Thanks Karoline for the KUDOS letter!

Today Sidney from our sales department emailed me asking if I could write a note to a customer. He wanted to really WOW Karoline, his customer, and put her mind at ease that she has chosen a supplier who is passionate about the environment. Here is my email to Karoline and her lovely response..

ps - Standing ovation for Sidney!!!

Hi Calvin, Thank you ever so kindly for such an informative e-mail regarding Costless' green initiatives. Your overview definitely provided much greater insight as to how important this is to you as a company, its employees, customers, and more importantly, the city itself. Although I never doubted it, I think it's safe to say that I feel at ease knowing that my office supplier cares about the environment just as much, if not more, than I do. I probably have at least one of your competitors come in for a sales pitch on a monthly basis and I always feel confident declining their offers knowing that Costless provides the best customer service, product selection, prices, etc... This is another great addition to the list of why I'm so happy to be your customer. On that note, I want to take this opportunity to let you know what a pleasure it's been working with your company. Sidney always handles any tasks or requests, no matter how large or small, with such accuracy, thoroughness and professionalism. His upbeat personality and his attention to detail (even in personal matters) have made this working relationship an added bonus to my job. In an age where we're constantly faced with automated responses/answering machines, e-mail templates, etc... I have to applaud the extra mile Sidney goes every single time. Additionally, the contact made with the delivery guys is always a delight. Coupled with such a prompt and detailed email from the CEO himself, I have to say congratulations on the culture you have built within your company! I look forward to a long and enjoyable relationship with Costless Express. Warmest regards, Karoline

Calvin on the EcoYike Hello Karoline, thanks for giving your feedback to Sidney and not switching your business. Looks like we need to toot our own horn a bit more so all customers understand how passionate we are about the environment. To put your mind at ease, Costless Express is an excellent choice as your office supplies supplier since you too are passionate about reducing environmental impact. As the owner and Chief Energizing Officer I have been leading the environmental charge in our company but also as an innovator for other companies in our industry to follow as an example. Here are some of the exciting initiatives we are most proud of. The first Carbon Neutral Office Supplier in Canada and one of the first to graduate the ECO Trust/Pembina Institute 3 month Carbon Neutral Class Reusable Totes 7 years ago we replaced over 80% of our cardboard boxes with plastic totes for order deliveries 2 years ago we purchased FROGFILE OFFICE PRODUCTS to become a force in the eco supplies business Our EcoYIKE electric delivery trike was a first in our industry and a first in Canada. We have been delivering with our ECOYike for almost a year now. Costless Express offers the largest selection of environmentally friendly products of any supplier in Canada Our unique selection of Office Supplies, Breakroom and Janitorial Supplies offers our customers the ability to significantly reduce their carbon footprint by consolidating business supply orders. This is the #1 way a business can help reduce CO2 emissions - ( each time a business orders supplies, a truck is delivering those supplies - so less deliveries from less suppliers = happy planet) Only Costless offers such a wide selection in one delivery from soup to nuts, fruit to file cabinets :-) Karoline, you mentioned an electric truck and personally I'm not convinced there is much of a win to the environment for the cost. How we view our delivery fleet is actually our proudest part of our business. We do not use computers to sort and route our daily orders (we used to 5 years ago) but instead we manually route each order by hand. How this is important is we maximize each route our trucks drive so as to minimize distance travelled and idling time. We also concentrate our customers to a very dense route territory and strongly avoid delivering (single orders) to addresses far outside our territory. (See this infographic to learn more) How this is significant compared to our competition is that our competition also has mainly gas and diesel powered vehicles and their policy is not as ridged as ours and as such they can be found delivering a single box 75km outside the city and this contribute significant amounts of excess CO2. Costless Express has made a conscious decision not to sell to Government Agencies such as school districts for this reason, as they would want service to all locations no matter how far away and how small the order. It would only take a few long distance deliveries to Abbotsford to negate any wins an electric truck could deliver. How about I call it a day for now or I'll keep typing pages :-) I'm very happy to chat with you to set your mind at ease that you have chosen a great supplier who is passionate about the environment and our city. If you would like to follow more about our initiatives and fun stuff we do here - please check out my blog http://costlessexpress.blogspot.com/ We are so happy to have you as a customer! Cheers, Calvin Johnson

Keep your milk fresh!

