Clint Best - KAIZEN Business Development

Effective Team Building Strategies in Kelowna Canada

2009-04-03T11:17:00.000-07:00

Simply put, a team is made up of a group of people working together to achieve a common goal. This applies to any field where multiple individuals are required to work together towards a common objective in mind i.e. business, sports, military, the arts (theatre and music), etc. In any of these settings the individuals are required to work or perform together towards a successful outcome.

A sports organization cannot win a championship without the individuals functioning together as a closely knit unit. The New York Yankees have demonstrated repeatedly that attracting top talent with the largest payroll in Major League Baseball doesn’t guarantee them a World Championship Series. A symphony’s success depends entirely on the ability of the various instrumentalists executing together in a manner of near perfection. In the military, soldiers live by a strict adherence to rules and teamwork. In businesses in Kelowna and across Canada, individuals, departments, and divisions must work together in order to achieve the company’s core objectives and succeed in an ever-increasing competitive environment.

A winning team has certain characteristics that allow the individual members to function more efficiently and productively. Developing and implementing an effective team strategy is of the utmost significance for any organization. This is the job of capable leaders, managers, and supervisors. The days of dictatorial or autocratic management are gone and thank goodness for that. Instead, leaders, managers, and supervisors today, must possess the coaching skills required to bring their cohorts together in a spirit of cooperation and achievement. Failing to do so can have disastrous consequences. Think of what happens in the above-mentioned examples when teamwork fails: sports teams lose championships and afterwards comment that they just didn’t play as a team that day; a symphony ends up sounding like a high school band; in military conflict, soldiers die; in business, companies lose market share and lay off employees as they contract, or worse still, cease to exist!

There are several ways in which leaders, managers, and supervisors in Kelowna and across Canada can help staff members become a strong team at different levels throughout any organization:

Establish clearly defined performance outcomes: Ensure all team members clearly understand their roles, the targeted outcomes, what actions are needed to achieve them, and the time frames associated with the outcomes. The outcomes must tie into the company’s Vision, Mission, and Goals, and must tie into a system of rewards.
Explain the rules of the game: Promote individual and team responsibility and accountability, for achieving specific outcomes and to solve problems as a team. Discuss all norms and standards for performance. Encourage personal accountability. Discourage blame, excuses and denial.
Encourage innovation and communication: Promote staff suggestions for new ways to improve services and deliver on the company’s core promises. Listen to their ideas and acknowledge their points of view. Encourage team members to discuss issues and to find solutions together.
Organize meetings: Establish regular, productive meetings with specific outcomes to be achieved and set defined time limits for all meetings. Avoid using meetings purely for the purpose of dumping data on the participants. ‘Data dumps’ can be achieved through email without wasting everyone’s precious time.
Manage the system, not the people: The system, which is organized around the company’s common goal, its purpose, its strategic objective, engages people in this common cause. Recognize that you can’t manage people but only the system – the process through which people produce results!

When building a team, you have to first look at these essential components. There must be a certain level of trust and empathy among all team members. The trust factor determines the success or failure of any team and the level of teamwork. In order to build a successful team, leaders, managers, or supervisors must be able to develop cohesion within it by instilling trust through creating a transparent working environment. Thinking out of the box to create an innovative work environment that nurtures and develops teamwork is a big challenge to tackle. But in the process, it can shape many careers and enhance the company’s culture. Team building is a long-term affair. And a good team builder should be a good team member first!

For more information on building your exit strategy or business coaching in general, contact Clint Best at Kaizen Business Development, in Kelowna, BC, Canada 250.860.0466 or visit http://www.kaizenbusinessdevelopment.com/

Business Exit Strategies in Kelowna, Canada

2009-04-03T10:34:00.000-07:00

Building an exit strategy in Kelowna or anywhere in Canada is one of the most important objectives for any business owner. Many small to medium size entrepreneurs today believe that their lives are wrapped up in their businesses and that they will never exit or sell for any reason. In worst case scenarios they believe that the business simply couldn’t function without them.

I’ve encountered numerous business owners over the years that have operated without an exit strategy and simply thought that when their time was done in the business they would simply wind things up and close shop! In my opinion, these business owners in Kelowna or elsewhere in Canada, have grossly misinterpreted the key reasons for being in business, underestimated the value of their organizations, and misunderstood some core essentials of operating their businesses. In short, all they’ve done is bought themselves a job for a period time.

