The Business Growth Factor

The community

Join The Business Growth Factor

A private community of SMB owners, operators and the specialists who serve them, meeting live every second Thursday to work on the parts of running a business most owners were never trained for.

Membership is reviewed, not automatic. Lyndon or Josh reads every request, and you hear back either way.

Request to join Read a session first

What this actually is

The Business Growth Factor started in September 2025 as a place for SMB owners and operators to work through the same problems together instead of separately. It is deliberately small and deliberately practical.

The centre of it is one live hour. Every second Thursday at 11:00 Mountain we run a Community Connect: a working session on one specific topic, usually led by a member or a guest expert who does that thing for a living, then open questions. Twelve have run since September 2025, and the last ten each have a public write-up on this site, so you can read one before you decide anything.

Past sessions have covered exit planning and transferable value with a business broker, workplace safety and the COR and SECOR changes with a safety consultant, employee benefits with a group benefits advisor, Canadian tax, GST/HST and payroll remittances with a CPA, building a cash flow plan backwards from the life you want, OKRs, the five financial levers that decide whether revenue becomes profit, using AI to document how your business actually runs, and the cybersecurity basics behind the losses that put small companies out of business.

Everything else exists to hold that hour up. The recordings and slide decks stay available. There are twenty playbooks, templates and worksheets you can download and use, including a monthly cash flow forecast, a cash conversion cycle calculator, job description templates and playbooks for finance, sales, HR and leadership. There is a member directory that says what each person actually does. And there is one self-paced course, 6 Ways To Drive Your Revenue, in eighteen short lessons.

The other half of it is the network. When you need a marketing person, an operations person or someone to take the finance function off your desk, the community usually has that person in it, and you already know how they think because you have watched them work through a session. That is a better way to find help than a search and three referrals.

What you get on the other side

All of it is open to you on day one. None of it costs anything.

  • The member directory

    Forty owners and specialists, searchable by what they know. Finance, safety, benefits, tax, IT, exit planning. People who will take your call.

  • Every session, recorded

    Ten so far, each with its slide deck. Cash flow, tax traps, cybersecurity, exit planning, running by the numbers.

  • A seat at the table

    Bring the thing in front of you to a live session and get a reaction from the room. That part has no replay.

  • A slot of your own

    Members present. If you know something worth an hour, you get the hour, and the recording is yours to use.

  • The tools

    Templates and calculators that are actually used: cash flow forecasting, CVP analysis, project budgets, a drivers worksheet.

  • The course

    Six Ways To Drive Your Revenue, eighteen short lessons, self-paced.

What happens next

Five steps, and only the first one is yours.

  1. 01 Apply Four questions, about a minute.
  2. 02 We read it Usually the same day, by Lyndon or Josh.
  3. 03 You are in An email with your link. No password to set.
  4. 04 Start here A short welcome video and the ground rules.
  5. 05 Come to a session Every second Thursday, 11:00 Mountain.

The two rules that matter

Nobody gets pitched. Owners come to get a second opinion on the thing in front of them. Specialists come to teach in their field. Work does sometimes follow, but because somebody watched you be useful for an hour, not because you sent them a message.

It asks about two hours a month. One live hour every second Thursday, and whatever you do with the recordings in between. Light on purpose: a community that needs daily attention is one busy people leave.

Request to join

Four questions, about a minute. Everything else is optional.

Use the address you want to sign in with. The community runs on Google sign-in, so a Gmail or Google Workspace address works best.

Which of these fits you best? (optional)

Where can we find you? (all optional)

No need for https://. Just the address, like linkedin.com/in/you.

This form does not add you to any mailing list. If you want the newsletter, there is a separate sign-up in the footer.

Questions people ask before joining

What does it cost?

Nothing. There is no membership fee today. The live sessions, the recordings, the library and the course are all included. We may introduce a fee for new members later on, and if we do, the people who are already in keep what they have.

I cannot make Thursday mornings. Is it still worth joining?

Partly, and it is worth being straight about which part. Every Community Connect is recorded and posted with its slide deck, so you can watch on your own time, and the library and the course do not depend on the calendar at all. But the live hour is the only place you can put your own situation in front of the room and get a reaction to it, and that does not have a replay. If 11:00 Mountain on a Thursday is permanently out for you, expect less from this than someone who turns up.

I advise or sell services to SMBs. Can I join?

Yes, and many members do, including most of the people who have presented a session. The rule is contribute first and pitch never. Answer questions in your area, offer to run a session, share the thing you would normally charge for. What does not work is joining to prospect, and it is obvious to everybody in the room when that is what is happening.

Who is actually in there?

Owners, general managers and operations people, mostly in Alberta and British Columbia with a few further afield, alongside the specialists who present. The businesses run from construction and trades to marketing, IT, franchising, manufacturing and professional services, mostly at the size where the owner is still close to the work. Everyone's headline and area of expertise sits in the member directory, so you can see who you would be joining before you post anything.