Changing Times and Your Commercial Lease ...

IF there's ONE thing we know for sure, it's that things CHANGE! 

With that in mind, we know intuitively that we need to stay in touch with the needs of our customers. It’s likely that we’ll also keep our eyes and ears open to the things happening around us. But when it comes to the location that we operate from, how will the need for space to run the business continue to be met as things CHANGE around you? Planning for those needs is something that we need to carefully consider in advance. 

Dale Willerton and Jeff Grandfield

Because occupancy cost can be a significant item of expense, it warrants that some thought be given to how and when those needs will likely need to be addressed.

Here are some more great ideas related to this and other leasing considerations from our friends at The Lease Coach. 



Negotiating Commercial Leases & Renewals For Dummies

Commercial Leasing Tips for Commercial Tenants

By: Jeff Grandfield – The Lease Coach 

For many business-owners, negotiating a good lease or lease renewal against an experienced agent or landlord can be a challenge. While an entrepreneur focuses on marketing and managing, savvy real estate agents and brokers are specialized sales people. Their job is to sell tenants on leasing their location at the highest possible rental rate. 

As explained in our new book, Negotiating Commercial Leases & Renewals For Dummies (co-written with my colleague, Dale Willerton), tenants may go through the leasing process only two or three times in their entire lifetime – yet they have to negotiate against seasoned professionals who negotiate leases every day for a living. Negotiating appropriate leasing terms is vital for an entrepreneur as the amount of rent he pays will directly affect the business’ financial bottom line.

Whether you are leasing a new location for the first time or negotiating a lease renewal for your business, these are some money-saving tips for tenants:

Select the Best Lease Length:  While a five-year lease term is still the most common, it is not necessarily the best term for your company. One year, three years, or even ten years may be a better fit for your business and a big factor will be the cost of leasehold improvements. If the cost of leasehold improvements is low enough, you may prefer a shorter term for flexibility. If this cost is substantial, you may require a longer lease term to amortize the costs. Agents, typically, receive a higher landlord-paid commission when you agree to a longer lease term so they will be motivated and push you to sign for a longer lease term. The landlord, however, may be flexible. Take the term that is best for your business.

Who Should Be The Tenant: Don`t enter into a lease agreement (or an Offer to Lease) under your personal name. This will make you personally liable for everything. Instead, form a corporation or holding company that will become the tenant. If you are negotiating on locations, but don`t intend to incorporate until a later date, then the Offer to Lease should state that the tenant is Your Name on behalf of a company to be incorporated (or Nominee). If you are opening multiple locations, it is often wise to form a new company for each lease agreement as further protection. Corporations also have tax benefits over sole proprietorships.

Operating Cost / CAM Queries: Operating Costs / Common Area Maintenance (CAM) often make up a large portion of the gross rent a tenant pays. Before you lease, ask the landlord and existing tenants if Operating Costs have increased much over the past year. While the Base/Minimum Rent is fixed, Operating Costs are adjusted yearly and tend to rise more often than fall. Landlords managing their own property may tend to over-spend to maintain or increase property value.

For a copy of our free CD, Leasing Do’s & Don’ts for Commercial Tenants, please e-mail your request to DaleWillerton@TheLeaseCoach.com.

Jeff Grandfield and Dale Willerton - The Lease Coach are Commercial Lease Consultants who work exclusively for tenants. Jeff and Dale are professional speakers and co-authors of Negotiating Commercial Leases & Renewals For Dummies (Wiley, 2013). Got a leasing question? Need help with your new lease or renewal? Call 1-800-738-9202, e-mail DaleWillerton@TheLeaseCoach.com  or JeffGrandfield@TheLeaseCoach.com or visit www.TheLeaseCoach.com.

* Have you included your business location plans into your Business PLAN? 

NOTE: This is an area where Pro-Vision Solutions Inc. can assist ... for more details CLICK HERE

What are your comments or additional helpful suggestions for entrepreneurs? 

Let us know your thoughts and please share this with those in your circle of contacts!

Could a Trademark Protect Your Brand?

Do you have a trademark to protect the value you're building in your brand? 

Over the past year, this type of question has come up in conversation with a couple of my clients.  As they've been looking further into the future and considering the potential increase in the value of their business, they're wondering how to best protect important aspects of their business brand.  

To provide an informative response on this, we've called upon Gregory Pang with RedFrame Law in Edmonton.  Gregory's practice focuses on business, trademark and copyright law with RedFrame Law in Association with Nicholl & Akers. He enjoys serving exciting startups, dynamic small businesses and film & television production companies. Follow Gregory on Twitter @cyclaw.  

Gregory is one of the many business professionals we're pleased to have in our circle of contacts. It's the expertise and collaborative spirit of individuals such as Gregory, that allows us to share these valuable insights with our circle of contacts. As we've often said, ‘there’s more to be gained by working together than can be achieved on our own.’ 

Please feel free to pass these and future posts along to those within your circle of contacts. We look forward to continuing to provide some of the wisdom that others have shared along their entrepreneurial journey.