The reality is that personal and business circumstances change, or age and health issues come into play. There are a myriad of reasons that may cause a owner’s mind to change about selling their business. Having a proper exit strategy will ensure that your eventual departure in one way or another is done in a methodical, pre-planned fashion designed to maximize your financial return and minimize any disruption on the business. For those who remain adamant about never selling or exiting their business, forgetting temporarily about the great equalizer – physical death, having a sound exit strategy will go a long way in ensuring that they are presently managing their businesses as they should. An exit strategy is not simply a matter of what happens on the day an owner exits, but rather a plan that impacts the core essentials of any business: team building, systemization, strategic planning, growth and diversification. A proper exit strategy will ensure that any owner is operating their business as they should and thereby maximize its value!

In Stephen Covey’s book, The Seven Habits of Highly Successful People, he tells us to, “begin with the end in mind". Those who have created a successful business know it does not happen without planning, hard work, and a little luck. Yet most have no exit plan for leaving their business. And the truth is that most business relationships do not have happy endings. To have a successful business, you must plan a proper exit strategy. Planning how you exit your business is just as important as how you start it. The goal is to maximize the value of your company before converting it to cash.

Getting out of business is a process that will require you to:
1. Seek the professional expertise and advice of a business coach which will lay the groundwork and contribute to a smooth process and improve the outcome.
2. Consider your potential purchasers – a customer, competitor, employees, family or relatives, an unrelated 3rd party etc., all of which will require careful thought and planning.
3. Determine what your company is worth through the help of a professional valuator, and establish a formula for future valuations.
4. Position yourself so that the business can operate successfully without you. Hire a general manager and build your team to accomplish this. This will take some work, but you may be surprised, your company might actually operate more successfully without you! If you choose to sell your company to an unrelated 3rd party, the value of your business will increase if you have replaced yourself and can essentially offer it as a ‘turn-key’ operation.
5. Establish a comprehensive Buy/Sell Agreement with a clause for key-man life insurance, especially if you have one or more partners. Issues such as death, disability, and divorce can cause the best of intentions to shift.
6. Maintain accurate company records to facilitate the eventual 3rd party due diligence process.
How you plan your small business exit strategy will determine your financial success. Developing a comprehensive exit strategy will cause you to make positive changes in how you operate your business. Having an exit strategy in place will increase the value of your business. Just as building a successful business takes planning, hard work, and a little luck, so does leaving it.

HELP! I need to get better at negotiation!

2009-02-27T13:04:00.000-08:00

Negotiating is a key part of being an entrepreneur. This is an excellent little article on the subject. Jeffrey Gitomer came to Vancouver just before Christmas in 2008 and wowed the crowd with his direct, no-nonsense style.

Clint

HELP! I need to get better at negotiation! By Jeffrey Gitomer

Eh, no Sparky, you need to get better at everything else so that you NEVER have to negotiate – or at least negotiate 90% less.

Negotiation is for people who are lousy at selling, don’t understand buying motives, haven’t provided value, are unable to differentiate themselves from the competition, can’t build trust, and have utterly failed at building relationships.

Maybe that’s why you have to “negotiate.”

Negotiation is not a problem. It’s a symptom.

And negotiate is only one of three words that make up your reality, and the real definition. The other two words are: your price. Negotiations are all about “concessions” and back and forth bickering about what you provide and how much it will cost. Negotiation “experts” call it give-and-take or win-win. That’s a bunch of crap. It’s lower your price, and sacrifice your profit.

I’m in the airplane as many as 20 times a month. In every airline magazine, there’s a two-page pullout ad for “effective negotiation.” It’s been in the magazines for years. It must work. I mean… they must be successful in selling the course.

Their latest ad campaign states in bold headlines, “It’s like steroids for your career!” Uh, correct me if I’m wrong, but aren’t steroids illegal? Hey, you too can gain an unfair advantage! All you have to do is break the law. Sounds great – where do I sign up?

In the case of negotiation, it’s a violation of the law of fair play, manipulation, ethics, and relationship.

Reason you have to “negotiate?” You were calling on the wrong person or people in the first place.

REALITY: People in the C-suite don’t negotiate. They discuss, discern, and decide. And they do it based on perceived value and trust, not price.

