It's Now or Never with Deanna Kean

It’s Now or Never with Deanna Kean

Intro: The great Mark Cuban once said, business happens over years and years. Value is measured in the total upside of a business relationship, not by how much you squeezed out in any one deal, and we couldn't agree more. This is the Business Development podcast based in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada, and broadcasting to the world.

You'll get expert business development advice, tips, and experiences, and you'll hear interviews with business owners. CEOs and business development reps. You'll get actionable advice on how to grow business. Brought to you by Capital Business Development Capitalbd.ca. Let's do it. Welcome to the The Business Development Podcast.

Podcast, and now your expert host, Kelly Kennedy.

Kelly Kennedy: Hello, welcome back to the Business Development Podcast. Thank you so much for tuning in. This is episode number 10. And I'm so thankful to have you all here still still listening, still subscribing, still liking, and I hope that I'm able to continue to drive great value for you and that we are able to leave you with nuggets of information that truly help you grow your business.

I'm so thankful today to have a guest on. Today we are working with Deanna Kean, the president and CEO of Solace Safety Solutions Solace Safety Solutions is an indigenous owned company based in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada, and Deanna Kean, with over a decade of experience in the health and safety field, the majority being in lead management roles and incorporating her own business in 2020.

Deanna, you're a rockstar. It's great to have you on. How are you today?

Deanna Kean: I am fantastic. Thank you so much for having me. You know, I've been listening to the last nine episodes and I am so excited to be here. You bring such valuable information to everybody, so I'm just really excited to get started.

Kelly Kennedy: Yeah, absolutely. It's so great to have you, Deanna. You know, like, I'm just gonna say it, I work for Deanna, so I'm just gonna kind of get this out of the way. I've been so fortunate to to be able to work alongside Solace Safety in their growth plan for the last year. And I can tell you that I'm incredibly proud of the work that I've done for this company.

Deanna, you have an amazing service. You're an amazing business owner. You care so much about your clients and delivering and making sure that you're giving a solid effort every time that we're providing top notch personnel to all your. I just wanna say thank you. Thank you for supporting Capital Business Development and myself, and thank you for trusting me to to grow your business over the last year.

And I think this is gonna be kind of an interesting conversation because, Me and you are both business owners. We have lots of great chats in our, in our car rides to various meetings, and I kind of hopefully wanna bring that to this podcast today because I think having some openness and transparency, especially as business owners can really, really bring value to the listeners of this podcast in, in, in multiple ways.

And I think today we can definitely bring value in kind of hopefully giving tips. What we did when we started our businesses to kind of help them not make the same mistakes that we have or to, or to replicate the successes that we've had. And I think too, you bring a unique a unique avenue to it with your safety background as well.

So yeah. Thanks. Thanks for being on today and let's kick this thing off. So tell me a little bit about Solace Safety.

Deanna Kean: Yeah, so we provide as needed safety personnel to projects. So we, last year we provided for turnarounds, pipeline facilities. And then it looks like this year we are kicking off with a lot of really exciting MSA's with really big name companies.

Last year we, I mean we, we worked through all of the kinks and the wrinkles, and I think that we are going to have a very successful year. So I'm really looking forward to it. We have some turnarounds. We have some longer term projects. We have smaller term projects. So it looks like it's probably going to be our more successful year.

So we're really excited to get going with it.

Kelly Kennedy: Yeah, no, absolutely. We have had a lot of success over this last year and you know, and I'm not patting myself on the back for it either. You've been at every single one of those meetings and I've just seen you grow too. From somebody who's just kind of getting their foot in the door and learning how to do their own business development for a company and just to see like how far you've come in the last year, it's truly impressive.

Deanna, you've come an incredibly long way. And I wanna say that from where I sit I'm incredibly proud of the work that we've done together.

Deanna Kean: Oh, thank you. You know what? I have so much appreciation and admiration for you and other people who are in BD because, I mean, I started out trying to do the cold calls myself, and my goodness, I feel like it's like you have to be a very specific type of person.