NOW, please enjoy the following article, provided by Gregory Pang:

One of the most common questions I get from clients is: Should I trademark my name/slogan/logo? 

Gregory Pang

With a registered trademark, your rights go beyond that of those in an unregistered trademark, to which you also have certain rights under the Canadian Trade-marks Act. The challenge of protecting an unregistered trademark is that your main remedy is called “passing off”, which can be difficult to prove, because of the technical requirements and such a court action only fits a narrow set of circumstances. 

Only registered trademark owners can sue for trademark infringement. While you have to still make out your case to the court when suing for infringement, you would have one strong advantage: the law assumes that trademark registration is proof that you own that trademark. It will be up to the person you are suing to prove that they are not infringing and/or to bring forward evidence that they have better rights to the trademark. So, immediately, you would be in a position of strength with a registered trademark. 

Perhaps just as important, your registration gives you 15 years (about to change to 10 years next year) of exclusive rights to your trademark, which is renewable when that time is up. Your registration rights include, among other things, the protection against others using trademarks that are “confusing” with yours. This is a powerful, because your registration rights do not just protect you from someone using exactly your trademark, but also protection from someone using something similar to your trademark so that it can be considered “confusing” with your trademark. 

As a somewhat absurd example, someone’s use of the mark Moca-Cola for soft coffee-flavoured beverages would most likely be deemed confusing with the registered Coca-Cola trademark, and thus could be subject to a trademark infringement claim. While this may also qualify as “passing off”, the availability to (also) sue for trademark infringement would give the owner of the Coca-Cola trademark very powerful tools for enforcing its trademark rights. 

So, to recap, below are some advantages to registration:

•       Proof of ownership

•       Trademark infringement protection

•       Exclusive right to use throughout Canada for 15/10 years

•       Protect against “confusing” use

While those are the advantages of registering your trademark, we have to look at what that means for your business. A trademark, as intellectual property, is property of your business and thus, it is an asset. It is an intangible asset, but for many businesses, it may be their most valuable asset because it can embody your reputation and all of the good will you have built up in your business. 

For example, what would that LouisVuitton man purse I’m coveting be really worth if you were to all of a sudden strip away the Louis Vuitton trademark from it? It would likely sell for significantly less than the listed $3,250 price tag. 

So brands can be worth big money. While it may be hard to put a dollar value on your brand, ask yourself: how much would it cost me in business and how much would I have to spend to rebrand if someone were to all of a sudden tell me that I could not use my trademark? A registered trademark would go a long way in protecting your brand and, therefore, real value in your business. 

The drawback to registering your trademark is that it can be expensive. While the government fee is just $250 for filing an application plus the $200 registration fee at the end, if you hire a trademark lawyer or trademark agent to do it for you correctly, then your costs from start to finish can look more like $1500 including all fees. The reason why we money-grubbing trademark lawyers or agents charge so much is because we provide the advice and service to make sure your application is drafted properly giving you as broad of protection as possible. You also pay us to “prosecute” the application through the entire process, which can take 12 to 20 months for a relatively problem-free application to be fully registered. Trademark registration is a process because the rights granted are powerful, so the trademark lawyer or agent pushes your application through examination at the Canadian Intellectual Property Office and against any potential opposition. 

In the end, trademark registration gives you powerful rights under the law to protect a valuable asset of your business. It will be up to you to weigh whether filing for a trademark registration of your name, slogan or logo will be worth the money to gain those rights only available to registered trademark owners.

Thank you Gregory for providing these great insights for consideration on this important topic of trademarks and intellectual property. 

What's been your experience with trademarks and/or protecting your brand? We invite your comments and helpful suggestions for our audience, and please share this post with those in your circle of contacts!

* In Closing:  Has your BUSINESS PLAN taken the potential value of your brand, trademark, and/or other intellectual property into consideration? 

Pro-Vision Solutions Inc. has a number of helpful ways to add this into your BUSINESS PLAN! 

  CLICK HERE for more information and details!

"Thanks ...I Appreciate That!"

I truly appreciate the input and insights that so many of my friends, peers and colleagues have provided over the years. 

It's their willing spirit of collaboration and cooperation that has allowed for the free sharing of a greater depth of wisdom with those in my circle of contacts. They have demonstrated as I've often said, ‘that there’s more to be gained by working together than can be achieved on our own.’ 

Lynn Fraser

Appreciation is something that each of us values receiving, but for whatever reason, we may overlook golden opportunities to express it in the workplace. Sharing expressions of appreciation are an important aspect of 'Organizational Culture' which according to BusinessDictionary.com are “the values and behaviors that contribute to the unique social and psychological environment of an organization.”

In future posts, I plan to share some of the wisdom that others have passed along on their entrepreneurial journey.

In this post, allow me to introduce my friend Lynn Fraser with Balance Your World Training & Coaching (www.lynnfraser.ca). 