REALITY: Here’s why you have to negotiate:
• You failed to prove value beyond your competition.
• You failed to prove you were different from others selling the same product.
• You failed to gain enough trust to get a decision.
• You didn’t win on the lowest price, and they called you in to “match the price of the lowest vendor” and potentially win the business.
• You won the business at a low level, and were sent to procurement.

All upside down propositions (and you are at the bottom).

And, once you’re “in negotiations to get the business,” you’re relegated to manipulating and groveling to get the business – at a lower price, and less (or no) profit. Great move. And you call that making the sale. I call it a pyrrhic victory.

The whole concept of negotiation ................ Click here
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Clint Best is a Certified Business Coach with Kaizen Business Development Inc. in Kelowna.
He can be contacted at clint@kbdkelowna.com or through http://www.kbdkelowna.com/

Great attitude gets results!!

2009-02-27T12:38:00.000-08:00

While doing some research on attitude I turned to someone who's given me a lot of inspiration over the years, Zig Ziglar. He has a great web site at http://www.zigziglar.com/

Clint

I am often asked what my favorite quote or saying is. Frankly, there are hundreds of inspiring adages that help illustrate the incredible potential each of us possesses. I hope this Little Book Of Quotes will inspire, encourage and motivate you, provide hope and at times a smile.

I trust you will find them insightful and in some context, useful. I hope they make you think, give you new ideas, and extract more of the potential in you.

I am also hopeful that they will collectively reveal a philosophy. In what is essentially an interpretation of the Golden Rule, it is my sincere belief that you can have everything in life you want if you will just help enough other people get what they want.

See You Over the Top,

Zig Ziglar

Positive thinking will let you use the abilities,training and experience you have.
Positive thinking won’t let you do anything but it willlet you do everything better than negative thinking will.

We all need a daily check up from the neck upto avoid stinkin’ thinkin’ which ultimately leadsto hardening of the attitudes.

It’s not what happens to you that determines how far youwill go in life; it is how you handle what happens to you.

You cannot tailor make the situations in life,but you can tailor make the attitudes tofit those situations before they arise.

Clint Best is a Certified Business Coach with Kaizen Business Development Inc. in Kelowna.

He can be contacted at clint@kbdkelowna.com or through http://www.kbdkelowna.com/

Clint Best - KAIZEN -Choose Your Attitude

2008-12-09T10:21:00.000-08:00

I saw a little story recently with a really important message I would like to share with you.
John is the kind of guy you love to hate. He is always in a good mood and always has something positive to say. When someone would ask him how he was doing, he would reply, 'If I were any better, I would be twins!'

He was a natural motivator. If an employee was having a bad day, John was there telling the employeehow to look on the positive side of the situation.

Seeing this style really made me curious, so one day I went up and asked him, 'I don't get it! You can't be a positive person all of the time. How do you do it?'

He replied, 'Each morning I wake up and say to myself, you have two choices today. You can choose to be in a good mood or ... you can choose to be in a bad mood. I choose to be in a good mood.'

Each time something bad happens, I can choose to be a victim or...I can choose to learn from it. I choose to learn from it.Every time someone comes to me complaining, I can choose to accept their complaining or... I can point out the positive side of life. I choose the positive side of life.'

Yeah, right, it's not that easy,' I protested.

'Yes, it is,' he said. 'Life is all about choices. When you cut away all the junk, every situation is a choice. You choose how you respond to situations. You choose how people affect your mood. You choose to be in a good mood or bad mood. The bottom line: It's your choice how you live your life.'

We are all faced with the same dilemma many times daily; what do I choose to do in that brief space of time that exists between the external world of uncontrollable ‘cause’ and the inner world of controllable ‘effect’?

Many people fail to see the choice probably because the empowering reality of choice carries with it the often undesirable counter-point of personal responsibility.

Some people would like to blame someone or something for taking their power because to face the reality of choice is to face the true author of their own unhappiness- themselves.

Some people, like John, understand and behave like they are in control.

Clint Best is a Certified Business Coach with Kaizen Business Development Inc. in Kelowna. He can be contacted at clint@kbdkelowna.com or through http://www.kbdkelowna.com/

Clint Best - KAIZEN - The Business Examiner - Why do we procrastinate?

