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There are good questions and there are bad questions. But the only dumb questions are the ones that we don’t ask – and that is as true in business as it was for the esoteric philosophies of the great thinkers that came before us. In business, of course, the questions we fail to ask often comes with a cost. Those costs could be either tangible (such as inflated overheads) or more speculative (such as opportunity costs of foregone profits).

But in marketing, everything starts with a question: What is our competitive advantage? Where is our target market? How do we reach them? And what is the return on investment? But some questions are universal (and come before all others). And to ask those questions is the opposite of heresy. It is, in fact, quite divine.

1. What’s your brand’s value-proposition?

You know your product or service inside out. You know why you’re offering it to consumers and why they need it. But are you communicating that value proposition to the marketplace? And more importantly, are you communicating that to your target audience, specifically?

When you know a product or service so well, it can be hard to see the forest for the trees. You develop such an intuitive grasp of what your products or services have to offer, that it seems self-evident, and you overlook how important it is to clearly communicate that to consumers.

So whenever approaching any marketing initiative, it’s important to ask: “How is this communicating our value-prop?”

2. What’s your brand’s USP?

So, your brand has a value-prop. You know what it is, you know that it’s tangible, and you know how to communicate it to your audience. But what is it about your brand and its products/services that set them aside from those offered by the competition with similar (or identical) value-props? In other words, what’s your unique selling proposition (USP)?

A clear and tangible value-prop is important, but it’s only part of your brand’s messaging picture. There are substitute products out there that offer very similar value to consumers, so it’s important to communicate what it is about your brand’s products/services are unique, and why they are the best option for your target audience.

3. What are your brand’s values? What does your brand stand for?

Your USP makes your products/service unique, but what about your brand? What is it about your brand that inspires consumers to identify with it? What makes consumers want to buy from it? And how are you articulating that in your messaging? Your brand is more than its products or services. And it’s more than its value-props or USP. It’s an entity and identity in and of itself. And that entity has its own values.

Does it stand for offering the lowest possible price, or the greatest value at its current price-point? Does it stand for quality over quantity or function over form? Or does it stand for dominating the current market, or for outright disrupting it – and maybe even making the world a better place one sale at a time? And how do your products/services reflect these values?

Determining what your brand’s values are will not only help you refine your USP but also better define your target market, as well as establish the tone and messaging you need to engage them. Simply put, once your brand knows who it is, it can not only find its voice but start speaking its own truth.

4. What’s your brand’s vision?

Your brand has its values. It knows what it stands for. But what is its vision for taking those values to market? For being the change that it wants to see in the world (or marketplace)?

If you are going to offer the lowest prices, how will you achieve the cost structures and supply chain to do so? If you’re going to dominate the market, how are you going to overtake market leaders and other incumbents? And if you’re going to disrupt the market entirely, how are your products/services (and the distribution channels you use to deliver them to market) going to challenge the status quo and dislodge outdated business models?

In other words, how does your brand intend to actually walk its talk?

A vision is essentially a roadmap. Your brand doesn’t have to traverse it all at once, and it certainly does not have to traverse it all before going to market. But it should have a plan for completing that journey, and each of your products or services should represent a step toward the fulfilment of that vision – and that should be clear to your customers.

5. Who is your target market?

Not all similar products (i.e. substitutes) are meant for the same market. Two products can have similar value-props (and even similar price-points) but be meant for very different (or at least distinct) markets – whether those markets are distinguished by geography, age, or some other demographics.

This is precisely where your brand’s USP, values, and vision come in. Your product might be similar to (or even interchangeable with) one of your brand’s competitors, but different consumers identify with what your brand stands for more than what your competitors stand for. So once you fully understand and appreciate the DNA of both your brand and its products/services, it’s important to ask yourself which segments of the market share that DNA, and will readily identify with both your brand and what it has to offer.

6. Who are the personas you’re speaking to?

It’s not enough to identify who your target market is. You also have to understand them as human beings with interests, values, and personalities. In other words, you have to appreciate the different psychologies that drive and inspire the different segments of your target market to take action.

Who are the personalities that make up your target market? What makes them tick? What inspires them? And how does that demographic break down into actual human segments that we can all relate to?

In other words, you have to figure out how your brand’s target demographics break down into segments, each with their own personalities that are different and distinct, and how your brand’s values resonate with those personas.

