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TRANSCRIPTION WITH SPEAKERS
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[00:00] SPEAKER_01: Welcome to Canada's podcast.
[00:06] SPEAKER_01: Good afternoon ladies and gentlemen. Good morning ladies and gentlemen. Good evening ladies and gentlemen. The matter where you are when you are
[00:13] SPEAKER_01: just welcome to Canada's podcast, the Atlantic Canada version of entrepreneurship.
[00:22] SPEAKER_01: And we talked through some amazing, amazing people in the Atlantic, Canadian region and just hear some great stories and so on.
[00:30] SPEAKER_01: And look, I'm, I'm randomly because I really don't even know where to start with explaining the amazement,
[00:51] SPEAKER_01: but I'm helping many organizations not only find their way to success, but then helping them guide them, get them to those levels of high level success that they all strive to be.
[01:05] SPEAKER_01: Scale ups are key to his focus and, and of course, with most organizations in Atlantic Canada.
[01:15] SPEAKER_01: And anyway, I guess I already crossed Canada, that's a fundamental challenge. It's easy to start. It's harder to scale.
[01:22] SPEAKER_01: And so those are some of the conversations we're going to have with Don today. He is on a, he based out of Monkton, travels to Tampa, Florida for business also.
[01:34] SPEAKER_01: A couple of years ago, Don, you were a future printer mentor of the year, if I remember correctly.
[01:41] SPEAKER_01: So not only a businessman, a business coach, an executive coach, but also a great, you know, participate in contributing to, to other entrepreneurs and helping them to find that success too.
[01:54] SPEAKER_01: So, so Don, welcome to Canada's podcast.
[01:57] SPEAKER_01: Thank you very much. I love the energy you're giving today in this podcast.
[02:02] SPEAKER_01: Well, we're great friends and we're great associates, and I'm looking forward to this conversation.
[02:08] SPEAKER_01: So I went back and I took a look at your LinkedIn profile. I'm going to, you know, I, you first of all ladies and gentlemen, Don hashtag, you got to check them on on LinkedIn. He's got just amazing, amazing, sorry.
[02:23] SPEAKER_01: And so, this is a very background. And by the way, his initials, this is one thing is that business professionals frequently frequently comment that Don has these initials, DH stand for designated here.
[02:35] SPEAKER_01: Now, tell me about that. What does that mean designated here? Because you know, designated hitter doesn't play in the game all the time.
[02:45] SPEAKER_01: But why would, why would maybe business professionals reflect on that?
[02:50] SPEAKER_00: Yeah, it's a great, it's a great thing. It's a funny job goes long way.
[02:55] SPEAKER_00: You know, reverse the, you know, I'm a big, well, I'll get to that question quickly, but I'm a big fan of team led business.
[03:02] SPEAKER_00: And I'm not very big fan of you led business that were high performing jerk. And I was one of those high performing jerk my first business.
[03:10] SPEAKER_00: And I quickly learned that no, in order to scale at any levels, you need to empower the team.
[03:16] SPEAKER_00: That said, you also need a person who comes in and assesses strategy, so somebody to execute a bond.
[03:22] SPEAKER_00: This is where the professionals in my business for the last 30 years have called me, does it, does it get her?
[03:27] SPEAKER_00: When you need a strategy that somebody can execute on with confidence, this is where I came in.
[03:32] SPEAKER_00: So, but now that said, like I said, I just said I already I was a high performing jerk in my first business.
[03:41] SPEAKER_00: That is not to be confused with designated hitter.
[03:45] SPEAKER_01: Right. Yeah, no, there's no doubt about it. I think if you're going to have somebody on the line when it comes to a world series, you want the designated hitter, not the high performing jerk.
[03:54] SPEAKER_01: So, so I thought that was so cool that you know that that when you've referenced that in your bio, by the way, ladies and gentlemen, a great, great lesson there in getting your bio noticed.
[04:06] SPEAKER_01: Don't do what everybody else does, Zag when everybody else takes on those I like that phrase. And so I love that you did that.
[04:13] SPEAKER_01: But basically don't work stuff basically works intently with CEOs and business owners who are frustrated with the lack of accountability and communications within their leadership teams by aligning execution to strategy.
[04:28] SPEAKER_01: So, don first of all, I'm going to presume you deal mainly with organizations that are a million plus in revenue. Is that fair to say?
[04:38] SPEAKER_01: Okay, cool. I don't want to set the alignment and you know entrepreneurs, whether you start up or at that stage, remember you get to get to that stage and so you got to be prepared to get to that level.
[04:49] SPEAKER_01: So, first of all, don't how does an organization even get to that frustrated level that the CEO doesn't there's a lack of accountability and communications within the leadership team because obviously they had the start and grow.
[05:07] SPEAKER_01: So, where does it start to fall apart?
[05:11] SPEAKER_00: Great question. You know, it's startups are a great pillar of a community. You need to be a startup in order to scale up.
[05:18] SPEAKER_00: Where does it start? You really start to re scale up or pre start startups. Sorry.
[05:23] SPEAKER_00: You know, the entrepreneur here where she was has a great idea, you know, is that something going to start a company and unfortunately most startups was focused on getting 100% right upfront before you can start scaling or selling their, where the where is the services or product.
[05:42] SPEAKER_00: The frustration comes into play because that person is what I just said earlier is a high performing jerk when a company is a man or a woman, but the community that they're also and so forth.
[05:52] SPEAKER_00: And they have not put in place a property communication plan or cascading it down to the next level of the company where they need to be.
