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BorderBuddy was founded a decade ago by Graham Robins, Jr. Importing and exporting was in Graham’s blood, as his parents built the highly successful A&A Customs Brokers business back in 1979.
Graham’s concept for BorderBuddy was to simplify the customs process. BorderBuddy specializes in importing and exporting products to North America. With a dedicated focus on consumers and small businesses, BorderBuddy keeps information focused and easy for everyone to understand. Here is a little bit of our story, including how we have evolved over the years.
Our Commitment to You
Treat customers the way we’d like to be treated.
Treat customers the way we’d like to be treated.They don’t call it the golden rule for nothing. We built our business from the ground up on innovation, trust, and results.
Keep it simple.
Keep it simple.Importing and exporting goods is our thing. We’re here to make that as simple and stress-free as possible for the everyday consumer.
Leave the math to us.
Leave the math to us.Our revolutionary tools handle all the calculations for duties and taxes, so you can focus on things that won’t give you a headache.
Change is good!
Change is good!When it comes to changing a dated and complex customs industry, we say YES! Our goal is to revolutionize the customs brokerage industry.
Our Core Values
- Customer Obsession
- Create & Simplify
- Learn & Be Curious
- Own The Outcome
- Collaborative Team Players
- Attention To Detail & Quality
Our Culture
Listening to Our Customers
Positive reviews are great, but negative reviews are really important because they show us what we need to be doing better. We take every negative review and break it down to see how we can continuously improve customer experience. We respond to every review, whether negative or positive, to acknowledge our customers’ experience.
Continuous Learning
Because knowledge is power, we work hard at being learn-it-alls, not know-it-alls. We all read a new book every quarter to inspire, and to remind ourselves to continually open our minds and be innovators in business. It might be Radical Candor: How to Get What You Want by Saying What You Mean, or The Best Service is No Service, which talks about how to keep your customers happy, controlling costs at the same time.
We share our different perspectives on each book at our “lunch-and-learns”, and are inspired in breaking down how we relate to what we read and how we can apply it in further innovating and streamlining our business.
Offsite Retreats
We hold quarterly one-day retreats, and annual two-day retreats to discuss what’s working, not working, our 30-60-90 day goals, and the actions we’ll take to achieve those goals.
Our Mission
Graham has worked hard over the last dozen years to ensure that there is not just a nuts and bolts operating system, but an emotional operating system at the core of everything we do. Because business is about people, and if employees and customers are not feeling like their needs are being met, we’re doing something wrong.
We live in times of intense tech innovation and disruption. The concept from the start with BorderBuddy was to build not just a business, but a community, with purpose beyond profit. Since we are in the business of importing and exporting, our goal is to provide solutions to move things forward for our customers. Graham’s involvement in YPO (Young Presidents’ Organization) has instilled in him a holistic approach to leadership, with personal development and continual innovation as the focus.
Our Core Focus
Our passion is to deliver AWESOME!
Our point of difference is that we simplify customs brokerage.
Our Journey
2008
BorderBuddy launches as a side business to A&A
Graham joins YPO
YPO (Young Presidents’ Organization) is a global leadership community of chief executives driven by a belief that the world needs better leaders. Graham was proud to join this network that inspires and challenges one another based on open sharing and trust among a diverse community. He took inspiration from the lifelong learning and idea exchange at the core of YPO and committed to continual growth and innovation for BorderBuddy from that day on.
Duty Calculator launched
We developed and launched the unique, innovative Customs Duty Calculator because you, our customer, shouldn’t have to do math. This revolutionary tool means you won’t have to — when it comes to calculating duties and taxes. To this day, there is nothing comparable out there that makes calculations in real-time like this for importers and exporters.
2017
BorderBuddy is relaunched with a fresh concept and its own dedicated building in Surrey, British Columbia.
With the progression of e-commerce, we saw a need that needed to be filled. Not only were companies in need of import and export expertise, but consumers were now shipping and receiving goods as well on a smaller scale. So in addition to our B2B function, we made it a point to accommodate B2C as well, to meet customer demand. BorderBuddy is truly there to provide solutions for any customer, no matter how large or how small.
BorderBuddy is relaunched with a fresh concept and its own dedicated building in Surrey, British Columbia.
With the progression of e-commerce, we saw a need that needed to be filled. Not only were companies in need of import and export expertise, but consumers were now shipping and receiving goods as well on a smaller scale. So in addition to our B2B function, we made it a point to accommodate B2C as well, to meet customer demand. BorderBuddy is truly there to provide solutions for any customer, no matter how large or how small.
2018
Implemented EOS (Entrepreneurial Operating System)
Another layer of innovation for BorderBuddy was studying EOS and implementing it as a tool for managers and employees to discuss creating more ownership and buy-in at the staff level. The idea is that employees take an active role in helping achieve the company’s vision, and it has been really effective.
2019
Implemented KPI Checklists
After reading KPI Checklists by Bernie Smith, we actually had him come in and talk to us about KPI (Key Performance Indicator) strategies. We implemented weekly and monthly scorecards with KPIs that we track to help us overhaul our 90-day goals, as well as our annual goals.
Launched a Podcast
Building on BorderBuddy’s corporate culture of innovation, Graham started The Graham Robins Podcast, dedicated to helping today’s business leaders grow and scale their businesses. The conversations with these really versatile and fascinating thought leaders inspire actionable, powerful ideas about finding success in business and in life.
Implemented KPI Checklists
After reading KPI Checklists by Bernie Smith, we actually had him come in and talk to us about KPI (Key Performance Indicator) strategies. We implemented weekly and monthly scorecards with KPIs that we track to help us overhaul our 90-day goals, as well as our annual goals.
Launched a Podcast
Building on BorderBuddy’s corporate culture of innovation, Graham started The Graham Robins Podcast, dedicated to helping today’s business leaders grow and scale their businesses. The conversations with these really versatile and fascinating thought leaders inspire actionable, powerful ideas about finding success in business and in life.
Future of BorderBuddy
At BorderBuddy, we strive to continually move forward and adapt to changes in the industry and evolving regulations, while always putting our customers’ needs first. There is a massive shift toward digitization at the moment. In anticipation of this trend, we want to optimize our operation to eliminate paperwork and redundant data to continue to streamline the customer experience.
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Jay Mohl, Sales & Marketing, Parksville Boathouse Parksville B.C.
Amanda Burr at BorderBuddy made our shipment seamless and her customer service was outstanding. Without question, we will work with Amanda and BorderBuddy again in the future. Thanks Amanda!
Don Mariutto
“I used BorderBuddy when were in a jam with a small tile shipment to Canada — just called them randomly after a Google search. Blair handled our case, and was in constant communication with updates, and got our shipment released within 24 hours, even though we were starting the process from scratch. Based on this experience, I can’t recommend Blair and the BorderBuddy team highly enough. Even though this was just a small shipment, they handled it like it was the most important on their agenda. We will definitely work with them again in the future – hopefully though, not on an emergency basis! THANK YOU!!”
Nathan Bird
company is always so very helpful in getting things across the border without any headaches. Tara was our agent this time around and she was prompt in answering any questions, super polite over the phone and coordinated everything for us. Highly recommend using their services.
