The First Customer - What Most Startups Miss About Lead Gen with Founder and CEO Bert TerHart

[00:00:28] Jay: Hi everyone. Welcome to The First Customer Podcast. My name's Jay Aigner. Today I am lucky enough to be joined by, a guy who sailed around the world, who has gone from one end of Canada. West to east or east to west, completely by water. he is a tech guy. He's an a modern day explorer, which I don't use that term lightly.

I think it's a real thing.

[00:00:49] Bert: Yeah,

[00:00:50] Jay: Bert TerHart. Hello my friend. How are you?

[00:00:53] Bert: I'm really good, Jay. It's, it's great to be here. I'm always a little taken aback, but you know, when you say all these crazy things, I go, that, that's just nuts. Like, that doesn't make any sense at all. Why would you do that? So, I'm smiling because of that.

[00:01:05] Jay: maybe you can tell us, today. So, tell me where did you grow up and did that have any Im impact on you being, an entrepreneur.

[00:01:12] Bert: Yeah, sure. I grew up in, in a very small town in central Canada, about 120 miles, sort of northwest of Fargo, North Dakota. Everyone can relate to Fargo, North Dakota. So that's where I grew up. My father was a land surveyor, a small businessman. He spent all their time outside. So I've had a very close association from, you know, ever since I was a little, I was a little kid with entrepreneurs 'cause that's what my dad was.

And, and with small business, which is what my dad was.

[00:01:36] Jay: I love that. And can you, do you see. Gimme like, one of the successful things that you do that you find yourself doing that your dad did and gimme something, maybe that was something that he needed to work on that you find yourself having to work on as well.

[00:01:52] Bert: Well, my dad, My dad was completely and utterly committed to his customers. So when you know, and it was basically, as a land surveyor in that time, it was basically an oil patch job. So when anybody called from it was working in that industry, you just did it. So I remember surveying with my dad Christmas day, new Year's Day, ho every holiday you can imagine, in the worst weather possible, we'd be outside with a pickax trying to.

You know, pound through frozen ground to put in an iron steak so someone could, you know, survey some piece of land for a well site or a pipeline. it didn't make any difference, but my dad was completely and utterly committed to his customers. And the thing that my dad didn't do really well was that he struggled with marketing.

maybe there was reasons for that, I'm sure, but he struggled with marketing. So I find myself in that, you know, drawn to those, or I guess I shouldn't say drawn. I. Faced with the same sort of, issues in terms of marketing. And secondly,I'm very proud to say that I'm completely, utterly, committed to my customer's compliments of my dad's work ethic.

[00:02:50] Jay: That's beautiful. Fantastic. I love that very much. tell me a little bit about, I mean, I know you started multiple businesses probably

talk, they probably have an episode on each one,

of your businesses. But why don't we run through the businesses you started and how you got the first customer at each one of those businesses?

[00:03:06] Bert: Okay. Well, the first business I really ran was system modal software. that was a company that wrote differential diagnostic and patient management software for medical practices. the next business was NextGen, SCO. And then, The next business after that really was Lead Brain. So they're all very similar in that they're in the same sort of tech space.

I've been leveraging the same, you know, set of core skills through each and every one of those, enterprises and first customers is a really interesting question because they've been. First, while system modal software was formed really on the back of a very robust partnership with a very large company, NextGen, SEO was, an offshoot of that because all those same customers were requiring, visibility, across the entire.

The entire web space. So that was next gen, SEO. So my first customers were really,an offshoot of my success with, system modal software. And Lead Brain was really a successful, my, my first customers with Lead Brain have all been, again, in the healthcare field, because it's a niche I know.

So I can talk to those, I can talk to those people. That sounds tremendously arrogant. I apologize for.

[00:04:11] Jay: no, you, I mean, that is part of the problem, right? I mean, I hear that multiple times a week with friends and coworkers and you know, they don't speak the same language or they make a lot of assumptions about, I. How their clients communicate or what they think. So I think it's a really important point to,

be able to speak in the language that your customers understand is a really big thing instead of expecting them to understand whatever the hell it is you're trying to explain.

So I think that's good. so talk to me. So Lead, lead, brain is kind of the current

project, the current company, do your customers look today? Or who is your customer today versus back when you started the company? Or is it the same exact person, company, et cetera?

[00:04:53] Bert: Well, what I think to be really successful whenever you're starting out is you have to start out with a single offer and, you know, to a very, to a very specific niche. So. this the lead generation space. I mean, lead brain AI would suggest that I'm in the lead generation space, even though that's not entirely true.

but in point of fact, that's a very crowded space. There's lots of people that are trying to get into that. The barrier to entry is very low. Anyone with Anyone can hook up with go high level or any number of other platforms and, you know, become a lead generation expert. So, because it's a very crowded space, I'm, I decided if I was gonna have any traction at all and make any impact.