[06:00] SPEAKER_00: But that said, the entrepreneur, whether it be a startup or launch or a skill up, has to be able to look around the corner say what's next to be needed in this process is from this company to go to the next level.
[06:12] SPEAKER_00: And usually lies with the entrepreneur itself, you know, that look himself in the mirror say, how do I communicate this? How do I get this information to the next level?
[06:21] SPEAKER_00: Am I the right person in this seat to actually be the strategist or I'm in more an execution online? There's two different mindsets here happening strategies terrible execution and executions are terrible as strategy.
[06:34] SPEAKER_00: So this is where the communication is very important. That's why I say strategic execution, a lot of execution is strategies required and that's a very big fundamental communication of your strategy.
[06:47] SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I love that you mentioned that so it kind of leads into my next question very nicely.
[06:52] SPEAKER_01: What is a CEO? What is the what is the role of the CEO in an organization and I'm a stirred up guy. I'm not a scale up guy like you are and I just see.
[07:04] SPEAKER_01: But I think the reference point is still relevant to whether you're at any of those levels, but actually so many startup entrepreneurs, you know, the guy or the girl says, I'm the CEO.
[07:13] SPEAKER_01: And they have no freaking idea what it means to be a CEO and to achieve what what CEOs need to achieve. Can you talk a bit about the definition of that?
[07:23] SPEAKER_00: Yeah, absolutely. You know, I mean, I'm biased on the answer. I'm going to give you an outfit whether be a startup launcher scale up again. I'm using that term.
[07:30] SPEAKER_00: The CEO has the same responsibility here. She has the same response is three things.
[07:35] SPEAKER_00: First, you have to be able to predict the future and it's pretty darn hard to do to these days.
[07:40] SPEAKER_00: But as I said earlier, what's around that corner? You know, what's the future? Secondly, they have to be able to delegate with purpose.
[07:48] SPEAKER_00: Delicate it in the grand scheme of things is not an easy thing for a person to do, especially for the CEO.
[07:55] SPEAKER_00: And third, you have to communicate the hell of what you're doing. That is it. So that's the difference in a CEO today.
[08:02] SPEAKER_00: So delegate with purpose. Can you describe that? Can you kind of expand on that a bit?
[08:07] SPEAKER_00: Yeah. So the delegation process with purpose is, first of all, you have to be the CEO, the CEO here. She has to be able to communicate their strategy or vision.
[08:17] SPEAKER_00: They're a dream all that way. They have to let the team execute on that vision or dream. You only use that term again.
[08:24] SPEAKER_00: The purpose is this team has to be purposely aligned to that vision. They have to be able to co-create that vision going forward.
[08:36] SPEAKER_01: And it's not again.
[08:38] SPEAKER_01: Sorry, is that the disconnect that happens when we talked about initially at your bio?
[08:43] SPEAKER_01: Yeah. Is that really where the disconnect, where they get frustrated? Why can't they see what I want to do? Why can't they do what I would I see?
[08:50] SPEAKER_00: Exactly. Exactly. So huge disconnect there for many people. And so for some of them, they can't get over that disconnect. You just can't see me see it.
[09:00] SPEAKER_00: So again, it's now the CEO to answer your question more succinctly. The CEO has to be able to label the predictive future where we're going.
[09:08] SPEAKER_00: They hate to delegate with purpose. They'll give a purpose. They'll have that purpose and that purpose at four vision fully baked in. If I can use that, Chef, real bird.
[09:18] SPEAKER_00: Yeah, sir.
[09:19] Speaker UNKNOWN: You can't.
[09:21] SPEAKER_00: They baked in there. And then therefore, can you get the hell of that vision going forward? Let that team make this vision. I'm sure.
[09:30] SPEAKER_01: So when you say predict the future, dude, that's it. That's it. So much easier said than done. How does one predict the future as a as an effective CEO?
[09:41] SPEAKER_00: Right. So the CEO has to be a very people smart or visionary smart as well.
[09:48] SPEAKER_00: They have to be able to see what's happening out there. How to let high level say what's happening here? What's happening there? Why is this happening and find a way to differentiate themselves and the company going forward?
[09:59] SPEAKER_00: Right.
[10:00] SPEAKER_00: So the prediction of the future for me, this is why I enjoy doing that. I can't stand status quo. What EDHD what are you going to call it?
[10:08] SPEAKER_00: What's coming on the corner? What can we do something better is one thing. What how can we do something different and go after that one percent difference in the marketplace to differentiate ourselves to be better at?
[10:19] SPEAKER_00: So to predict the future is that hey, you've got your vision, you've got one or two three priorities for the next 12 months. You delegated this with purpose to your team. Now you go, OK, what's next?
[10:30] SPEAKER_01: Right. So predicting the future starts with you, the understanding is to where you want to go as a CEO and then putting those resources in place.
[10:39] SPEAKER_01: So, you know, the great Jim Collins, the good, the great book. Is that a philosophy that you follow about getting the right people on the bus and the right people on the right seat on the bus?
[10:52] SPEAKER_00: Absolutely. You know, Jim Collins and the great sayings you start with who first, not what not what where not how?
[10:58] SPEAKER_00: It's who?
[10:59] SPEAKER_00: That's people. That's your culture.
[11:01] SPEAKER_00: You start with who then you go to the lot and then where and how?
[11:06] SPEAKER_01: Yeah, so, so how does, you know, this is the other thing that I say that who I work when I'm working with entrepreneurs, I remind them it's not about, it's not about positions. It's about roles.
[11:21] SPEAKER_01: Can you talk a bit about that and say, I mean, you know, the great Steve Jobs, he, the only recently put a title in his cards is because, you read his book is because when he went to Asia, that was a representation of respect for possession and people are looking for it.
