Wallace McCain Institute's Website

- World Pizza Championship's Website

- Steve Goddard on The Boiling Point

- Judith Mackin on The Boiling Point

From Break to B Lab

Introducing Joyce Sou and B Lab

It seems we all live busy lives. We all have obligations and commitments that take up our working and non-working hours and often this leads to a lack of time to sit back and reflect. As our Boiling Point guest this week could tell us, taking some time away from your daily grind can help you reassess your situation and put you on a completely different path.

Joyce Sou went to business school and didn’t really know what she wanted to as a career path. At the time, she decided to take the path of least resistance to become an accountant and later an auditor in consumer markets. Though she credits her experience in these roles for developing her leadership skills, she knew that her current career path wasn’t what she wanted to do long term. After getting married, Joyce and her husband decided that they were going to take a break and had a sabbatical year to travel around the world and as an unintended consequence she learned a great deal about social enterprise.

To learn more about the results of her sabbatical and her work with B Lab, check out this episode of the Boiling Point.

In this episode 

• We meet Joyce and hear about her work with B Lab in Canada.
• Joyce tells us about her background and what led her to take a sabbatical that would change her life.
• Joyce tells us how her time away gave her the ability to reassess her career path and to realize that the world still spins when you step back from your commitments.
• Dave and Greg consider the merits of taking a sabbatical themselves.
• We discuss how taking time away would lead to a different perspective.
• Joyce tells us how she then got involved with B Lab and how business can help impact the world for good.
• We discuss the merits of being a B Corporation or just taking the B Impact Assessment.
• Joyce tells us how two hours of your time on the B Impact Assessment could give you a benchmark of how your company stands.
• We also hear how Joyce is getting involved in hockey to one-day pay with her daughter.
• Dave is inspired by the way that Joyce found her way to B Lab.
• Greg considers how using a sabbatical as a reset is so interesting.

Links

- Joyce on Twitter

- Joyce on Linked In

- B Corporation Website

- B Corporation on Twitter

- B Corp Canada on Twitter

- B the Change Website

- B Impact Assessment

Collaboration over Adversarial Relations

Introducing George Chmael II and Council Fire

It is always great to work in a collaborative environment but sometimes there is a belief that such environments cannot be achieved. So often instead of thinking of ways that everyone can work in concert, groups take an adversarial stance where the result makes one group a winner and another the loser. Today’s guest believes that more often than not and even in contested situations there is still a way to work together to achieve a result that everyone can be happy with.

George Chmael II is the president and chief sustainability officer at Council Fire, a Maryland based small sustainability consultancy, which has been running for 17 years and works on projects all over the world. Council Fire operates at the intersection of environmental, economic, and social issues and uses an approach of collaboration because, “together we are smarter than any one of us alone.”

A great example of their collaborative approach is when they were working with the port of Baltimore and the environmental impacts of maintaining a 128-mile “highway” between the city and the Chesapeake Bay. Instead of an us versus them mentality in regards to the port and environmentalists, George and his group engaged stakeholders, which led to greater results for all those involved including costing taxpayers $125 million less than they would have if they had taken the adversarial route.

Check out this episode of the Boiling Point to learn more and to see how this approach could work for you in the future.

In this episode

• Dave tells us about his experience as a chaperone at We Day.
• We learn about how Greg and George worked collaboratively to bring “The Millennial Dream” to some US showings.
• We learn about the work that Council Fire does in the sustainability space.
• George tells us how things have changed in the world of sustainability from when he started his company 17 years ago.
• We hear why collaboration is so important with the work that George does.
• George also tells us why his training as a lawyer helps him in his work today.
• We hear of a great example of his work in relation to the port of Baltimore and the great spinoffs that came from it.
• Dave talks about how being collaborative can be tough and that it takes a high degree of cooperation, trust, and time.
• George tells us that credibility does not flow from words but from action.

Links

- Council Fire Website

- Council Fire on Twitter

- SustainaFest Website

- George on Linked In

He Wrote the Book

Introducing Ryan Honeyman and LIFT Economy

With increasing interest in B-Corp companies, many are left wondering how to learn more about the craze and how they can get involved. To this purpose, this week we have Ryan Honeyman from LIFT Economy who is also the writer of “The B Corp Handbook”.

Ryan is no stranger to the B Corp movement. In 2011, he started his own solo consulting firm focusing on making companies more sustainable and soon he heard rumblings of the B Corp movement and was impressed at its ability to measure and manage social and environmental impact. The trouble was explaining what B Corps were in a 30 second elevator pitch, so for those who wanted to know more he wrote “The B Corp Handbook”.

Today, Ryan is a partner at LIFT Economy, which is an impact-consulting firm that seeks to create, model, and share locally self-reliant economy for the benefit of all life. Ryan is also a podcaster for Next Economy Now and is currently fundraising for a Best for the World/B Corp accelerator called the Force for Good.

Check out this episode to learn even more about the B Corp movement.

In this episode

• Ryan tells us a little about himself and LIFT Economy.
• We learn how he got interested in B Corps and how he ended up writing the book on the movement.
• We learn how companies that are not B Corps are using the assessment to benchmark their company’s performance.
• Ryan tells us about his Force For Good Accelerator Fund and how the money is being raised through equity-based crowd funding.
• There is a discussion on crowd funding and what makes equity crowd funding different.
• Ryan tells us a bit about the Next Economy Now podcast for which he is a member.
• Dave is impressed with how Ryan is so generous with his time and knowledge and his approach to financing B Corps.
• Greg is inspired by how people like Ryan are doing such amazing things so selflessly.

Links

- Ryan on Linked In

- Ryan on Twitter

- The B Corp Handbook

- LIFT Economy Website

- LIFT Economy on Twitter 

- Force for Good Accelerator on WeFunder

- The Next Economy Now Podcast