7. What are the values of your target market (and do they align with your brand’s)?

Now, your brand has its own values, and those values will (or at least should) resonate with your target market segments on some level. But your audience and the various personas that comprise it each have a whole other range of values that have nothing to do with what your brand stands for or has to offer them.

So the question is: Where is the overlap between your brand’s visions and values, and those of your target market and the different persona that make it up?

After all, your audience and target market are comprised of human beings, and human beings are complex creatures, each with a diverse array of values. So, it’s not enough for your brand to align with them only on values that pertain to your value-prop and/or USP.

8. How does your messaging reflect all this?

So, there’s a lot here to chew on. From value-prop to USP and your brand values to its visions, not to mention how those align with your target audience’s own needs and values.

But how does your brand’s messaging address all of this? How are your brand’s values reflected in its value-prop and USP? How does that messaging communicate your brand’s vision? How does any of that address the needs/requirements of your audience? And how does the tone of that messaging speak to the human personas that comprise that audience? At this point in your brand’s self-exploration, what it brings to the table and what it has to offer consumers should be clear. But now it’s time to take that clarity and apply it to how you communicate with the marketplace.

9. Are you where your audience is? Are you on the right channels?

Finally, once you’ve worked out your value-prop and USP, once your brand understands its values and visions, and once it identifies its target market and how to speak to their values, you must choose the right channels in which to do so.

Specifically, do you know where the audience is? Do you know where they are actually engaged? Does your brand have a presence there? Is that presence meaningful? And does it elicit trust or authority?

Part of understanding your audience is understanding the channels they rely on. From social networks to television to search results to podcasts, understanding where your audience is engaged makes all the difference between ‘spray-and-pray’, and targeting your audience with the right message, in the right place, at the right time.

The message is the medium

One great thinker before us once said that ‘the unexamined life isn’t worth living’, meaning that if you don’t question yourself or what you’re doing, you’re likely to stray from the path that’ll lead you to where you need to go. Well, business (and marketing) is no exception.

If your brand is not asking any questions, then it’s likely it will stumble through the marketplace, drunk on its own self-assured convictions. More to the point, however, if it’s not asking the right questions, then it’s possibly charging cocksure down a path toward (in the best case) mediocrity, or (in the worst case) toward futility and foregone opportunity.

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Pour Barry O’Sullivan, tout a commencé par la fabrication d’une table à café pour ses propres besoins, en 2017. Quatre ans plus tard, l’Irlandais d’origine et Québécois d’adoption est désormais à la tête de Vybe, une entreprise manufacturière de meubles mid-century modern aux inspirations scandinaves, qui a le vent dans les voiles.

SAMUEL LAROCHELLE – La Presse

Créatif, habile de ses mains et évoluant dans le milieu de la construction depuis des années, le concepteur ne partait pas de zéro. Pourtant, son sens du design semble inné. « Quand mes proches ont vu ma table, j’ai vite senti un intérêt. Au début 2018, j’ai publié une annonce sur Kijiji et j’ai fait ma première vente en moins d’une journée. J’ai livré le meuble moi-même à une dame sur le Plateau. J’ai souvent pris le temps de rencontrer les clients pour savoir ce qu’ils aimaient de mes produits. »

Ses meubles sont entièrement conçus au Québec avec du bois du Québec et de l’Ontario.

Depuis ses débuts, les rétroactions sont si encourageantes qu’il est passé d’une entreprise de soirs et fins de semaine à un travail à temps plein. « En août dernier, nous avons déménagé dans un nouvel atelier de 6000 pieds carrés. La croissance s’est faite de manière très organique. »

De précieux conseils

L’évolution de Vybe a été suivie de près par BridgeMtl, un incubateur spécialisé en jeunes pousses dirigées par des entrepreneurs issus de l’immigration. « C’est un peu inhabituel pour eux de travailler avec moi, puisqu’on a été mis en relation alors que j’étais déjà au Québec, mais ils m’ont énormément aidé avec les papiers de résidence, en plus du volet entreprise. »

Quand les dirigeants de l’incubateur ont constaté que sa PME était florissante, leur implication n’a pas tardé.