In order to do that I'd make some calls, I'd get shot down, and then my feelings would get hurt and I, I wouldn't wanna make another phone call. So I, I mean, I, I just wanna thank you so much for the work that you've done, because we wouldn't be where we are and as successful as we are without you. Thank you very much.

Kelly Kennedy: Yeah, thank you so much, Deanna. Thank you. It's, it's truly a pleasure. It's truly a pleasure and a privilege to be able to promote for such a great company. And you know, when I say it in a lot of my podcasts, that I am picky and choosy about who I take on. And I can say

that with solace. You know, just working alongside yourself and your values and just your, your dedication to quality work.

It goes a long way and, and it makes me able to market a product and truly stand behind it 150%, which leads to why we've been so incredibly successful. Because the reality is when you believe in what you're selling it just, it kicks you to a whole nother level when you're pitching meetings and stuff with other people.

When you just have that level of conviction behind it, if you know what I mean.

Deanna Kean: Oh a hundred percent. I mean, would I be able to you know, own a company that was quality control? Absolutely not. I am very passionate about safety. I know safety and I, I know what works and what doesn't. So it's, it's something that I am very passionate about and that makes me want to get up every day and give 110% and try and make solace stand out above the rest right.

Kelly Kennedy: Absolutely. Absolutely. And you do by the way. You do. You do stand out above the rest.

Deanna Kean: Thank you.

Kelly Kennedy: And together we'll continue to hopefully push that push that with, with all the people in Alberta, BC, Saskatchewan. Just so you guys know, briefly, I'll just kinda do a little pitch for Solace. We are a Edmonton based, indigenous owned safety company.

We provide services across Canada. So if you guys do have any personnel needs or, you know, if you know, maybe you're a growing business and you're just trying to get off the ground and you might just need some, some in-house consultation. Someone to hopefully put together a safety program for you.

Solace is a really, really great option. And I'm not, that's the end of my pitch for this, but you just wanna keep going. Keep going. , they're an amazing company. They're local to Edmonton, Alberta, Canada, and if you guys have any safety needs, I would highly, highly recommend them. So, Deanna, I wanna just kick us off into just another kind of quick question.

And the reason being is that me and you. Share something in common with our businesses. We both kicked off businesses in the beginning of Covid . So I wanna touch on that briefly with you. What was it like starting a business in December of, or I guess in my case with December of 2020? What was your incorporation date?

June 2020 June. So like, even worse, frankly, like No, I yeah.

Literally right in the midst of it. Yes. . And you know what, a lot of, a lot of companies that I had called had said like, what are you doing? This seems like kind of the wrong time to be doing this, but I am. The thing that we did with Solace is that we decided to go in phases.

Right. So I mean, HSE placement is where we really wanted to be, but of course, most work was shut down. That that wasn't feasible. But we really wanted to get Solace started and, and kind of off the ground. So we started in phases and we had what we would call our monthly compliance, which is where we do cost effective monthly maintenance.

COR maintenance for our clients. So instead of having a full-time safety person, then they would have a part-time safety person just taking care of remotely of everything that they needed to maintain their core. I mean, they, even though they might not have much work, they still need to maintain their core for once work kicks off, right?

Yes. So that's kind of how we, I mean, we got lucky that we had that option.

Intro: Sure, and yeah, like just given the fact that at that time there was so much uncertainty and I'm sure like a lot of companies were wondering like, can I even afford a full-time safety person if, you know, we don't even know if we're gonna have revenues for the next six months.

Like, you know, I had a similar thing happen to me when I started my business was I kind of got, I kind of got a heads up that, hey, my job, even though I'm great at it may not be available because we don't know what the future looks like at this point. Mm-hmm. for the company. Mm-hmm. , we don't know if we're gonna be shut down, if we're gonna be a I forget what the wording was, but a required or necessary service in order to stay open.

And I remember that being a pretty scary, scary meeting for myself. You know, I mean mm-hmm. , luckily at the time, I'd, I'd kind of already had some groundwork in place for capital business development. You know what I mean? Like when you're comfortable in a career position and you're not usually in a rush, and that kind of put me in like, holy crap, I need to really start thinking about what's next here.

