As far back as he can remember, Steve French has been an entrepreneur. He was that kid who washed cars, mowed lawns, and sold stuff door-to-door.
After college, Steve worked for several major companies in Canada at the C-Suite level in IT, but he was spending a lot of time on the road away from his young family, and he didn’t like the politics at work. So, Steve started his own company, infomatix, which is dedicated to helping entrepreneurs grow their businesses.
Steve tells clients he can make them profitable from day one and double their profits in three years or less. How does he do it? Four areas of focus—people, process, technology, and profitability. And the good news? Steve says you don’t have to reinvent the wheel to create a business that serves the life you want to lead.
“Steve’s superpower is he can walk into a business, look at 50 variables, and identify the three most important ones,” says BEATS WORKING host Mark Wright. “That focus is key.”
In this episode, Steve also offers tips on harnessing AI to massively leverage every employee you have and shares a radical concept he teaches clients called “Profit First.” Developed by Mike Michalowicz, it can transform your business and even your personal finances.
Resources from the episode:
- Connect with Steve French on LinkedIn.
- Learn more about infomatix here and catch up with their blog here.
- Follow infomatix on Facebook and Twitter/X.
- Live in Canada? Give your business a digital edge with the Canada Digital Adoption Program (CDAP). Learn more here.
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Transcript
The following transcript is not certified. Although the transcription is largely accurate, in some cases it is incomplete or inaccurate due to inaudible passages or transcription errors. The information contained within this document is for general information purposes only.
Speakers: Steve French and Mark Wright
STEVE FRENCH 00:00
Most small businesses They’re helmed and, you know, they were created by people who are very good at doing something. They’re a great dentist, they’re a great lawyer, they’re a great electrician, they’re a great HVAC specialist, something like that. But they’re not great at being business owners, they’re not great at being entrepreneurs. And so that’s one of the big things that we help with, is to help them understand what does it take to really run a business.
MARK WRIGHT 00:29
This is the BEATS WORKING show. We’re on a mission to redeem work – the word, the place, and the way. I’m your host, Mark Wright. Join us at winning the game of work. Welcome to BEATS WORKING. On the show this week, growing your business without having to reinvent the wheel. As far back as he can remember, Steve French has been an entrepreneur. He was that kid who washed cars and mowed lawns and sold stuff to everybody door to door. After college, Steve worked for several major corporations in Canada at the C suite level in IT. But he was spending a lot of time on the road, away from his young family. And he also didn’t like the politics at work. So, Steve started his own company, dedicated to helping entrepreneurs grow their businesses. Steve tells clients he can make them profitable from day one and double their profits in three years or less. How does he do it? Four areas of focus. People, process, technology, and profitability. And the good news, Steve says you don’t have to reinvent the wheel to create a business that serves the life you want to lead. We cover a lot of ground, including a radical idea called Profit First. And also, how to harness AI to massively leverage every employee you have. I hope you enjoy my conversation with Steve French, Steve French, welcome to the BEATS WORKING podcast. It’s so good to have you here. I’ve really been looking forward to talking with you, Steve, because so many people who start businesses, entrepreneurs and others who start businesses, they are so interested in how do I grow the business? And it is a huge mystery because it seems like there are a lot of different ways you can grow a business. So, let’s talk about you and your company. Infomatix is, uh, what, just about 20 years old now. Explain to people, Steve, what Infomatix is all about.
STEVE FRENCH 02:23
Mm hmm. Yeah. Uh, so great to be here. Thank you, Mark. Uh, at Infomatix, we, uh, help our clients double their business in three years or less and make them profitable from day one.
MARK WRIGHT 02:33
Wow. That’s, that’s a big statement. And, and I’m guessing you’ve got a lot of experience and are confident in being able to make that statement, right?
STEVE FRENCH 02:42
I am. Yeah. So, I mean, like I say, we’ve been working in Infomatix for 20 years. I worked in corporate for about 21 years. Before that, I have a commerce degree and I’ve worked in some very, very high growth businesses. And so, yeah, we’ve been doing this for a long time. And a big part of what we do is we found that success is formulaic and a lot of, uh, the commonality between the successes that we’ve experienced, our clients have experienced, you know, you can, it’s a little bit like a recipe. So instead of reinventing things all the time, we’re looking for those best practices to, uh, to help grow.
MARK WRIGHT 03:19
And I was really intrigued when we talked maybe a few weeks ago, Steve. One of your abilities, and you know, you’re part of Strategic Coach, which is something that we featured a couple of times so far on the podcast, but one of your abilities is you can walk into a business, you can look at 50 things on the table and say, here are the three things that are the keys to the success of this business. And I think that’s, that’s going to be really interesting to get, to get into. And I also just, um, the philosophy that you have adopted of profit first, um, is really interesting. So there, there are going to be some game-changing things we’re going to be talking about for, for people in the listening audience, but first, as they say, let’s go back to the beginning. I’d love to talk about how you became an entrepreneur. Um, you told me you were that kid who was always washing cars, mowing lawns, going door to door, selling. What was the name of the company for those in the Canadian audience that you sold door to door?
STEVE FRENCH 04:15
Oh, uh, so we did, uh, Regal Greetings and Gifts. I had a car wash company, Steve’s Wash and Wax. Yeah, I’ve, I had the paper routes. I had, uh, all those things. So, I’ve been an entrepreneur from an early age.
