Home Grown Part One

The edited version of this story first appeared in Simcoe Business Magazine

Winter 2008

In Canada, where just under half (45%) of small businesses fail by the end of their fifth year, there are also businesses that are tremendously successful. Many of those tremendously successful businesses were started from living rooms, basements or garages. In our two-part series Home Grown, we will take a look at local businesses that have started small – and grown – to proportions that have astonished even the business owners themselves.

“Stretch aggressively – without pain!”
“Dynamic stretching first!”

Voices, loud and clear, filtered through Rick Schaly's partially open boardroom door. The adjoining room was busy with activity, played out on its grey-coloured therapeutic beds.

The Barrie Sports Medicine Rehabilitation Centre, located in a strip plaza at the junction of Huronia and Big Bay Point roads in Barrie, is just one component of Schaly's career success as sports injury athletic therapist.

As one of two boys born to a Holland-born, Canadian farmer, and Canadian mother raised on a farm in Ivy, Schaly's seeds to success had been sown at an early age. In addition to running the family farm, Schaly's father, also doubling as a General Tire employee, was an example of hard work for the Schaly boys.

For Schaly, a Sheridan College athletic therapist graduate, an interest in sports injuries propelled him to open his own clinic in 1988, at the age of 23.

“The day after graduating, I had a job for six months – I opened a small clinic in Toronto. Worked at that for six months, then became homesick,” he explains. “I sold the clinic, quit the job, and came back to Barrie.”

A newly built medical building in Angus gave Schaly the opportunity to re-open his sports medicine clinic closer to home turf.

“It was lots of luck, demand and good timing. We were very busy quickly. Many were travelling from Barrie to Angus. There was just the hospital and one other private clinic at the time. I opened a clinic in Collingwood 1 1/2 years later in 1990, and met my wife[Tamara]. She had zero background [experience], but she was able to help with the business end of things – reception, books, and small, business start-up stuff.”

Realizing sports rehabilitation was an untapped and under-serviced market, Schaly opened his Barrie clinic in 1991, just one year after Collingwood. With three successful rehab clinics under his belt in three years, in 1995 Schaly quickly filled the need for a second Barrie location. Not long after, he opened clinic number five, in Huntsville. It was through his clinical experience that Schaly began to see the need for higher quality products to better serve the needs of his varied clientele. Repeatedly, and very much to his dissatisfaction, braces and supports used by his patients were being returned due to functional deficiencies or poor fit. In his effort to satisfy patients, often times Schaly would take the ill-fitting braces to the local shoemaker for adjustments, then re-fit his clients. This became such a regular occurrence, Schaly recognized the opportunity to expand his growing enterprise.

Trainer's Choice, Inc.

Established in 1991, Trainer's Choice began providing physiotherapy clients with off-the-shelf products, in addition to retailing other brands of hard-molded supports. Realizing the need for better fit, comfort and function of devices used by his physiotherapy patients, in 1993 Schaly decided to manufacture his own line of braces and supports, further expanding his business through his knowledge and hands-on experience. Schaly analyzed the needs of active or athletic individuals that required a brace, and tailored his line of products around those needs. Renting 1,500 sq. ft. of space at 53 Churchill Dr. in Barrie, and after mapping out a business plan and purchasing sewing machines, with one sewer and one sales representative, he focused his energy on creating his line of neoprene and metal-component products, Trainer's Choice Sports Medicine Products®. In the beginning, a productive day would yield 30-50 units, compared to 2000 units/day the company produces now. After Schaly's initial investment of $110 000, growth was steady. Two years later, Trainer's Choice doubled its space at Churchill Drive.

“For the first two to three years we were learning,”Schaly admits. “Our success, as I see it, is really [the result of] high quality products and our focus on athletes and therapists. We constantly communicate with professionals and have a great understanding of associated problems.”