2008-11-09T14:52:00.000-08:00

In a nutshell, we procrastinate when we put off things that we should be focusing on right now, usually in favour of doing something that is more enjoyable or that we’re more comfortable doing.

Procrastinators invest their time in the wrong tasks. Some¬times this is simply because they don’t understand the difference between urgent tasks and important tasks, and jump straight into getting on with urgent tasks that aren’t actually important.

Another common cause of procrastination is feeling overwhelmed by the task. We may not know where to begin. Or we may doubt that we have the skills or resources we think we need. So we seek comfort in doing tasks we know we’re capable of completing. Unfortunately, the big task isn’t going to go away – truly important tasks rarely do.

Other causes of procrastination include:

Waiting for the “right” mood or the “right” time to tackle the important task at hand
A fear of failure or success
Underdeveloped decision making skills
Poor organizational skills
Perfectionism (“I don’t have the right skills or resourc¬es to do this perfectly now, so I won’t do it at all.”)

If we’re honest with ourselves, we probably know when we’re procrastinating. But to be sure, we first need to make sure we know our priorities. Our priorities flow from the key responsibilities of our roles and from our goals. We have other roles besides our work role. We may be a father, husband, friend, athlete, inves¬tor, etc.If we are putting something off because we just don’t want to do it, and we really can’t delegate the work to someone else, we need to find ways of moti¬vating ourselves to get moving.

The following approaches can be helpful here:

Make up our own rewards.
Ask someone else to keep us accountable
Identify the unpleasant consequences of NOT doing the task.

If we’re putting off starting a project because we find it overwhelming, we need to take a different approach.

Here are some tips:

Break the project into a set of smaller, more manageable tasks. We may find it helpful to create an action plan.
Get some traction. Start with some quick, small tasks, even if these aren’t the logical first actions.

We’ll feel that we’re achieving things, and so perhaps the whole project won’t be so overwhelming after all.

Clint Best is a Certified Business Coach with Kaizen Business Development Inc. in Kelowna. He can be contacted at clint@kbdkelowna.com or through http://www.kbdkelowna.com/

Clint Best - KAIZEN - Building Your Ideal Self and Life

2008-09-24T04:07:00.000-07:00

Your self-concept is made up of different parts, each of which affects each of the others. Understanding these parts enables you to direct yourself towards the outcomes you want. When you learn to take charge of the development of a new and positive self-concept, you can then better control your own destiny.

Determine Your Direction: The first part of the self-concept is the "self-ideal." Your self-ideal largely determines the direction in which you are going with your life. It guides the growth and evolution of your character and personality. Your self-ideal is a combination of all of the qualities and attributes of other people that you most admire. Your self-ideal is a description of the person you would very much like to be if you could embody the qualities that you most aspire to.

Strive Toward Excellence: Throughout your life, you have seen and read about the qualities of courage, confidence, compassion, love, fortitude, perseverance, patience, forgiveness and integrity. Over time, these qualities have instilled in you an ideal to which you aspire. You might not always live up to the very best that you know, but you are constantly striving to be a better person in light of those qualities that you value so highly. In fact, everything that you do on a day-to-day basis is affected by your comparing your activities with these ideal qualities and your striving to behave consistently with them.

Clarity is Essential: Successful business people have very clear ideals for themselves and their businesses. Unsuccessful business people have fuzzy ideals. Successful business people are very clear about being excellent in every part of their work and their personal lives. Unsuccessful salespeople don't give the subject very much thought. One of the primary characteristics of successful men and women in every walk of life is that they have very clearly defined ideals and they are very aware of whether or not their current behaviours are consistent with their idealized behaviours.

Set Challenging Goals: Your goals are part of your ideals. As you set higher and more challenging goals, your self-ideal improves and crystallizes. When you set goals for the kind of person you want to be and the kind of life you want to live, your self-ideal rises and becomes a greater guiding and motivating force in your life.

Your Future is Unlimited: Perhaps the most important thing for you to realize is that whatever anyone else has done or become, you can do or become as well. Improvements in your self-ideal begin in your imagination, and in your imagination, there are no limits except the ones that you accept.

What is your ideal vision of the very best person you could possibly become? How would you behave each day if you were already that person? Asking yourself these questions and then living your life consistent with the answers is the first step to creating yourself in your ideal image.

