December 30, 2014
Expanding the Prosperity Circle

By Jacki Hart, program manager, Prosperity Partners

"The World Belongs To The Energetic"
-Ralph Waldo Emerson

As I sit on my porch typing this in early May, listening to a myriad of song birds chattering away in the wetland across the road, swatting blackflies, and enveloped in a cloud of mosquito coil smoke, I am thinking "Just how energetic am I'm going to feel when this publication lands in my hands? Will I have tons of energy to multi-task and solve every challenge thrown at me creatively, like I am forging ahead with now?" Truthfully — not bloody likely. By the time you read this article, you too may be wearing down your reserves. So let's take a minute, yank your boots out of the mud, and look ahead to the next steps for your business. This way, by this time next year, you will have different resources in your tool box to run your business smarter, leaving you with more energy and space for you at this time of year.

If you haven't yet joined the Prosperity Partners program, attend an introductory seminar, and join the 100 company owners who have. They are working at their own pace with new tools to improve their business operation and prosperity. Here are the next upcoming dates to get you started:

Introductory Prosperity Partners seminar
Aug. 12, LO home office, Milton
Aug. 19, Fanshawe Collge, London (check horttrades.com for more info or to register)

If you have completed the first seminar, and want to keep gathering useful resources for your journey to prosperity, the Best Practices Seminar is your next step. I have compiled best practices from industry champions for each of the prosperity pillars: financial health, professional operations, sales success, leadership and developing customers for life. These practices will form the basis for group discussions, and you will also get how-to implementation hints. We hope to have prosperity mentors on hand to help facilitate discussion and answer questions on each of the five pillar topics. Watch for more info on the horttrades.com web site and join us in this NEW interactive workshop to continue your business and prosperity development.

Best practices seminar
Aug. 14, LO home office, Milton
Aug. 20, Fanshawe College, London
Sept. 15, New Strathcona Paper Centre, Napanee

Attention suppliers!
If you are a supplier to our industry, and wish to become a part of the Prosperity Partnership program, we are now ready to invite you to attend the introductory Prosperity Partners Seminar. Our goal is to deliver this great program to you at no charge, so you can benefit from this business training. We hope you will consider the benefits of offering this business education to your customers as a bonus for doing business with you. As your customers' businesses become more prosperous, so will yours. It is a win-win to create partnerships within our industry, suppliers and customers, so that all can benefit from professional business development programs in the most accessible way. Join our Prosperity Partners program, and add the Prosperity Partners logo to your advertising and storefront. Please check the horttrades.com website in the weeks to come for more info.

Supplier seminar
Aug. 13, LO home office, Milton
Aug. 20, Fanshawe College, London
Sept. 16, New Strathcona Paper Centre, Napanee

Have a great month — and remember that it's the very time that you believe you can least afford to take a few hours away from your business, that you should.

Jacki Hart is available by e-mail at prosperity@landscapeontario.com.