Deanna Kean: Mm-hmm. .

Yeah, exactly. And I mean, with safety, there's, I, I like to call them bolt on services, right? So I mean, Our, our main goal is HSE placement, but like we said, we can do the monthly compliance. We also sell PPE, we do program development. So if, I mean, usually around wintertime is when clients would be reaching out.

They want to ramp up their, their procedures and things like that. But I mean, during all of 2020 it was, all right, let's get everything where we need it to be. Mm-hmm. so that when we kick off next year, we're good to go. So we had these Bolt-on services outside of the HSE placement that really just kept us going, which, which was exciting.

Kelly Kennedy: Yeah, no, for sure, for sure. And actually, we even find that now with like a lot of our client meetings when we're in these meetings is that there's, there's certain things that solace can offer kind of as piecemeal, which makes it a lot more convenient and a lot more cost effective for the clients. So absolutely, you're still on the right path there, Deanna.

And I wouldn't change a thing about the way that we're marketing it. I think it's gotten lots of reception. Like Deanna mentioned, there's been some pretty big name companies now that are on board with Solace Safety. I don't think we are gonna name them necessarily, but No, just, just put it this way.

There's some huge, huge Canadian companies now in interested in moving forward with solace safety solutions. So really, really excited to see what's next. We, we

started out looking for we, we were gonna be Western, right? So we started out kind of Edmonton, Fort Murray, and then we moved into BC and then we were looking about kind of venturing east.

And now we have these clients who are Canada-wide. So I mean, 2023 is the year. Salis goes national. So that's, that's very exciting. ,

Intro: how do you feel about that Deanna ?

Deanna Kean: You know what, I'm a little bit nervous. Obviously legislation is different in every province, right? Yeah. And I, I'm very familiar with Alberta.

I'm very familiar with bc and that is going to be the most stringent. Sure. , but I mean, when you go to Ontario, it's not going to be as in depth as it is in Alberta. No. But if, if we're providing more stringent, it's better than providing less. Right so,

Kelly Kennedy: Sure, sure. I want to touch on something else that we do at Solace Safety that frankly a lot of the industry I don't think is doing.

And one of the things that you kind of implemented fairly early on was a qualification program for all of the personnel. Do you wanna maybe chat about that?

Deanna Kean: Yeah, I mean like, like we had talked about at the start, I, there's, you have to stand out above the rest. There's so many safety people out there that can be hired on as employee for, for our clients, there's so many safety consulting companies, right, that do.

same as solace. So how do you stand out above the rest? Mm-hmm. . And it's by making sure that you're providing those qualified, experienced people. And so we have developed an extensive onboarding process. And it, you know, it's not just, you know, two interviews and there you go. There is a, a big process that goes along with it.

Kelly Kennedy: That's okay. We don't have to get into the nitty gritty, but yeah, absolutely. It definitely has been something that's allowed us to stand out in a lot of these meetings and the ability to just literally have a qualification process for all safety personnel allows Deanna to essentially categorize them from junior all the way to safety manager level so that we make sure that when we are actually sending you a junior, we're sending you an intermediate that they truly do meet those criteria.

All right, Deanna. Well, I wanna move into some business owner challenges stuff, because, you know what I mean? As, as new business owners, shit, we, we just, we hop in and we do our best, but we definitely do run into some challenges. And I think that me and you have the ability to kind of provide some tips and tricks for new entrepreneurs.

And can you maybe tell me a little bit about some of the challenges that you faced in getting solace off the ground?

Deanna Kean: Yeah, absolutely. I mean, as we talked about, I mean, we started during Covid, right? So we had a plan of how we wanted this business to go, and once Covid hit, we had to kind of switch directions and come up with another plan with how, how we were gonna still provide safety services to our clients.

And then also just trying to take on. All these different roles wearing different hats. Mm-hmm. You know, I, I, I've done safety admin, but am I good at business admin? No. Right? So there was a bit of a learning curve there, so just putting the right people in the right places basically.