[11:40] SPEAKER_01: But he said, but he particularly did in the lower case because he didn't want people to get tied into the title. He wanted them to just fulfill responsibilities.
[11:51] SPEAKER_01: Can you talk about that from a leadership perspective as to one, how do you design that and two, then how do you ultimately, I guess, cultivate it so that people embrace their roles in a way that gets the CEO in the vision they want.
[12:10] SPEAKER_00: Yeah, great. You brought that up. You know, it's I like the way you framed it. So let me just to get set back to roles and responsibilities is a great part of the frustration of CEO.
[12:21] SPEAKER_00: It took no, for some reason, the roles responsibility clarity of the scorecard of the individuals in the company is another frustration, which comes into lack of accountability and discussion we opened up with.
[12:34] SPEAKER_00: Well, the beauty of the CEO in this case, which Steve Jobs, yes, he did it basically based on the culture based event, which is no very smart intelligent person, he goes to different country, he looks at the culture, he predicts where he's going, any adapts.
[12:49] SPEAKER_00: Absolutely, right. Now that said what you just we just laid out for us and the folks listening in is that the CEO is now is one thing owns the culture of the company.
[13:04] SPEAKER_00: He protects you or she protects the company. So the title is either here or there as Steve Jobs pointed us to us in his book and in his life, I spend.
[13:17] SPEAKER_00: However, the CEO has to inspire the rest of the company and the team and all stakeholders in that respect. So that's the culture based that foundation of the cultural base of the CEO.
[13:27] SPEAKER_01: I love it. I love that you mentioned inspiration. I think that's a very key word versus, you know, I've heard saying you don't incentivize you motivate you inspire.
[13:42] SPEAKER_01: And so can you dig a little deeper in that because I think that's so important in, you know, in our world, we think that the way you inspire is to give more money.
[13:54] SPEAKER_01: But as you know, that's way down in the pecking order of what people want. So again, leadership lean and talk about that inspiration piece about some ways in which people can address or focus in on that.
[14:05] SPEAKER_00: Yeah, the inspiration is huge as a quality of it of a CEO for you, she can have that as their as their mantra, if you want to call it out, the inspiration part of the business owners and CEOs and whether you start up for skilling is so important to your team.
[14:23] SPEAKER_00: And it's like you just said, sometimes much more than money for them.
[14:27] SPEAKER_00: Yes, the inspiration piece for any leader, whether you see your leader within the leadership team is a missing quality that people pray for and say,
[14:40] SPEAKER_00: and I have been craving for years, just kind of forget what inspiration means.
[14:46] SPEAKER_00: You can inspire people to do many, many things.
[14:50] SPEAKER_00: Many, many things are where how you use inspiration is very important and have to inspire that you have to use inspiration to guide what we call and back to men's union and Collins, the big heritage is goal of your company to be.
[15:04] SPEAKER_00: Right on.
[15:05] SPEAKER_00: So it's about that.
[15:07] SPEAKER_00: Yeah, if you can inspire that leadership team or your, you get the leadership team in your whole company to align with the behead, big heritage is goal.
[15:15] SPEAKER_00: Everything you do every day, every decision you make every day has to be aligned with that goal.
[15:21] SPEAKER_00: Otherwise, why are we doing it?
[15:24] SPEAKER_00: Right.
[15:24] SPEAKER_00: So that's a little bit of inspiration that when we're dipping into there that be has it's a huge part of inspiration if you can communicate it properly to the company.
[15:34] SPEAKER_00: And how does one goes through identifying the behead?
[15:39] SPEAKER_00: Of course, as many ways you can do it, as many tools are there that can help you, but it's an exercise you go through it yourself and you need to know what is my big heritage is goal 10 to 15 years from now.
[15:52] SPEAKER_00: Now, many books will bring you to the original behead, which got a lot of business people going is now, JF candies, no man on the moon in 10 years.
[16:02] SPEAKER_00: That was a big area of the Asian goal back then and and and Lobby hole ninth year and some odd months.
[16:10] SPEAKER_00: It was a person on the moon.
[16:12] SPEAKER_00: Right.
[16:14] SPEAKER_00: Right.
[16:14] SPEAKER_00: So we have has a lot of a lot to play in inspiring your company to greatness.
[16:20] SPEAKER_00: And it has a lot to do with making sure that you have some stuff is going out in the proper way.
[16:26] SPEAKER_00: So.
[16:28] SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I think that that behead mode is is bang on and I mean, a lot of a lot of we don't really talk about leadership a lot in the journey of entrepreneurship.
[16:38] SPEAKER_01: We can't do, but we don't mean we focus more on cast management, customer acquisition, more of those harder skills than the soft skills that are important to really drive momentum forward.
[16:50] SPEAKER_01: Tell us a bit about your organization.
[16:54] SPEAKER_01: I'm I can never explain it because it would take me a long time to really share that value because what it is, it's it's so deep.
[17:04] SPEAKER_01: Can you explain to us what you're doing as a Atlantic Canadian entrepreneur because this is a podcast of what Atlanta Canada entrepreneurs so.
[17:13] SPEAKER_01: Can you guide a little bit about your business and how you're leading it forward.
[17:18] SPEAKER_00: Yeah, so our organization itself and we were coaching organization with multiple culture coaches.
[17:23] SPEAKER_00: We are basically basically based a CL plus leadership based coaching company.
[17:29] SPEAKER_00: We don't just do CEO coaching.
[17:31] SPEAKER_00: We don't just leadership coaching.
[17:33] SPEAKER_00: We found the.
