Navigating Solo Success with Bert terHart

Tim Melanson: [00:00:00] Hello and welcome to today’s episode of the Work at Home Rockstar podcast. Excited for today’s episode. We are

talking to the founder and CEO of Lead Brain

at a nine, and he’s also the CTO of Obesity Medicine and the Diabetes

Institute, so I’m excited to talk to him. He, what he does

is he helps businesses.

To land in the conversation when their ideal customer

asks the question, who do I buy

from? So I’m interested to hear more about that.

First we’re talking to Bert Terhart Hey Bert,

you, ready to rock?

Bert terHart: I am ready to go. How are you, Tim?

Tim Melanson: I’m doing excellent. So we always start off on a

good note. So tell

me a story of success that we can be inspired by

Bert terHart: Uh, I sailed solo

nonstop

around the world. The ninth person in the, yeah, the

ninth person

in the world to do that. And, uh, uh.

and the first north or South

American to have to, to have done it. So that’s 265 days alone at sea using only a sexton to, to get around the world. So that, that, that was a pretty cool success.

Tim Melanson: Wow.

Wow. [00:01:00]

Bert terHart: Now since you’re, since, since you’re in

Moncton, and I asked about Schiff again, I paddled a canoe solo across Canada from

the Pacific Ocean, the Atlantic, and I stopped in,

uh, I

stopped in Big Schiff again. Ship again, as you

would

say. And I’ll, anyway, so those are, those are, those are,

different kind of successes, but, but Lead Brainin is on track

to, to, to

make something like, uh, $700,000 this year.

So that’s a, that’s also a pretty

good success and all of it done from home except for the

sailing and

the paddling. And I’m just sitting on my ass, basically

just like

I do now.

Tim Melanson: Do you have a laptop with you?

Bert terHart: Uh,

no, no, I didn’t. No. There’s, there’s

no

laptop with me. Truly and truly, completely un

un unhooked, untethered to, to, to the

world,

Tim Melanson: Wow. When did you say you did that?

Bert terHart: Uh, around the world

in 2019 to 2020, and then across Canada, uh, in 2022.

Tim Melanson: Wow. That’s amazing. Good stuff.

I probably could write a book about that one

too. Eh?

Bert terHart: Yeah. Yeah. There’s a couple. [00:02:00] There’s four actually. So done that. Yeah. Yeah.

Tim Melanson: wow. That’s awesome. Well, okay, so then with the

good

notes, sometimes there’s some bad notes that we hit as well, and I like to make sure that

people understand that people do make mistakes and

Bert terHart: Oh yeah. Oh yeah,

Tim Melanson: I’m wondering, can you share with us, uh, you know, one that, that, you know, we can

learn from?

Bert terHart: Yeah. Sure. I think, uh,

um, certainly in terms of, well,

in, in, in, in terms of business, we talked briefly about this, but, uh, you know, starting lead brain.

Uh, I failed. I, I, I basically ignored my own advice and thought that everyone would come to me, that my ‘

ideal customer would come to me. cause I had such a brilliant idea if you ask me, and

the privacy of

the bathroom, that’s say, Yeah. it was a, it was a fantastic idea.

And that’s a classic mistake. You can’t expect your customer to

come to you. You have to go to them. So that’s fundamental to, to success. And sometimes you

get caught up in your own, well, I’ll say hubris or,

or, or maybe your own

excitement thinking that. Knowing it’s a good idea,

but, but, uh, but

failing the fundamental.

um, failing on one of the [00:03:00] fundamental

tenets of, uh, of, business. No. No matter what it is, you have to

meet your customer where they are. So that was, uh, I mean, I should have known that. So

thinking, you know, thinking, you

know, something, uh, well, like, like Mark Twain would

say, he would say it’s, it’s not what

you

don’t know that gets you, it’s what, you know for absolute shirt that really kills you.

So.

Tim Melanson: Yeah. Yeah. and you know what, and that’s really good

advice because it isn’t,

I. Probably most entrepreneurs, unless they have like really great mentorship that, you know, gets them off the ground, you’re gonna fall into that, into

that trap. You know, you

just, you have this great idea and you think, oh, this is gonna be fantastic.

Everybody’s gonna love it,

and maybe they would if you told them about it, right?

Bert terHart: Yeah, maybe. Well, the thing is, every, every,

every time I hear that, every time I hear something like, everybody’s gonna want this, I know you’re on

the wrong track. ’cause the first thing I think is like, I don’t want it.

And, uh, and therefore your whole premise of everybody is

wrong. At least, well, maybe that’s a bit harsh, but it’s a little

bit skewed. So, [00:04:00] so this idea that everybody

wants what you’re doing is just. And one of the most

important things you can do actually is polarize

your audience. So, so you wanna know

exactly who the people are that don’t want to talk

to you. So you don’t want to

you. don’t waste any

time and resources talking to those

people.

And the, the, the, the soon as you do that, then, then all your efforts are being spent with the people

who want to talk to you, who, who are interested in what you’re offering, who are interested in what you’re doing.