Kelly Kennedy: No, I totally, and I can just speak to that too, like I still bite off more than I can chew quite regularly, hundred percent. You know what I just, I. I don't have all the right answers on this. Like, the reality is, is that as a business owner, you know, we, we are committed to the success of our businesses, right? Like that percent, that's what we're working towards. And you know what I mean? I'm the kind of person that I will do whatever it takes and unfortunately mm-hmm.

a lot of the time, what that means is I'm putting in incredibly long hours to get it done. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. , you know, I think as I grow I will get better at being able to kind of I wanna say like designate or. Oh, hand off some of this work. Mm-hmm. to people. But it's like, it's my, my own perfectionism.

Deanna Kean: No, and I completely understand that. I, I mean, as an advisor, safety lead safety manager, I was always Trying to do it myself. But you have to learn how to delegate and how to hand things off in order to have a successful business. And there are so many people out there that have the skills much like yourself, Kelly, like we said before, I've, I've tried to make those cold calls and that's just not for me.

So you just have to have somebody who has that experience who doesn't mind getting, you know, shut down or , you know, you'll just, yeah, pick up the phone and, and call another person if this, if this person doesn't. The next person will right?

Kelly Kennedy: Absolutely, and I speak to this a lot in my podcast where like I I, I'm speaking to my fellow entrepreneurs and business owners do not market your business

Deanna Kean: Oh my goodness. A hundred percent. A hundred percent.

Kelly Kennedy: You, you love your business too much. Okay. And the rejection can be incredibly hard to take. And I'll tell you what, what's silly about this, okay? I have a business development company. I hate marketing, capital business development, and it's truly that I'm too close to it.

I need that degree of separation and being able to have a degree of separation when marketing your business. It makes literally a night and day difference. So even for capital, I don't market my business. I have employees market my business and vice versa for Deanna.

Deanna Kean: Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely.

Kelly Kennedy: Okay. Deanna, can you tell me like a little bit about your daily routine? What is the president and c e o of solid safety solutions do to get herself pumped for a hard day's work?

Deanna Kean: Well, I'm, I mean, to answer that question, I kind of have to go back to the day before and I, I have somebody that I call a business guru who I like to go to.

Certain questions about business and how to do certain things. And at the start, I, I mean, I was taking on a little bit too much and there were some things that were getting missed. And, I mean, time management was a little bit tough. Yep. So I had asked my friend um, like, like, how did you conquer this yourself?

And so he had given me what he does for his days, and that is the day before he writes out, he, he schedules slots basically, so 8:00 AM to 5:00 PM and he, if there's meetings, those slots are filled and then anything that you need to do, you fill in those slots. Mm-hmm. . And so the next day I would wake up.

I immediately check my emails because we do have night shifts as well. I need to make sure that there was nothing that was missed or anything that needs to be priority. Yep. And then I go through my schedule, my list and start knocking those things off. And if there's anything that comes up throughout the day, which it always does, when you are a business owner, there's always things that come in.

Absolutely. You, you might have to move something that's. So much priority into the next day, and then take on those other items, and then I do it all over again. .

Kelly Kennedy: Yeah. Every day in a note. Yeah. . It truly, it truly is a rinse and repeat. It truly is. It really is. So I, I also do something really similar to that as well.

So I actually create a top, like a top five or a top 10 list every day. So when I get to work in the morning, the first thing that I do is I write what company I'm working with, and then at the bottom I, I write things to do today. And I, and I've just put them down, you know, one through five, one through 10, whatever's critical to get done today.

And I like to just use it as a checklist. And I know it sounds kind of silly, but being able to just kind of look down on your page and see like, okay, I got five critical things I need to do today. So in my case, that might be all my LinkedIn introductions. That might be my cold calls, that might be two meetings that we have.

And then obviously the meeting results that might be creating some content, whether or not I'm doing some social content for a client or not. Being able to just see it briefly, like jotted down as things I need to do today. Make me much more effective at actually getting those things done, and especially in the order that they're, that they're prioritized.