Learning comes in the doing: Here are two things you can do immediately to put these ideas into action.

Firstly, dream big dreams. Set big, exciting, challenging goals and ideals for yourself in every part of your life. Allow yourself to imagine a wonderful life ahead.

Second, think about how you would act if you were an outstanding person in every way. Then, practice being this person, as though you were acting a role in a play. You'll immediately notice a difference in your behaviour.

Clint Best is a Certified Business Coach with Kaizen Business Development Inc. in Kelowna. He can be contacted at clint@kbdkelowna.com or through http://www.kbdkelowna.com/

Clint Best-You Can’t Manage What You Don’t Measure

2008-08-08T03:55:00.000-07:00

A very successful business friend of mine once asked me; if you were lost in a jungle, what two critical pieces of information would you need, in order to get out? It seemed apparent that I would have to know approximately where I was and where I wanted to get to in order to plot a course.

We agreed that, even if my approximations were not accurate, I would still measure my result and create an opportunity to course correct. With that vision and some persistence, eventually I would vector in on my goal.

So too is it in business, whether we own a business or a position within a business or both, there exists a set of key performance indicators (KPI’s) that can help us stay on track. They can be straight measurements like sales, leads, or units. Using ratios can give us further insights into our productivity like sales per prospect (conversion rate) or billable hours to total hours worked.

Often, the biggest bottleneck is procrastination. The challenge is in recognizing the relative importance of reporting measurements and to correctly associate the time and effort with the benefits. I’m referring to things like lowering anxiety, increasing certainty, increasing accountability, understanding cause and effect, developing best practices, and generally making well founded decisions. The ultimate why is more time and more money.

Like most things in life, we need the patience to practice in order to get good at measuring. Learning gaps need to be filled, comfort zones need to be expanded and an understanding of the things we are measuring needs to form over time.

You should have a set of KPI’s for the business as a whole, for each dept, and for each individual. Training efforts should be focused on these key drivers and accountability systems set up around them.

All performance can be measured. Imagine playing a game without keeping score. How much fun would that be? Imagine the Olympics if results were not measured and compared. In his book “Keeping Score”, Mark Graham Brown tells us, to achieve a balanced scorecard; we should study the following metrics.

Customer Satisfaction
Employee Satisfaction
Financial Performance
Operational Performance (cycle time, productivity, etc.)
Product/Service Quality
Supplier Performance
Safety/Environmental/Public Responsibility

Studies show that just by measuring them, they will begin to improve.

Clint Best is a Certified Business Coach with Kaizen Business Development Inc. in Kelowna. He can be contacted at clint@kbdkelowna.com or through http://www.kbdkelowna.com/

Clint Best - KAIZEN - Sell with Intention and Get Home to Your Life

2008-07-18T06:27:00.000-07:00

I’m having my kitchen re-faced. It’s always a lot of fun renovating, don’t you think? Not really.One of my colleagues referred me to a local company who had done the same for them. I called them up and was quite impressed with their responsiveness. Within a few days someone was out to do a quote.The salesman got there before I did and had already put together the estimate with my wife’s guidance. An hour and a half later he left to go home. I’m the kind of guy who likes to understand how things work, so before he left I asked him, if we decided to go ahead what the remaining steps in the process would be?Without getting another quote, we decided to go with their company on the power of the referral and the price comparison with the colleague who referred them. The next step was to have the salesman, who also happened to be one of the owners, come back and take detailed measurements. When he did so, he spent another 2 hours with us and left apologizing for having run out of time. He would have to make another trip an return again to get the measurements.

Kaizen Tip of the Month

It’s pretty obvious that our time is important. If you want to know how much your time is worth, simply write down how much money you want to earn in a year and how many hours you want to work in that same timeframe. Divide one into the other and most people are surprised what they find.Now, as much as I appreciated the time he spent with us, I also think he could have invested less time and got a greater return. In fact if you believe in the old saying, “How you do one thing is how you do everything” you can also see how this might lead me to concern over whether my job would be completed on time or not.Here’s the tip – If you don’t put a value on your time, someone else will, and it’s likely to be a lot lower. Operate with intention. Have a game plan. Know how long an appointment should last to have maximum effect and map it out in a process with well thought through scripts. Also, empower your prospects by explaining your process early so they understand how to buy from you. It will demonstrate your professionalism and give them the sense of control they need to trust you.
How did the renovation end up? I’ll let you know.

