With over 30 years of entrepreneurial experience, Steven Page has led his Canadian-based logistics and fulfillment company, Stalco, to become a top 3rd party logistics provider by Multichannel Merchant in 2019. Recently, Steven launched a Duty Drawback program which is a Canada Customs (CBSA) Trade Incentive program that provides refunds on customs duty paid on applicable imported goods. This Trade Incentive program is combined with a U.S. Customs Clearance method (Section 321) for low-value consumer orders (under USD $800) where no duty is paid on entry into the United States. U.S. companies can have their goods shipped from China to Canada then be fulfilled by Stalco directly to individual U.S. consumers to eliminate all duty cost. Under Steven’s leadership, Stalco has foreign goods imported to its fulfilment center in Toronto. His team then picks and packs the applicable goods and ships them to consumers in the U.S.at the same cost and delivery time as if it were shipped directly from the U.S. His team ships in excess of over 60,000 direct-to-consumer orders per week throughout North America concentrated mostly on the U.S.
Entrepreneurial Role Models:
Steven’s Grandfather
When business started difficulties overcame:
“as an entrepreneur you have a vision but you are largely by yourself trying to figure out how to execute that. You don’t have the resources, unless you’ve got got partners with you don’t access to tremendous brainpower network. Which is I think hugely important. So from my perspective it was challenging kind of feeling I was alone going out and trying to drive this on my own. So that was definitely difficult. Capital was also difficult. Most businesses need some degree of capital to get going. So having to come up with the understanding of how you go out and source capital and the actual cost of sourcing that capital was immensely challenging. And so for me those were significant hurdles”…[Listen for More]
Favourite Books:
- Entrepreneurial autobiography books
- The Slight Edge: Secret to a Successful Life Book by Jeff Olson
- Losing My Virginity Book by Sir Richard Branson
Favourite Quote:
“begin with the end in mind”
Recommended Online Resources:
- LinkedIn – is a business and employment-oriented service that operates via websites and mobile apps. Founded on December 28, 2002, and launched on May 5, 2003, it is mainly used for professional networking, including employers posting jobs and job seekers posting their CVs.
- Google News is a news aggregator and app developed by Google. It presents a continuous, customizable flow of articles organized from thousands of publishers and magazines. Google News is available on Android, iOS, and the web.
- Trade magazines within the world that you exist
Best Advice to Other Entrepreneurs:
“really identifying obviously at an early stage path you are going down, doing the research and validating your business model and then surrounding yourself with the people that can either mentor you within your business depending upon the size of your company or ultimately from outside to be able to be resources that you can leverage to get outside opinions… Ultimately drive and persistency, stick-to-it-iveness and not letting anyone get in the way for what you believe you want to do. To be willing to just push forward…Begin with the end in mind. See yourself getting to where you want to get. It’s almost like a dream environment. Just see yourself being able to achieve whatever it is you are trying to get to ”…[Listen for More]
More About Steven Page:
Neil’s Quote at the Beginning:
“The greatest thing in this world is not so much where we stand as in what direction we are moving.” Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Other Quotes From the Chat with Steven Page:
- “the biggest mistake I think I made is I felt like I knew the right thing to do very often but I didn’t have the confidence to trust my instinct… It’s very hard to do that because you just have to really pivot forward. If in your gut you know what you feel is the right way to proceed you need to trust gut and move forward in that direction. And I do that now. I did not have the strength to trust my gut at the level that I did early on and I think that held me back significantly in the early days”
- “research is obviously a key attribute, really understanding marketplace you are going into. How significant the size of the market, practically speaking how you are going to go out and obtain the customers or whatever is required to succeed in that market. What are the real overheads of doing it? What kind of real capital do you required? I think ultimately research is such an important attribute. And now in today’s world it is so accessible that it’s great”
- “trusting my instincts would have been helpful if I had done that earlier on”
- “surrounding yourself with the right group of people and really being able to hone in on what you know you are good at and more importantly what you know you are not good at. So being able to identify your strengths and the areas that you are not strong is so hugely critical because it is hard early on to know really what you are not good at. The more you start to really understand where you excel and you can surround yourself with individuals who are talented in the areas you don’t excel; I think the more significantly you can advance forward and build out your business”
- “persistency is absolutely critical. Every entrepreneur I have ever seen has this incredible burning desire and this persistent nature where they are just going to keep pushing forward. They find a way to drive forward to what they believe in. So, I think that is absolutely critical”
- “I think it’s really, really important as an entrepreneur that you can see where you want to go. If you don’t have a vision of what you are trying to achieve, of where you want to get and ultimately end up and actually it can envision yourself getting there which is so critical. Not just the goal of knowing where you want to go but actually being able to envision yourself arriving there. I think that’s incredibly critical. For me there is something about that state of mind that speaks to you see yourself being there. Somehow whether it’s energy, karma, direction, I’m not even sure, the factors but in my life when I have been able to leverage that I end up getting to where I have seen myself wanting to be. And so beginning with the end in mind has been an incredible driving statement for me in my whole life, personally and business life”
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