Deanna Kean: Absolutely. You know what, when I was doing safety myself I mean, we, we would have advisors that would have their books and they'd fill everything out day to day. This is what I did, this is what I'm doing. I've never been that type of person. Yeah. And I was able to say, okay, I know what I need to do today, and then anything else that comes in, I'll get it done, but I'll make sure I get these things done.

But once you are a business owner, I mean, it's a, it's a completely different ballgame. There's so many things that you absolutely cannot miss that it needs to be written down for myself anyways.

Kelly Kennedy: Yeah, no, for sure, for sure. And writing things down. I don't know. There's something about it. It's got a power to it.

I'm telling you listeners, I'm telling you, writing things down has a power to it.

Deanna Kean: There is nothing better than crossing everything off that list. It doesn't happen all the time, but I mean, it feels really good at the end of the day to say, okay, this is what I actually accomplished today. Here's what I have to do tomorrow.

Instead of, you know, okay, this is what I did and this is what I remember I did, and hopefully I caught everything. So I think that's very important to make sure that you're running smooth.

Kelly Kennedy: Yeah, absolutely. So, Deanna, I wanna ask you a question about when you got started. So I think we have a lot of entrepreneurs on the fence.

There's a lot of entrepreneurs listening to this podcast right now, I'm sure that are just thinking like, oh, I wish, I wish I could just do it. I wish that I could just get started. You know, you were there, I was there. We both just, there was a moment when we're like, okay, we have this great idea, but where do we even start with it?

Do you have any words of advice for those people?

Deanna Kean: Do it. Take the plunge. I mean, it is absolutely terrifying. And I have been wanting to start my own business since I was 23. That was always my goal. And then suddenly here we are. Right? I mean, I, it was, it was now or never. So I, I took the plunge. I was working with a, a company that I treated me really, really well, and they would've kept me until the day I decided to retire.

Actually leaving for Solace was a really tough decision. Yeah. But it, I, I guarantee it will be very rewarding. It'll be very much worth it. So just, just take that plunge.

Kelly Kennedy: Yeah. Deanna, if you could go back to the beginning of your business and give yourself just one piece of advice that would've helped you out. What, what might that be?

Deanna Kean: It would probably be to try and put myself out there a little bit more and just network. Mm-hmm. . I think that that's something that I lacked at the start. And I mean, obviously we were going through covid and things like that, but just. Getting out there, I think, I mean, there's, there's so many networking event events, right?

There's, there's weekly ones, there's monthly ones, there's quarterly ones. You can always hit up a networking event. And, and there's. people there, who have been doing this for, you know, 10 plus years, 20 plus years. So I guarantee whatever you're going through or whatever questions you have, you're gonna find somebody who has gone through it and, and can help guide you in the right direction.

And then vice versa. I mean, there may be people there who, who need answers from you and you can help guide them. So it's a very rewarding experience and it's very good to get out there and see like-minded in individuals.

Kelly Kennedy: It's tough, like getting out there and networking in the beginning is just so incredibly challenging.

Mm-hmm. You know, I mean this actually, this'll just lead into the next question even. Can you speak to some of the fears that you had, you know it, when you first started kind of this path or, or networking with new people or even in the meetings that we've had. and maybe how you were able to overcome them.

Deanna Kean: One of the biggest fears for anybody really is, you know, the feel, fear of failure or the fear of the unknown. I mean, is is something that I'm going to say going to affect myself in the future? Are they not gonna like what I'm pitching? , and then it's really just I mean this is, this is my baby, right?

This, I've put my whole heart and soul into this. I, like I said before, I left a company that treated me very, very well. I have employees, I, I have people who rely on me. So I, of course, the fear of failure is going to be the biggest part mm-hmm. , right? So I just try and calm myself down. I, I know that this is a good business.

I know that this is going to be helpful for our clients and our projects and that we're gonna do really good work. And I just have to convince myself that other people will, will think the same, and I know they will. So.