MARK WRIGHT 04:28
What I think is interesting is that you’re a second-generation student of Strategic Coach. You remember listening to Dan Sullivan, um the founder of Strategic Coach on cassettes as you rode around in your dad’s car, I’m wondering what a weird kind of fun upbringing, uh to just sort of immerse your DNA in the world of entrepreneurism. What were some of the early lessons that you remember? Some of the early takeaways of, uh, of coach when you were a kid?
STEVE FRENCH 04:56
I mean, the biggest thing for me originally was I kind of got my dad back. Um, you know, Strategic Coach there, uh, their pitch is work less, make more money, be happy, or it was back in those days. And you know, why on earth would you want to do that? But my dad was, um, you know, classic young father. Uh, at one point he had uh, three kids under, uh, three, and, uh, uh, he was 25 and so he just, he had to go out and he had to hustle. And so, he worked very, very hard. A lot of days he was, uh, gone before we got up. And, uh, a lot of days, uh, we were in bed by the time he got home. So, um, when dad found out about Strategic Coach, he worked in financial services and Strategic Coach really had their origin story, uh, with a lot of financial services clients back about 30 years ago. And, uh, so the big thing was for us, you know, dad, uh, he was taking time off. He was much more relaxed. He was much more focused. He was much more present. Uh, he was making more money. He was taking more vacation, all of those great things. So that’s really the way that it manifested. For me, uh, originally, and then when I started my business, you know, it was basically, I made three phone calls. I called the lawyer to incorporate, I called the banker to get the bank account set up and I called Strategic Coach. And, uh, and that was almost 20 years ago. And, uh, yeah, they’ve been absolutely instrumental in our growth.
MARK WRIGHT 06:21
What a beautiful thing, because I think so many people in business, Steve, just get consumed by, by business, by, especially if it’s their own business, because there’s never enough people. There’s never enough time. And how many times do we hear that story of people who you know, they blink and their kids are grown and they’re like, man, where did the, where did the time go? And, uh, it’s, it’s really, I think it’s such a beautiful thing that the commitment that Coach has to, to freeing up people to become total human beings and not have those regrets, you know, when they get older.
STEVE FRENCH 06:52
You know, one of the things I worked in corporate for a long time, so I, uh, you know, you already highlighted. I had a number of businesses when I was a kid. And so, the next natural step for me was to go get a commerce degree, which I did. And then in commerce back in those days, you know, I graduated in the early nineties. And, uh, you know, there wasn’t any entrepreneurial bent back then. It was just, you’re going to be an accountant, you’re going to be marketing person here to be an HR person, finance, et cetera. And there wasn’t an entrepreneurial stream. And so, they said, you’ve got to go out and take over the corporate world. And so I went, and I took over the corporate world and we had some incredible success. I worked in telecom for, uh, eight years. We grew from, uh, uh, 40 people in one office in Mississauga to 550 and 13 offices coast to coast, and then we, uh, ran out of money when the bubble burst. And I was one of the last six people, uh, on the way down, learned just as much on the way down as we did on the way up. Uh, then I worked in, uh, transportation and logistics. I was the, uh, uh, VP of IT, uh, for a third-party logistics and transportation company in Toronto. We grew that business from 80 million to 180 million, uh, in three years. And then I worked, uh, I was the CIO, uh, of an 800 million publicly traded seafood company. And we had a growth plan to become a 4 billion company. But the interesting thing was, you know, I was traveling all the time. I had young kids myself. I had, uh, two kids, uh, under three and, you know, I was just traveling too much. And so, the company that I was working for, the seafood company, uh, luckily was being broken up and sold. And that gave me the ability to start Infomatix. And so, you know, with the help of Strategic Coach and some of those other folks, uh, some of the people in my circle and in my network, you know, I was able to put my kids on the bus every morning. Uh, grab them every afternoon, sit them up at the bar. I’ve been working remotely for 20 years and, you know, talk to them about how their day was and get them a snack and, uh, and spend that kind of time with them that I wouldn’t trade those hours for anything in the world.
MARK WRIGHT 08:58
Yeah. One of the things you said that turned you off about the corporate world, Steve, is the politics. Um, tell me more, tell me more about that. I mean, you were very successful. I mean, if you, if you just looked on paper, people would say, you know, maybe why in the world would you leave that? But, but it really, it, it, it hit you pretty deeply in your gut that it wasn’t where you were supposed to be.
STEVE FRENCH 09:20
Yeah, yeah, it just, um, it really comes down to the people, right? Um, and there was just a sense of callousness that, uh, that I didn’t appreciate. There was a sense of, uh, of the politics and, and the backstabbing and that sort of thing. I just, I didn’t like it. Um, you know, I met some great people and I still have some great friends from those times. But the work that I do with entrepreneurs, you know, uh, we can go in and have a great conversation with somebody. You talked about it. What are the 50 things and what are the three most important? And we can make a difference for that person and their team within weeks. And that’s really where it gets fun. That’s where the goosebumps hit for me.
MARK WRIGHT 09:58
Yeah. That’s cool. Steve, you, um, you talked about the Inva structure, invisible infrastructure. There are four pillars, people, process, technology, and profitability. For the entrepreneurs and the business owners listening, break those four down and why those you believe are really the pillars to success.