And if you think that you can’t do that, or you shouldn’t be

doing that, then I

think you’re. You’re basically spending

time, energy, and money. ’cause you’re talking to everybody and not

everybody wants to hear you. So the sooner you polarize the,

the more the, uh, the more efficient you are in terms of time, energy, and resources.

Tim Melanson: Wow. And that’s really interesting to think about because you do see sort of stuff like.

Fat, you know, floating around in the internet where people will say, oh, you know, they, they just said what they said. They’re gonna totally lose all their client base. However, what might be happening is, like you just said, they’re just going, no, no, no, we’re just losing you.

’cause we know you’re not gonna buy from us anyway.

Bert terHart: That’s [00:05:00] exactly right. That’s exactly

right. So, uh, you know, I guess, you

know, colloquially, you know, haters are

gonna hate so they can go somewhere else,

so,

Tim Melanson: and, and you’re, that’s another

part of it too. I mean, haters are gonna hate you are going to get haters, especially if you’ve got something that people love. There’s like this pendulum

effect, right? The more people they have that letter love in you, the more people you

have that are hating you and you’re better off to focus on the love.

And I think that this is not natural. I think

most of us sort of like go,

oh, someone just said something bad about me.

I’m gonna focus a ton of energy on

that. Right.

Bert terHart: Well, it’s that, that’s interesting that you’d say that

because if you go, you know, online is is very is very polarizing.

So if you’re, if you’re getting any guidance from online

and you have to

take, well people, it, it will be, it’s natural. You know, people that love you, it’s like, oh, how fantastic these people love me.

How

wonderful. But, but the, but the flip side of that is if you’re willing to listen

to those people, then you’re willing to listen to the

people who also hate you. So that leaves you. Directly in the middle, in a very

bad spot. [00:06:00] So what you should do, in my

mind, well, I, I hate to should on people. That’s a, that’s a bad idea.

So my, my approach is to take it all with a

grain of salt. So people that love you is fine, because if I’m,

if I’m

geared, if I’m listening to those people exclusively, then that means that they have some

influence over where I’m going, which I’m not saying is a bad thing. But by the same token, you have to be listening to

the, you know, you have to be giving the same, uh, weight and gravitas to the

people who, who are hating on you

for whatever reason. And that’s, that just leaves

you. Bifurcated, what do you do? Like, who should

you, where should you

be going? So if you’re willing to listen

to,

you have to take it all with a grain of salt.

It’s, uh, um, and you see that. You see that.

You see that with, with, with celebrities, you see that

with, you know, with, with,

really, really good business people.

You have to,

you have to,

you know, take it all with a grain of salt. So, I mentioned

the, I mentioned the, canoe trip. So the

first thing I did, ’cause I hadn’t

been

in a canoe from, for 40 years, the last time I was in a canoe was 40 years ago before I

went on this trip. So the first thing I did, did, did was, you [00:07:00] know, go online for advice.

And the second

thing I did was get offline for advice.

Tim Melanson: Yeah.

You know? Perfect. Yeah. Yeah. That going online, I mean,

you can get some cool stuff from there, but also boys,

you know, it’s

like, you know, Googling your

symptoms.

Bert terHart: Yeah, exactly. So if,

if, if, if you’re gonna, if you’re gonna give full weight and confidence to what they say

about you positively, then if you’re actually being honest with yourself, there’s two sides to every coin. You have to give full weight and honesty to the thing that they’re saying about you

negatively.

And that’s, that’s a very, very

tough place to be. It’s, you should be,

well, I. You need to be well centered and well grounded. So you have to very, you have to have very

solid foundation to understand that, okay, this is what

I’m doing. Yeah, there’s positive and, and

negative feedback as long as you’re headed in the same

direction.

So, um,

and, and the plan is still working for you, then, then you just need to be, just need to be continuing in that, in, in that, in that same direction. And, and you shouldn’t be, I,

uh, here, I shouldn’t,

should on you again, but

it’s, I think it’s, I don’t

think [00:08:00] it’s really

smart to, to base all your business decisions on whether people are loving you on the internet or

not.

That doesn’t seem to me like a, you

know, like, like a, a recipe for

success.

Tim Melanson: No. Well, and, and then the other thing too is that yeah,

like this, this internet stuff, they’re not, they’re not, they’re not paying your

bills. Right.

Bert terHart: Yeah, exactly.

Tim Melanson: that you should be

listening to, here I am

should-ing now,

Bert terHart: Yeah, that’s right.

Tim Melanson: that.

It’s the people that are buying your product.

You know, maybe that would be the

people to look at, right?

Bert terHart: Yeah, so that’s, that’s a conversation that, that mo certainly most small business people tend to avoid,

which is, they’re constantly they’re constantly

looking for the, the, the question they’re, they’re continually

asking themselves, in my experience is, is this customer that’s

walking through the door, is, that my last customer?

Like, who’s coming after them?

Because if this is my last customer

that I’m in real. Then I’m in

real trouble. And which is, you know, which is part of this thing that we

had talked about

earlier about, you know, people ask the question, who do I give my money to? They ask that

question online. So, so if you, if, if [00:09:00] you

think the last person that’s gonna come into your business is walking

through the door now, then you should have, you should be having a very.