Depuis le début de leur collaboration, l’entrepreneur entretient une communication soutenue avec Michael Schwartz, lui-même né à l’étranger. « Puisque Michael a grandi en France et qu’il a choisi de lancer son entreprise au Québec, nous sommes dans une situation similaire et il a de très bons conseils. Il m’a particulièrement aidé pour bien évaluer ma croissance, pour ne pas brûler mes finances ni mon équipe. »

Barry O’Sullivan est d’avis que tout entrepreneur issu de l’immigration devrait faire sa place dans un incubateur local. « C’est presque une nécessité. Ils ont tous les contacts sur le terrain. Je recommanderais aux entrepreneurs d’ici et de l’étranger de faire affaire avec un incubateur. »

« Je dis aussi à plusieurs de mes contacts en Irlande que le Québec est un endroit parfait pour lancer une entreprise et vendre partout en Amérique du Nord. Le potentiel de Montréal est énorme », témoigne M. O’Sullivan.

Le potentiel de Vybe est lui aussi très grand, alors que l’entreprise double ses ventes chaque année. « Je veux ajouter 30 à 40 produits à la collection. Dans un an, j’aimerais passer de cinq à dix employés, avoir une salle d’exposition, augmenter les ventes à l’extérieur du continent nord-américain et continuer de ramener les emplois manufacturiers au pays. »

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A warm welcome to Martin Kilmartin, a multilingual software engineer with 20+ years of experience. His professional focus includes software engineering, web and database technologies, quality assurance, organization, team leadership, problem solving and onboarding. In 2020, he completed a successful nine-year tenure as a Senior Software Engineer with Air Canada. Directing on-shore and off-shore development teams, Martin oversaw the development and deployment of high-quality software. He onboarded and mentored new team members while identifying and mitigating inefficient processes and technical vulnerabilities.

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Sean Murphy joins ICCC Montreal’s Board of Directors

We were very fortunate to welcome a new member to the Ireland-Canada Chamber of Commerce board in autumn 2020. A residential and commercial real estate broker since 1993, Sean Murphy has been a member of ICCC since 2010 and has hosted many a pub quiz for the Chamber.

A past president of McGill University’s Association of Continuing Education Students (MACES), Sean is also a past member of McGill’s Board of Governors and currently sits on the Faculty Advisory Board of McGill’s School of Continuing Studies.

When not working at his office at Remax Action on Greene avenue in Westmount, you can find Sean advocating for the preservation of our built heritage in and around the Golden Square Mile, collecting antiques and learning to grow organic garlic.

Welcome, Sean! And thank you for contributing your time and energy to the Chamber’s success.

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Irene Woods: A step ahead on the road less travelled

How does one go about opening a private school in Quebec? In the latest instalment of our ‘TRAILBLAZERS’ series, Michelle Sullivan talks to Cork native Irene Woods who emigrated to Montreal by way of Nigeria more than 40 years ago and founded an English-language private school, Kells Academy. With campuses in Notre-Dame-de-Grâce for K-to-12 students and Westmount catering to high school students, Kells has always taken the road less travelled, offering each student a personalized experience from the moment they step through the door. This appetite for innovation makes Irene Woods a true trailblazer and inspirational entrepreneur within Montreal’s Irish community.

Michelle Sullivan: Tell us about your early years in Canada

Irene Woods: I left Ireland for Montreal in 1970. I had worked as a biochemist at University College Dublin, and enrolled in a PhD program at McGill. I loved the intellectual stimulation but I am also very much a people person. I came to realize working alone for long hours in a lab was not for me, so I began looking for new opportunities. 

After leaving McGill, I became what was then called a “free-flow” teacher with the Vaudreuil-Soulanges school board. I was given the mandate to teach students who were struggling in the classroom. I discovered I could become a much more effective teacher if I understood the specific challenges each individual student faced. Teaching these small tutorial groups became interesting and even joyful – especially as I could see the difference it was making in the scholastic life of my students. In retrospect, I would say that this experience was a turning point for me as I slowly came to realize what it takes to achieve academic success. This tutorial model laid the foundation of what would later become Kells Academy.

MS: How did you come to found Kells Academy?

IW: Our beginnings were humble. I first set up the Westmount Learning Centre in 1974 as a tutorial service. Within a year, I had parents entreating me to start a school as they felt that their children enjoyed and learned more in the single hour under the tutorial model than over several hours in the traditional classroom. Over the next couple of years, the Westmount Learning Centre became Kells Academy, a full-time kindergarten-to-grade-12 school with a firm focus on an individualized approach to learning. 