STEVE FRENCH 10:16
So, we’ve been a big student of success and I’ve been a big student of success. I love to learn. I’m, I’m continuously learning. And so, I’m looking for those best practices all the time. And so, what I found was when I looked back at my successes that I’d had, uh, in my career, um, it really came down to those four things. So, when we talk about people, process, technology, and profitability, it’s the right people. Completing the right processes at the right time, supported by great technology. And, you know, we actually need to make some money at the same time because one of the other things I found about working in, uh, in corporate and, uh, and working with publicly traded companies and whatnot, so much of it was about vanity numbers. So much of it was about, you know, new customer acquisition and top line revenues and EBITDA and all of those other things. You know, those are all vanity metrics if you’re not making any money who cares. The other thing I found it was a little bit disingenuous
MARK WRIGHT 11:13
And refresh me on EBITA, Earnings Before I always get that wrong. What does it stand for again?
STEVE FRENCH 11:18
Earnings Before Interest uh Depreciation and Amortization
MARK WRIGHT 11:22
Yeah, yeah. So, you say typically when you walk into a new client’s business, the people are pretty great. Usually, the processes are sort of okay. The technology is usually crappy in your words and a lot of times they’re not making money, which is why they bring in someone like you in the first place. So I’m curious, where do you start? Where, where do you begin because to say you could become profitable from day one is pretty cool. Where start with a new client?
STEVE FRENCH 11:52
Yeah. So basically, what we do is we help our clients get very clear. Here’s where you are today. Here’s where you’d like to be three years from now. Then we have a unique process where we assess their current people, process, technology and profitability capabilities, and then we create a plan. So here are the people, things you need to do to unlock those three-year goals, process things, technology things, and profitability things you need to do to unlock those three-year goals. The reality is a lot of that is templated. A lot of that is the same across all the different businesses and we’re not unique little snowflakes. When people say oh Steve, you don’t understand my business is completely different from anybody else. It’s like aha! Okay we could have a good discussion here because the reality is we all have products and services that we’ve created that we provide to customers. Money comes in, money goes out. We have, you know, suppliers, we have partners, uh, that do that. But at the end of the day, you know, we use best practices. So, you know, use QuickBooks online for your bookkeeping, use, uh, you know, Microsoft 365 for email, use somebody like Squarespace for your website, you know, use these folks who they might not be perfect, but boy, oh boy, do they get most things right? And they’re continuously improving and they’re always getting better. And so, then once we have all of those four pillars working in harmony with one another, that’s what we call infrastructure. So just like when you walk into your office in the morning, you flick on the light switch and the lights come on, you have that level of certainty in your business because you know, when you add on those new uh, products and services, you know, those new revenue streams, you know, they’re going to be higher margin. You know that they’re going to be higher profitability and you know how the business is going to react. That’s the fun part.
MARK WRIGHT 13:41
Let’s talk about people for a minute. Um, I know you’re a big believer in the Kolbe index, which is a really cool assessment tool that helps us understand how we all solve problems how we approach problems for the entrepreneur or business owner who’s not used Kolbe before, Steve explain the value in your mind of the Kolbe index.
STEVE FRENCH 14:04
So really the way that we describe it is Kolbe is a quantitative measure of personal and team success And I can’t say it any more unequivocally than that. I mean, basically, if we’re going to be spending any significant amount of time with somebody, if it’s a new client, a new partner, a new team member, our family, we are getting their coal begun. So, one of the things I’ve been very, very lucky to have been a part of some incredible teams, to have some great mentors along the way, to have built some incredible teams. But there was always that inflection point where, you know, say I’d be asking you to join my team and I’d say, okay, mark, here’s the role. Here’s what we’re expecting you to do. Here’s what success looks like. Here’s where some potential challenges are going to be along the way. But at the end of the day, I’d kind of have to push you into the deep end. I’d be there to throw you a life ring if you needed it. But at the end of the day, splash, right? With Kolbe, I don’t have to do that anymore. So, with Kolbe, it’s a 15-minute online assessment. It was created by Kathy Kolbe. Oh, my goodness. I think it was almost 30 years ago. Now I’ve been using it for about 20 years, uh Strategic Coach introduced me to it originally. It’s basically, you know, the, uh, the phrase MO or Modus Operandi that Sherlock Holmes use, uh, uses, uh, basically Kolbe is your MO. It’s how you get things done. It’s how you take action on things. And so, when I know somebody’s Kolbe, uh, I know exactly how they’re going to react in a given situation. And so, it’s my role then as a leader and as a manager to put the people in the right spots and give them all the tools that they need for success.
MARK WRIGHT 15:42
And because in a small business, it doesn’t take too many people in the wrong roles to really make things not work, right? Because you, yeah, I mean, because if you put someone in charge of doing X and it’s not their strong suit, it’s going to be painful and it’s going to lead to failure and it’s going to take time and money and it’s going to take you on a tangent, right? So, wow.
STEVE FRENCH 16:06
Absolutely. Kind of like a three-dimensional chess game or one of my really good friends, Ross Slater, he was my original coach at Strategic Coach and he’s still a great friend. Um, he’s actually Kolbe certified and has been for a little bit more than 25 years now. And so, he’s done tens of thousands of Colby, uh, discussions and interpretations. And he talks about it in terms of being a bit of a three-dimensional chess game, because in any given situation we have, what Kolbe measures is what they call the cognitive side of our brains. So, it’s how we take action. It’s how we get things done. It’s how we process information and whatnot. Then there’s your intelligence and then there’s your personality. So basically, in any given encounter, it’s kind of that three-dimensional chess game. There’s always a little bit of each one of those three. But the interesting thing about Kolbe is it’s the part where we take action and that’s why it’s so powerful.