Um, pointed conversation with

them. So the best, the best, people to ask about,

about how you’re doing are your

customers, the people who’ve decided they’re gonna give you money for whatever it is that

you do, as opposed to someone who’s not

given you any money yet. So the idea, the di the idea is very simple and

it’s foundational, and it certainly isn’t mine, that’s for sure.

Is that, um, it’s very expensive to, to acquire a

customer. It’s the most expensive thing you’ll do the,

the. The, the easiest thing to do is to keep a customer, and that’s just maintaining engagement in, in this day and age,

you know, we call it engagement. Before we would just call it customer satisfaction.

The easiest thing to do is just keep

co keep talking, keep a conversation open with that, with

that customer you have and in, in terms of the clinic.

Um. We call that compliance because patients will not have good

outcomes if they’re not compliant. So the doctor gives ’em advice, do this, and they do that.

They go online and do [00:10:00] something else

entirely. So we’ve lost that patient.

And of course, if you’re at all interested

in helping people, which is what you’re supposed to be doing when

you go to the doctor, is that you want that patient to be compliant, which is nothing more than having a conversation with them.

And

we use a bunch of tools to do that. AI being one of them. But the point again is that

we’re, we’re, we’re, we’re,

focused on keeping our customers or our

patients or our clients

by having, um, by continuing to engage with

them

in a way that makes sense to them. So again, we’re meeting them where they

are.

Um, and if you do that, then,

then, your customers or

clients or patients are gonna come back to you as opposed to going to the

competition.

Tim Melanson: Yeah. Yeah. So let’s, I mean, you’ve been working from home for a little while now. I’m wondering how have you sort of like

made it work for a, you know, a home office or a

jam room?

Bert terHart: Well, you have to be

disciplined about it. So if you ask any writer,

um, the, the,

everybody has a book in their head. Not everybody is disciplined enough to sit down in front of

the computer and, and work or write. [00:11:00] Um, and if you can do that, if you can just sit

down and I. Force yourself disciplined enough to do it,

then you know, pretty, before you know it, you’ll have a book.

And it’s the same with

same with,

working at home. It’s, it’s so tempting to do other things.

Um, so you have to be focused

and disciplined. It’s also, and the oth other side of that

coin, it’s very simple to be undisciplined,

which is you’ve got all day. So I’ll, I’ll just do this and that and I’ll come back to it.

which

ends, which means you end up working 18 hours a day, you know, seven days a week.

So, um,

and. And if you’re not working from

home, that balance is automatically thrust upon you. ’cause you’ve gotta drive to the office or commute or bike, or

whatever the case might be. So soon as you leave the office, then

okay, you know, work is over.

Or at least it used to be until you bring your

smartphone home and, and a laptop. But, but the point is, if you want to be. You have

to bleed, you have to

be disciplined about it. So you have to have some kind of routine, at least for me, you

have to have some kind of routine that, that has you sitting at your desk,

has you doing, has you doing this,

[00:12:00] or that, or that or this,

um, over the course of the day.

So that means you’re, you’re

you’re properly scheduling your your time

in terms of, you know, what you’re doing, who you’re talking to, all those kinds of

things. So it’s no, and if you can’t do that.

Then you’re gonna have a real, it’s gonna be really

hard because, um, it’s so easy to commute,

to work. it’s like five steps, you know,

easy to, easy to commute to the fridge, right?

Easy to commute anywhere. So you just gotta

be, you just have to have your, when it’s time to

work, then work. And when it’s. Time not to work

then don’t work. I mean, it’s as simple as that.

Um, and I’ve been able to strike that

balance

pretty well, um, because I’ve, I’ve been able to

step away

from work for, for big chunks of time to do the things I really like to do.

And if I wasn’t disciplined enough and delegating, then I’d

go nowhere.

Tim Melanson: So I don’t know if

you have an opinion on this. Do you think that

people are disciplined and some people aren’t? Or

is this something like, is this something that can, everybody can [00:13:00] do it, they’re just choosing not to?

Bert terHart: Discipline is simply a matter

of, of creating a

habit, and it takes about a week to create a habit.

That’s it. So if you can, if you can do it for a week,

then you can do it for a month. And if you can do it for a

month, you can do it for years and years and years.

So it’s, I. We’re, we’re, I mean, think of it

the things that you really

love to do, then you’re disciplined about doing the things you really love to do.

You don’t have to

force yourself to get up and do it. And of course,

we

wouldn’t be working from home if we

didn’t love it. But the point is, we don’t love everything.

Like that’s, there isn’t everything about business that’s fantastic. Whether it’s working from home or otherwise.

Um, I mean, I wasn’t, there was,

I was, I wrote some software for a group of chiropractors who were interested in doing continuing education stuff and, and,

um, I. So we, we, you

know, we wrote it or I wrote it Uh,

we ended up, went through

beta. We were live in the marketplace and it was really successful. People loved it, but it wasn’t my job to sell

it. It It

was the job of this,

uh, you know, of the board and, and the sales team [00:14:00] and all that sort of thing. And,

and at a meeting and

said, okay, you guys, we have a choice to make here. ’cause we’re, we’re sort of at, at, you know, we’re sort of stalling.

