en·tre·pre·neur
äntrəprəˈno͝or,-ˈnər/
noun

Just over a decade ago, two very young entrepreneurs named John Stix and Jody Schnarr started up their very own telecommunication company and they called it Fibernetics.

Not exactly typical behaviour for two guys barely out of school, yet when it came down to it, they couldn’t see themselves working for anybody else. They tried. They simply didn’t like it.

Since then their little start-up has grown into one of the largest CLEC’s in the country and Worldline, their residential service and NEWT, the business division are handling communications for hundreds of thousands of Canadians from coast to coast.

Co-Founders John and Jody

Though they are very successful business guys now, both refuse to give up that entrepreneurial spirit that drove them from the start.

Jody is busy starting up new Fibernetics related ventures like Rack&Data, and John is actively working at sharing what he’s learned with the next generation of whiz kids.

The Indus Entrepreneurs (TiE), was founded in 1992 in Silicon Valley by a group of successful corporate executives and senior professionals. There are currently 11,000 members, including over 2,500 charter members in 60 chapters across 17 countries. TiE’s mission is to foster entrepreneurship globally through mentoring, networking, and education.

The Toronto chapter of the TiE Institute  are bringing together talented entrepreneurs to spend an intense weekend building technology and business solutions to some of the world’s biggest social and environmental challenges. The top teams will receive a variety of valuable prizes and will have option to be fast-tracked to TiE Lean LaunchPad program.

The event is ideal for entrepreneurs passionate about leveraging technology to create social good and positive impact in the world as well as those who want to start a new company, add members to their existing teams, or simply network with other like-minded entrepreneurs.

John has been invited to act as a mentor for this group of young innovators who will create the next batch of great Canadian companies. If you are interested in attending, please visit the the Startup Weekend’s website today, and make sure you say “Hi” to John.

I do! I do! Okay, we all do.

Step 1

Refer your friends. Get your own personal Pay-It-Back Referral Link which you can email, or share on social channels. You can also use the simple Pay-It-Back Email Form and fill in up to ten of your friends email addresses. That’s it. Your job is done.

Step 2

Your friends and family sign up. We will give them an instant signing bonus of $25 off their first bill and they are on their way to saving even more.

Step 3

We pay you. Each referral will earn you a one-time credit of $20.00, plus $5.00/month for 12 consecutive months. That’s $80.00 in total credits for each and every successful referral.

That’s it. Straight forward. Simple. Easy as pie. So, if you are a Worldline Bundle customer, what are you waiting for? It’ll take you just a couple of minutes to get going, and saving more on what is already the best deal in Canada. And if you’re not a Bundle Customer, maybe it’s time you became one – because there are few things better than free.

Get started here:

At Worldline we are always trying to improve our corporate culture. Besides making the work environment more pleasant, it’s also good business. Happy employees make for better workers who, in turn, provide better service for our customers.

We have dozens of programs both large and small that are designed to make everyone’s working experience better and one example is centered around who gets to park where.

Every office has the perfect parking spot, and usually it is reserved for someone high up in company, the president, CEO, general manager, whoever. Yet, is that really the best use of that valuable real estate? Those folks already have plenty of perks. Do they really need to have the shortest walk to the front door?

Like many other companies, Worldline has come up with an alternative assignment for this spot, (in our case two spots), that works as both a competition and a reward. Every month we auction ours off in a day-long bidding war, with the proceeds going to charity.

It’s fun, it’s competitive and it raises money for charity. Win. Win. Win. Other businesses have also embraced the idea with these being some of the most popular:

1. Stork Parking

Expectant mothers should get convenient, front row spaces.

2. Green Parking

Car poolers, hybrid cars, electric cars and bikes should get primo parking spots to encourage reducing our overall carbon footprint.

3. Employee-of-the-Month Parking

Many businesses have Employee-of-the-Month programs. instead of a certificate, why not go a step further and all he or she to enjoy a premiere parking for a month.

