Participants

Q&A

Jason Assen
VP Sales & Marketing
FocalPoint Int'l Canada

Good Morning! It’s Jason Assen here from FocalPoint Business Coaching, and I’ve got Jim Flemming on the line. Jim Flemming is from New Brunswick, and is one of our incoming coaches here with FocalPoint. Good Morning Jim.

Jim Flemming
Certified Business Coach
FocalPoint Business Coaching

Good Morning Jason, How are you?

Jason Assen

Doing very well today. Jim, I wanted to get on the line and ask you some questions about your experiences with Higher Bracket and FocalPoint and how you became a team member of ours. I really wanted to get a little bit of background from you and your previous positions, before you found us and Higher Bracket.

Jim Flemming

Sounds great! I guess I can describe my background as management generalist and I like to work with underperforming assets. My experience is mostly in the sales and marketing field and the wholesale and the retail industry and recently I was in light manufacturing…specifically the specialty print industry. So marketing, sales, general management background….that’s some of the experience I’ve been through with retailers like Hudson’s Bay, or the Urban Group here in St. John’s.

Jason Assen

OK, great! Thanks Jim. Now, before you decided to join FocalPoint, were you set on an executive job, or were you toying with the idea of starting your own business or getting into a franchise?

Jim Flemming

In the beginning, I would say I was very much set on an executive job, although, questioning what sort of industries I wanted to participate in and target, and do some of that homework of where I thought the greatest opportunities would be. As time progressed, it became more apparent that the changing industries would be difficult during the economic climate that we were in. Some people were looking specifically for industry experience… that proved a bit frustrating.

Jason Assen

So what pushed you then towards business ownership and away from the executive search?

Jim Flemming

It’s a bit of a long story, but after five or six months into my search, I started looking at business brokerage websites and started talking to people about what the opportunities were. What hit the point for me was that my father in law, who was a lifelong, very successful entrepreneur, fanned the spark a bit and suggested that I start my own business. He related some of his own experiences and I guess at that point, the seed took root. So, when Higher Bracket did their survey, asking if any of us were interested in starting our own business, I answered in the affirmative and with that, came back with three opportunities. I responded to two, I didn’t think the third was the right one. Again, I started looking at those opportunities, but still continued my job search. I wasn’t quite sold on the idea of doing it. So it was more like an evolution of a thought process.

I attempted to buy a business about fifteen years ago, when I first returned to the Maritimes, but it fell apart at the altar. So the idea and the desire were still deep in there, and I kept asking myself the questions of “What do I want in a job? What type of industry? What type of employer and employment environment?” The decision evolved…I got more clarity and I got focused on what I wanted and what I was looking for and where I could get it. So, I didn’t really stop searching until I made my commitment to FocalPoint. At that point I knew that that was the choice for me.

Jason Assen

You kind of answered my next question about striking out on your own or franchising as your first option. Maybe I’ll just skip to the next one and get to why did franchising appeal to you in general?

Jim Flemming

I think for me, the franchising appeal sort of came after and I started saying “There are some things that I want and some things that I should be looking for…and the branding...has it got the brand advantage? Do they have a process for marketing and selling? Is it a proven product or service? Does it have some kind of track record...And, what is their model, is it a dependant model. Interdependent model? Independent Model? I was looking for more of a team or a peer group connection.

Those are some of the things that when I looked at it…started to formulate my reasons of why I wanted to get into a franchise.

Jason Assen

It does and it dovetails into the next question about some of the factors that then went into your decision, specifically to join the FocalPoint team…and I think you touched on a few of those there, but maybe you could highlight a couple of those.

Jim Flemming

I got down to looking at two options, FocalPoint and another, and in the end I based my decision on a couple things and I think I talked about brand, and the brand behind FocalPoint is Brian Tracy…and I had a little bit of familiarity with Brian Tracy, going back to a seminar of his back in 1988-89, and from reading some things here and there over the years. That was a connection for me. The curriculum and coaching process was very important and I think the work that Cam Fraser has done, putting that together and putting Brian’s ideas into the curriculum, really stood out in my view of the various opportunities.

The other thing was the feeling that the model that FocalPoint was appearing to build was one of interdependence. I have been very open in frank discussions with the International President and Canadian Executive, but, most importantly, I think the calls with the potential and new coaches and the established coaches, and the training coaches, gave me a really special feeling about what was being built. It was elite and special. They were open to discussion, they were easy to get hold of and easy to talk to. The time that we talked, the half hour to forty five minutes flew by. They were a big influence on my decision.

Last but not least, I think at the beginning of my process, Jason, you sent me some Franchise Business Review, and in particular, I went over those and was very impressed by the results and the scores were actually quite exceptional and impressive.

The four things I really worked around were the brand, the curriculum, the working model, and then right down to what was the review like from Business Franchise review?…to give me what was the general feel on how the franchisor was dealing with the franchisee.

Jason Assen

Thank you. The next question is really quite general again, but how has your experience been so far with FocalPoint?

Jim Flemming

So far it’s been great. It’s been a heavy learning experience, and to me, I like that. Some is relearning and preparing for my official training next week. Between the coaches calls and the participating or just listening…the coaching material that is recorded on our working website… working with the curriculum material has been really enlightening.

So far, it’s been great, pretty intense, but it’s been awesome.

Jason Assen

Great, so finally, just to close things down, here Jim… Do you have any thoughts or advice for any other Higher Bracket members or people out there…you know, displaced executives, with regard to looking at business ownership or franchising in general?

Jim Flemming

I don’t know if I have advice for the Higher Bracket members that would say to specifically look at business ownership or franchising. The advice I would share and I would say give yourself the opportunity to explore and it’s Brian Tracy’s question…”What would you attempt to do if you knew you couldn’t fail?” Put that in the framework of “What do I enjoy doing and what kind of a difference would I like to make in my world?”

I think really working with those questions will lead you to the right place.

Jason Assen

Jim, thank you for your time today. I appreciate your candor in answering these questions for us.

Jim Flemming is a Certified Business Coach living in New Brunswick.

Jim Flemming

Thanks Jason.

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