[17:35] SPEAKER_00: The missing length years ago is that you need CEO plus leadership team in order to succeed to scaling to whatever that scaling means.
[17:44] SPEAKER_00: So we we emphasize that we work with team led business or CEO closing ship team businesses and we apply tools that allows them to grow as a company.
[17:53] SPEAKER_00: But as sorry as a leadership team and a CEO and as a company.
[17:57] SPEAKER_00: And we break it down in basically five steps, you know, but basically we start off with a culture rich company.
[18:05] SPEAKER_00: We instilled a culture.
[18:06] SPEAKER_00: What is the culture of this company and we evolve to the fifth step where we want to take the CEO and convert him or her to a coach.
[18:14] SPEAKER_00: A level idea.
[18:17] SPEAKER_00: As a coach, inspiring the rest of the company to go forward.
[18:21] SPEAKER_00: So that's what we do at a nutshell.
[18:22] SPEAKER_00: What does that mean?
[18:24] SPEAKER_00: Well, it starts with foundation.
[18:28] SPEAKER_00: We start right at the foundation.
[18:30] SPEAKER_00: What's our core values?
[18:31] SPEAKER_00: What's our core purpose?
[18:32] SPEAKER_00: All that stuff that soft edge stuff that people are going to use.
[18:36] SPEAKER_00: We soft stuff, but it's important.
[18:39] SPEAKER_00: Then we evolve in the track in the five step process or seven step process, depending which process we use.
[18:45] SPEAKER_00: And we just build that leadership team and the company where it's, you know, it's solid.
[18:51] SPEAKER_00: But if you look at a company as a house or as structure, you start with a foundation.
[18:57] SPEAKER_00: And you put the walls on and you put the roof up and then and then put the process or the things inside the house.
[19:04] SPEAKER_00: If your foundation is not solid, eventually, you'll also.
[19:07] SPEAKER_00: Right on.
[19:08] SPEAKER_00: That's why we obviously does foundation of culture is so so important.
[19:13] SPEAKER_01: You know, when I hear a few entrepreneurs make it past, you know, that eight year mark that five year mark and so on.
[19:24] SPEAKER_01: I got to think based on this conversation that leadership or lack of is one of the key issues with failure or success as organizations move from that startup stage to that scale up stage or that.
[19:42] SPEAKER_01: Make sure you stage is that a fair comment.
[19:45] SPEAKER_00: It's definitely a fair comment, you know, and you know, whether you say eight years or five years, if you look at Scott tennis, he's now a, I think an Indian politician, not politician, but.
[20:00] SPEAKER_00: I think the term of it, but amongst the resources short, he used to run a company in Canada, very successful, sold it to an insurance company and exited and became a senator.
[20:08] SPEAKER_00: There we go, senator.
[20:09] SPEAKER_00: Okay.
[20:11] SPEAKER_00: And he has in the book, one of the books, he has a visual that stocks about the value of death of any type of companies from the startup to exit, you know, and.
[20:24] SPEAKER_00: What's important there is that the crux of this visual visual is that put a system in place.
[20:29] SPEAKER_00: You need to put a system in place to go over those value of that.
[20:33] SPEAKER_00: It's going to occur now into a 2014 when this graphic was without it was less than sorry, there was less than 4% of companies that can make it over $1 million.
[20:45] SPEAKER_00: Wow.
[20:46] SPEAKER_00: Just think about that for a second, $28 million, $28 million companies back then, less than 4% we make it over one million.
[20:55] SPEAKER_00: And from one million to the next level is only 1% that can go over that $10 million dollar mark.
[21:02] SPEAKER_00: And in between this is what he called value of that somebody will grow and then they'll follow his value without predicting what the future should be, what they need to put in place.
[21:12] SPEAKER_00: The system.
[21:14] SPEAKER_00: Right.
[21:15] SPEAKER_00: So that said, this is what we're going to have to look at the whole part of the process. Sorry, my time is barking.
[21:19] SPEAKER_00: No, it's all good.
[21:21] SPEAKER_00: It's an image man.
[21:22] SPEAKER_01: It's kids.
[21:22] SPEAKER_01: It dogs.
[21:23] SPEAKER_01: It's sirens.
[21:24] SPEAKER_01: Don't worry about it.
[21:25] SPEAKER_01: It's good.
[21:26] SPEAKER_01: It's good.
[21:26] SPEAKER_01: So we personalized a bit.
[21:28] SPEAKER_01: What's your dog's name?
[21:29] SPEAKER_01: Precious.
[21:30] SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
[21:30] SPEAKER_01: All right.
[21:32] SPEAKER_01: Precious shows up.
[21:33] SPEAKER_01: We're cool.
[21:34] SPEAKER_01: Precious is welcome, dude.
[21:36] SPEAKER_00: Precious welcome.
[21:37] Speaker UNKNOWN: Thank you.
[21:37] Speaker UNKNOWN: Thank you.
[21:37] SPEAKER_00: So yeah.
[21:37] SPEAKER_00: So what I'm trying to get at is the graphics test cop 10 is painted for us in 2014 and the book is that.
[21:43] SPEAKER_00: If you look at it quickly, no, first of all, it's on the rest.
[21:49] SPEAKER_00: I have to, I want to get to see 10 million.
[21:52] SPEAKER_00: What do I do?
[21:54] SPEAKER_00: Well, is it take a year or three or five or eight?
[21:57] SPEAKER_00: Maybe.
[21:58] SPEAKER_00: The message I'm trying to bring across here.
[22:01] SPEAKER_00: Rivers is, do you have to put a system in place?