Improving corporate culture is an ongoing exercise, and not every perk has to be something major. Even something as basic as a parking spot.

Worldline is in the midst of some serious growth and we’d like to say it’s all due to this fantastic new marketing campaign, embracing social media, our Super Hero Kids, our overall advertising awesomeness and of course, this blog.

We’d like to say that, but we can’t.

In fact, while our new marketing initiatives are increasing our overall brand awareness, which is indeed translating into incrementally increased sales, the biggest driver of our continuing growth are our existing customers referring their friends and family to us.

It turns out that a bunch of our customers are a bunch of Sally Field’s, and they really really like us!

It varies from month to month, but in September of 2013, 30% of our new customers were “friends of our friends.”

That number amazed us.

As a service in a very competitive marketplace, it’s really great to garner that amount of faith from our customer base. After all, they wouldn’t recommend us to their friends and family if we sucked.

That said, a lot of it is due to our referral program we call Pay-It-Back. It allows our current Internet and Home Phone Bundle customers to save $5/month on their bill for every new Worldline Bundle customer they refer to us. If they refer eleven customers, they get their unlimited Internet and home phone for free.

Cool huh? The thing is, as successful as this program is, it’s a bit of a pain in the butt for our customers to manage as it’s totally hands on. The referring is completely up to them.

We’re changing that. Come next week we’re adding in some automation to the process to make it easier for our Bundle customers to help spread the word, plus some added bonuses for both the referring customer, and the new referred customer as well.

Look for Pay-It-Back 2.0  to roll out coming this Monday, January 20th. It’s gonna be great.

We had a laugh with the You Pick Your Trip contest. We got to give away a great prize to a great guy. We got to donate some money to charity and overall the response was so terrific, we’re definitely going to hold more over the course of the year (Yeah!)

But before putting the first one to bed and wishing our winner Jalistair Declaro and his wife Anne, “Bon Voyage,” we really have to do something first.

We have to say “thank you” to a ton of folk who didn’t win.

Thousands entered from across Canada, and not surprisingly, most of those who did were our customers. Part of the entry form included a “Comments” section, which we added in for no particular reason really. It’s just something we do just in case someone has something to get off their chest.

There were a couple of minor technical issues, and a bunch of “Unless I Win, Don’t Call Me!,” messages but by far, the majority went something like this:

• Worldline is the best decision we ever made!!  The service has been unparalleled! If you were to open up a cellular service to Eastern Canada, we would be switching carriers (Currently we are with Telus).   Thank you.

Or this:

• Thanks a lot for providing a great service. I am so happy I found you guys as an alternative to the Big Telecom/ISP Giants. Your customer service is great! Hope I get lucky with this trip! *fingers crossed*

Or this:

• Thank you Worldline for giving me years of excellent service i would never switch to another provider we are 100 percent satisfied with your service. Merry Christmas from all of us to all of you. Thank you

Those are just a sample of the hundreds we received and I bundled them all up and sent them off to the entire Worldline staff as a New Year’s Eve present. They loved them.

Like any other service provider, the vast majority of feedback we receive from our customers happens when they’re not too happy, i.e. during a billing issue, or a problem with their service etc. They are understandably upset, because, really, who would want to be on the phone or online with us if they didn’t have to be? We understand that and try to make those inevitable calls as quick and painless as possible.

These messages were different however, as they were completely unsolicited and driven by no other motivation than saying “thanks.”

So cool.

We also heard from a bunch of entrants saying simply, “Wishing the best in 2014!”

Right back at you.

Jalistair, Anne and Co-Founder, Mike Brown (Courtesy Waterloo Record)

And speaking of which, 2014 is going to be a terrific year for our Worldline customers, (and not just because of the additional Your Pick Your Trip contests.)

Just next week we’re rolling out a new program we know our current bundle subscribers are going to love. (Stay tuned).

We will also be introducing brand new products and services throughout the year that are going to be nothing short of game changers.

Very exciting. We can’t wait to hear what you have to say at the end of this year.