Lori-Ann: Pure Momentum is a grassroots company that handles the speaking and appearances for some of Canada’s best female athletes, as well as other prominent female personalities, non-traditional trades, musicians, the arts, trail-blazing women that have started different things that maybe people hadn’t thought possible before. So it’s something a little bit different, and it showcases some of Canada’s best females on the planet.

Barbra: And people can find you on the web, I guess, at www.puremomentum.ca or .com?

Lori-Ann: Dot ca.

Barbra: Because you’re Canadian and you’re focusing on Canadian women...

Lori-Ann: Yes, it’s only Canadian women.

Barbra: Great. Can you give us an idea of who’s on your current roster of speakers?

Lori-Ann: Absolutely. We have Shirley Benson who is Western Canada’s first female firefighter. Lynn Fraser, a local Edmontonian. We have a couple of athletes. Gina Grain from Vancouver. She's in road and track cycling. Tara Norton and Linnea Humphrey are two amazing triathlete women. The musicians on board are Carole Pope and Sass Jordan. I have a few women who actually deal with a lot of performance coaching, that sort of thing. We have Steffany Hanlen, Jamie Kessel, and Cindy Shaw. Then last but not least, we have two amazing women in the media - Carrie Doll and Jennifer Martin.

Barbra: Wow. That’s a very impressive roster of speakers.

Lori-Ann: Thank you.

Barbra: Lori-Ann, after you came back from the Olympics, did you know that you wanted to start this business or was there a period of transition where you were looking at various options?

Lori-Ann: Well, there was a few different things going on. The cycling season used to be a spring/summer sport for the regular season but has now been moved right after the Olympics to be a winter sport but still a summer Olympics. So it gets a little confusing.

So right after the Olympics, I had a two-week down period and then had to start training for the 2005 season which really started in November of 2004 and went until the end of March 2005. So I was doing both. I was doing speaking, appearances, I was training fulltime, participated in two World Cups, trying to win the World Championships at the end of March.

Barbra: It sounds like quite a balancing act.

Lori-Ann: Yes, that's exactly right - a balancing act. My first focus was cycling but then some days it was the speaking. You need to fill the requests. I wanted to get out and meet all the people who had supported me and just tell my story and just give people the different insights. So really it was a balancing act of doing both.

Then once the 2005 cycling season had come to a close, I got to think about, What was it I wanted to do with Pure Momentum. There was a bit of that down time so I didn’t have to focus on training fulltime, on racing, traveling around the world. It really went from there.

Barbra: How did you figure out how to do it?

Lori-Ann: I sat down on Canada Day, July 1st, 2005 and defined what Pure Momentum is and what I wanted to do with it exactly. That’s when I came up with the vision statement of enabling Canadian women to have their voices heard.

Our mission statement is: “To discover, promote, and build a community of female speakers, regardless of age or race, and whose experiences can be shared with others.”

Once I defined that, it really mirrors the training that I did for the Olympics, and my philosophy of, if you want to do something, you have to plan it.

How do you do that if you don’t know where you’re going? You take a starting point and you go, Okay, this is where I’m at right now...where do I want to go?

Then you start talking with people. Maybe you get a coach, a business coach, or a performance coach, and you start defining what those things are. That was when Pure Momentum was really defined.

Barbra: That’s interesting, Lori-Ann. It sounds like when you developed that mission statement you were doing what, I think it’s Stephen Covey who says, “Start with the end in mind.”

Lori-Ann: Exactly. One of my favorite quotes that I’ve always said is, “All you need to know is where you’re going.” If you truly believe it, you will get there. Going back to sports, I knew I wanted to go to the Olympics.

So that was the end result. I didn’t know how I was going to get there, but I knew that that was the end goal. But there’s a journey between where you currently are right here, right now and where you want to go and where you’re going to go. That’s the same as developing the business.

I’m into a new industry. I’m into a new field. What do I need to know? What do I need to learn? Who is also going to be part of my team where I’m not doing it solo but I have that support, I have people that help keep me accountable?

Barbra: What have you had to learn, Lori-Ann?

Lori-Ann: Everything, absolutely everything. I think one of the hardest parts right now is, I don’t actually go into a business location. I don’t have an office outside of my house. I’m home based. You can be on-call 7/24 as opposed to, well, I work Monday to Friday from eight until four or nine until five, that sort of thing.

A lot of people figure when you work at home, you’ve got all kinds of time that you can chat on the phone, you can meet for lunch. Well, you still have to think and be a businessperson. So how can you get your work done? How do you balance everything?

Barbra: Any tips that you have for other home business people at achieving that balance?

Lori-Ann: I think what you really need to do is have a team, surround yourself with amazing, great people. If you don’t know anybody, go out and talk to people. Put it out there what you’re doing, what you’re looking for, what you love to learn. Keep all the doors and opportunities absolutely open 7/24.

And definitely write it down. Write it down what you want to do, where you’re going. Even if you can’t define specifically, start backwards. Work general and then from there start defining what those different points are. I think that really will make a difference.

Part 2 of this interview will be posted tomorrow. In Part 2, Lori-Ann talks about the roadblocks she encountered in establishing her motivational speakers business, and how she overcame those roadblocks.