The choice is simple. You want $10,000 a month problems, or you want $10 million a month

problems.

’cause the, you’re still gonna have problems.

They’re just gonna be in a different scale and a different scope. So if you think that

money or, or, or everything else is gonna make all this go away, you’re

wrong. Um, so just decide what you want.

And it turns out they wanted $10,000 a

month problems, not the, not

the other variety. So there isn’t every, everything you do isn’t

gonna be something you like to do, and that’s where discipline

comes in.

So your question was, is it in all of us? And the answer is yes. ’cause we’re

ver we can be incredibly disciplined about doing the things that we love

to

do.

Tim Melanson: Yeah, I think that’s a really good answer

because it, it is exactly it. I mean, everybody is disciplined about the things that

they want to do. So I guess, I guess maybe what it

comes down to is like, where’s your why? What, why are you

doing this? And if, if you’re finding that you can’t do it, then maybe it’s [00:15:00] because there’s not a really good reason to

do it, right.

Bert terHart: Yeah, that’s, that’s a really, really good, that’s a very, that’s a very profound

perspective

actually, because, um, as it turns out, you need to have more than

one. Why? Because when things get hard, you’ll burn up.

That one why, and then you’ll

look in the basket of why’s that you have and find it’s empty and then go, fine,

I’ll do something else. So there, there, there, there is always, and people will always have some overarching

reason why, but they need to have very, very many more why’s

than just that. So you have to have lots of why’s. So when you’re, so, when it gets hard, you look in

the, you

know, look in your bucket of wise and there’s another one in there.

Because, because it will get hard and you will burn through them

all, Um, uh, well, I shouldn’t say all, but you’ll, you’ll start to burn through them pretty quickly when things get start to get,

start, start to get high or hard, I should say. So,

um, um, it, I it’s, it’s not hard to find a bunch of reasons why. I mean, the, the.

When you ask someone, you know, why are you

doing it? They’re, they’re looking for the one, the one big why, the one thing that’s [00:16:00] gonna motivate

the rest of the world. And that’s a, that’s a very

difficult thing to ask yourself because that will change almost on a daily basis. Um,

so it’s more important that you have a bunch then, then you have one that’s, you know, that’s gonna change the world.

Tim Melanson: Well, you know, and, and I think this

kinda like leads into another topic. So, uh, I read somewhere that if you’re the task, that you’re procrastinating

on the task. Like, so, you know, I like, I agree. I think there’s like a, a big overarching why, you know, sort of

like a mission thing and then there’s maybe like a why

for your family, but then when you get into the work

for the, the work itself, why do you do what you do?

You know? Do you like

what you do? And there’s probably some things you love

and some things you don’t

love so much. And do you think maybe those things that you don’t love so much in your business, do you think those are the things that maybe you should delegate?

Bert terHart: Yeah.

I think so. I mean, the, the things that you’re typically procrastinating on are the things that you, you, yourself don’t, don’t

do well, um, or things that you’re actually moving away

from for, for whatever reason. So those are the things that you should be

delegating at the, [00:17:00] at the very, at the very least,

you should be looking at who can do those

things better than you. And, um. I learned very early on that everyone is

replaceable. That uh, it doesn’t matter who you are or what you’re doing, then you can find someone to do that job. Maybe they’re, maybe they’re not as good as you at

doing it, but that frees you

up to do the things that you’re, that no one can do in your business.

Um,

so the idea of delegation. It has to start somewhere,

right? It’s gotta start somewhere. So you may as well start with the things

that you don’t like to do. Like why would you start with the things that you love to do? So

that’s a good place to start, and it’s, it’s a really good indicator, right? I mean,

if, if you’re, it’s a really good indicator of, uh, of Of

what’s.

Of what’s keeping you from actually getting where it is you want

to go and it doesn’t, it, I mean, getting to where you go doesn’t have

to be, like I said, you don’t necessarily have to be changing the world, but it could just be, you know, getting to, getting to the things that might be more important

than doing, than, than doing what you’re, what you’re procrastinating on.

But if you have a list of priorities and the [00:18:00] same thing keeps showing up. Forward and over and

over and over again. That’s a pretty good sign that, that,

that can be offloaded to someone else. And it’s, it’s, you have to, I mean, most

people think that everything has to be

perfect. It’s the worst idea in the world.

You know, this, this idea. Idea,

pursuing, um, pursuing perfection. Nothing will stall you out quicker

than, than pursuing

perfection. And the most important thing is just to get your stuff in

front of people and then let them tell you, you know, what you’re doing

right or wrong. As opposed to you

assuming or you imagining

you know what’s working.

So you’re better off to get something that’s

far less than perfect, you know, barely, I mean, barely acceptable to the

market. That’s, that’s

what you want. You don’t want something that’s unacceptable.

You want something that’s

barely perceptible. So then, or, or acceptable. So people then start. Interacting

with you And then, then you start asking, you ‘

know, what is it that you really want? cause this is obviously your audience in

some way, shape, or form. So start asking them, you know, what

am, what is it you really like? What is it you want? What is it I could be

doing for you in this, in this particular

arena?