By 1998 it was time to lighten the load. Finding it difficult to be in five clinics and simultaneously focus on the success of Trainer's Choice, Schaly decided to sell his Collingwood and Huntsville clinics. Additionally, the arrival of the first of two children to the Schalys' hectic schedule also was a motivating factor to downsize.
Schaly saw the need for expansion three years into his retail manufacturing business. From Churchill Drive, Trainer's Choice then moved to their current location, 411 Huronia Rd., where they manufactured their products before the decision to offshore in Sri Lanka in late 2004.

'Offshoring', 'outsourcing' or 'global sourcing' as it is sometimes called, is the option companies choose when looking to reduce production costs. They choose an offshore, or overseas location to manufacture goods, importing back the processed product. With the rise of the Canadian dollar negatively affecting Canadian manufacturers' sales internationally, offshoring buffers companies from dropped sales during a high Canadian dollar by providing a lower manufactured cost.

“Trainer's Choice required more space, equipment, and staff,” recalls Schaly. “Significant investments were made in research and development, and sales and marketing. Experience and knowledge was acquired to address manufacturing processes, warehousing, shipping/receiving, packaging, and considerable energy was placed in branding and marketing.  A strategy we employed 10 years ago, and still is a pillar today is providing education to pharmacists, home-health staff, physicians and therapists.”

Partnering with U.S.-based company North Sails gave Trainer's Choice access to its internal resources, external buying power and expertise. By using the same materials as Trainer's Choice, North Sails has reduced raw material costs for Trainer's Choice. Together with lower labour rates in Sri Lanka, the combination has resulted in savings of 25% for Trainer's Choice, and a projected savings of 40% for the future. Of its 900 employees, North Sails dedicates 95 solely to Trainer's Choice Sports Medicine Products®.

“We have been fortunate to develop a strong relationship with North Sails, an American-owned manufacturing company,” explains Schaly. “The company is contracted by Trainer's Choice to produce our products. However, the relationship is very close, as we send our production manager to Sri Lanka every quarter to oversee production, quality, and review research and development projects. We have been able to work together to improve quality, and have co-developed several new products. The growth of our line has allowed them to purchase a building, and dedicate full time staff solely to Trainer's Choice production. Some of the benefits of working with the company in Sri Lanka are: a lowered cost base, they speak English, [have]an abundance of labour and highly skilled workforce; they can increase production on demand.”

The bulk of shipping and receiving is done at 400 Huronia Rd. Trainer’s Choice uses several wholesalers such as McKesson, Ascenda, Express, Amerisource Bergen, and Kohl & Frish to stock and warehouse their products, making significant effort at keeping inventory turning to avoid extra warehousing requirements.

Looking to further expand the Trainer's Choice product selection and become a one stop sports medicine supplier, Schaly added to his retail sales other products under the physiotherapy/sports injury umbrella: first aid, medical supplies, physio/chiropractic clinic supplies and team trainers items like medical tape, bandages, pro-wrap, heat rubs, suture kits, etc. and close to 10,000 other related medical supplies. Some of the items are repackaged, and branded as Trainer's Choice products.

“Our best sellers are two or three different knee products, then wrist, elbow and ankle. We see a lot of wrist, ankle and knee sprains.”

Acquiring clients such as university, college and pro teams was the stepping stone to becoming official suppliers to Hockey Canada, Canadian Olympic Teams and the Canadian Soccer Association.

“We support hockey trainers' programs, exploring concussion injuries and checking-from-behind issues. We supply Team Canada [Hockey] with all their products – tape and bandages, from the World Junior Team to the Ladies Team to our Olympic Team. Supplying our Canadian Olympic Teams really gave credibility to our company. Some of their medical staff had previous experience with Trainer's Choice Sports Medicine Products®. They chose our brand to supply every games competition, and for every sport.”

With 850 000 kids and adults playing soccer annually in Canada, Trainer's Choice not only supplies Soccer Canada with medical supplies, but contributes also through safety development and injury prevention education, from grassroot to national teams. Ultimately it was the achievement of such success at national levels that encouraged Schaly to look at mass retailing his products.

“After creating retail packaging with Kempenfelt Graphics [Barrie], we sent our sales rep team cross-country to approach home health stores and pharmacies with our product,” he explains.