'cause that's the only reason you've started business is to have some sort of impact, not just for you, for yourself and your loved ones, but of course for your customers would be to focus on a niche. I really know. So again, that's the healthcare niche and I, it's not so much that I can, that I can talk to them.

It's that I understand w. I understand very well the kinds of services that they're trying to offer. So, lead Brain is nothing more than enabling those particular practitioners to fully, encapsulate and then develop, create, and then dis Distribute what it is they actually do. And of course that sounds very simplistic, but it's, it takes a very smart person to explain a very complicated and difficult process very simply.

So, that's, and these are very competent, very smart, intelligent people. And, I think everyone can understand or can relate to sitting down in a doctor's office or a medical professional or healthcare professional's office and not having a clue as to what it is they just said. But to them it makes perfect sense.

So, so that's, that's where I am with Lead Brain.

[00:06:26] Jay: so. I mean, how you talk about standing out in a crowded space and then you tack AI onto the end of a lead generation name, it seems like a doubly saturated space right now. how are you standing out and like saying, this is how we use or do AI versus the 1,000, you know, million other people that we've seen pop up in the last year.

Like, how is it actually being used by you guys in a way that's beneficial to your clients? It's not cookie cutter.

It doesn't like chat, GPT, like how are you? How are you using it in a real effective way?

[00:07:01] Bert: Well, I think first and foremost there's this, there's something I've called the field of dream fallacy ever since that movie came out. Because remember, I've been in the tech space for a long time and, long enough to know when people didn't have WebP pages or websites, that was a novelty.

There was no, no reason to have a website other than just to go, Ooh, look, I have a website. So just because you build something doesn't mean that people are gonna come. Just because you create a bunch of content with AI doesn't mean that everyone's gonna find it and love it. Just because you have all this, just because you have a social media account, doesn't mean you're gonna have, you know, thousands or hundreds of thousands of followers.

So this idea that you can just build something with AI and, you know, Mave, you know, wave the magic AI wand and suddenly you're gonna be successful is wildly wrong. And it's been wildly wrong for a very long time. Not just in the AI context, but in every other, content context that you can imagine.

So. We simply use AI to automate things that happen in that happen with everyday work and in every single office, and certainly in, in every medical practice office across the country. So we're using, of course we use AI to, to develop content 'cause we can do that very quickly. But that content never goes out without going over a set of human eyes.

And, we. We're very sophisticated in how we use ai. So we have prompts, for example, that run to, you know, 1000 or 2000 words. So as opposed to, you know, write me an article, right? it's a little more, nuanced than that. So any AI that we use to, to create content is very finely tuned.

And secondly, we're focusing on automating those things,in a practitioner's office that can alleviate some of the overhead, some of the administrative burden that's, present in every one of those practices.

[00:08:34] Jay: What. Just in general knowledge, what are you feeding a thousand to 2000 words, into a prompt? Like, I know you're kind of refining down, but just give me like, is it a very specific type of article about a very specific topic, about a very specific, like is it just drilling down to kind of make sure that the content you give back is ultra, kind of honed to what you want?

Like how are, what are those big prompts doing for you, I guess is the overarching question.

[00:09:01] Bert: Well, the first thing that we use the big prompts for is that we'll use them to clearly identify what the ideal customer profile is for that particular practice. So that's no different than really any other business in that regard. But I mean, most of these practices rely on word of mouth.

So it becomes,if you ask them, you know, who their ideal customer is, they'll, they're, they typically struggle with that. So we use prompts to, to drill down and to identify very. Hyperfocused very particular. Customers or clients that these particular practices might, would want to be, attracting.

So that, that sounds, and of course, that's constantly changing. So, there's a news element to that, for example. So it's football season of course, so concussions are an issue. Certainly they've always been in, in any contact sport. Hockey's the same. so when we go to say, in Canada, it's hockey season, but then later on here we'll have soccer, and then that will be something more like, ankle and foot injury.

So we have this, so, so we're focused. we're trying to take what's happening right now, and we're trying, because we're creating content that we're distributing and we want that content to be relevant. So, so that's one of the things that, that we're using those very large prompts for, but.

But the prompts imagine are iterative. So we'll ask a very specific question, we'll get an answer, and then we'll use a derivative of the answer plus the original prompt to, to, to fine tune,the end result. So in the end result, we typically end up with a document that will, that guides us in how we're developing content or where we're steering.

Effort. So effort could be in the form of, cold outreach. It could be in the form of optimization of someone's online presence, or it could be in the form of ads. So those are, that's a sort of a 40,000 foot view of the prompt landscape.