[22:04] SPEAKER_00: I'll allow you to overlook those.
[22:07] SPEAKER_00: Project over those value of death.
[22:10] SPEAKER_00: Right.
[22:11] SPEAKER_00: Right.
[22:11] SPEAKER_00: Because barrier to growth for many, any startups or any entrepreneur,
[22:14] SPEAKER_00: or if you've got levels or any entrepreneur is right between the years.
[22:19] SPEAKER_00: It's knowledge learnings.
[22:22] SPEAKER_00: Market dynamics, leadership scalability.
[22:25] SPEAKER_00: All of that has come a new point.
[22:27] SPEAKER_00: I love it.
[22:28] SPEAKER_00: And you have to take a bit back before you get to the next level.
[22:32] SPEAKER_00: You do not want to think to how to scale my leadership team when you get to 10 million.
[22:37] SPEAKER_00: You want to think about that when you get between one and 10 million.
[22:40] SPEAKER_00: So we overcome that value.
[22:41] Speaker UNKNOWN:
[22:42] SPEAKER_01: Is there, do you see a lot of CEOs that are startups that are not qualified to be CEOs of scale ups?
[22:49] SPEAKER_00: Absolutely.
[22:50] SPEAKER_00: And there's nothing wrong with that.
[22:52] SPEAKER_00: Right.
[22:52] SPEAKER_00: Lost CEOs like myself at a time which are unemployable human beings.
[22:57] SPEAKER_00: So he started company.
[22:58] SPEAKER_00: Yes.
[22:58] SPEAKER_00: And he grow.
[23:00] SPEAKER_01: By the way, ladies and gentlemen, this man we're talking to right now was, was almost into the RCMP.
[23:05] SPEAKER_01: There's an interesting story around.
[23:07] SPEAKER_01: So the fact that he's an entrepreneur is the exact opposite instruction.
[23:13] SPEAKER_01: Exactly.
[23:14] SPEAKER_00: So it's just I know, sorry.
[23:16] SPEAKER_00: It's already got me by surprise that we are right.
[23:20] SPEAKER_00: Yes, there you know, the, the, the, the.
[23:23] SPEAKER_00: I forget the question that he got me off track.
[23:25] SPEAKER_00: What was the question?
[23:26] SPEAKER_01: The question was CEOs are they.
[23:30] SPEAKER_01: The difference between startup CEO and a scale up CEO.
[23:33] SPEAKER_00: Yeah, well, really, you know, I, I, I'll, I'll, there is a difference.
[23:38] SPEAKER_00: But yet there's no difference.
[23:40] SPEAKER_00: When, when the pandemic hit in 2020, we, we had a webinar call and forget the webinar.
[23:46] SPEAKER_00: But we had a part of the webinar.
[23:48] SPEAKER_00: We said it was the difference between a COVID-19 CEO and startup CEO.
[23:53] SPEAKER_00: Not.
[23:54] SPEAKER_00: You have to still grow the company.
[23:56] SPEAKER_00: You have to have a sip of employees.
[24:02] SPEAKER_00: Now, an entrepreneur and some of the companies we work with over years to reverse.
[24:07] SPEAKER_00: Give me brief on this.
[24:09] SPEAKER_00: Your first entrepreneur, then he become a CEO.
[24:14] SPEAKER_00: I don't know if you'd probably get what I'm saying here.
[24:17] SPEAKER_00: Right?
[24:18] SPEAKER_00: You, you're, you're bullish enough.
[24:20] SPEAKER_00: You praise enough as to the company.
[24:21] SPEAKER_00: So therefore you know,
[24:23] SPEAKER_00: put your blood sweat and equity into this.
[24:26] SPEAKER_00: And you grow it.
[24:27] SPEAKER_00: And eventually, you grow as a human being and then you go into a CEO role.
[24:31] SPEAKER_00: The difference between entrepreneur and CEO.
[24:35] SPEAKER_00: Entrepreneurs usually do not follow rules.
[24:39] SPEAKER_00: But Mavericks sometimes in general,
[24:42] SPEAKER_00: many eventually grow the company where they have to put a system in place and he grows individual and become a CEO.
[24:48] SPEAKER_00: Yes, after what we said about CEO earlier, predict the future, delegate with purpose and message and communicate the heck of your message.
[24:56] SPEAKER_00: That's what a CEO kind of does today and more.
[25:01] SPEAKER_00: Yes, entrepreneur doesn't do that.
[25:03] SPEAKER_00: No, it's not to come or do.
[25:05] SPEAKER_01: We just get the ship done.
[25:07] SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
[25:08] SPEAKER_01: That's what they do.
[25:08] SPEAKER_01: And there's no rhyme or reason for it is trying to figure out how to play the game.
[25:12] SPEAKER_01: I was using an analogy that businesses all that is is a game.
[25:15] SPEAKER_01: You know, I'd like to kind of take it.
[25:17] SPEAKER_01: But my, my, my idol is Tom Brady's you well know.
[25:21] SPEAKER_01: And you know, Tom Brady started off playing the game,
[25:25] SPEAKER_01: but running around the field didn't know what direction he was going in.
[25:29] SPEAKER_01: He was just playing the game of football and that's really is the entrepreneur.
[25:32] SPEAKER_01: Just trying to figure out the game and they get better and better and better.
[25:35] SPEAKER_01: But they also get better because they understand the rules and they understand the structure of the world and they understand strategy and the rule so that they can really play at that professional level.
[25:43] SPEAKER_01: But there's a lot of structure at the top of the top from the NFL.
[25:50] SPEAKER_00: Absolutely.