As a result of that promotional push, the Trainer's Choice label can now be found in Shoppers Drug Mart, PharmaSave, London Drugs, PharmaChoice, UniPrix, Brunet and PharmaPrix stores.

“By 2008 we'll be in three more major retailers, essentially dominating the brace and support category across Canada,” explains Schaly. “We're just beginning the U.S., supplying nine Henry Ford Hospitals in Michigan, with several more deals soon to close.”

Grabbing The Bull By The Horns

The rodeo circuit, once labelled loosely as “cowboy wanderlust”, has gradually gained professional sport status, each year drawing spectators by hundreds of thousands to rodeos large and small worldwide. Many professional bull riders competing for top prizes now consider their sport a career. Athletes participating in this challenging and dangerous sport require - and hire – support medical teams to travel their circuit, ready to assist should injuries occur.

The astronomical success of a business located “in our own back yard” didn't end inside the pharmacy store door. Now the official supplier for the Professional Bull Riders (PBR) Canada and sponsor of its sports medicine team, Trainer's Choice Sports Medicine Products® supplies the PBR with all of its first aid supplies – bandages, gauze, transport boards and tables, in addition to knee,wrist and ankle braces. Funding PBR Canada's athletes provides Trainer's Choice international exposure through promotional ring signs, and commercials displayed on rodeo score clocks. High risk sport, high profile advertising.
Currently the employer to 60 full-time contracted sewers and 12 staff members, Trainer's Choice is Canada’s fastest growing brace and support company based on international marketing research firm AC Nielson.

Mind to Muscle

It takes a lot of muscle to mind teams such as the Barrie Colts, skaters training at Mariposa School of Skating and members of Barrie Lakeshores Major A Lacrosse. With the fall 2007 opening of Schaly's 13, 000 sq. ft. training facility Mind to Muscle™, athletes are offered a fully equipped gym, sprint track, court training area, turf training field and an indoor rink shooting area – all this in addition to team change rooms, a lounge, and laundry facility.
Located at 526 Welham Rd. Barrie, Mind to Muscle™ assists athletes through sport-specific training programs and non-athletes through fitness and specialized yoga programs geared toward clients of all ages wishing to maintain a healthy lifestyle. Ten staff members assist clients with their athletic conditioning, agility and injury prevention.
Mind to Muscle™, together with his rehabilitation clinics rounds out Schaly's business endeavours – a perfect fit with Trainer's Choice????®. Schaly's Sports Medicine and Rehabilitation Centres and Mind to Muscle™ has provided employment to a combined 47 area occupational, athletic, physio, chiropractic and massage therapists, including ergo kinesiologists.

With a yearly growth rate for Trainer's Choice sitting at 32%, and a brand new training facility to support our local athletes, Schaly continues to plan for the future. His plans for the future involve expansion from leased space to owned space, and expanding his sports medicine clinic to provide additional multi-disciplinary rehabilitation services.

“I eventually want everything at one location – including our clinic with physiotherapy, massage therapy, chiropractic and occupational therapies, bringing together Mind to Muscle™ athletic training, and our manufacturing and warehousing with a retail Trainer's Choice store.”

Addressing his business success, Schaly comments, “Our success has been possible by having dedicated and loyal staff who love to come to work each day. We could not have achieved our success without the efforts of our team.”
Schaly attributes much of his success today also to the fact that he and his wife both grew up on farms.

“I learned an awful lot of hard work from my father,” Schaly laughs. “We [Schaly and wife Tamara] both learned the value of hard work early. The lessons we learned as kids serve us extremely well today. We often joke about the “joy” of picking stones in ploughed fields.”

Now with two children to keep him busy, let's say busier, Schaly looks forward to family time at his cottage. Success in two domains.
Stretch and grow aggressively – without pain...

Sources: Industry Canada. Small Business Research and Policy. How Long Do Small Businesses Survive? (Table 3);  graph prepared by Mr. Benjamin Tal, Senior Economist, CIBC World Markets. CIBC Small Business. Secrets to Small Business Success.