How to Leverage the Grow Your Business CDAP Grant

In March 2022, the Federal Government of Canada announced the Canadian Digital Adoption Program, a 4 billion dollar initial to bring Canadian small businesses into the digital age. To learn more about the program, read our post What You Need to Know About The Canadian Digital Adoption Program for Your Small Business

It’s clear from the eligible and ineligible costs that the Grow Your Business Grant is meant to help businesses with almost zero online presence catch up with businesses that have implemented a digital adoption strategy in the last 5 years. This grant would be especially helpful for local, service based businesses that don’t traditionally require or even want to adopt an e-commerce strategy. However, a digital presence should be a requirement for operating any size business as it helps reach more customers, increase visibility and legitimacy, and make it easy for people to find and connect with your goods and services online, ultimately boosting your business and enhancing customer relationships.

$2400 isn’t a ton of money, so I’d start by determining where you want to spend it, whether you have the skills and know how to do any of it in house, as well as what kind of support you want along the way. I highly recommend you take this opportunity to enlist the help of a professional, whether you choose to work with a contractor/agency, who would do most of the work for you, or a consultant who can assess your needs and develop plans, or a coach who can help you set goals and take action and set goals for your business. 

Identify Your Priorities

If you are starting from zero, I recommend picking a partner that offers a done-for-you package, just make sure they include some sort of training for you or your team or inquire about their rates for ongoing services on an as-needed basis after the project is done.

Here’s how I would leverage the Grow Your Business $2400 grant based on a three step approach to implementing an e-commerce strategy

1. Build
2. Optimize
3. Grow

Step 1. Build a Website

Remember, it’s a requirement to have an e-commerce presence as a result of your grant, so if you don’t yet have a website or have a website but don’t have e-commerce capabilities, that needs to be priority number one. 

With that comes figuring out:

• A payment processing system – how to get paid online and charge applicable taxes
• Inventory or booking management – making products or services available to purchase online
• Order fulfillment – what needs to happen after an online order is placed
• Reporting – how to track your sales, tax obligations and produce financial reports

Whether you have an existing website or not, the money should be leveraged to improve the more technical aspects of running an online business, especially getting set up with various software integrations and e-commerce tools, as it’s unlikely you have expertise in these areas. Take advantage of the Canadian Digital Adoption Program’s digital advisors and your province’s local business directories, but do your due diligence to make sure you are picking an appropriate and reputable partner (remember, you can only be reimbursed for work done by an independent business, so make sure they are a registered business). 

Step 2. Optimize Your Website

Maybe you have a website, but no one can find it, or it’s not easy to use, or doesn’t track inventory, or doesn’t integrate well with your other systems. Websites can come with a whole host of problems (pun intended) and sometimes it can feel like you’re trying to run a second business. The sooner you address the problems, the better. Unfortunately a lot of businesses put it off because it requires an overhaul of systems and can feel like starting over. 

No matter how painful the challenge of fitting the two businesses into each other might be, you’ll thank yourself in the long run once it’s done. Imagine having three kids and owning a two seater. Although it might be painful to trade in your sports car for an SUV, you’ll make fewer trips save on gas and ultimately have more time to enjoy life’s pleasures, even if you did have to give up a slick car or commit to car payments.

Step 3. Grow Your Website

Once your website is fully operational and integrated into your business, you can start to think about getting more out of your website and digital presence. This could include driving more traffic to your site, but that can’t be your only goal if you want to leverage your grant money.

You’ll need to have a larger e-commerce implementation plan to tie together any digital marketing or SEO services you want reimbursed, if you already have an e-commerce website. Some ideas might include launching a customer loyalty program, developing new web functionalities such as auto generating estimates, enabling customizations, restock notifications, instant messaging customer service capabilities, or other aspects of business that can be implemented into your e-commerce site and directly relates to the sales of goods and services. 

If you’re at this step, you’ll want to start thinking outside the box about how to leverage your grant money and harness the potential of the digital economy to grow your business beyond its current capabilities.