[25:50] Speaker UNKNOWN:
[25:50] SPEAKER_00: On that game is that just brings the mind of great game of business Jack stack as a company.
[25:55] SPEAKER_00: Is a CEO's in the US of different companies, but he also started.
[25:59] SPEAKER_00: You wrote a book called the great game of business among the others.
[26:03] SPEAKER_00: But cool.
[26:03] SPEAKER_00: Great game of business as a wonderful book and he talks about all what you just said the mini games.
[26:08] SPEAKER_00: This the structure.
[26:09] SPEAKER_00: I know.
[26:10] SPEAKER_00: I'm burning the company has to understand what the company does.
[26:12] SPEAKER_00: Did you have a good day?
[26:14] SPEAKER_00: That goes back to your opening comment.
[26:15] SPEAKER_00: No, the frustration of lacking communication accountability.
[26:19] SPEAKER_00: Right.
[26:20] SPEAKER_00: That's all part of business.
[26:22] SPEAKER_00: Yes.
[26:22] SPEAKER_00: Most entrepreneurs.
[26:23] SPEAKER_00: This is where they fall apart.
[26:24] SPEAKER_00: You cannot communicate that to the next level.
[26:30] SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
[26:31] SPEAKER_01: And you know, it's so simple to say it.
[26:34] SPEAKER_01: But interesting.
[26:35] SPEAKER_01: So difficult to actually practice it.
[26:38] SPEAKER_01: I know you're a big advocate of regular huddles with your team.
[26:45] SPEAKER_01: And that's what a one at one.
[26:48] SPEAKER_01: What a great practice to put in place.
[26:50] SPEAKER_01: But also good a great time to be able to reinforce what journey we are on.
[26:55] SPEAKER_01: And thank you for that.
[26:56] SPEAKER_01: I'm building a building.
[26:58] SPEAKER_01: Sheftorial to the next level.
[27:00] SPEAKER_01: I need to really start to talk about that more versus what we're going to do the next three days to help a client.
[27:09] SPEAKER_01: And so I, you know, sometimes even I'm in at it just for 25 years.
[27:14] SPEAKER_01: And it's easy to forget to do it because you get playing in that entrepreneur space versus the CEO space.
[27:21] SPEAKER_01: So I think that that's awesome that you brought that point up.
[27:25] SPEAKER_00: No, exactly.
[27:26] SPEAKER_00: The all important meeting rhythm is what the huddles as you say, Nate, Nate.
[27:29] SPEAKER_00: And that's also a heart.
[27:30] SPEAKER_00: It's the hardest thing to implement in any company.
[27:33] SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
[27:33] SPEAKER_00: It's messy at first.
[27:35] SPEAKER_00: People will fight it.
[27:36] SPEAKER_00: And for many reasons because the fact that they don't want to be held.
[27:39] Speaker UNKNOWN: And they don't want to be held accountable.
[27:40] SPEAKER_00: Right.
[27:41] SPEAKER_00: Right.
[27:42] SPEAKER_00: Right.
[27:43] Speaker UNKNOWN:
[27:43] SPEAKER_02: Don, what's the difference between a startup and a scale up?
[27:49] SPEAKER_00: Well, a startup is basically a purse.
[27:52] SPEAKER_00: An entrepreneur that has an idea for whatever reason, whether it's no, he or she's been kicked out of corporate.
[27:57] SPEAKER_00: And I'm not trying to be labeled that the entrepreneur is here.
[28:01] SPEAKER_01: But no, we know they're most important people in society underneath the moms.
[28:06] SPEAKER_01: Sorry, they have the first.
[28:08] SPEAKER_00: Yeah, they're the first responders of this world for business.
[28:11] Speaker UNKNOWN: Yes, sir.
[28:11] SPEAKER_00: The entrepreneurs are.
[28:12] SPEAKER_00: So the entrepreneurs are basically has a great idea.
[28:16] SPEAKER_00: I've been in some words.
[28:17] SPEAKER_00: I've been stuck some words for whatever reason and need to bring this to the next level.
[28:22] SPEAKER_00: They want to get stuff done as you just said.
[28:24] SPEAKER_00: Yes.
[28:25] SPEAKER_00: And so their entrepreneur has that in my set.
[28:27] SPEAKER_00: No, they figured it away to do something better.
[28:29] SPEAKER_00: You listen to the marketplace and they found an each and they go for it.
[28:33] SPEAKER_00: And they pray for it.
[28:35] SPEAKER_00: Now, the difference between that and a scale up is that most entrepreneurs get stuck on making that product 100% viable versus good enough as we call it or 80% and waste their time.
[28:49] SPEAKER_00: So I'm trying to get that so polished and well done before to bring in the market.
[28:53] SPEAKER_00: Now, I'm generalizing here, Rivers, but that's in the general sense, which still happens today.
[28:58] SPEAKER_00: Yes, the entrepreneur has that idea is gifted.
[29:01] SPEAKER_00: He or she's gifted and he take a chance on the world and bet it and go for it.
[29:06] SPEAKER_00: You get stuff done.
[29:09] SPEAKER_00: Now, what do you do if it has to scale up?
[29:11] SPEAKER_00: You don't know what to do.
[29:13] SPEAKER_00: Well, they do, but they just don't have the systems in place or in stuff in order to take advantage of the scaling up process.
[29:21] SPEAKER_00: And this is where sometimes an entrepreneur gets tumbles or falls apart or.
[29:26] SPEAKER_00: Unfortunately, fails is not put into processes in place to legal scale.
[29:31] SPEAKER_00: Another scale, a company today, first of an entrepreneurial company is you have to first scale your people in order to scale your business.