Tim Melanson: And you can always improve that

[00:19:00] area too, especially if you get the feedback that you should,

Bert terHart: Yes, exactly. So the, the, the, the, the idea is not you start

out perfect and work your way down to something less than

acceptable. The idea is to go the other way, right? The idea is to start, okay, we’re, I’m in the market now. I’m

actually, I have some feedback that’s valuable. And then you start stepping

up the ladder towards, you know, something that’s better and

better and better.

And two things will happen. One, you’ll polarize your market.

Right. You’ll, you’ll the people that want you, want you and the people that don’t, don’t. And then you can ask the

people that want you, what else can I do for you? What else can I do for you? What else

can I do for you? You know, what can I do better for you?

What is it that you don’t want to

do that I can do for you? So this idea of logistical

friction is really where your market

is. So if I have someone, like most, imagine someone who’s,

who’s. who’s.

you know, and, and for lead brain, for example, imagine a business that’s doing hard

landscaping. So they’re doing paving and they’re, you know, paving stones and they’re doing driveways and they’re doing retaining walls.

They’re probably not interested in,

in, you

know, it, they’re probably not [00:20:00] interested in sit, you know.

Grinding through Google search algorithm or

YouTube’s algorithm or trying to find out, you

know, what, what’s, what, what influencer is, is helping in what way, shape, or form on Instagram. They could care less about

that.

So there’s logistical friction associated

with that person meeting their customer where

they are. ’cause they’re all gonna be online and they, and they just. They just move big rocks around. So,

um, it’s very difficult for that person. Like that’s where the friction is and that’s where the, in, in lead brain,

that’s where the marketplace is, where there’s this idea of, you know, what’s really hard for them is easy for me.

That’s,

that’s where I want to meet those

people.

Tim Melanson: Wow. Awesome. That’s great perspective. So

now we’re talking about, uh, AI

a little bit. Is that, is there other tools as well, like what tools do you use to get success in your

business?

Bert terHart: Well I think, um.

We use AI a lot. We

use We

use outreach in every way, shape and

form that we can. So that’s as simple as, as plain old emails. Uh, we don’t use a lot of newsletters,

but we we use, we, we write a lot of content, like we write a lot of content and get that

content [00:21:00] online, and we certainly write a lot

of content for, for businesses.

We, we help them

with. Case studies. It’s just, it’s not that hard. It really isn’t that hard

in, uh, for, in, in terms of lead brain in

terms of what we’re doing with those people to help them, um, get a larger footprint

with their, in their, in their, in their ideal customer, in that

audience base. And that’s pretty much just letting those people who might be interested

in what they’re doing, we let them know.

What this business is

doing. So we use, we use AI basically as a conversational tool, as an

engagement tool. So anytime anybody reaches out to that business, whether

it’s on Facebook or Instagram

or Twitter, whether they’re doing it in a web chat or

whether, you know, whether they’re doing it on, on a bot or a contact

form or answering the phone,

then we use AI to make sure that, that, that.

That

conversation is never left.

So what I mean by that is if they, if

they send a, a DM on, on, on, uh, on

Instagram, that that DM is answered like right now,

not tomorrow or the next day after that. [00:22:00]

Um, because when someone picks up the phone and, and dials you

and, and. Typically if they get a, you know, we’re, we’re busy right now, you know, press one and leave a message.

They never press one. They never

call back again. They just go down the list and ask and

just, you know, the first person, that

first real person that answers the phone

is where that money goes. So, um, we use AI in that context a lot. We

don’t use. We use AI for a lot of automation tools, but most of the conversations

we have with that business and that conversation has

with their ideal customer.

Most of that is

just content. So whether it’s video shorts, whether it’s

um, um, long, whether it’s long form, no blog

content, whether it’s,

um, making sure that their case studies are published so that everyone knows, you know,

what it is they do and, and what it is they do well, then that’s,

uh, um. That’s our main focus.

And we use the, the standard set of tools, you know,

to, to do that sort of thing. So simple graphics, um, simple, video editing, simple [00:23:00]

uh, uh, simple

content when it comes to writing blogs and

stuff like that. So we don’t make it too hard. It’s, it’s very easy in

this day and age to

overthink everything. Uh, and that’s, and that’s a mistake.

I think it’s a mistake because that doesn’t get you to market quick enough and that leaves you sort of struggling towards perfection.

Tim Melanson: I agree. And

man, um, AI has definitely changed the playing field.

Has there,

Bert terHart: Oh

Tim Melanson: know, I think, I think now, uh, now with

using just a few AI tools that are really not that hard to use now, they do require

human to interact with them, I think. Right. Still.

Bert terHart: Yeah. Oh yeah.

Tim Melanson: but but once, once you do that, I

mean, it, it’s, it’s, like hiring a team really to, to

do some of these things.

