Episode 6: Great Culture - Foundation for Success with Sara Hodson & Mandy Rennehan

ABOUT THE EPISODE

“For any entrepreneur who hasn't done a deep dive into their true core values, I would highly encourage them to start that process. It's a game-changer especially in this day and age when building a culture-based company.” – Sara Hodson, LIVE WELL Exercise Clinic

A winning company culture is more than free snacks and happy hour. It’s about embedding your core values into everything that you do in your business including hiring the right staff. This week, we speak to two leaders, Sara Hodson, Founder & CEO of LIVE WELL Exercise Clinic and Mandy Rennehan, Blue Collar CEO & Founder of Freshco.ca who have prioritized their company culture. They each give us a glimpse of how they uncovered their core values and how they spread it company-wide.

In this episode:

Sara describes how a fun exercise called “Mission to Mars” helped determine core values
Learn tips for hiring employees based on core values
Mandy explains how she ingrained fun into her company and amplified culture

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“Umm... I Missed That”

Entrepreneurship is a world of its own, which means the some of the lingo used might get lost in translation. Don’t worry, we’ve got your back. Here are a few of the key terms you’ll hear on this episode of The Go-To and what they actually mean.

Core Values: Key guiding principles that a business uses to manage internal affairs and relationship with customers.

Polymaths: A person who has knowledge on a wide range of topics and subjects.

Meet Our Guests

Sara Hodson, CEO of LIVE WELL Exercise Clinic

Sara Hodson is founder and president of LIVE WELL Exercise Clinic. A tenacious entrepreneur, Sara lives to maximize clients’ health, in spite of their health issues, and have fun while doing it! Her vision and initiative has inspired physicians to refer more than 3,000 patients to her three pioneering clinics since 2011. A thought leader in Exercise is Medicine, Sara is vice-chair of the UBC Alumni Advisory Council, volunteers with local hospitals and community health projects and mentors exercise physiology students via UBC’s Mentorship program

After 10 years with Fraser Health and a passion for exercise in healthcare, Sara decided to take a leap of faith from her stable job and become an entrepreneur. She recognized a gap between cardiac rehab and traditional gyms. Many people didn’t feel comfortable in the typical gym, but didn’t want to get to the point where they suffered a heart attack in order to benefit from a clinical exercise program. With this realization, Sara began to create LIVE WELL Exercise Clinic, which opened with a bang in June of 2011 when physicians started to prescribe exercise as the result of the program’s philosophy and design. Sara adopted what she had learned from working with clinical populations over a decade and wrapped all of this expertise into the LIVE WELL Exercise Programs.

Sara’s Go-To Resources:

“Mission to Mars” culture exercise - who would you bring with you if you had to recreate your company on mars?
Core Value Interview or Culture Fit Interview
Core Value Stories

Learn more about LIVE WELL Exercise Clinic online at livewellclinic.ca

Mandy Rennehan, Blue-Collar CEO & Founder, Freschco.ca

Mandy Rennehan (a.k.a. Bear) is called the Blue-Collar CEO™ for her ability to seamlessly navigate between the white- and blue-collar worlds, and to respectfully 'tell it like it is'. Mandy is a sought-after speaker, multiple award-winning entrepreneur, philanthropist, and trade industry ambassador.

She left her hometown of Yarmouth, Nova Scotia, at 18 with a dirty hockey bag and an audacious dream. By 19, she founded Freshco, Canada’s #1, full-service, reconstruction and retail maintenance provider operating across Canada and the eastern United States serving clients like Bell Media, RBC, Anthropologie, Apple, Banana Republic, Home Depot, Lululemon, Nike, Restoration Hardware, Sephora, The Gap, Tiffany & Co., plus many more.

Freshco and Mandy have received countless business awards including: Canada’s Most Admired CEO, Atlantic Business Magazine's Top CEO for the Atlantic Provinces, Toronto Region Board of Trade Business Leader of the Year, Top 25 Women of Influence, the RBC Canadian Women Entrepreneur “Momentum” Award, Growth 500 Excellence in Innovation, (WXN’s) Top 100 Most Powerful Women – Hall of Fame, CGLCC LGBT Business of the Year and Atlantic Business Magazine’s Top 50 CEOs.

Mandy’s vision goes well beyond building successful businesses. She is redefining the collar, blue™ to help solve the massive skilled trade shortage in North America. Defying labels, the description she often receives is “refreshing.” Her (respectfully) uncensored honesty is matched by her quick wit, East Coast humour, and big heart. It is impossible to remain unchanged after coming into contact with this authentic, self-taught and self-made powerhouse.

Learn more about the awesome things Mandy is up to on her website mandyrennehan.com and Freshco Retail Maintenance.

“The Go-To: For Entrepreneurs in the Know” is produced in collaboration with The Scotiabank Women Initiative™. Thank you for your support!