Clint Best
Kaizen Business Development
212 - 1889 Springfield Road Kelowna BC
Ph 250 860 0466 Fax 250 860 0446
clint@kbdkelowna.com www.kbdkelowna.com

Clint Best - KAIZEN - Build the team that will run your business effectively- The Business Examiner

2008-05-15T11:54:00.000-07:00

All too often the cry from managers is: ‘you can’t get good people’ or ‘why can’t I get my people to do as I tell them’.

Consider the business owner who has 10 people working in the business, yet finds he or she is doing all the work. What’s the point in having employees!? To find out what’s gone wrong we have to get back to basics.

Most people in business understand how important systems are. Systems are usually essential for having a business that runs smoothly (and profitably). With systems in place, it’s simply a matter of employing people to run those systems.

Michael Gerber’s fantastic book, The E-Myth, really highlights how important systems are for businesses to be successful. A real life example of course is McDonald’s. With a food product that at best could only be described as average, it is simply a matter of systems that keep it a hugely successful entity.

The point is, if you feel like you’re banging your head up against a brick wall, take a look at the systems in your business.

Look at the most basic things from answering the phone all the way through to how you produce your product. If your systems aren’t clearly defined and easy to understand, how can anyone (read your employees) understand what you want? Preferably write them down and turn them into checklists.

This is the basic foundation of business, which, in turn, gets your people working as a team, an end result that equals more than the sum of its parts.So, the systems have been built and are clearly defined, and now it’s a matter of recruiting the right people to run those systems. The DISC [ a popular and simple to use profiling tool ] working personality profile is one way to help select the right people for the job. With this knowledge, you can then recruit the right people for the job; however, the real challenge lies ahead.

It’s not just a matter of having people who come in, follow the system and get the job done. What you are looking for now is SYNERGY!

Synergy comes from having people who are committed to a ‘common goal’. If people are involved in setting the ‘common goal’, they are generally more likely to commit.

If you, as the business owner are dictating to your team ‘this is the goal’, don’t expect much commitment. If your team has ownership, they are much more likely to achieve.

Ownership is also very useful when designing and building your systems. Keep asking the team this question…’I’m looking for [certain outcome]. How do you think we should go about achieving that?’

The successful business owner has team members that say ‘I think we should do like this’. An unsuccessful business owner has team members that say ‘I don’t know, you’re the boss’.

Finally, be aware of what you are teaching your team. If a baby cries and its mother comes running the baby learns to let out a cry and in rushes Mum.

If you’re saying to yourself ‘no-one can do it like me’ and you jump in to do it, your team is learning from that.

As posted in The Business Examiner -Clint Best is President of KAIZEN Business Development, based in Kelowna. His company helps business owners simplify the complicated taking themselves and their business to another level. He can be reached at 250-860-0466 or e-mailed at clintbest@shaw.ca.

New Website for Clint Best - Kelowna

2008-05-09T03:46:00.000-07:00

This is an exciting time as we launch KAIZEN Business Development (formerly known as Action International Kelowna or Action Coach Business Coaching of Kelowna), and we want to make sure that you are aware of the full range of services we now offer.
Our new website, monthly newsletter and “Latest News & Events” will help keep our clients and friends in the community informed of the latest developments in the coaching sector and where to find valuable information for growing your business.
As the world of business moves faster and becomes more competitive, having a Business Coach is no longer a luxury; it has become a necessity!!!!!!!
The role of KAIZEN Business Development is to coach business owners to make constant improvements in their business, through focus, change, and persistence using proven programs and fundamental business principles.
KAIZEN Business Development is able to not only show you how to increase your business revenues and profits, but also how to develop your business so that you as the owner can work less and get back more of your valuable time for family, friends and hobbies.
KAIZEN Business Development provides entrepreneurs and professionals across the Okanagan Valley with the learning, guidance, tools, and inspiration, delivered in a fun and manageable way, which will produce real and measureable results in their lives and business.
You can visit our web site at http://www.kbdkelowna.com/

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Clint Best
Kaizen Business Development
212 - 1889 Springfield Road Kelowna BC
Ph 250 860 0466
Fax 250 860 0446
clint@kbdkelowna.com
http://www.kbdkelowna.com/