Bert terHart: Oh yeah. It’s, it’s a fantastic

tool for, for,

for small business because it does, it does so much

work and it does, it does

so much work really well. But you still have a, you still have to

have a, human overlooking it ’cause uh, AI will, will happily hallucinate for you. So we use ai, we use AI as [00:24:00] a, as a skeletal tool to

write code, for example. So it, it writes just

a ton of code and 90, 98% of

it is right. And you’ll spend, you’ll spend 98% of your

time finding 2%. That’s wrong unless you. Unless you know what you’re doing. So, uh, they’re fantastic tools,

but, uh, you know, it’s, it’s. It’s,

it’s like any other tool,

right? It’s only as good as, uh, as

the guy or the person who’s wielding it.

It’s like going into Home Depot and asking for a left-handed hammer, and,

and people will, you know, so I’m left, I’m left-handed.

I go in there and ask for a

left, which of course, wind doesn’t exist, but people will scratch their heads and start looking

around for a left-handed hammer thinking that that particular tool exists.

And you and I can’t pound a nail unless I have a

left-handed hammer. So, uh, Yeah.

so AI is, uh,

we use it a lot, but we’re very, we’re very

careful with it. It has changed search in

a, in a very large way. So that that’s it, it it’s impacting us in ways that

we, uh, that we can’t yet imagine. So we’re at [00:25:00] the, we’re at the very beginning of

this, but it’s, it’s a foundational shift in the way

that, in the way that we interact, I guess,

uh, um, with computers for sure.

Like, it’s, it’s, we, I mean, we use it in, in a clinic

actually. We use it far more than we use

it in, I shouldn’t say far more, but we use it

extensively in the clinic as well. So we use AI as an example.

Two, we know we know something about every

patient. We know exactly, like say a patient is a PhD geologist and another

patient is a, is a guy works as a, as a roofer.

So we have, we have a conversation. We use AI to fine tune the

conversation

with the PhD so that we’re talking to that

person in language and in a way that they understand and we use, we use AI to talk to

the roofer in a language that he understands. Not that there’s any. There’s no,

we don’t, it’s, it’s not a,

it’s not a

pejorative, we’re not, it’s not derogatory in any way, shape, or form, but we want that patient to be compliant

so there’s no sense.

Talking to the, there’s no sense to talking to either of them in the way that the

doctors talk

to ‘

themselves. cause [00:26:00] that doesn’t make sense to anybody

except the doctor. So the patient just looks at that and goes, I have no idea

what I’m supposed to do. I’m gonna go see someone else. ’cause I don’t

understand What this guy is saying to me.

Like, this is,

none of it makes sense. ’cause it just language, you ‘

know? It’s like literally, it’s like literally speaking German to someone who only

speaks English. The message is the same, but they just

don’t get it. So we use AI to make sure

that, that

the messages, what we use AI to make sure that

we’re, what we’re, trying to convey to, to people they understand.

And, um, that’s, that’s fundamentally, I think one of the most important

in terms of, in terms of us and what we’re doing both in the

clinic and

the lead brain. It’s one of the things that’s, uh, that we use that’s fundamentally changed the way in which we have conversations with our, you know, with our

customers.

Tim Melanson: Well, what I. What I think

is really exciting,

you know, especially in this whole work from home, you know, self-employment realm, is that really a lot of what, uh, business owners have a problem with is that sales conversation. It’s, [00:27:00] it’s, it’s reaching out

to customers, talking to them. I mean, a lot of people will create a product and they’ll be a, you know, a product creator.

The way that they talk to them, to, you know, to their friends or to the people around them is very different than what a customer wants to hear.

Bert terHart: yeah,

exactly.

Tim Melanson: Having that AI in the middle saying, okay, this is what I wanna say,

it’s gonna be huge in creating the sales conversation

for, um, for your business, right?

Bert terHart: Yeah. I think one of the, one of the best things that

a small

business person can do with AI is, is do

AI is

can, can do, you can do fantastic.

Really in depth, really good foundational research on who your ideal customer actually

is. And then, and then you know where they are.

You know what they’re, you have a pretty good idea of, of, uh, of

what, of what demographic

they might be.

You have a good idea of what cohort within that demographic

they might be. You get a really good idea of where they are online and where they

are when they’re, when they’re offline. You have a really good idea of how you want to talk to

them and what everyone else is doing to

reach that market. So it’s one of the.

It’s one of the [00:28:00] foundational pieces of research

that we used to

do, or I mean you would wanna do, if you had an un, an unlimited

budget, right? You would just, you’d.

So you would just, put, you know, you

go to somewhere, go to someone, go to some

fancy firm and

ask ’em for a focus group on this ’cause this is your product.

And you know, do your, and a hundred thousand dollars later they’ve

given you some idea of who that market is. Well you can do that research

literally in five or 10 minutes in ai and it’s, it’s amazing.

So, and then like for an IT guy like me, ’cause I’m, I have a technical

bent and I was formally trained as a.

As a

physicist of an, as, an applied mathematician and physicist. So I have a different way of

looking at the world, basically.

You know, I am, I have a,

I have a very difficult time talking

to my customers ’cause I have, I’m, I’m always, I’m always, you know, zeroes and ones and computer code and

all the rest of it.

So I actually have to take a step

back from the way I see the world if I’m

gonna have a

conversation that makes any sense to a customer.

