Christopher Novais is a Toronto native who embodies the term entrepreneur. Christopher graduated from York University with a degree in marketing and wasted no time putting it to use. Christoper is the co-founder of The Art Of Productions Inc. which quickly became Canada’s largest personal development seminar series. The Art Of has grown from a single conference to a variety of different conferences spanning the Country.
Christopher has worked with the likes of Martha Stewart, Chris Hadfield, Brene Brown and Rudy Giuliani to name a few. In this episode we discuss his journey as an entrepreneur. In 2008 Chris found a niche in the personal development conference space and moved to fill it.
We talk about Christophers strategic planning process and the steps he takes to ensure that his team executes on those plans. Christopher recommends keeping your plan to three major objectives. Any more can become overwhelming and/or distracting amking it difficult to focus. The three categories they use to set priorities are:
- Financial
- Process Oriented
- Customer Experience
Christophers definition of success has evolved over time but currently he lists things in this order.
- Doing his family and friends proud
- Financial Freedom
- More recently looking at what he is contributing to the world.
Interestingly he says that when he added that third component, actually connecting value to other peoples success, is when the business really started to flourish.
“My job is to keep my nose in everything but to keep my hands out”
Some of the key messages and take-aways that we discuss are:
- Begin with the end in mind.
Have a clear vision of where you are going and be able to articulate that to your team. - Hard work never stops
While the journey may get easier, Christopher believes that is likely a result of us getting smarter not having to work less. - When you do what you love you will do it well.
- Teamwork counts
- Delegate, Delegate, Delegate
“My job is to keep my nose in everything but to keep my hands out” - Planning and execution are both critical factors to success as an entrepreneur
- There are always different ways of doing things. Open your mind to possibilities
- You will get more than one shot so play around, experiment.
You can find Christopher on LinkedIn at https://www.linkedin.com/in/christophernovais or at The Art of Productions.