Kelly Kennedy: Yeah, no, a hundred percent. It's just, it's about having confidence in your product or service and being able to articulate that with confidence and that will, that will show your, your client or whoever you're meeting with, that you truly believe in what you're selling, that you're not just pedaling garbage, and that ultimately your product or service is valuable and worth having.

And I think. You've done that very well with Solace, and you know, I mean, I've seen you grow through a lot of these, a lot of these meetings we've done, like I remember our first meeting, I think that was one of the first business meetings that you'd ever had as a business owner. And I, I do remember the nerves and.

Deanna Kean: Oh, I was shaking the whole time, but I was very lucky to have you there to, to cut in when I got nervous and then I, I learned so.

How, how these meetings go. And you know, I think that that's a big part too, is the more you do it, the more confident you are. When I first got into safety, I was so nervous to do safety meetings. I really don't like public speaking at all. Mm-hmm. . And I would die a thousand deaths. , every time I went to bed, when I knew I had a safety meeting in the morning, I was pushing myself out of, outside of my comfort zone.

Yeah. And I mean, it's never comfortable doing that, but the more you do it, the more confident you get, the more that you and sound confident to, to the people that you are pushing your business to. Right. So I think that it is very, very important to just put yourself out there. Even when you really, really don't want to , it is a very important part, and then eventually it gets more comfortable and it's not a big deal.

Right?

Intro: You know me, you know me personally, right? Mm-hmm. , like a lot of people don't know me the way that you know me. We've, we've spent a lot of time riding in vehicles to meetings. Yes. Going to meetings, working together over the last year, and Like you, I'm, I'm actually incredibly introverted as a person.

I, I kind of had to put myself out of my shell when I got into the You were introverted. I was, yeah. Holy. I, like, I had incredibly like like, I wanna say like solitude. Hobbies and stuff. Like I really liked, I really liked doing things kind of by myself or building things or mm-hmm. , you know, like that was my life kind of before and, and when I got into business development, I kind of fell into it and I had to really work on my extroverted side to try to bring it out.

And it's like, yeah, now it's like, sure, I can show up in any room and I can figure it out and I can be the life of the party rather quickly, but that was never who I used to be. And I just kind of wanna let all my listeners know that you can learn those skills. You can learn to be great at meetings, you can.

To be amazing at business development. It truly is learnable. You just have to be willing to take the steps and, and show up to those meetings over and over and over again to make those cold calls over and over and over again. You will get better at them. You will improve and like, you know. I would never say that you were, you were bad at meetings, Deanna.

I would never say that. But coming, just seeing the evolution of you in meetings over a year. It truly is night and day.

Deanna Kean: Oh, thank you so much. I appreciate that.

Kelly Kennedy: Yeah, you, you really do crush it and uh, You make such a great impression of solace when you show up to those meetings and, yeah. I, I can't say it either way.

I'm, I'm incredibly proud of the work that we've done together and continue to be.

Deanna Kean: Yeah, I think when you kind of push, push through the nerves and, and you know, the, I don't, I really don't want to do this. I'm nervous about what they're gonna think when you push through and Yeah, and you're really passionate about your business.

I think that that makes a world of difference

Intro: as well.

 Yeah, absolutely. And I, and I wanna speak to stress, right? Like us as business owners, we're under an incredible amount of stress. Mm-hmm. , you know, it's like, it's like most people, they have life stress and, you know, work stress maybe is there, but it's typically someone else's problem.

When you run your own business work, stress is also your problem and personal stress. And, and yeah.

Deanna Kean: When, I mean, when you have home stress or family stress or family emergencies, I mean, you still have a business to run. So, I mean, absolutely. It's kind of, not to say that we need to compartmentalize, but we still need to be able to deliver our, what we're doing but still kind of dealing with not just work, but but home life as well.

Kelly Kennedy: Yeah, no, a hundred percent. And it like, especially in business development, right? Like we show up no matter what and we have to show up with a smile on our face and we have to show up kind and loving, even when we're inside, we might be crappy. You might feel like total like rock bottom, but the reality is to the world, we still have to show up.