Um, and that’s, it’s the same in the, it’s the same, it’s

the same problem for [00:29:00] every doctor. They’re, they’re trained a very particular

way.

Um, and they has, it has to be that way.

So, you know, how do they have a meaningful conversation

with, uh, with a patient? Well, it’s, it’s really hard. it’s, why, it’s

why health outcomes

are typically not great unless you’re

in surgery where you don’t have a conversation with the patient at all. ’cause he’s, he’s dead to the world, right? He’s, he’s out of it.

So, um.

Uh, it’s, it’s an interesting problem and it’s, uh, uh,

certainly for me it’s been at the forefront. ’cause I learned that pretty quickly

that, uh, you know, you, um,

unless you can have a meaningful

conversation with a

customer, then that customer will just, will just evaporate and you gotta go find a new

one.

Um, and that’s really, that’s a very expensive problem to keep solving over and over and over

again.

Tim Melanson: Yeah. Well, and, and so that’s

kind of

why I think that right now we’re kind of in a bit of a

golden era for, for, for a small business because like you just

said, I mean, it, it, there,

there are companies out there [00:30:00] that are mining

data and they’re doing that. They are spending

millions if not billions of dollars on trying to figure all this stuff out.

Well.

You know, we, we have the access

to now AI that

can do some of that work. Then we have,

uh, social media companies especially, and even Google that have

spent whatever money

collecting that data about their clients and offering up ads that can target exactly what you want. So now you have these

two tools that you could put together.

And go, okay. I, I’m, I could find out exactly what

my customer’s looking for. Then I can plug that into a social media algorithm that actually goes and reaches exactly those people.

I mean, when have we ever been here?

Bert terHart: yeah, yeah, You, yeah, you’re absolutely right. Like the, the,

if you’re, if you’re doing pay per click

advertising, then the, your ability to

to target your ideal customer. it’s unprecedented and it’s unbelievably

cheap. I mean, it, it’s unbelievably cheap. Think of it as a [00:31:00] Super Bowl ad.

How much does it cost

to, you know, to put an ad on for the Super Bowl?

Because then you’re, then you’re, you’re advertising

to everybody, right? It’s like tens of millions of people. Maybe hundred, maybe dozens of

millions of

people, and that’s very expensive.

You don’t, you don’t need that. ’cause most of

those people, like we talked about,

Tim Melanson: Yeah, with the polar.

Bert terHart: right? a very little amount of money to talk to a very

small segment of, of the overall population. And that’s, those are the people that are

interested in what you’re doing. And Facebook and Google and Bing and all these companies, Twitter, Instagram, they make it

unbelievably easy because

in that regard, because their, their targeting is so good, they know so much

about you and you know the people that are gonna be annoyed about your

ads.

You know they’re gonna be annoyed

about your ads. That’s good. Right? And

those people will never click on that ad. And,

and Facebook or all these other platforms are very good at making sure

that those people don’t see your ad as long as you, you know, the

targeting is good and, and even their own

AI is, ’cause it used to be very

difficult to, to define your target, um, in Facebook as an example, and all the platforms in term in terms

of [00:32:00] PPC, because you had to know something about your

audience.

You had to know

more about it than

Facebook did, which seems like a pretty tall order, right?

Tim Melanson: Yeah. Yeah.

Bert terHart: Now it’s different.

Facebook says, just give us a little bit of direction and

let us, you know, and let us spend a little bit of money. It can

be, it can be as little as five bucks a day,

10 bucks a

day for, for maybe 14 two weeks.

It’s 140

bucks. 10 bucks a day. Us, uh, that shouldn’t, I mean, I can, it’s not bus change.

I’ve yet to see $140

lying on this street, and I’ve left it for the other guy, right?

So, um, it is. money and, You know,

money is. You have to be concerned about that, but it’s not a lot of

money. I think if you’re actually

trying to do some research into where this goes, because the other end of it is

the return on that investment is huge.

So if you just turn Facebook loose and

their AI loose, then they’ll do a really good job

of, uh, of figuring

that

out.

Tim Melanson: I agree, Bert. Okay, so it’s time for your guest solo.

Tell me what’s exciting in your

business.

Bert terHart: Um, well, I think that.

Like you alluded to, this is really the

golden

age of, of ai because what, what I, what I’m able to do

if I’m [00:33:00] intelligent about what I’m doing is separate myself from the competition.

The, it’s, The, the, barrier to entry is very low. ’cause every anyone can use these

tools. It’s like, you know, designers, graphic designers now trying to, they’re being displaced by example for the AI that’s in Photoshop.

So it used to be a pretty good gig

to, to be able to sit in front of a, you know, a video editor or a,

or a. Photo editor and, and do work that very few people could do. ’cause it was a difficult platform. But that now is all kind

by the wayside. So we’re, we’re in, we’re in a very interesting place where I can distance myself from

the competition very quickly by using, by using

tools intelligently because the barrier to entry is very

low.