MARK WRIGHT 17:00
So, if, if entrepreneurs listening or business owners listening, if they do just one thing and that is to, to put their employees through the Kolbe, that, that, that probably would be super helpful, just
STEVE FRENCH 17:11
Absolutely.
MARK WRIGHT 17:12
Out of the shoots.
STEVE FRENCH 17:13
Absolutely. Yeah.
MARK WRIGHT 17:14
So, Steve, you say a big turning point for you came when you read a book, uh, called Profit First by Mike Michalowicz. You say it really helped you understand profitability, uh, for the very first time. The book Profit First basically says, when money comes into a business, you put money in the profit account first and then everything else gets paid. And it sounds kind of counterintuitive to how most businesses are run. Explain to people, Steve, the profit first model and why you teach it to all of your clients.
STEVE FRENCH 17:48
Hmm. So, profit first was absolutely instrumental. So, you know, I have a commerce degree. I have the accounting courses. I have the finance courses. I have, I specialized in management science, uh, which is basically an applied math, uh, degree inside of a business degree. I understand numbers. I didn’t understand cash flow until Profit First. So, if you look at traditional accounting and bookkeeping, its sales minus expenses equals profit. And basically, accounting was created for taxation, right? And so, the thing is when you take sales minus expenses equals profit, when profit comes last, profit never comes. So, what Mike suggested was let’s just switch those two things. Let’s take sales minus profit equals expenses. Hmm. That’s a different discussion. And it’s basically pay yourself first. Uh, but none of us knew how to do it. We’ve all been told that our entire lives, but how many people actually do it? So, um, that was the power of, of the Profit First methodology. And, uh, like you mentioned, you know, it. just completely transformed the way that, uh, I run my business and, uh, and how I manage my cashflow. And it’s really an entrepreneurial cashflow management system. Uh, so instead of being a traditional entrepreneur, uh, using what the, what we call, uh, bank balance accounting, where you look at, okay, I’ve got 150,000 in the bank. Oh, great. I can go buy a boat or I can go on that vacation, or I can buy the new car or whatever. But meanwhile, we haven’t taken into account. Well, you know, we need to pay these taxes and we need to pay payroll and we need to, you know, we have all these commitments that we’ve already made and loans and interest payments and all that other stuff, you know, instead of looking at, uh, at that bank balance and having to make 35 or 40 different calculations based on that to figure out where you actually stand, that’s where Profit First comes in. And so, it’s not unlike, uh, the old envelope system that, uh, your grandmother might have used where, uh, you know, your grandfather would come in and say, okay, here’s 1,000 and she would say, okay, well, 200 goes into the mortgage and 200 goes into food and 200 goes into, uh, clothes and fun. And then, you know, the rest of it is for everything else. And then, but when your grandmother would go to one of those envelopes, if it was empty, well, she didn’t spend anything. And that’s the the big shift is with the Profit First methodology. You just set up those various accounts and then you have a much better understanding of where you stand in the business.
MARK WRIGHT 20:19
Yeah, so instead of just looking at that big bank account and kind of getting a false sense of financial security or looking at that big bank account and then coming up with, uh, you know, things you can spend money on to help the business. You start with the priority of profit and then you go to the priority of paying the owners and the employees and everything else. So, I guess it’s just, you’re helping people see the proper context, uh, by dividing it up that way, uh, instead of just the overwhelming idea of here’s our huge bank account. And what do we do with all that?
STEVE FRENCH 20:55
Yeah, absolutely. And I mean, since implementing Profit First, basically I haven’t worried about money in my business, which is saying a lot because, you know, going from those big corporate entities to running my own small business, you know, there were a lot of times where, you know, I wasn’t paying myself and I wasn’t profitable and I was worried about how am I going to pay payroll and how am I going to pay that tax payment or that loan payment? Um, since implementing profit first, I don’t worry about that anymore.
MARK WRIGHT 21:22
Yeah, does that work also in in like our personal life if we just did our personal finances?
STEVE FRENCH 21:28
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. But it’s really just about um, mike made a really interesting observation He said, you know, there’s there’s an obesity epidemic in North America right now and I can’t remember the exact number. I think it was about 26%. But he said the average plate size has increased by about 26%. Hmm. There seems to be an interesting correlation between obesity rates and plate size. And that’s one of the really interesting things about the human body. It has instant feedback loops for everything except for satiation, right? So, our stomach takes 20 minutes to let our brain know we’re actually full. So, if you have a bigger plate, you’re just going to keep shoveling food into your face until the plate is empty. So, Profit First is basically the same thing. We’re making a smaller place for your bank account so that you’ve taken all of those obligations and you’ve put them in their proper spot, and you’ve paid yourself profit. You’ve paid owner pay. You’ve paid, uh, you know, your payroll, your taxes, uh, your operating expenses, and then everything has a place. And so, you don’t overspend, and you don’t overeat. So,
MARK WRIGHT 22:38
And for people interested, we have another podcast called Fat Science, where we discuss the science of metabolism, where we can break that down. I remember going to a buffet as a kid, Steve, we, we grew up fairly, you know, with fairly meager means, but the, the big celebration would, when we went to the Royal Fork, uh, buffet in Bellingham. But I remember those plates being extremely small. I think from a business standpoint, they, uh,
STEVE FRENCH 23:02
They knew. They knew.