Thank you Lynn for sharing a few of the things you've seen and learned with respect to showing appreciation in the workplace. 

A little appreciation goes a long way

I have a life-long friend who is a dedicated, talented and experienced school teacher.  Cassandra* (name changed) has taught for over two decades at the same school.  She shows up prepared every day to go the extra mile for her students.  She prepares diligently each new term, has rarely missed a day and books personal appointments after school hours.  Her specialized training in art and language, as well as her ability to quickly learn and teach new core subject curriculum makes her hard to replace. 

You would think that she would be greatly appreciated by her supervisor.  Yet the current principal surprised her staff with changes mid-school term to move students and teachers around that have caused additional workload and stress for all with little apparent benefit to more than a few.  Compliments are few and far between.  Trust and morale are at a low ebb.

My friend is not feeling valued or appreciated for her dedication to her profession and students, and she is seriously considering moving schools next school year.  What a loss for those learners, parents & school division.  Yet, it is an avoidable one with a relatively simple solution.

The Power of Gratitude

Showing appreciation – tapping into the power of gratitude – is an overlooked yet critical piece to your success in business and life.  I see this breakdown so often with my coaching clients in all lines of work – managers of family-owned businesses, attorneys, accountants.  I’ve listened individually to an owner and her manager complain about how the other has not appreciated her efforts for years.  Yet when the owner needed a reference letter for a business award nomination, she was so grateful when her supervisor went out of her way – while on holidays – to tell the committee how much she admired and respected her boss.  It’s an all-too-common story.

“Next to physical survival, the greatest need of a human being is… to be affirmed, to be validated, to be appreciated.” 

- Stephen R Covey, The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People

Use the SAR formula

According to the Oxford Canadian Dictionary, Recognition encompasses acknowledgement of a service, achievement, ability, etc..; appreciation, acclaim.  To provide specific recognition, you need to describe what the staff person did that you appreciated and would like to see repeated.  Be specific to an event and what action the person took to get the positive results you are recognizing her for.  Use her name. Be timely with your appreciation. 

Situation: Describe the stressor or challenge the employee faced

Action: Identify what the person did to address the challenge

Results: Describe what happened as a result of the action taken and how this relates to the success of the person, others and the organization.

I’ve seen this strategy work well with high achievers who tell me, “Maybe others need praise for doing their job well but I don’t.”  I’ve watched the transformation of a talented young manager who comes to work happier with the positive feedback and support from her coach and owners.  

Giving specific recognition even allows you to praise an underachieving employee for a small thing he does well.  A general “great job” would be glossing things over.  [Instead, you could say, “Thanks for carrying the glass shelf to the customer’s car without her asking.  I sincerely appreciate you demonstrating our company value of Exceptional Service.”  Sometimes, those words of appreciation can motivate additional improvement.

High-Value, Low-Cost Strategies

Although formal service awards are common in companies, I find the simple, low-cost and informal ways of showing appreciation work best.  A personal thank you note is rare and really gets noticed these days, especially if it arrives by snail mail.  One of the best ways I know is to spend quality time with an employee.  It may be as simple as sitting down with a cup of coffee, asking questions and listening to their thoughts, ideas and concerns. 

Here are a few other ideas: 

Taking him out for lunch or a walk.

A gift of a movie gift certificate, favourite candy, pen, candle or a selection of favourite music on a CD or USB stick.  

Keep in mind that recognition needs to be equal to the size of the accomplishment.  An e-mail or post it note that says, “Thanks so much for catching that error on the XYZ customer order” is fine for smaller efforts.  

If someone goes beyond expectations & stays overtime to get the job done, a bigger form of appreciation is warranted.  That’s when spending quality time really demonstrates how much you care.

One thing you know for sure is what comes around goes around.  In Alberta’s boom or bust economy, it’s tempting to pop off a brief thanks in an e-mail and get on to the next task.  Instead, choose one employee this week to show your appreciation in one of the above high-value, low-cost ways.  It’s never too late to begin, and you may be surprised at how your life, your bottom line and your relationships improve.  

Here are valuable resources:

Book: “Thanks! Great Job! Improve Retention, Boost Morale and Increase Engagement with High-Value, Low-Cost Staff Recognition” by Nelson Scott.

Online:  Check out www.GREATstaffrecognition.com for recognition resources and forms.  Read the Blog post, “Pay attention to me!”

Lynn Fraser with Balance Your World Training & Coaching is an enlightening speaker and a wholehearted coach.  She coaches and mentors individuals who want to be better leaders as well as live balanced lives.  Her consulting focuses on working with business managers and their teams to create a system for sustainable results.  Visit her website at www.lynnfraser.ca.  


What's been your experience? Please add your comments and helpful suggestions for our audience, and share this post with those in your circle of contacts!

* In Closing:  Has your BUSINESS PLAN taken your Organizational Culture into consideration? 

Pro-Vision Solutions Inc. has a number of helpful ways to include this in your BUSINESS PLAN! 

Simply CLICK HERE for more information and details!