Did you know it only takes a half an hour for a jug of milk on your counter to reach the temperature where bacterial damage starts?

Download our Fresh Milk tip sheet here. Print a copy for your breakroom fridge! (It might be a good reminder for those co-workers who leave those jugs out by the coffee machine...)

Staff Picture Time!

What does a gold picture frame and staff pictures have in common? Well, see below.

I was cleaning out my garage at home and came accross this cool gold picture frame and the lightbulb went off.

Time for new staff pictures. What I liked even more was how staff loved the idea and made their pictures unique and personal.

Cheers,

Calvin

Summer Staff Fun!

As our company grows and we add more staff, it's important to allow us all time to connect and build relationships with each other outside the daily work. My role as Chief Energizing Officer is something I'm enjoying more and more, now that we have a very capable senior management team in place.

A few of my favorite times with staff this summer has been "Boating Fridays". The long hot August evenings allowed us time to boat up Indian Arm with a handful of staff. Once we stopped in Deep Cove for Sushi and a free open air Jazz Fest.

I am so happy to see how staff from all departments and ages have bonded. It makes work fun when you are creating a business with friends.

Cheers,

Calvin

Todd's The Man

Culture is everything at Costless Express. We strive to build relationships across all staff and departments but that can be a very difficult thing to actually achieve.

We have several departments from sales to drivers and warehouse night shifts. So it was awesome to see Todd our call center manager receive this note from Malcolm one of our night order processors. They only see each other a few times a year at company parties yet the bond is there.

 It really goes back to the book Tribal Leadership and the mantra "It's all about WE." Something everyone at Costless Express understands.

Cheers
Calvin

Hell Yeah or No

I subscribe to over 200 blogs and news letters, thinking till now "I need to be in touch with what's happening".

Today I read an article by Derek Sivers, or actually it was a short animated video called Hell Ya - or NO!

It really got me thinking about how I plan my day and my projects. People would say I am always leaning way out into the future and starting the first 10% of projects. Some are fantastic, like our new website build, being the first carbon neutral office supply company in Canada or the ecoYIKE, while other projects were just a bit trivial and didn't really get me jazzed. And most important, if there is nobody behind me to carry to project forward, it can just die.

Sometimes it's best to say no and make room for the "Hell Ya, I love it!" projects.

Have a look at some of Derek's videos: Hell Ya is #92. I also really like A Real Person - A Lot Like You (#93)

Cheers

Calvin

Does all your STUFF really make you happy?

I have been a long time fan of Annie Leonard and The Story of STUFF Project.

Annie has spent nearly two decades investigating and organizing on environmental health and justice issues. She has traveled to 40 countries, visiting literally hundreds of factories where our stuff is made and dumps where our stuff is dumped. Witnessing first hand the horrendous impacts of both over- and under- consumption around the world, Annie is fiercely dedicated to reclaiming and transforming our industrial and economic systems so they serve, rather than undermine, ecological sustainability and social equity.

Watch this video  and give some thought to her claims facts and data. It really made me think about all the stuff (most of it crap - I call it) that I purchase each year. Where is it a year later? Annie is right, most of it is in the trash. From this point forward I have made a new policy (first of many I hope) that if I do need to purchase hard goods like a stapler or a shovel - I will purchase the best quality I can find. Yes, it will cost more, BUT it will last many many years, I hope, instead of choosing the cheap "toss away" version.

At Costless we sell staplers for $5.00 and ones for $40.00, and I can tell you the $5.00 staplers are made to throw away. Investing is the word to think of when spending $40.00 on a stapler. Investing in quality, useability and the environment.

Have a look at the video and make your own judgements.  

Cheers,

Calvin