[00:10:38] Jay: I love that. I mean, that's real applicable, insight. I love that. if you had to start over again tomorrow with everything you've learned and you've, you know, same business, same, you know, targets, et cetera, or maybe not the same targets, but same business, what's step one tomorrow if you had to start over again?

[00:10:55] Bert: so if I had to start over again,let's just talk about Lead Brain. If I had to start over again with Lead Brain, I'd have, I'd spend way more time, getting to know a particular niche really well. Over the course of everything I've done, that's been the most successful sort of,meta strategy.

So that's where I would start. I would've a very good idea of what niche I'm in, why I'm there, what the possibilities are, and what I can actually offer, as opposed to just pulling out a shotgun and, you know, yank it on the trigger.

[00:11:23] Jay: That's a, I mean, it's a great point and I do want, I mean, I had a conversation yesterday with a friend of mine who was stepping outta consulting and we were kind of walking through what some of his potential offerings were. And I am just curious, like if you were starting over and you were trying to niche down, I guess the question is like, take it back up a level.

Like how do you even start that process to know? Like you're barking up the right tree. Do you just take something from your background and you start to go, I'm really good at this and this is how mist may apply to some potential companies that I know I've worked with, or, you know, at, or whatever before. And then you start to figure out what the offer, I mean, what is the kind of high level approach to somebody who sits down, has a lot of good experience in very, you know, specific industry stuff. how do they get out there and start getting customers, you know, consulting, just getting their feet wet in the space.

[00:12:11] Bert: Okay. that's a really good question. I'm, that's a really, that's one of the best questions I've been asked for a long 

[00:12:15] Jay: Ah, thank you. 

[00:12:16] Bert: So, so, here's what I would say to that. You firstly, this process is very boring. And the only way that you're gonna stick with that process is if it is, if you are somehow attracted or drawn to it, which is to say that you have to like that particular niche.

Like you had talked around it a bit in saying that, you know, you have some,you've, you're good at this in some way, shape or form. So look at what you're good at and what you're good at tends, you will tend to stick with no, no matter how boring, it is or how much persistence it requires and what everyone does.

And I can, I'll use that. I'll use that, that term. Very generally what everyone does is discount their story. So if you look at what you're good at, you'll have an understanding of what your story is. And your story is what is what's gonna attract new customers. Not you. It's your story. Like we see the world through stories.

That's one of the things that drives social media is that this is very powerful. Platform where you can tell your story. you have this ability to tell just your story. And that story has the potential to re to reach hundreds of millions of people. And we see that every single day. I mean, what's,and it's unbelievably powerful and be, and for people who've been in has, who may not have seen the change from sort of zero to where we are today.

it's incredibly amazing how powerful this idea of storytelling has become. So. I would lean in if you're starting out and wondering where to go, lean into your story. Lean into what you're good at, lean into what you know, lean into what you can persist at when it gets boring. 'cause it will get boring.

I don't,I don't care if you get launched up into the International Space Station, it's oh, how amazing. And oh, how exciting. And then you're up there and you're bored outta your skull for a short while and then its time to come home, which of course is tremendously exciting.

You know, you can, you know, if you're flying, I mean, I could go on and on. you're in a fighter. you're a fighter pilot, you know, 

[00:14:03] Jay: Yeah. 

[00:14:04] Bert: it's on, most of the time it's on autopilot. Right. You're not doing 

[00:14:06] Jay: Yeah, that makes sense. 

[00:14:09] Bert: so,

[00:14:09] Jay: promoting your story is a big takeaway there. Like, lean into your story. That may be

the name of this episode. Lean into the story. 'cause I think, you've heard your own story so many times. I don't think that. You really think that anybody else cares.

But if you craft it in a way that kind of shapes who you

are as a person, a consultant, an interesting human being,

like, I mean, you may be one of the most interesting men in the world. So I think that you've done a good job with your story. so, look,I do have a question though. it kind of feeds into personal brand, right?

It's like there's this, there's Bert and then there's lead gen, and then there's all these different, or lead brain, and there's all these different kind of things that you've done. Do you focus on. Personal brand at all? Do you take into account at all or is it all just kind of part of the businesses you run and you navigate it that way?

[00:14:55] Bert: I mean, I kind of fell into it. I, this idea of personal branding is your story, you made a very good point earlier. You kind of just raced over. It was the fact that we take it for granted because it's us and you know, it's just us. It's the how I live every day. it's who would care about that because it's part of us.

It's, it would seem boring, but it's not. But I think that, I mean, for me, I mean, in more generally, let me answer this in a more general way. Is that all of North America, certainly, I mean certainly in Canada, because that's what I'm more familiar with, was it was discovered and mapped and by, and people were drawn here because they were entrepreneurs.