MARK WRIGHT 23:05
They did. The one thing that I think you stress about profit first is that the financial freedom that comes from Profit First, will free you up as a business owner because you really believe that if you are worried about money, you are not going to serve your clients In the best light tell me more about that that mindset and its impact on your clients
STEVE FRENCH 23:28
Yeah, that’s a great point. And, uh, we didn’t talk about it explicitly like that. So good for you for, for figuring that out. But it’s one of those things, if you come in and you’re worried about how much money am I going to take out of this interaction that we’re about to have, you’re not in service. You know, you’re not in a place of, you know, truly helping that other person that you’re talking with. It’s focused on you. Um, and so with Profit First, yeah, it really just frees that up so that you can really make an incredible difference.
MARK WRIGHT 24:05
I thought it was interesting when you say some of the lessons that you learned from your dad. One of them was uh, his saying that if you don’t understand compound interest, you pay it. If you do understand compound interest, you earn it. And, you know, I’ve, I was looking recently at my mortgage statement and it’s like, how do I still owe that amount of money after paying for 25 years on my mortgage? And even just paying an extra hundred or 300 a month on your mortgage, you could take years off that because of the compound interest model.
STEVE FRENCH 24:38
Yeah, most people don’t understand how a loan works. Most people have never looked at an amortization table to say, you know, if you’ve got a 25-year mortgage at, you know, 2,000 a month or something like that, payment one is that much interest and that much principal. And it reverses over the course of that 25 years, but that’s why people don’t understand, you know, they’ve got a five-year term on a mortgage and then they re-up. and take that money and say, okay, we’re going to go and do this. And then they’re always wondering why they’re never paying their mortgage balance down. It’s because that’s not the way that compound interest works. A great example the other day, we had a great conversation with a client. Um, we just looked at all of their obligations, business wise and personally. No new money coming in, no new money on the table, just reallocating the resources that were already available to this entrepreneur. And we took them from owing 67,000 in interest over the next three years to making almost a quarter of a million dollars in investment rep. No new money. Just playing with the toys that we’ve got in a smarter way. So that’s the power of compound interest right there.
MARK WRIGHT 25:53
Yeah, and, and that profit first when, when you prioritized paying off your debts. I think you said you, you paid off your debts in 12 months. And what we forget is that all that money that’s going toward interest could then be put into something else.
STEVE FRENCH 26:08
And something more fun. Absolutely.
MARK WRIGHT 26:13
So, Steve, when you walk into a business and you just look at everything on the table, we talked about looking at those 50 things and then focusing on three. Is there a common denominator among business owners and, and entrepreneurs when it comes to um, why the business is not more successful when you step in?
STEVE FRENCH 26:32
I think, um, Dan Sullivan talks about, he has a term called a rugged individualist and many entrepreneurs, when we start working with them, they’ve never worked with somebody like us before. They’ve never worked with a coach or a trusted advisor. So, you know, we talk about ourselves as being a trusted advisor for our clients. So, you know, when you get a really good lawyer or really good accountant, who’s more than just law and more than just numbers. We’re basically that for our entrepreneurial clients when it comes to business growth, profitability and technology. So, um, the big thing, uh, most small businesses, they’re helmed and, you know, they were created by people who are very good at doing something. They’re a great dentist, they’re a great lawyer, they’re a great electrician, they’re a great HVAC specialist, something like that. But they’re not great at being business owners, they’re not great at being entrepreneurs. And so that’s one of the big things that we help with is to help them understand what does it take to really run a business and make that shift from being, you know, it’s basically, you’ve got a job to you have a business, uh, you know. You’re beholden to the business to you’re an owner and you have choice. So that’s really probably the, the biggest thing. And like I say, most people haven’t been exposed to that sort of thing before. So, when they are exposed to it, they’re, they see the value of it pretty quickly and go, ah, okay, there’s something here.
MARK WRIGHT 28:02
And you help connect them with experts on maybe accounting and accounts payable and web design, analytics, marketing, all that stuff because you’re so right. I mean, someone could be a brilliant physician. And, and have a really unsuccessful business model because when you look at the expenses involved in healthcare, especially here in the States, um, it’s, it’s a very different thing to be good at, at the skill as opposed to good at the, the business side.
STEVE FRENCH 28:29
Absolutely. Absolutely. And most people are just so tied up. You know, it’s the whole working on the business versus in the business discussion. And most people really spend no time working on their business. So that’s where we can really help them come up and look at it from a different perspective.
MARK WRIGHT 28:46
Um, let’s talk about AI, Steve, because I think for most businesses, everyone is coming to the realization that this is a, probably a generational change in the way that we do things, um, as, as a species. And, um, you know, digital transformation for entrepreneurs in this age of AI. Um, you’re going to be writing a book on it. Um, I take it everything is going to change, but let’s start at the beginning and let’s, what, what excites you most about AI, Steve, when it comes to how small and medium sized businesses are run?
