The community

Join The Business Growth Factor

A private community of SMB owners, operators and the specialists who serve them, meeting live every second Thursday to work on the parts of running a business most owners were never trained for.

Membership is reviewed, not automatic. Lyndon or Josh reads every request, and you hear back either way.

Request to join Read a session first

What this actually is

The Business Growth Factor started in September 2025 as a place for SMB owners and operators to work through the same problems together instead of separately. It is deliberately small and deliberately practical.

The centre of it is one live hour. Every second Thursday at 11:00 Mountain we run a Community Connect: a working session on one specific topic, usually led by a member or a guest expert who does that thing for a living, then open questions. Twelve have run since September 2025, and the last ten each have a public write-up on this site, so you can read one before you decide anything.

Past sessions have covered exit planning and transferable value with a business broker, workplace safety and the COR and SECOR changes with a safety consultant, employee benefits with a group benefits advisor, Canadian tax, GST/HST and payroll remittances with a CPA, building a cash flow plan backwards from the life you want, OKRs, the five financial levers that decide whether revenue becomes profit, using AI to document how your business actually runs, and the cybersecurity basics behind the losses that put small companies out of business.

Everything else exists to hold that hour up. The recordings and slide decks stay available. There are twenty playbooks, templates and worksheets you can download and use, including a monthly cash flow forecast, a cash conversion cycle calculator, job description templates and playbooks for finance, sales, HR and leadership. There is a member directory that says what each person actually does. And there is one self-paced course, 6 Ways To Drive Your Revenue, in eighteen short lessons.

The other half of it is the network. When you need a marketing person, an operations person or someone to take the finance function off your desk, the community usually has that person in it, and you already know how they think because you have watched them work through a session. That is a better way to find help than a search and three referrals.

What happens when you join

There is no instant sign-up, so here is the whole sequence.

1
We read your request. Lyndon or Josh reads every one, and you hear back either way.
2
If it is a yes, we add your email address to the member list by hand and send you the link.
3
You sign in at members.thebusinessgrowthfactor.com with Google, using the address you gave us. There is no password to set.
4
You land on Start here: a short welcome video from Lyndon on what the community is for, and the few things worth doing in your first week.
5
You get the date of the next Community Connect and a calendar invite with the meeting link. Sessions run 11:00 to 12:00 Mountain.
6
Everything already in there is open to you on day one: every recorded session with its slide deck, the playbooks and templates, the member directory, and the course.
7
You post a short introduction saying what you do and what you are working on. That one post is the best predictor of whether this turns out to be useful to you.

How it works, and what we ask

Worth reading before you fill anything in, so you know what you are joining.

It asks about two hours a month of you. One live hour every second Thursday, and whatever you choose to do with the recordings and the templates in between. It is a light commitment on purpose. The people we want in here are running businesses, and a community that needs daily attention is a community they leave.

Two kinds of people are in the room, and both belong. Owners and operators come to learn, to get a second opinion on the thing in front of them, and to be exposed to work most people only see once it has gone wrong. Specialists come to teach in their own field: finance, safety, benefits, tax, IT, exit planning. That exchange is the whole design.

If you sell to SMBs, the rule is contribute first. Answer questions in your area, offer to run a session, share the thing you would normally charge for. Nobody is pitched in here and nobody is prospected. Work does sometimes follow, and that is fine, but it follows because somebody watched you be useful for an hour, not because you sent them a message.

Most of the value is in the live hour. Every session is recorded and posted with its slide deck, and the library and the course do not depend on the calendar at all. But the live hour is the only place you can put your own situation in front of the room and get a reaction to it, and that part has no replay.

Request to join

Six short questions. It takes about two minutes.

Your name *

Email *

Use the address you want to sign in with. The community runs on Google sign-in, so a Gmail or Google Workspace address works best.

Business or company *

Your role *

Which of these fits you best? *

I own or run a business I work inside a business, on the leadership or operations side I advise, consult or sell services to businesses

What are you working on right now? *

Where can we find you? (all optional)

No need for https://. Just the address, like linkedin.com/in/you.

Website

How did you hear about us?

This form does not add you to any mailing list. If you want the newsletter, there is a separate sign-up in the footer.

Questions people ask before joining

What does it cost?

Nothing. There is no membership fee today. The live sessions, the recordings, the library and the course are all included. We may introduce a fee for new members later on, and if we do, the people who are already in keep what they have.

I cannot make Thursday mornings. Is it still worth joining?

Partly, and it is worth being straight about which part. Every Community Connect is recorded and posted with its slide deck, so you can watch on your own time, and the library and the course do not depend on the calendar at all. But the live hour is the only place you can put your own situation in front of the room and get a reaction to it, and that does not have a replay. If 11:00 Mountain on a Thursday is permanently out for you, expect less from this than someone who turns up.

I advise or sell services to SMBs. Can I join?

Yes, and many members do, including most of the people who have presented a session. The rule is contribute first and pitch never. Answer questions in your area, offer to run a session, share the thing you would normally charge for. What does not work is joining to prospect, and it is obvious to everybody in the room when that is what is happening.

Who is actually in there?

Owners, general managers and operations people, mostly in Alberta and British Columbia with a few further afield, alongside the specialists who present. The businesses run from construction and trades to marketing, IT, franchising, manufacturing and professional services, mostly at the size where the owner is still close to the work. Everyone's headline and area of expertise sits in the member directory, so you can see who you would be joining before you post anything.