And I get that. Like we all have our methods for how to do that. Do you have like any advice for the listeners on how to overcome when they're feeling maybe maybe bad inside, but they still have to do something? Can you give any tips to maybe just help them to push through? What helps you push through?

Deanna Kean: I think one of the, the big things is just getting up, getting up. Yeah. I mean, has there been many times that I wanted to stay in bed all day and you know, just, just deal with my emotions and what I'm feeling, or I really, really don't want to deal with this phone call or this or that. But if you just get up, take a shower, have a coffee, once you get moving, everything starts falling into place.

Right. So it's just, I think that the biggest step is just getting up and doing it.

Kelly Kennedy: Yeah, no, a hundred percent. My dad, my dad always used to say, you just gotta get up and do the things that you would do on a normal day until it feels normal again. And it's so funny, like, I, I remember the time. Get up.

Yeah, take your bed. I remember the time. I'll get you started. Yeah. At the time I was, I was really struggling in school actually, and, and I was, I can't remember what the reasons were, but for whatever reason, I just was very, very reluctant to want to get up and deal with some stuff. I think I was either dealing with a, a death of a close friend, or there was something in that situation that I was just, I was not in a good head space, and I remember him coming into my room and just saying, Kelly, I know it's hard right now, but you gotta just get up and do the things mm-hmm.

that you would normally do, and eventually one day you'll get up and it'll feel normal. Hundred percent. That advice has carried me through so many bad situations. Mm-hmm. in my life where I just recognize that like, okay, this sucks right now, but if I just get up, show up and do the things that I need to be doing, after a while, it won't feel so hard.

And that has been true in every single thing that I've. I kind of devoted myself to after. So that's probably some of the best advice my dad ever gave me. And a very simple advice. But you know what? Incredibly powerful.

Deanna Kean: Absolutely. You, I mean, you, you don't have to get up and, and start working right away, you know what I mean?

You get up, you start your day, you have a coffee, you have a shower, you make your bed do some laundry. Once you get up and moving everything. Definitely just falls into place and it's okay now I'll make this phone call. Now that I'm up and I'm feeling a little bit better I'm more mentally stimulated.

And, and then you can go on with your day right? But that's not to say that, I mean, if you are mentally going through something that you just need to push through it. I think that there's many things that we should do. Like, I mean, we should go to therapy and things like that, but I mean, being a business owner, if you do have to get through the day, just get up.

That's the most important and valuable information that I can give.

Kelly Kennedy: Yeah. No, and that's awesome advice, Diana. Thank you so much. I, I truly think that that's, that's really great and that truly does lead to the next steps when you, when you just need to get started, when you just need to kickstart, just get up, figure it out. Go from there.

So, Deanna, can you tell me what do you think? So a lot of these new businesses we're just kind of getting started. Let's say we got things rolling. and we want to increase our revenues. In your experience with Solace Safety, what has been the best thing that you can do to try to increase your revenues?

Deanna Kean: Yeah, I think that what has been extremely effective for Solace is having those, like we had talked about before, those bolts on services, right? So I mean, when things dry up with HSE placement, which is. Which it always does in the wintertime, and then it's always going to we have our PPE sales we have our compliance, we have our project development, we have training those types of things that can help us get through.

And then of course, having a really good business development guy inter capital business development here that, that really helps push. And I mean, even if it is slow in the wintertime, then we know that it's gonna kick up in the springtime and we'll be ok.

Intro: Awesome.

Kelly Kennedy: Yeah. No, and no, thank you. Thank you,

You were never, ever required to say anything like that. I I appreciate it. Greatly.

Deanna Kean: You should put a little advertisement right where I said that.

