How One Small Business is Making a Big Impact After Coronavirus

Laura Moon & Nicole Girouard of Bare Slate tells us about feeling stressed, anxious, and burned out.

First of all, how are you and your family doing in these COVID-19 times? 

Laura Moon: We are taking each day one at a time while respecting the scientific recommendations to keep us all healthy.  

Tell us about you, your career, how you founded Bare Slate.

Nicole Girouard: At Bare Slate, we believe that anyone with a dream should be able to achieve it. That’s why we give you all the tools you need to get down to the bare basics, simplify the hard stuff, and take small, actionable steps toward your goals. The Get More Membership (a signature program) supports you in developing your career, taking care of your finances, and building healthy habits. You’ll also learn what drives you, so you’ll have the necessary self-insight to fuel your dreams! Growth is a lot easier (and more fun!) when you don’t have to go it alone.

• Laura Moon

An accomplished sales and leadership professional with over 20 years of experience in some of the most demanding industries, Laura is known for her energetic presentation and hands-on approach to consultative sales.

Laura was one of the first female dealership sales leaders with Toyota Canada and collaborated with the OEM and support clients such as Reynolds and Reynolds, Primus, Aeroplan, and Auto Trader, ensuring significant profit opportunities and growth within the organization.

Laura is a visionary thinker with an intuitive understanding of sales and personal dynamics, allowing her to create strategies to deliver personal and financial success.

Laura’s influence as a leader has had a deep impact on colleagues and direct results.

She also does not turn away from discomfort and has successfully mediated at the Ministry of Labour and Human Rights Tribunal. Laura’s energy carries through all aspects of her life. Highly in tune with her community as a former owner of an established neighbourhood restaurant, she engages people to help and serve.

• Nicole Girouard, BBA, CBT

Nicole Girouard, BBA, CBT, is an accomplished leadership and training executive known for her unique ability to find solutions to complex problems.

After two decades in the corporate world, she made the successful transition to entrepreneurship, where she shares her expertise with business leaders and entrepreneurs alike.

She is passionate about leveraging technology and video in business in order to simplify complex communication pathways, develop access to training and education, and create strong business foundations through people.

As a successful management consultant and service provider, she holds her Bachelors of Business Administration, is a Certified Cognitive Behavioural Therapy Practitioner, studies Digital Business Models, and is active in the ongoing study of Social Psychology and Mental Health.

Nicole loves to facilitate, teach and speak in order to connect with as many individuals as possible and help them see just how incredible they can be.

How does Bare Slate innovate? 

Laura Moon: Bare Slate Incorporated is a subscription-based business that provides ongoing education services and products generating monthly recurring revenue. Services and products are delivered to the end-user across many platforms. The main location that houses content and the client community is hosted on the New Zenler platform and distributed access from the main website domain www.bareslate.ca.

In addition to the website, content is stored and shared on YouTube and Buzzsprout. We are developing to create a mobile application that will house all learning and content under one location for ease of use for the end-user.

Company Information

Every 40 seconds, a person takes their life – and we want to be part of the efforts to lower that number significantly. We insist on showing up so people know they have a community they can count on when they need it. Life is hard, but it doesn’t have to be lonely. We’ve created a space where you can learn more, do more & become more with a community of like-minded people. We teach the essential core skills required to achieve and sustain a quality standard of living. Skills included and covered in our content are not taught in traditional education yet play a critical role in an individual’s success in life.

We have all likely been taught how to speak, yet we have not learned how to communicate to build lasting relationships. We are taught we need to show up, yet we are not asked who and how we will show up. We know that it takes time and practice to achieve success, yet we are not told it is more than just showing up. You still have to practice and continue to take action to grow.

Below is the list of Essential Core Skills we create awareness around and educate. 

❏ Time Management (Onboarding Program)

❏ Communication (January)

❏ Accountability (February)

❏ Motivation (March) ❏ Confidence (April) ❏ Adaptability (May) ❏ Attitude (June)

❏ Presentation (July)

❏ Teamwork (August)

❏ Value (September)

❏ Storytelling (October)

❏ Consistency (November)

❏ Stress Management (December)

How the coronavirus pandemic affects your business, and how are you coping?

Nicole Girouard: Prior to the pandemic, the majority of our work was conducted in person on site. We had to shift quickly to turn digital and look for new revenue and awareness-generating avenues.  

We now host the following 3 podcasts: 

• Get More with Bare Slate. 
• Ask More Get More -Invite views with thought leaders.
• Mediation and Affirmations-daily guides. 

We also host the Early Morning Experience Monday to Friday, 6:30 am till 7 am live on Facebook and YouTube to win each day on purpose. 

Did you have to make difficult choices, and what are the lessons learned?

Laura Moon: Yes, we had to dissolve relationships because some of the smaller clients had to close their businesses. We had to notify our regular contract consultants that we could no longer employ them due to cancelled contracts. We gave up our office location.  

There were a lot of expenses that had to be reduced due to a lack of earnings. 

What specific tools, software, and management skills are you using to navigate this crisis?

Nicole Girouard: We utilize the following tools:

• Slack-communication 
• Zoom-video conferencing 
• YouTube-audience awareness
• Facebook-community 
• Zenler-learning LMS system that hosts the membership and courses

Who are your competitors? And how do you plan to stay in the game?

Laura Moon: We don’t look at other companies as competitors; we support all organizations that invest in mental health and growth for all humans.  

If we are able to support, engage and help, we will be there. There is enough room for all businesses that are willing to provide support for people.  

Your final thoughts?

Nicole Girouard: We believe that everyone should have access to reach their goals and achieve their dreams. We are here to support and enable anyone who wants to grow, achieve their dreams and get more out of their life.  

Your website?

http://www.bareslate.ca