Business Insights

George Torok is interviewed on People in Connection TV about his speaking tour in Iran.

He spoke about the Secrets of Power Marketing to business audiences in five cities.

Interview with Tom Beakbane, President and founder of Beakbane Retail Connections.

Beakbane Retail Connections is a marketing firm that helps business develop their brands and bring their products to the market.

Tom Beakbane started his company 23 years ago and employs 11 people. He was born in the UK and raised in Worchester – the same as the famous sauce.

Tom is a renaissance man. He lived in Kenya and France. He studied Neurophysiology and Bio-Chemistry and would sneak into art classes. He worked as a Sous Chef in southern France. Now his job in the kitchen is to wash up.
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Insights from this interview with Tom Beakbane

“What I love the most is when someone comes in with a raw idea.”
“Distilling complexity into a single message.”
“We like coming up with a good name.”
“The fewer things that you ask people to remember, the more likely they will remember it.”
“Our best client is passionate and open minded with a challenge.”
“Education is a foundation – not training for a job.”
“Words are merely buckets for creativity.”
“I hate cold calling but…”
“When we do a good job for clients they don’t need us anymore.”

Listen to this radio interview

George Torok

Host of Business in Motion

Business in Motion podcasts

Interview with Beth Oakes, Managing Partner of The Oakes Group

The Oakes Group provides career advice to executives and professionals. Beth Oakes has worked most if not all her career in the business of human resources and human capital. She previously held the positions of Managing Partner at Millar Dallas – an outplacement firm and Executive Vice President at DHR - an executive search firm.
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Insights from this interview with Beth Oakes

In spite of her corporate experience, Beth has always seen herself as an entreprenuer.

Entrepreneurs can make their own decisions and they can fall by them.

This industry of coaching executives and managers is new within the last 5 to to 10 years and it is growing. Corporate executives and managers have much less time to mentor and guide their staff.

Coaching can be like being a parent…

As an entrepreneur you worry about the cash flow and you can be lonely.

Advice to an entrepreneur: Write a good business plan and create an advisory board.

Steel on the outside – cotton on the inside.

Building a good network is much more than making friends.
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Listen to the podcast of this radio interview with Beth Oakes

Listen to Business in Motion interviews on iTunes

Listen to more Business in Motion podcasts

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George Torok is the host or Business in Motion, the weekly radio show on CFMU

Audio interview with Walter Booth, Chairman of The Timberland Group

Walter Booth started at Timberland as a young Project Engineer more than 40 years ago. He rose to the rank of President, bought the company, sold the company and is now Chairman. He is an engineering graduate of McMaster University. He has donated at least $3 Million to the Faculty of Engineering.

The Timberland Group grew signifcantly during those years. Originally a company that manufactured winches for the logging industry, they now provide special winches and hoists for mining, power distribution, underwater exploration and off-shore oil.
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Insights from this 30-minute interview with Walter Booth:

“The business still excites me after 40 years.”

“They hired me because I had experience in the ski lift business.”

“Buying the company – we worked on that deal for at least a year. You want it to move faster
but it just took longer.”

“My boss encouraged me to join the Young Presidents Organization. I got to hang around successful business owners.”

“As chairman my chief role is mentoring and developing the new owners.”

"You have to bend the rules if you want success.”


Listen to the radio interview with Walter Booth


George Torok
Host of Business in Motion
Canadian Business Speaker

Business in Motion Podcasts

Business in Motion on iTunes

Audio interview with Peter de Jager on Business in Motion

Interview with change agent and specialist, Peter De Jager. Peter is a consultant and professional speaker that helps organizations handle change effectively. He helped the world’s leading organizations successfuly handle the Y2K challenge.

Insights from this interview with Peter De Jager:

“The purpose of skiing is not to get to the bottom of the hill. It is falling down the hill with the most grace.”

“Being incompetent is normal – especially when dealing with change.”

“Don’t get into the water until you have learned to swim – is bad advice. How else will you learn to swim?”

Listen to this interview with Peter de Jager on Business in Motion with your host, George Torok.

Ursula Burns, CEO of Xerox talks with Spelman college about global leadership.




George Torok

Radio show guest: Bay Gardens

My radio show guest today was Jan Nichols, President of Bay Gardens Funeral Home. I first invited Jan to join me on Business in Motion three years ago when he opened a new funeral home in Burlington, Ontario. I was intrigued by the playful open-house invitations. Listeners of my radio show learned that Bay Gardens was a pioneer – not a copycat. Three years later and they are opening another new funeral home in Hamilton. That suggests that what they did is working. Successful entrepreneurs learn from the successful buisnesses around them - expecially from other industries.