STEVE FRENCH 29:20
Hmmm. I think I’ve been lucky enough. I’ve been doing this long enough. I’ve seen a lot of the big shifts, uh, that have happened technology wise. So, you know, uh, the personal computer becoming ubiquitous, the internet, email, websites, high speed internet, you know, I’ve been there for all of those shifts as part of my career. So, I’ve seen all of those things. I’m more excited about the opportunity with AI than I was with any of those, and those were huge shifts. Um, the thing for, uh, for AI, I think, It’s really going to not unlike, um, us as entrepreneurs having the ability to go out and compete with quote unquote, the big guys, you know, it’s not like the sold days where we had to build a server or build a rack of servers or build the data center in order to launch a new web service for example. Now we can just go to Microsoft and Azure or Amazon Web Services or, uh, any of those big boys. And we can just kind of turn that on as we need it and scale it up as we need it. AI is that same sort of transformational piece where we’re no longer starting from a blank slate. We are, uh, you know, you start with something incredible and it’s not unlike the, the description or the analogy that we use is. You know, google up until this point, when you go and google something, it’s like looking at a bookcase full of books and google will say, okay, go read that book and go read that book and go read this book. You know, ChatGPT has read those books and can understand and have a conversation with you. And it’s not just a one-time thing. It’s you start from here and oh, that’s interesting, let’s pull on that thread a little bit and then you’re having a conversation. So, it’s basically like you’re sitting down and having a conversation with the author of those three books. So that’s the, uh, that’s the piece that we’re absolutely, uh, incredibly excited about right now.
MARK WRIGHT 31:15
And you think that we, you know, we talked about those four pillars at the beginning of our, our interview here, Steve, you believe that AI will have a profound impact on those four pillars. Um, give me just, I mean, there was a blog post that you guys wrote on this and tell me more about how, you know, the people side, the process, the technology, um, and profitability, how will AI impact each of those areas? Just in a nutshell.
STEVE FRENCH 31:45
Yeah, I mean, a couple of quick examples on the people side, for example. Um, we’ve been working remotely for 20 years, so I literally have 20 years of video recordings of my calls. So, you know, whether it’s teams or zoom or go to meeting or any of those different platforms, I’ve kind of used them all over the years, but I have all of those recordings. With those kind of recordings, I can take all those recordings, transcribe them and feed them into an AI tool so that you know, in the next six months, I’m going to be able to have a scenario where somebody else on my team could be sitting there having a conversation with the client. I’m not even there. But because teams is connected to this AI model, you know, it’s a, it’s a ChatGPT Steve, um, the client can ask a question. And up until now, somebody on my team would have to say, you know what, I don’t know the answer to that question, but I’ll tell you what, I’ll check with Steve, and I’ll come back to you. These AI models in that call, we’ll be able to say, Steve has answered that question five times, and here’s what he has said. That’s one example on the people side. On the process side, the process automation capabilities that are out there are absolutely staggering. So basically, there are tools out there now that can sit there and watch what you do on a daily basis. So maybe you’re an accounts payable clerk, or maybe you’re just paying your bills, or maybe you’re sending your invoices and tracking your time. It can sit there and watch you do that and then give you suggestions. Here’s how we can automate this. Because if you think about, you know, a traditional bookkeeper, for example, they spend this much time getting all of the stuff into QuickBooks and they spend this much time figuring out what does that actually mean. That can take that into, you know, here’s how long it takes to actually get the work done. And now what does it mean? So that’s on the process side on the technology side, you know, you, you talked about me being able to go in and, and see important things. I can do that with numbers too. So, did you ever watch the Big Bank Theory?
MARK WRIGHT 33:50
Mm hmm. A little bit.
STEVE FRENCH 33:52
Yeah. So, Dr. Sheldon Cooper was this incredible, uh, brain guy and he was great with numbers. I’m kind of like Dr. Sheldon Cooper, but with a bit of a pulse. So, I can look at an Excel spreadsheet and go, that number smells purple. And I see those things in a different way. I can see the anomalies. I can see the outliers on either side. I can see that just from raw data. It’s kind of like, you know, Neo and the Matrix, that sort of thing. But with a tool like Microsoft Copilot and Excel, you can now give it that big dump of data. And it will say, here are the interesting things about that. Have you noticed this? What about this over here? And let’s create a chart, and now you can go in and play with it. And you haven’t had to create that chart. You didn’t have to know how a pivot table worked or pivot chart worked. Uh, it’s just going to sit there and be your copilot. Uh, so that’s on the technology side on the profitability side. You know, if you look at the AI tools and giving them exposure to. your entire stack, whether it’s, you know, your billing system, your email, your web conferencing platform, your chat platforms, all of your phone calls, it’s going to be able to pick out those things and say, you know, here are the products and services that are making you the most money. And you sound like you’re having fun because there’s an emotional component to this too. There’s an emotional intelligence to these tools that it really takes the clinicalness of tools and it’s really giving it a human feel. That’s the thing that I’m constantly surprised by uh, with these new tools, it’s just, it’s much more like having a conversation. It’s much more like us sitting here and, uh, you asking me a question and I say something, you go, oh, well, yeah, that’s interesting. It’s that kind of feel.
MARK WRIGHT 35:40
Yeah. That, that was a huge shift when we went from massive computer servers to cloud computing, because we didn’t have to own and operate the infrastructure, right? It, we could just, like you said, turn on the switch. And we have massive computing power at our, at our fingertips. Do you think that this shift to AI is going to just massively improve efficiency for the businesses that embrace it?