So this is, there's this relationship between, entrepreneurship, adventure leadership,that I think. you simply cannot avoid. So if you wanna be an entrepreneur, you have to be a leader. If you want to be an explorer, you have to take risks, you know, which is like being an entrepreneur. if you wanna do something interesting, you've gotta, you have to go to a place that, that no one's ever been to before.

So, these are all, they're very closely intertwined. So, there isn't anything that I've done. On the Explorer slash adventure side, there isn't any lesson there, there isn't a lesson, that I've learned there that I can't bring back to, to, to my businesses. So I think all those things are very closely intertwined.

And every time I'm off doing something, I'm looking for some, I'm looking to come back with something that I can then leverage, in, in, in a business, which then can help other people. So the whole idea then is for me is service. So all these things are wrapped up in, in these sort of, meta principles, if you will.

[00:16:19] Jay: So what's next? I mean, you've done so much. what's the next big adventure?

[00:16:23] Bert: well, the next big adventure, I'm paddling from, a small town on the North Saskatchewan River called Rocky Mountain House, which is on the eastern slopes of the Rockies, and it's just north of, of Montana. Basically, I'm paddling to the Arctic Ocean and then down the Arctic coast in a canoe, from.

The mouth of the Mackenzie River to the mouth of the copper mine. So this, that's, I'm following the routes of the original cartographers that mapped all of Canada. So these would be Lewis and Clark's, contemporaries. so these, and they'd be names that everyone would know, certainly. the Mackenzie River's named after Mackenzie.

I'm on the, I'm on the Athabasca, which actually that route, the first part of that route was first done by, an American named Peter Pond. So I have this historical bent. I'm, you know, very proud Canadian. I'm very, I'm very embedded in trying to understand how it is that we got here and to play due respect for the people that managed to build the country that I know and I'm privileged enough to live in.

So that's, that's sort of the, that's part of the motive, but that's what I'm doing next summer. I'm on this 5,000, basically 3,500 mile canoe trip.

[00:17:26] Jay: Holy cow. All. Goodness gracious. well, I wish you the best of luck on that. maybe we should have a podcast just about that. That'd be great too. well, one final question, that I ask everybody, and this wouldn't be very, I mean, I don't know if I've ever had trepidation asking this question before, but I guess I have to now with you.

if you knew, what would you do, if you could do anything on Earth and you knew you wouldn't fail?

[00:17:52] Bert: What would I do if. If I could do anything on Earth and I knew it wouldn't fail.

[00:17:59] Jay: Yep.

[00:18:00] Bert: Okay, well, gimme,that's a really tough question because you have all these, you have all these crazy answers, crazy answers about that. Okay. If I could do anything on Earth and I knew it wouldn't fail, I would increase agricultural production by.

By fourfold without impacting, with, without impacting them the chemical load that we place in our soils today. One of the reasons, and I say that because one of the reasons that we're able to live the life we live is that, industrial agriculture has completely changed the way that we feed the world.

But of course, there's two sides to every coin. And the side that the sort of, the downside or the up the opposite side of the industrial agricultural coin is that it's, it's come at the cost of, of. Tremendous chemical loading of our soils, which then has an impact on how we're able to feed the populations going forward.

So as the third world, you know, comes online, they become more like us. There's, they need to be able to produce food and they need to be able to produce food without the chemical impact, going forward. So 

[00:19:05] Jay: First answer of that, for sure. Never gotten that answer and it's a beautiful. answer and something that I guess, you know, the son of a surveyor, would be very interested in the

dirt. the dirt. being his, the dirt, is his answer. that's great though. All right. Well, Bert, if people wanna find more about you and your journeys or about lead, lead brain, how do they do that?

[00:19:25] Bert: Well, the simplest thing is just to go to, bert TerHart.com, so BERT. T-E-R-H-A-R-T, Bert TerHart.com. And from there you can, you know, you can go anywhere if you Google my name, sadly, there's way too much there. So yeah, there's a lot. So I think 

[00:19:42] Jay: I did Google it.

[00:19:43] Bert: yeah, it's, yeah. What can I say?

so I guy, yeah, so I think that, yeah, so just go to, and then from there you can find, you know, can, that'll take you to those places where you wanna go. So.

[00:19:55] Jay: Beautiful. Well, Bert, we do wish you the best of luck on your trip and with business and with everything else. You're awesome, man. I'm glad to have met you and know you and, you know, we wish you luck with everything. Let's stay in touch. All right.

[00:20:05] Bert: Okay. That sounds great. Jan. It's 

[00:20:06] Jay: Thanks for being on Bert. I'll talk to you buddy. See you, man. Better. 

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