For Marcie Balaban, founder and president of Let’s Get Going, there is always a new horizon to strive towards, new goals to meet and new people to help through the motivational sales skills she has honed to a razor-sharp level since her first job in the garment industry in 1980.

“It was on my first job that I learned quickly what worked well for a client and their customers, and to not be shy about wearing a company logo. My start with smaller accounts taught me business at the grassroots level. After 10 years I was fully comfortable with my sales, communication and motivational skills to the point that I was ready to look for a new challenge,” said Ms. Balaban.

At that point Ms. Balaban stepped back and did 18 months of research to see where the next path would take her. She took a pulse of the Montreal business community by interviewing storeowners, restaurant owners, small businesses, large operations, CEOs and business people in general. Ms. Balaban began to formulate what direction she would follow by filtering all the data from a psychological and sociological standpoint from courses she had followed for two years at McGill University.

The catalyst for Ms. Balaban came when she attended a seminar by Anthony Robbins in Laval. “I sat there in the third row with tears in my eyes from the realization that my career was right in front of me,” she said.

There was no stopping her as Ms. Balaban devoured some 250 books on the topic of motivation drawing from the libraries of several major players in the game like Robbins, John Bradshaw, Steven Covey, Melodie Beattie, Ken Blanchard and Barbara DeAngelis. “They were my teachers, I grew 100 times by the knowledge I acquired from them.”

One seminar in particular struck Ms. Balaban, on the topic of co-dependency. “Co-dependency is a focus of either a person, place or thing to the point of self-destruction. For example: a feeling of failure, burnout, depression or lack of business motivation. I knew I wanted to be able to help people and businesses avoid this pitfall,” she said.

Through her listening and studying from Blanchard in the U.S., she soon learned that the flipside of co-dependency is knowing what your purpose is in life. Between all her knowledge through her teachers, purpose is what Let’s Get Going is all about. And the purpose of Let’s Get Going is to build business relationships and to teach entrepreneurs to be the best that they can be. Another key element for Ms. Balaban was when she joined Toastmasters International where within six months she had earned the status of CTM, a Certified Public Speaker. Sparked by her success, Ms. Balaban pursued the next level with Toastmasters International and earned ATM Bronze level Public Speaker status. All those skills fell into place as she began hosting motivational seminars at the Pointe Claire and Côte de Liesse Holiday Inns.

Over a seven year span, Ms. Balaban hosted some 500 Montreal area sales conferences while pursuing her drive to build the first personal growth and networking opportunity company in Montreal. “At that point I decided to take a sabbatical from Toastmasters International and focus on the growth of Let’s Get Going,” she said.

To date, there are seven divisions of Let’s Get Going and an office and conference center on Brunswick in Dollard des Ormeaux.

Members of Let’s Get Going are encouraged to increase the harmony and motivation in Montreal by creating a specific blueprint of their company with goals, and a sincere desire to connect with other companies in the surrounding areas one day at a time.

The most important step to success lies with Ms. Balaban’s uncanny knack for being a business matchmaker. “I can put two strangers together and see them build a bridge to do business to the benefit of both parties,” she said.

The upcoming year is to be a very busy one for Ms. Balaban and Let’s Get Going, starting with the launch of Let’s Get Going II. “Company II is designed to match-make corporations in Montreal that haven’t yet established a business relationship with other corporations. The second part to Company II is to show employees how to effectively use the telephone and be able to track the results hourly, weekly and monthly; also to guide all the staff in a given company to be an effective sales person on the job.

From January 2002 through December 2002, Marcie Balaban will reveal “The 12 Possibilities” one month at a time on how to build business relationships. She plans on having her first book published by September, which will be a handbook on the 12 Possibilities.

“Each month in Let’s Get Going will reveal another piece of the puzzle to my members,” she said. Over the same timeframe she is also planning to grow from 120 member companies to 400. If all that isn’t enough, Ms. Balaban plans to return to Toastmasters International and complete her Silver level. This being an Olympic year, like the best athletes in the world she plans to “Go for the Gold” with Toastmasters International.

“One day I wish my legacy to be that I did all I could to help individuals be better communicators, better people and basically nicer on the job,” says Marcie Balaban. Within the next three months you will be able to find all the members on an added Let’s Get Going web page. For more information about Let’s Get Going, head to www.letsgetgoing-global.com on the web.

So… why wait?