[29:39] SPEAKER_00: If you want to connect your business, you have to connect to Egypt.
[29:43] SPEAKER_00: That's an easy button.
[29:44] SPEAKER_00: Of course.
[29:46] SPEAKER_00: Okay, entrepreneur has got stuff at an idea.
[29:49] SPEAKER_00: Get stuff done. They're working at it and others not all suddenly are making revenue.
[29:55] SPEAKER_00: But to forget one thing, let's around the corner.
[29:57] SPEAKER_00: What do I need to do next?
[29:59] SPEAKER_00: Just stay out of my competition.
[30:01] SPEAKER_00: The scaling company has that in process in place.
[30:04] SPEAKER_00: The team gets together to be out all together.
[30:06] SPEAKER_00: You have systems and tools.
[30:07] SPEAKER_00: It's okay. Great.
[30:08] SPEAKER_00: This is what happened today and yesterday.
[30:10] SPEAKER_00: What we learned from today and yesterday, how can we make it different tomorrow and scale advantage?
[30:17] SPEAKER_00: But comes out the systems system.
[30:20] SPEAKER_01: Yeah, love it.
[30:21] SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I think it's a great way to describe it.
[30:24] SPEAKER_01: Systems ultimately create the investment.
[30:27] SPEAKER_01: If it's just simply the entrepreneur and it's just a job and one, you're going to burn yourself out.
[30:33] SPEAKER_01: But two, you're no one's going to buy your business because your it's not stillable.
[30:37] SPEAKER_01: It's not that they have to buy it, but it's not it's not an investment.
[30:40] SPEAKER_01: It really just a job.
[30:42] SPEAKER_01: So so so one thing we do terribly.
[30:47] SPEAKER_01: From a Canadian ecosystem perspective is really focus on those organizations that one should be identified.
[30:59] SPEAKER_01: But two are also ready to scale up.
[31:01] SPEAKER_01: We do it. We focus a lot on the startups, startups, startups, startups.
[31:07] SPEAKER_01: But then we don't continue around around first base and say, okay, now we're going to help you scale up.
[31:12] SPEAKER_01: You and my friend are part of a really cool initiative called 20,000 scale ups.
[31:18] SPEAKER_00: Can you talk about that?
[31:19] SPEAKER_00: Yeah, great. Great. Thanks for asking.
[31:21] SPEAKER_00: Absolutely. No, the first base things analogy came from a gentleman by the name of Franklin Dwyer.
[31:27] SPEAKER_00: Francis McGuire originally from major drilling in Alok, but he you know, yeah, he said it and he's in his public knowledge of volunteering it.
[31:36] SPEAKER_00: He said no, I'll kind of Canadians are great at making startups and again, the first base, but after that, they don't know what to do.
[31:44] SPEAKER_00: You got to know what to do.
[31:45] SPEAKER_00: No, and it's okay. It's okay to don't know what to do, but yes, no, if you don't know what to do.
[31:51] SPEAKER_00: That you don't know. Yeah, I told it.
[31:53] Speaker UNKNOWN: I'm going to take away this.
[31:55] SPEAKER_00: This is where the scale up initiative, the 20,000 scale up globally, and it should start up basically.
[32:01] SPEAKER_00: So under the scaling up companies, coaches, we have an initiative called 20,000 scale ups for the next five or 10 years.
[32:08] SPEAKER_00: Our big heritage is goals to have 20,000 companies scale up around the world.
[32:14] SPEAKER_00: So June this year, we're launching our first cohort in North America.
[32:17] SPEAKER_00: I find it Canada, Andy biting it myself or teaming together to do the 20,000 scale ups in the planet Canada and it's going to be launching June 6th, 7 and 8, I believe in St. Andrews.
[32:30] SPEAKER_00: Then I have another one in Tampa with Paul and I, Orlando, Minneapolis, San Paul, and so on and so forth.
[32:38] SPEAKER_00: So there's 22 cities this year that's been identified as scaling cities and picked, if you wish, by the scaling up community.
[32:47] SPEAKER_00: So we're very fortunate and very excited to announce that the Canada has been one in chosen in one of those cities.
[32:55] SPEAKER_00: So what we do is we put five companies in the cohort.
[32:58] SPEAKER_00: This is a cohort based learning and is a reason for that.
[33:02] SPEAKER_00: Now, because most times when and also it's CEO plus leadership team as well, because most time to CEOs, the load to learnings, come back to the company and go,
[33:11] SPEAKER_00: I got to cascade this down to the company and they looked at them, it's okay, what's they were doing at a boss.
[33:17] SPEAKER_00: Well, they just don't need to come back from it.
[33:19] SPEAKER_00: So now this cohort is the CEO, most of the leadership team, four other companies, five total companies in the cohort and we learned together on the system we put in place, when I scaling up.
[33:31] SPEAKER_02: Nice.
[33:31] SPEAKER_00: The beauty is a pure pressure within the company and you have pure pressure among the five companies in that.
[33:38] SPEAKER_00: For and we learned together and we go from there.
[33:43] SPEAKER_00: So yes, yeah, thanks for asking.
[33:45] SPEAKER_00: It's initiative that we've been working on for the last couple of years, finding launched it globally and a kind of Canada is amongst the.
[33:53] SPEAKER_00: Chosen cities for this global initiative starting June.
[33:57] SPEAKER_01: Well, no big surprise with your leadership, my friend, it's it's it's critically needed, first of all, and I also think Atlantic Canada is prime for this.
[34:07] SPEAKER_01: So last question in this conversation today, what are you seeing for entrepreneurship in Atlantic Canada?