Kelly Kennedy: Yeah, no. And yeah, and you know, like not to, not to shoot anyone's horn or to say anything about, about business development, but having people working in business development for you can be incredibly effective. Speaking to kinda what Deanna said,

Deanna Kean: Honestly, it is made, I mean, it's day and night like, I mean, I'm, I, I can call somebody in and say, Hey, do you need safety people? And no, we don't. And then, okay. But to have somebody who is you know, making those calls, which I get really nervous about, and then booking those meetings and going to those meetings and really pushing your, your company, it makes a world of a difference. I, I really can't explain how valuable having a, a good business development team is.

They have really changed the trajectory of Solace Safety.

Kelly Kennedy: Oh, that's awesome. Yeah, I'm, I'm really, you know what it, like I said, you have a great product if you have a great product or service. It's very easy to have success in selling. And I think, you know, we took the right approach with, with pitching Solace in the first place.

You know, we got your brochures kind of up and up and running. First thing, got your website redesigned. I speak to websites and brochures all the time in the podcast about how critically important they are to marketing your business. And I think we just took the right approach, right. Being consistent.

That's what's made me successful with Solace is my ability to just have my call list of the people that were constantly moving in there, making that, making those 20, 30 calls a week. and then we're able to pretty successfully book meetings for you. Like I think the last I checked, we, we basically had booked you like a month and a half ahead in meetings. It was just, we were so busy. I literally got to a point where I couldn't book any more meetings. I had to like, take a break from booking meetings for Solace .

Deanna Kean: Yes. Yes. You and I do a lot of meetings together, but I mean, typically good things come out of those meetings, so I'm, I'm very thankful for that.

Kelly Kennedy: Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. I, I'm very thankful as well. Thank you, Deanna. I like to close the show by always just saying, is there any questions that I could potentially answer for you that might be helpful to the listeners? Have, you might have a question for me, Deanna, that I might be able to to help out or to maybe provide some value to you and the listeners?

Deanna Kean: I think to the listeners. Are you looking on onboarding any new clients?

Kelly Kennedy: Yeah. Yeah, yeah. We, we are, we actually are looking to onboard new clients. I have some people in training right now. I'm hoping probably within about two months to be, to be ready to kind of take on some new people. So if there's anyone listening to the show, you're looking for business development capital will be ready in in due time.

But if you are interested, shoot me a line. You can always get me at podcast@capitalbd.ca or you can get me. through the capital website through an inquiry. I'm more than happy, very responsive, and would love to chat with you. All right. Well, that closes our show. Deanna, it's been an absolute pleasure to have you on the Business Development Podcast.

 You are amazing. You are such a powerful woman and I'm incredibly proud to work for you and with you in growing Solace Safety Solutions, solace Safety Solutions for the people that have been listening. It's it's an Edmonton based indigenous owned safety company. Deanna is the President and CEO, and she's amazing at what she does.

And if you need any safety services, I would highly, highly recommend them. Deanna, can you plug your contact details in for the listeners? Yeah, absolutely

Deanna Kean: it is. My email is dkean@solacesafety.ca and my phone number is (587) 785-4237.

Kelly Kennedy: Awesome. Thank you so much, Deanna, for being on the show today.

It's been an absolute pleasure. Yeah. And just wanted say to the listeners, thank you so much for tuning into episode 10. I can't believe that we have made it to 10 episodes already. I'm hoping to make it to many, many more. For my listeners who don't know, we release new episodes on Sundays and Wednesdays and I'm always doing my best to provide the best value that I can.

So hopefully there's always a little tidbit of growth information or just to help you guys who are just getting started or give you a little bit of motivation. I will do my best to make sure that I'm here for you. If you have any business development questions, you can always send them to me at podcast@capitalbd.ca, and I would love to answer them on the show for you on a future episode.

And until next time, I'll see you on the flip side. This is been Kelly Kennedy and you are listening to the Business Development Podcast. Take care.

Outro: This has been the Business Development Podcast with Kelly Kennedy. Kelly has 15 years in sales and business development experience within the Alberta oil and gas industry, and founded his own business development firm in 2020.

His passion and his specialization is in customer relationship generation and business development. The show is brought to you. Capital Business Development, your business development specialists. For more, we invite you to the website at www.capitalbd.ca. See you next time on the Business Development Podcast.