Calgary Herald from Calgary, Alberta, Canada • 5

wr'iri Section Your weekly list of business meetings Business Inc. PageC2 Save with Coupon Friday. Look far vour valuable couxm cNT ERPRISE Classified JclZZiu 00f- adds to growth of PiqNiqCafe 1 'Si 1 I Ji i) Calgary Herald It's an accepted maxim in the restaurant business that about four out of five ventures fail within their first three years. Defying the odds, the innovative Piq Niq Cafe is nearing its fifth anniversary. That would be accomplishment enough, but owners Rob and Connie Young have stepped into the realm of the remarkable as they also approach the third anniversary of Beat-Niq Jazz and Social Club, which they created downstairs from their restaurant in the historic Grain Exchange after other gigs; and staff turnover is negligible.

Rob is the operations partner, while Connie contributes interior design knowledge and marketing and special events planning experience, and does the graphics. Connie is also the principal of CeDeCe Design Collaborative. Their original idea was to recreate the kind of European experience they enjoyed in their travels, a cafe where people would savour their meal, not just dash in and feed themselves on a quick break. Piq Niq started as a breakfast and lunch spot, then opened two nights a week for dinner now four nights Customers lingering at Piq Niq Cafe's Beat-Niq Jazz and Social Club are: Tricia Katelinikoff left, Jodi Grayson, Mike Dean and Julie Col-lens while the CubanLatino band Bomba, below, entertains. and phased out breakfast.

"We had three appetizers and three entrees. Doing just a few things but doing them really well was almost unheard of in those days," Rob says. "We wanted to keep it simple but do it really well with the freshest ingredients." To preserve quality, they don't take shortcuts. Within six months, the Youngs added accessible live jazz to complement their eclectic European menu. Rob credits their carefully scripted business plan with their success.

"(So many restaurateurs) get into the business thinking it will cost this much for renovations, the lease, to stock the restaurant, but forget that more often than not your losses will accumulate over the months until you've got no reserves. "They need to do a business plan with the worst-case scenario. Figure out the fixed costs and say goodbye (to that money). Do research on how much a chef costs; with food, liquor, wine and beer, work off the industry norm. "Before you get into the business, you have to know the business, so if there's a problem you can recognize it and fix it," he says.

Ted Jacob, Calgary Herald Rob and Connie Young take 'baby steps' to ensure growth of their Piq Niq Cafe at the Grain Exchange Building which they started nearly five years ago. cized at www.beatniq.com. Special events include corporate bookings, office parties, CD release parties, jazz vocalist workshops, jam nights where local musicians sit in, wedding receptions, poetry readings whatever the customer wants. A year after Beat-Niq opened, Calgary Jazz Festival organizers asked to use the club as a venue for their annual event, so Connie renovated and expanded the cozy little club to hold 130 people. She added a stage and grand piano, and improved the seating.

Not getting ahead of themselves has been the key for the Youngs. They implement their ideas only when they can afford to. "We still have half the ladder to go, but that will take some time," Rob says. drawn so the (restaurant) will continue to be your life and passion, not just routine, or a pain." The warm36-seat, 8oo-square-foot restaurant is on the north side of the 90-year-old Grain Exchange Building, at six storeys Calgary's first high-rise building. With its deep cranberry walls and gold trim, and gently lit by a dramatic old brass and copper candelabra rescued from the Westin Hotel's renovation five years ago, Piq Niq nicely captures the European flavour the Youngs wanted.

The subterranean Beat-Niq formerly storage space for the building offers a vintage jazz feel, rather than a hushed concert atmosphere. A small cover charge pays the musicians. The playbill is publi-' Rob had worked franchise restaurants for years, from busing tables and washing dishes all the way up to liquor and food manager and had run several restaurants. The Youngs had money in the bank to cover three years' losses. "You have to keep on track (with the business plan) or at least know if there's something askew in the plan, which there always will be." Piq Niq is now open for lunch Tuesday through Sunday, and for dinner Wednesday through Saturday.

Beat-Niq is open Thursday through Saturday. "We realize that most eating establishments are open seven days a week, day and night," Rob says, "but there has to be a line Building at 811 ist St. S.W. "People come for the food, the ambience and the music," Rob says. They also come for the excellent service, says actor, lawyer and customer Douglas MacLeod.

The Youngs have paced their business cautiously to grow in a manageable way. "We've taken baby steps, building a clientele and spending our limited resources carefully," Rob says. Measures of the Youngs' success are that restaurant reviewer John Gilchrist has included the moderately-priced Piq Niq in his new favourite restaurants guide; Beat-Niq is the place working musicians gather OPINION Passion key to marketing your business through seminars. i Each of us is very interesting. Peoplp are attracted to our passioa We have the opportunity to do something meaningful, and not just technical, every time we tell our story to prospective new clients.

It might seem contrived, silly or stupid at first, but when we speak from the heart about what is important to us, the right people listen, the right people show up, the right people buy. And that is good for business. marketing piece where we choose to identify ourselves by our technical -commodity. Something far more meaningful and far more interesting is passioa Passion creates cash flow, joy, repeat business, referrals and jobs. Passion is more than technology and products.

My passion is assisting professional entrepreneurs in making more money and a bigger difference. This idea is core to my being and when I connect with it, people are able to connect with me and my business (and that is the point of any marketing). With this phrase I am more likely to earn an attentive ear and the right to take the relationship to the next level. It is less important that the way I do it is ent response. I have chosen to communicate at a purely technical level, and unfortunately, that just is not the most interesting thing about me.

S' Technically, I facilitate seminars for entrepreneurs. If I leave, it at that, I have not given the person any context. It is essentially a meaningless phrase. That technical introduction has no passion, but worse, it is subject to misinterpretation depending on the subjects' connotation of the words facilitator, seminar and entrepreneur. The subject either ignores the introduction, misunderstands it or, in the worst case, experiences it as offensive.

We all create indiffer ence in any present ourselves without passion, by our technical commodity. Most of us have experienced the classic cocktail party or networking mixer ritual of meeting new people: "Hi, I am so and so, what do you do?" With that prompt comes the standard reply: "I'm so and so, and I am an accountant (lawyer, doctor, dentist, designer, financial planner, and so on)." Scrolling across the brain of the person you have just introduced yourself to are the words: "So what?" People are able to make a large number of judgements about us when they, first meet us. If I choose to start out by saying "This is the thing I do that is essentially no different than thousands of other businesses," I get an indiffer- KEITH HANNA 'l For the Calgary Herald Small businesses have a huge contribution to make to the world but potential customers are of-ien indifferent to the true value they 'pffer. Indifference can show up in clients as inattention, well-meaning Ignorance, philosophical disagreement and, in the extreme, malicious discontent. Indifference is literally a lack of difference, where every business seems the same.

This leads to devaluation nd commoditization: prices fall, margins shrink, volumes thin, respect fades, employment disappears. We create indifference anytime we Keith Hanna is a principal at Coreworks, a Calgary company that provides programs for professional entrepreneurs. he can be reached at 209 2745 or by e-mail at keithcoreworks.net. TF car.