STEVE FRENCH 36:06
Absolutely. Yeah. Uh, there’s no doubt. The, the best analogy, a lot of people are worried about, you know, are you going to lose your job to AI? And you’re not really going to lose your job to AI. You could lose your job to somebody who was using AI as a tool. And I really think the people who are investing in that early and investing often, and just constantly rapidly iterating on those things. I think they will be the big winners as we move forward. But as a small business owner, you know, it’s just, we basically, you know, if you’ve got a team of four or five people, you know, have a team of 40 or 50. If you give them all a ChatGPT instance and, you know, turn on Microsoft Copilot, you’ve now got a team of 40 or 50. You can do literally 10 times the amount of work.
MARK WRIGHT 36:53
Wow. What is Microsoft Copilot? I’ve heard a little bit about it, but what exactly does that do?
STEVE FRENCH 36:59
So, Microsoft, um, they made a, uh, what started out to be a billion-dollar investment in open AI. a few years back, and Bloomberg has called this the best billion-dollar investment of all time. Hands down, bar none, it’s not even close. So basically, um, Microsoft invested a billion in open AI. It started there, then open AI to create their large language models and to create their, their software the way that they have. Microsoft has provided all the infrastructures for that through their Microsoft Azure platform. So, they really completely changed focus from where they were going with Azure to basically creating this supercomputer infrastructure for OpenAI. They continued to invest, they continued to give them those resources, and in exchange for that, that’s when OpenAI went from being a not for profit to a you know, it had a not-for-profit arm, and it also has a commercial arm as well. And so, uh, Microsoft got first right of refusal for all of open AI’s technologies. So, when Microsoft uses the term copilot, they’re actually putting these copilots across their entire suite. So, there’s going to be a copilot inside of Outlook to help you write better emails. There’s going to be copilot inside of Excel to help you understand the data better, Word to create a, you know, to create a new contract, PowerPoint to create a more impactful presentation, Teams to have that conversation with people who are there in the call and know the context of the business. Um, so those, those copilots, it’s basically, it’s, it’s your trusted advisors sitting there right next to you and helping you with all of those tasks.
MARK WRIGHT 38:40
Wow, that is crazy. So, Steve, what’s your best advice to maybe a business owner or entrepreneur listening who has not gotten too far down the road in AI? What’s, what’s the best way to get into this? Because on the face of it, it seems pretty overwhelming to try to figure all this stuff out.
STEVE FRENCH 38:57
Yeah. You know, there’s always a sense of AI is the latest, but there’s always that sense of, uh, play, that sense of curiosity. I think that serves us well. Um, so just go find, uh, who the experts are and talk to them. Basically, 99 percent of the problems that we have as entrepreneurs have been solved by somebody else. Why are we beating ourselves up? Why are we stepping on these landmines? It doesn’t make any sense. Figure out what the problem is. Figure out, you know who wrote a blog post, who created a YouTube video, who wrote a book about it, and go read the book. Watch the video. Talk to the person. Find out what they did. Here are the mistakes that they made. Oh, okay, great. Good to know. I’m not going to do those. Here are the three things you did right. Great. Go do them.
MARK WRIGHT 39:44
Just to have that curiosity, right?
STEVE FRENCH 39:46
Yeah, and just go play. Um, you know, you get access. For example, Microsoft with their edge browser, you actually have the edge copilot built in there right in the in the sidebar now, and that has access to the latest open AI ChatGPT models. And the interesting thing about that in Edge, it knows the web page that you’re on. So just open up that little tab in Edge and start to have a conversation and you. Really think about it in terms of a conversation. It’s not a one-time thing. A Google search tends to be a one-time thing. Think of these conversations with Copilot and, and ChatGPT as a conversation. You start from something, go, hmm, okay, that’s interesting. Now what? What about this? How does this play in with it? And have that kind of, uh, a discussion with it. There’s magic there.
MARK WRIGHT 40:38
And I think it was in your blog post, Steve, that you said one of the best things about AI is it makes it much easier to start things, to start tasks, because when we think about it, a lot of us get kind of stuck at the beginning of a task, and, and this helps avoid blank page syndrome. Tell me more about that aspect of it, because I think that’s brilliant. I mean, it just allows us to just get off the starting block right away, right?
STEVE FRENCH 41:07
Yeah. And I’ve had that a bunch. I mean, whether it’s sending an email to a client who’s asked a hard question, or I need to create a, you know, a presentation for a speech that I’m giving or something like that, you’re never starting from that blank page anymore. So, you get from idea to action, and that time just shrinks exponentially and it’s not even a factor of ten It’s probably a factor of a thousand and you get a much better result. I mean the whole point is You can’t just expect you know These AIs to create the document and create your presentation write your book for you, but you can use it as a starting point and then, you know, add your own content to it and say, okay, that’s a great idea. Take these ideas and incorporate them and let’s have a conversation about it. And that’s where it gets better and better and better. And that rapid iteration, um, it’s just, it’s a whole different level of fast.
MARK WRIGHT 42:01
I wanted to ask you before we wrap things up, Steve, a question about Strategic Coach, because it seems like the relationship with that organization is as important as the things that you learn in the very beginning as a business owner. I think some people might be wondering why, why stay part of Coach for, you know, for decades, as opposed to just getting the info you need and, and jumping out and becoming successful. How is it that the relationship is so important?