Like the

barrier to entry into working

from home is never been lower

than it

is today. I mean, you’re encouraged to do it, right? So this idea that everyone

can work from home and, and do well is, is a good idea, but it also

means that. How does, how do your

customers view you any different than anyone else

who’s

doing that same sort of thing? So using these tools like the Golden Age is that the tools are

here and that, and that you can use them and they’re easy to learn. And the golden age

for, [00:34:00] from, for, for me in that regard is that I can

distance myself

from, from the competition and which is, you know, which is important when the buried entry is very

low.

Tim Melanson: Yeah. Yeah. Uh, well, and

the other side of it is that there is a bit of a stigma

still. There are people. That are actually afraid of AI and don’t understand it. And so I think that that’s why I, I really do think it’s a golden age. ’cause now you’ve got this like first mover advantage. If you can embrace it now while people are still scared of it, then you’re, you’re, you’re, you’re,

heading to the races before they are,

right?

Because eventually, like,

just like anything else,

it

becomes saturated. So at some point it actually is gonna be

difficult, right?

Bert terHart: yeah, exactly. So,

um, the, there’ll be a consolidation,which, which basically means it’s gonna be more

expensive to get in and the, the distance. Because everything moves very quickly.

If, if, if you get a jump on the competition, that you can grow that gap

very quickly and it becomes much, much more difficult to

play catch up for the people that go, oh, I guess this AI thing is sticking around.

It’s like the internet back. I’m old

enough to

Tim Melanson: Oh yeah.

Bert terHart: people were [00:35:00] saying this internet thing isn’t

going anywhere.

Tim Melanson: Yeah. It’s a.

Bert terHart: yeah. So, so, uh, if you got, if you

got, in on the proverbial bandwagon, then the,

it’s very hard to make up

that

ground.

Tim Melanson: Wow. Awesome. So tell me more about, uh, you know, how people can interact with you. Like what if somebody wants to work with you, what do they do?

Bert terHart: Um, it’s pretty simple. You can go to bertterhart.com

and find me there. That’s the easiest. You can go down any number of rabbit holes that you want, sadly, maybe

too many. Uh, you can go to lead brain.ai. You can find er of course, or you can go to LinkedIn and just search

my name and. Uh, you’ll find me there as well.

So it’s pretty easy. It’s pretty easy to find me.

So I’ve, I’ve been, uh, it’s one of those things following my own advice

if you have a pretty large footprint online. So, uh,

that’s one of the ways that, I mean, for, again, for small businesses, one of

the things that you need to do is ensure that the, your, your potential customers,

um, of course everyone needs to trust you.

They’re not gonna

give you anything unless they, unless they trust you. So when people do that now by

looking online, um,

so the larger footprint that you have online, the [00:36:00] better it is. So,

um. Some, some advice, I guess for what

it’s worth, but you can find me pretty easy just by

going Bert to, to bertterhart.com

Tim Melanson: Okay. Now also, what would be the,

you know, the, the type of client that would get the most outta

working with you?

Bert terHart: Um, it’s a small business,

um, somewhere between five

and, and maybe 35 or 25 employees whose, whose customers are locally

confined to their, to the area that they’re in. So

um, it can be,

it can be, Uh, doctors and dentists, of course,

lawyers, of

course, that, that, that market is, is saturated because again, it’s, a low

barrier to entry.

But, but we’re very good at what we do, perhaps better than most, and we’re been doing it a long enough time

to, to to know what works And

what doesn’t. And again, it’s, it’s someone like a

roofer, for example. A roofer’s not

gonna go, you know, from monkton to, to say Halifax to do a

job. So, so anyone, any business

that’s, uh, who’s.

Any business whose, whose customers or clientele are

[00:37:00] geographically limited to the area that they’re actually

in.

They

Tim Melanson: it’s, I guess,

Bert terHart: you know,

Tim Melanson: businesses that are performing

services locally, or what about like product businesses, like stores or anything like that? Is

that.

Bert terHart: Well, that’s, I mean, that we, we, we’ve done a lot of work with stores and it’s still, it’s still, it works really, really well with

stores because people still, but it works from stores in a slightly different, different way in that it works with, uh, the, the work that we focus on

with. With stores and, and people who are selling products

outta brick and mortar places.

It’s, it has to do with, uh, with

customer loyalty

or customer engagement. So we make sure that those, that

those, stores who

have customers, that they’re, they become loyal customers. They continually, they continue to choose them over

and over and over. Like restaurants are a

pretty good example. You want, you know, you want those, your, your patrons to be

coming back to that same restaurant.

’cause it’s,

um, they have a, you know, they have a really good conversation with them

over and over and over.

Tim Melanson: Love it. Okay. Well thank you so much for rocking out with me today,

bur, it’s been a lot of fun.

Bert terHart: It’s been great. I’m, [00:38:00] uh, if I’m, if I’m, if I’m in Moncton

again, I’ll look you up, you know, I’m sorry to say,

I’ll chase you down.

Tim Melanson: Awesome. Well, I hope you do

so. Thank you so much. And to the listeners, make sure you subscribe, rate, and comment. Hey, and

if you can go to workathomerockstar.com, you can find out a lot of more information and see the episodes of this podcast. So thank you so much for listening.