[34:15] SPEAKER_01: What's what's kind of your sense of this is what's going on that's good here in regards to the entrepreneurship ecosystem.
[34:24] SPEAKER_00: Man, you know, rivers is such an opportunity for Atlantic and Indian companies right now entrepreneurs scaling or start options such an opportunity.
[34:35] SPEAKER_00: The pandemic has given us a gift.
[34:39] SPEAKER_00: People are laughing when we say this, but pandemic is given us a gift.
[34:43] SPEAKER_00: Yes, it's allowed us to focus on our backyards for first time in a long time.
[34:49] SPEAKER_00: You're right, right.
[34:50] SPEAKER_00: Look at the community start buying local, whatever you want to call it, but not only that the gift that it gave us, it gave us a chance to look at different perspective to bring global local is one thing that was called bring global local.
[35:02] SPEAKER_00: But also look at different perspectives, a how can we build an ecosystem stronger.
[35:09] SPEAKER_00: The stronger going out of this pandemic Iran.
[35:13] SPEAKER_00: That's the key we want to be stronger and hold on this pandemic.
[35:17] SPEAKER_00: I know I know I know that we've been using the views the pandemic, but.
[35:21] SPEAKER_00: There's such an opportunity right now finding any businesses to learn what happened and leverage this and hopefully last two years the gift of the governments have given us in form of.
[35:32] SPEAKER_00: Services call this we for now to help us train our people, help us put systems in place, help put stuff in place that we can come out of this stronger we can even and there is a lot of opportunities for entrepreneurs planning Canada.
[35:47] SPEAKER_00: I bring it to the analogy of any time we go through a recession.
[35:51] SPEAKER_00: Hit the word to word recession, but anytime we go through recession, you want to be stronger on the way out and take advantage of opportunities coming out.
[35:58] SPEAKER_00: This is what's happening right now here.
[36:02] SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I've heard you say that before many, many times about coming out of the recession and it's a great opportunity.
[36:09] SPEAKER_01: It's a great opportunity because I call I have really called the pandemic as the great equalizer, not the great recent but the great equalizer because everybody was saying, what do I do now.
[36:24] SPEAKER_01: And so the small guys and girls can compete with the big girls and guys and and such a way because we're all just trying to figure it out.
[36:31] SPEAKER_01: So I concur Atlantic Canadian, there's a there's a great ecosystem that's being further developed, but I think in trench, I mean we see migration happened hugely towards the right.
[36:42] SPEAKER_01: I'm sort of been and Nova Scotia, part of what island and not quite know what's happening in Newfoundland, but yeah, it's it's an upward mode for lifestyle period, let alone just work style.
[36:54] SPEAKER_00: So yeah, if I don't add to your back of that to your back to do go for it.
[36:58] SPEAKER_00: I can't any can eat it's got to stop to be so darn humble.
[37:02] SPEAKER_00: Ask for help. Don't be afraid to ask for help. The definition of humble in mentionedies book and stuff is that you know you have to be comfortable enough to be vulnerable enough.
[37:12] SPEAKER_00: Ask for that. Yeah, I hope you that jerk that we talked about earlier. Ask for help.
[37:16] SPEAKER_01: Right. Yeah. So yeah, I think that's not I think that's very important to be on and here's the other thing.
[37:22] SPEAKER_01: Ask for help because people want to help. That's the other bonus thing about being in the land of Canada.
[37:28] SPEAKER_01: I've run that with the entrepreneur space anyway. Most people are pretty open to help, but in Atlantic Canada, they are in particular.
[37:34] SPEAKER_01: Don, look, as always, it's great to hang out with you ladies and gentlemen. You don't know, but I keep bringing it on back into my conversations.
[37:42] SPEAKER_01: What I want to bring them to the value for audiences that I speak to. So thank you, friend, for continuing to bring just your kindness and your wisdom and your journey.
[37:54] SPEAKER_01: It's just fantastic. We're lucky enough to have you in your land of Canada. How do people hang out with you if they're leaning in and they say, OK, I want to hang out more with Don Ashy or follow what he's doing.
[38:06] SPEAKER_01: I want to learn from him and I want to connect with them.
[38:08] SPEAKER_00: The best way is to follow me on LinkedIn, of course. We're just going to the website, the south drawn group.com.
[38:15] SPEAKER_00: OK, and my calendar is there. You can know it's pretty full, but you can find a spot. I'm open. I'm always gracious given my time.
[38:23] SPEAKER_00: But also I could put a plug on it. Go to the event section. You'll see that 20,000 scale up initiative right on the website.
[38:30] SPEAKER_00: What kind of it's by invitation only is only five spots for cities. Hey, apply. Yeah, great, great thing to do that. So can you just can you just spell out your website? I just just said it kind of quick. Yeah, yeah, and that's my French side of me. So the sell, sell,
[38:55] SPEAKER_00: go there. So the south drawn group.com you go there. You can just call it events. You can see the events happening or just connect with me on my website and my calendar is there.
[39:05] SPEAKER_00: You can look time with me to have a coffee chat or stuff about.
[39:10] SPEAKER_01: Ladies and gentlemen, I've been doing business for 25 years and I always keep coming back to Don for all kinds of reasons. And one of them was just that he responds.
[39:19] SPEAKER_01: And it's very gracious. I know that my journey has been enriched by my friendship and my having you as a colleague also don't so thank you my man for hanging out on Canada's podcast.
[39:33] SPEAKER_01: Land of Canada. We look forward to the next time and given a chat until then we'll look into to to see this go live. Dr. soon, Don. Cheers.
