Miracle Weekend

It's that time again for the BC Children's Miracle Weekend. This was my last year as the Chair of the Retail Wholesale Committee and the pressure was on to top our incredible record breaking $5,152,815 fund raising amount from last year. In addition I was the MC again for the Retail Wholesale party. I flip-flopped on which one I was more nervous about - beating our fundraising record, or public speaking in front of a few hundred people. 

I'm happy to say we set another fund raising record of over $5.2 million, and as for the public speaking, a strange thing happened. First, when I picked up the microphone to get everyone's attention the volume was set to an ear splitting level that made everyone jump when I spoke. Not a good start. But as I started reading off the script, I got to a part where I was to give thanks to the Miracle Weekend Chair John Ridley. The words written on the page by someone else just didn't square with what was in my heart, so I told the audience "I'm going off script" and tossed down the papers I was reading. Instead I said what was in my heart and thanked John with true gratitude. It felt great, and later the people from the audience said it was a memorable moment - including John. I don't do much public speaking but learned a great lesson; Talk about what you know from your heart and you can't go wrong.

Thanks to all the donors who helped make my Miracle Maker Phone Panel the best year yet.

Sleepless in Seattle

Nabil, Shawn and I just returned from an executive retreat in Seattle with our corporate coach Ron Huntington. Having a corporate coach has been instrumental in our growth, vision and planning. I must thank my close friend Ken Sims, the co-founder of Nurse Next Door, for introducing Ron to us.

Ron has been instrumental for many years in helping Nurse Next Door grow and now has been a key part of our executive planning. What a corporate coach does is helps the executive team work thru concepts and problems with challenging questions and exercises designed to push us to areas we may not reach alone. With out him, I fear we only drink and eat BBQ on our retreats.

This retreat was very exciting for our team as we were able to push thru some roadblocks around our Human Resources policies. H/R is becoming more important than ever to our growth and building a team of A players needs a solid plan. After several 15 hour days we came away from the retreat with solid methodologies and a unified executive team. Something I know we would not have been able to develop as well on our own.

We plan to have Ron visit us in Vancouver in a few weeks to work on our 10 year vision.

Arrrggghhh - he gave us TONS of homework till we meet again. I guess that's what coaches do.
Thanks Ron.

Calvin Johnson
Chief Energizing Officer

BC Children's Hospital Hoodies at Costco

Check out the snappy hoodies at your local Costco. All proceeds go to BC Children's Hospital. I just picked up 25 for our staff (and one for Sandy and the kids)

Cheers

Calvin

Conscious Capitalism - We can make a difference!

This week I was in Boston for the Conscious Capitalism Conference. 

Conscious Capitalism has been a passion of mine for many years. Here at Costless we call it KARMIC CAPITALISM. How-ever it is named, the movement has impacted me deeply in how we run our organization and ultimately how we leave our mark on this world. To learn more click here.

Dr. Rajendra Sisodia

If you are interested in learning more feel free to reach out to me, or pick up the book "Firms of Endearment."  The author, Dr. Rajendra Sisodia, is a founder of the movement and you can learn more about him here. 

I was thrilled to meet some of my corporate heroes at the conference.

John Mackey

John Mackey - co-founder and CEO of Whole Foods 

Kip Tindell

Kip Tindell - Chairman and CEO of The Container Store 

Chip Conley

Chip Conley - Founder and Executive Chairman Joie de Vivre 

I have mentioned his book PEAK in the past - well worth the read.

The conference was inspiring as always and I was able to meet some great new friends. Please take a moment to learn more about this fantastic movement in corporate culture. It's starting to become a 25 year over night success story ;-)

Cheers

Calvin

Who Knew LULU?

At Costless we are driven to build the best corporate culture. Another company with killer corporate culture is Lululemon and I wanted to learn as much about their early days when the company was small. How did they build such an incredible culture from day one.

After a few calls from people I knew that were friends with Chip Wilson the founder, I was introduced to one of the first 20 employees. He preferred not to have his comments in print or recorded, but he was generous and spent an hour walking us thru the exciting early days at Lululemon.

If there was just one thing that resonated with us as he told story after story was that it was an evolution, organic and in scripted. Having the right people who were passionate about the dream and had the right values is what created the culture and Chip was at the center of that.

I left the call knowing we were on the right path to building as great a culture as Lululemon - or possibly better now that we know where they made mistakes.

Cheers and always learning

Calvin

Frogs and Dragons!

Costless customers will recognize our unique red or green totes we use to deliver orders in.

A local company FrogBox has taken the tote idea to a new level by making a business of renting the totes to people who are moving. And they have become quite a success story by getting a deal on the CBC show Dragons Den.

Doug is the founder of Frog Box. Doug and I have met several times and as entereprenurs we had some fun ideas on how to work together promoting our brands.

Have a look at our latest Costless Express and Frog Box promotion.

Who knows, you might see me on Dragons Den soon ;-)

Cheers

Calvin

Drum Roll Please!

The biggest news this year is........( drum roll please) ..........Our New Web Site is Here!!

We are all very proud of the teamwork and accomplishments we have made during this project over the past year.

Our goal from the beginning was to leap into the front as a world class e-commerce company with best in class technology and features. I know we have made our mark on this goal but will continue to add features and speed for a long time to come. The site was build fully in house so we have total control over ever aspect and this will be our main advantage. As we receive customer feedback and requests, we can make changes and stay in front of our competition.

Have a peek now and tell us what you think. 

http://www.costlessexpress.com

Cheers

Calvin