Kells has grown from an initial cohort of 10 students in 1974 to approximately 400 students now. This includes a very diverse group of students from across Greater Montreal as well as international students representing a wide range of languages and cultures from regions such as Asia, the Middle East and South America. We quickly found that the tutorial approach worked not only with students who struggled to learn, but with all of our students. It was particularly suited to the diverse international student population who had to adapt not only to a new country and culture, but also to a new curriculum in what was not their first language. 

Today at Kells, each student’s program is tailored to his or her specific needs. This has led to our setting up the Language Learning Center where students can spend some time learning English in an accelerated setting, rather than have to struggle both with the language and the curriculum in the classroom. Coping with academics then becomes much easier once these fundamentals are in place. Similarly, when students with learning challenges such as dyslexia or attention issues enroll at Kells, we make an effort to understand how they learn and adapt our teaching methods accordingly. Instead of fitting students to the traditional set mold, we adapt our pedagogical techniques to fit each student’s needs. 

Our students benefit from Kells’ programs like Flex, where time is built into the schedule for the exploration of personal interests. Some of our students choose to take this time to explore fields like robotics, the arts or public speaking. It helps bring joy into the learning process, which is a key to creating life-long learners. We aim to make learning really exciting. Curriculum is important, and is a guide, but you have to really go above and beyond. You have to take students’ interests, strengths and challenges into account – always.

At Kells, we strongly believe that each student is capable of learning and that a standardized teaching model is not suitable for all. This personalized approach to learning has always been the raison-d’être for our existence and the secret to our success.

MS: How did you find working within the Quebec context, as a new arrival and budding entrepreneur?

IW: I found Quebec to be very friendly to entrepreneurs. It’s an incredible place to do business. Over the years, I’ve started special education schools, regular schools and a language school. It has always struck me how cooperative and helpful Quebeckers are. I felt so welcomed, even if I didn’t speak the language. On occasion, representatives from the Ministry would only speak French, which was a challenge for me as an Irish immigrant, but I couldn’t believe how good they were in providing me with every assistance. For example, we recently requested a Ministry permit to open an annex for our English Language learners. This was an innovative model for a high school and something and entirely new for them, but they were very open to the concept.

Setting up any new enterprise requires financial backing. I’ve also found banks very helpful. I started in the days when business wasn’t that friendly to women, yet the banks became my teachers. I’m a self-taught entrepreneur. I don’t come from a business background and have no experience with it. It was through the banks that I learned how to read a balance sheet. With time, I became more business savvy as I came to learn and understand their requirements for getting a loan.

Quebec is a very friendly environment and gives entrepreneurs a wonderful opportunity to flourish. Networks are important. I’ve found that it’s easy to make contacts and to get people to help you. People are very enthusiastic here. It is part of the “new world” and has a totally different mind-set and way of thinking as compared to Europe. 

MS: What advice do you have for budding entrepreneurs?

IW: Believe in yourself. I do feel there is such a thing as a natural born entrepreneur, but I also think you can learn as you go along. I obviously found a niche in the community. If you offer something unique, and put in the hard work, your business idea can become a reality.

The biggest hurdle can often be a lack of start-up money. Starting small is OK. Once your clients realize you’ve got something worthwhile, your business will expand. Kells’ precursor, the Westmount Learning Centre, started with only 10 students and grew from there.

MS: Where does Nigeria fit into your career path?

IW: In my early 20s, I accepted a two-year contract to teach chemistry and math at a Nigerian school. When the school principal died unexpectedly, I took on his role as well. I was 22 years of age, with no teacher training. It was a formative experience, to say the least. The students were very keen, and eager to share their culture. I learned the importance and richness of cultural exchange from them. 

Understanding culture is such an important part of a teacher’s success. At Kells, we’ve done very well helping both our local and international students succeed here in Quebec. This includes the children of refugee families sponsored by Kells, many of whom have fled very difficult situations. It begins with our intake process. We know a lot about all our students before they even set foot in our classrooms. We map out a strategy that ensures they are in the right grouping and have access to our excellent resource team. The freedom of thought, speech and action that our Canadian culture permits can be challenging for students from a different background. Our teachers adapt their methods to help our international students bridge the inevitable knowledge and culture gaps. 

I’m grateful for my time in Nigeria. My experiences there at a relatively young age, molded me into a more well-rounded educator. I am happy that I was able to incorporate those values of joy, inclusivity and mutual respect that I learned there to Kells. They remain the keystones of our school culture to this day. 