There were a lot of powerful lessons and tidbits for entrepreneurs in this interview:

When entering a new market don’t follow the leaders, instead discover what the customers really want and deliver that. And it’s not that hard to “discover”. You only need to ask and listen.
When entering a competitive saturate market you must be different - very different.


Big surprise – people like to eat – even – especially at funerals. So Bay Gardens planned and built proper kitchen facilities into their new funeral homes. As you can imagine there are some real and perceived health issues about serving food in a funeral home. At Bay Gardens you won't find the – move the body out of the room and let’s eat now.

The funeral business has been a stodgy business steeped in taboos and silence. Even though we all will die – we don’t want to talk about the details. Silly but true.

The best way to build a business in a competitive market is by building relationships.

Little details are important.

Listen to your customers.

Listen to your staff.

Train your staff and give them the permission to do what you preach.

Ask for the business.

Train your staff to ask for the business.

Do things that your competition hasn't or won't do.

Be bold and don't apologize for it.

Be willing to annoy the competition.


As you can guess, it was another wonderfully instructive interview on Business in Motion. Thank you Jan Nichols, President of Bay Gardens.



George Torok

Host of Business in Motion

Hamilton Business Speaker

Canadian Business Speaker

Jim Estill Radio Guest


I'm looking forward to today's guest on my radio show, Business in Motion.


Jim Estill is an interesting study for a few reasons. He is CEO of Synnex, a $1B distributor of computer equipment and supplies. He build EMJ which he sold to Synnex then accepted the role as CEO of Synnex. Impressive by itself.

He is a strong advocate of time management. In fact he wrote a book titled, "Time Leadership - Use the secrets of leadership for time management". This book offers a strategic approach to the use of your time along with all the simple and practical tips and techniques. In the true spirit of time management the book is a compact 80 pages. That makes it easy to complete and refer back to for reminders.

One more thing for now - Jim Estill writes a regular blog. How many CEO's do you know of that write blogs. Jim has been writing this blog for over three years. Find it by searching for "CEO blog" or "Jim Estill". Or click here.

Of course there is more. If you have the chance, listen in to the interview on 93.3 cfmu at 12:00 noon today. If you are not in the Hamilton area you can listen online at cfmu.

In his own words, here is his bio from his blog:

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"I started a computer distribution company - EMJ Data from the trunk of my car in 1979. With a great team we built the company up to $350,000,000 in sales and sold to SYNNEX in Sept 2004. Now I am CEO of SYNNEX Canada. We sell about a Billion $ in computer products in Canada. We sell all the brands you would recognize like HP, Apple, Intel, Lexmark, Acer, Sony, Microsoft etc through computer resellers and retailers from Future shop and Zellers to Bob's computer store. We are also a leader in bar code and POS equipment. This blog represents my personal views and not those of SYNNEX or any other company."

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enjoy


George Torok
Business in Motion

Keynote Speaker - Seminar Leader - Business Coaching
Insights to "Master the Make it Happen Mindset" in your Business, Career and Life!

Q: What is your key focus?
A: My focus and passion is in helping people Master their MarketPlace. I like to say I teach people how to find more business, create more opportunity and have more fun.

Q: What is the pushback that you often get?
A: Time is a huge roadblock. It is interesting but people don’t have time to change, time to learn or time to plan even though they will readily agree that change will serve them well. People don’t have time to do the things they want to do let alone the things they have to do.

Q: Tell me about one of your heroes.
A: Having worked for Microsoft for 7 years I would have to say Bill Gates is one of them. Not only is he incredibly bright but he was able to balance technical smarts with business acumen. Bill is also very self-aware, meaning he knows where he adds value and where he doesn’t. He has a good level of confidence which he balanced with paranoia to ensure Microsoft never got too cocky or self assured.

Q: What is unique about you?
A: I think most people find it interesting that I am a two-time world award winner in business and a certified hypnotist. I blend tactical and strategic concepts in a fun and engaging way.

Q: Bottom line - what is it all about?
A: It’s all about your happiness, your family and your future. Look in the mirror and be happy with who you are, where you are and where you are heading. When you are happy you have a ton more energy to focus on your success.

Q: What is the most common mistake you see?
A: People fail to do the basics brilliantly. No matter what you do there are 3-5 things you better do very, very well. Those may differ by profession but things like Network, Promote, Service, Empathize are a few that we all need to be great at. People try to get fancy before being true to their core needs.

Q: What concerns you most about business today?
A: I don’t really have lots of concerns. The world is changing and businesses are re-inventing themselves too quickly to get too caught up in it. Perhaps my concern is for those businesses that don’t get that the world is changing rapidly and they need to evolve with it.

Curt Skene, CHt CNLP
Keynote Speaker - Seminar Leader - Business Coaching
http://www.aahhah.com/


Interview by George Torok
http://www.businessinmotion.ca/