STEVE FRENCH 42:31
It’s, um, yeah, it’s a great question. Um, the big thing that I found with Strategic Coaches, they have different tiers that you can go through as a client of Coach. And so, you’re really peered, uh, peered up with other people in the room who are at a similar, um, point in evolution as you are. So, you’re dealing with the same problems. Um, and so one of the things that I’ve always said is when I go to Strategic Coach, you know, when I’m walking up over those stairs in Toronto, uh, I just get goosebumps cause the person that I walk in as is not the same person that I walk out as. And it’s always a really interesting combination of, you know, our coaches at the front of the room, whether it’s, you know, Ross Slater or Shannon Waller, who I know has been on the podcast with you, or Dan Sullivan. Um, it’s also, you know, it’s the people facilitating, it’s the content that the team creates and presents, uh, on that quarterly basis. But the secret weapon is the other people in the room. You know, for any problem I’m having, I know every single time I’ve had the biggest problem. I don’t know how to fix this. I can go to that room, and I will get five people who will come and say, you know what, been there, man, that sucked. Here are the five things that I did wrong. Don’t do those. Here are the three things that I did right. There’s always somebody who can help you there. Every single time.
MARK WRIGHT 44:02
And I’ve heard you say, Steve, that as a business owner, being able to say, I have no idea how to fix this, uh, is such a great skill because if you, if you just keep it to yourself, um, it, it’s not going to have a great outcome, is it?
STEVE FRENCH 44:16
Yeah, no, absolutely. And that’s, it is a skill, uh, that you need to really work on. And, you know, when I was a kid, uh, I, I wanted to be the center of the room. I wanted to know everything I wanted, and I had no idea. It took me making some pretty big mistakes to realize that I really didn’t work too well. So now the fun part is, you know, you go from, okay, I’ve got a challenge. Do I have the ability to fix this myself? No. Hmm. Who can I talk to? Who’s in my network? Who can I email? Who can I have a coffee with? Who can I buy dinner with? You know, who can I call to, uh, to just get to the bottom of this really, really fast. And that’s the other thing, you know, there’s a reciprocity that comes with that too, because there are a bunch of things that I’m really good at. And, you know, I help people just the same way I have been helped. I am of service, and I will be of service.
MARK WRIGHT 45:13
Steve, what gives you the most satisfaction when it comes to working with clients?
STEVE FRENCH 45:19
Seeing the action, seeing the results, seeing the, the going from a state of suffering to a state of enlightenment to a state of energy, to a state of rejuvenation in their business and really connecting. You know, we talked earlier on the podcast about people being good at what they do, but not being great entrepreneurs. You know, when you see somebody make that shift, oh boy, that is the juice for me.
MARK WRIGHT 45:47
Yeah. Yeah. And I think, you know, when you talk to anyone who’s an expert at something, they will tell you, focus not on the outcome, but focus on the process. If you focus on the process, if, if you’re a golfer and you’re worried about hitting the ball in the water, you’re probably going to hit the ball in the water, but if you focus on the fundamentals of your swing, you’re probably going to have a, a better outcome. And it just seems like in the business world, we’ve all been part of companies who are kind of mired in a culture of fear. They’re worried about money. They’re worried about the future. And those environments are so difficult to navigate. They’re so difficult to just show up. to work every day and have a good attitude about it. But when you, when you join those companies, like the one I’m part of now, WORKP2P, where the leadership at the very top is, is just like you said. You know, Dan Rogers is, is such an optimist. He’s like a, he’s like, he calls himself the 5-foot 7 bald guy. But he’s literally like, uh, a nuclear reaction when it comes to energy and positivity. And, and you just want to be part of that. Um, so, as we wrap things up, Steve, there might be that entrepreneur, that business owner thinking, yeah, I want to grow my business. What, what’s the first thing that you tell these business owners? Like it’s day one, I’m sitting down at your desk. What do I do?
STEVE FRENCH 47:09
Find that coach, find that advisor, find that mentor, uh, find somebody in your network. Give us a call. Um, you know, call Strategic Coach. Just get out of your rut. That’s the biggest thing and take action. The, the more you can reduce the amount of time between suffering, you know, on the bad side or idea on the positive side to taking action on that, turn it into the new product or service. You know, maybe you hired somebody that, uh, that didn’t work out, or you took on a project with a client, you know, you’re much better off to say, you know what, we missed the mark on this one. We’re really sorry. Let’s go and, you know, do this a different way. The amount of time between ideation to action, shrink it down. It’ll always pay huge dividends.
MARK WRIGHT 48:01
Well, I’d love to have you back when you, uh, have the book out on AI, because man, that is interesting. And just the, just the surface that we barely scratched, uh, I found just so interesting and how that’s going to transform, uh, everyone’s lives, especially, uh, business owners. So, Steve French, this has been fantastic. If people want to get ahold of you, what’s the best way to do it, Steve? Yeah, just head over to our website, infomatics.ca. That’s I-N-F-O-M-A-T-I-X dot C-A. And, uh, we work with clients all over the world. So, uh, don’t let the dot C-A fool you.
MARK WRIGHT 48:37
Well, Steve, this has been so much fun. Thank you for sharing your wisdom and for sharing your time with us, uh, on Beats Working. Great to have you here.
STEVE FRENCH 48:44
It’s been a pleasure. Thank you so much, Mark. Really appreciate it.
MARK WRIGHT 48:47
I’m Mark Wright. Thanks for listening to BEATS WORKING, part of the WORKP2P family. New episodes drop every Monday. And if you’ve enjoyed the conversation, subscribe, rate, and review this podcast. Special thanks to show producer and web editor Tamar Medford. In the coming weeks, you’ll hear from our Contributors Corner and Sidekick Sessions. Join us next week for another episode of BEATS WORKING, where we are winning the game of work.