MS: How has your family integrated into Quebec life and culture?

IW: I have two grown children who were born, raised and educated in Montreal. My daughter is now in British Columbia working as a teacher, including the teaching of French, whereas my son is a doctor and an ENT specialist who also teaches at l’Université de Montréal. He is married to a doctor of French-Quebec ancestry and they have two children. We are now truly Québécois and Canadian!

Irene Woods is a longstanding member of the Ireland Canada Chamber of Commerce – Montreal. She serves on the Board of Trustees of the Canadian Irish Studies Foundation and on the Advisory Board of McGill University’s International Community Action Network.

For more information about Kells Academy go to: www.kells.ca.

Kells is a client of Michelle Sullivan Communications.

Covid-19: How Kells is meeting the challenge When schools across Quebec were plunged into distance learning overnight in response to the Covid-19 pandemic, Kells Academy didn’t miss a beat. Immersed in technology for more than a decade, Kells has emerged as a leader in the field of online teaching. Kells was able to adapt quickly to a new virtual environment, ensuring its students didn’t miss a single day of class. This smooth transition has, in great part, been due to the far-sightedness of Irene Woods who envisioned the importance of technology in learning over a decade ago. She recognized that cutting edge technology would free the teachers time to teach more creatively and allow them to put more emphasis on pedagogy. The staff readily accepted the new challenges. Ten years later, when the pandemic crisis struck, Kells staff was already comfortable working with technology and had no problem switching to online teaching within a very short time period. That same openness to technology is now serving Kells well as the school’s teachers, students and administrators navigate the restrictions forced on by the pandemic. For example, Kells has adapted to meet the needs of students in the Middle East and Asia by implementing a flexible teaching schedule that takes a variety of time zones into account. Thanks to web conferencing solutions, guest lecturers from around the world are accessible to students and teachers who have found creative ways to ensure that their online classrooms remain dynamic.  The technology department at Kells works closely with the teachers, adapting to their changing needs. This collaboration has resulted in the best possible outcome for the students. The school’s adaptability and resilience in the face of challenges and adversity has only highlighted its frontier spirit as Kells Academy continues to grow from strength to strength.

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NEW ICCC BOARD MEMBERS

James Fitzgerald
James is Senior Manager Media and Communications for the World Anti-Doping Agency. Born and bred in Dublin, James attended Trinity College where he spent more time on the playing fields of College Park and in the Pavilion Bar than in any of that fine institution’s libraries or lecture theatres. He subsequently became a journalist and ended up as a news reporter and Cricket Correspondent for The Irish Times before taking a job as Communications Manager for the International Cricket Council in Dubai in 2006. In 2012, he returned to Ireland to work in a similar role for World Rugby and, in 2018, moved to Montreal to take his position as head of media relations and lead spokesperson for the global regulator of clean sport. He is married to a Kingstonian and they have two young children.
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Chanelle Desrosiers-Stewart
Chanelle is a corporate lawyer at Blake, Cassels & Graydon LLP with a practice that focuses primarily on domestic and cross-border mergers and acquisitions as well as general corporate and commercial law matters. She plays a role in various aspects of the process, from due diligence to transaction closing, and assists in the drafting and reviewing of purchase agreements and related transaction documents. Chanelle is the daughter of a Belfast emigrant, and the granddaughter of the author of “Town Book of Belturbet”, a book presented to the Royal Historical Society of Ireland.
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Padraig McLean
Padraig is the Finance Officer at the John Molson School of Business at Concordia University. He has worked both in practice and in industry as a Chartered Accountant, commencing with Price Waterhouse Coopers and working for most of his career with a large multinational telecommunications company in Ireland, the UK and Canada. A native Irishman from North County Dublin, Padraig is married with two children, and lives in Montreal.
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Michelle Sullivan
Michelle is an entrepreneur working at the intersection of history and technology. The driving force behind HeSaidSheSaidStories.com / VosHistoires.com, the first of a series of personal and business history products and services to be launched in 2020, she helps founders, community and business leaders, patriarchs and matriarchs pass on their knowledge and inspire others. Michelle is a social media pioneer and public relations strategist who has taught digital communications at McGill University and media relations at l’Université de Montréal. A dual Irish-Canadian citizen whose father emigrated from Baldoyle, Michelle shares her time between homes in the Laurentians and North County Dublin.
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