Meet John St. Pierre

Okay, so we are live. I have to say, I don't know who the John St. Pierre is. I'm adding the because just look at him and you could tell. I have no idea, but I will tell you one thing, he's a very patient person because as you guys all know, not only do I go live, we're live on Facebook, LinkedIn, and YouTube, uh, John, but also live on ChatterSocial, which which Bobby is helping me. So he popped in the room, such a great guy. Bobby, thank you so much. And the three— so I normally say, John, you are brave, you're bold, you're brilliant, and I gotta add the word handsome in. Sorry, it's just, we have to add it. It is what it is, John. But I love this set because not everyone could go live, um, on a podcast. So you do have to introduce yourself, um, though we will share your website as we go through it together. But I just want to share that John is also a community member of PodMatch. And John, I went to PodFest last week. It was amazing. I got to meet Alex, got a picture. This book was put together, uh, it's called the PodMatch Edition, and it is 15 community members including the Pod2Book founder Sheila Slick. She's available for interviews. And Alex, who wrote the foreword, he is PodMatch. He's the man, the founder, the man that puts us all together, the glue. So just wanted to show you that, John. We're really excited to have you here. So for the few people listening and Bobby, who are you?

Yeah, well, thanks for having me and hope you had a good time at the Podfest. My name is John St. Pierre and I'm an entrepreneur and coach to entrepreneurs. I run my own companies, but I also help entrepreneurs build the companies of their dreams without falling off the cliff and making some drastic mistakes like I did in my years as well. That's my passion. That's my drive, is helping entrepreneurs build their businesses.

Okay, I love failure stories and like learning lesson stories, so I can't wait to hear that. Okay, so clarify though, just as we start right off the gate, who that niche market is, because I know you can't work with every business owner out there. So who do you enjoy working with? Who is it that you want, if they're not listening, that they would even recommend saying, oh, I heard someone that actually likes to work with You?

Yes. I mean, specifically, um, who I work with is a pretty small niche of entrepreneurs, but my message applies to all, I guess, is maybe the, the big thing. And I have a passion for helping entrepreneurs grow of any kind, variety. When I work with entrepreneurs one-on-one or with their companies, I'm typically working with entrepreneurs that have been in business 10+ years, are doing between $5 to $20 million in revenues, and want to take that further. Want to try and build their business. Um, I wrote a business called The $100 Million Journey. I'm sorry, I wrote a book called The $100 Million Journey, as you're showing books. Uh, and it's the story of my path and trying to grow a business to $100 million and failing, and all the lessons I learned in doing that, and then applying those lessons to another business and growing $100 million the right way. Uh, so I've had a lot of failure in trying to grow companies to that scale, but then also a lot of successes. And I think that's where I apply a lot of my work with entrepreneurs is helping them scale their businesses to that size. On the same token, I love working and helping entrepreneurs of any size business because the principles apply to everybody.

Well, that's interesting. So, my first thought is I'm thinking, well, like when you're looking at these entrepreneurs and let's just say, you kind of have that one size could fit all. What is it that you need from them though? Like, is it like that they're going to need to be at a certain level? Do they need the grit, the determination? So, what does that look like when you're kind of saying, you know what, I could be for you but are you for me?

Yeah, I think for me, I'm looking for entrepreneurs that have been battle-tested with their businesses. That's where I can apply the most amount of assistance when they're in the messy middle of growing their companies. You know, I don't come cheap necessarily. You know, but I add a lot of return on investment, right, in terms of the learnings and scaling and growing. So, I don't necessarily fit well with a startup entrepreneur in terms of working with them directly. But I share a lot of principles in my book. I share a lot of tools on my website that can assist all entrepreneurs of all kinds put their plan together and apply the lessons I have applied to my business to their business as well. So, you know, my niche, my niche is pretty small in terms of who I work with directly. But I also are on podcasts like this and sharing messages with you. That I think apply to all entrepreneurs in terms of how can you grow your business the right way while also combining it with your passion in life, other interests you have in life, and do so successfully.

Lessons, lessons, lessons. I'm like a kid, so I'm very excited. First of all, I just want to say, oh, hey, Valerie, Bobby, this is open to you as my honorary guest host today, if you don't mind. So if you want to have any questions, just unmike, and I want to make sure that you have mic time too. Valerie, you're welcome to come up. So, John, you know, I love this, and I'm glad that out of the gate we kind of have a feeling like who you want to work with— those that are in the messy, the messy middle. I love that. So before I start digging deep and Bobby and I ask you questions, I am kind of curious though, what, what gives you pleasure? Like, I always feel like there's You know, maybe a niche market that you love and you love working with, you know, suppliers in a certain industry or people that have products that they have to have warehouse. Like what does that look like? What is in this world of business that's so vast?

I think where I add the most amount of value and have the most experience is business services, like B2B services, professional services. And then if I combine that with my earlier message, entrepreneurs that have a really good business, have really good revenues, but they haven't been able to maximize the profitability, there's so much, they've put into their business— blood, sweat, tears, and years of building something. They haven't quite monetized it or gotten the cash flow to their business and really enjoy the successes of their business. I like taking them to that destination. So combining business services with that passion of really helping them extract the value from what they've created is where that sweet spot is for me.

It's interesting. So the people that you're going to be working with have to understand that they need to invest in essence in order to scale? Like at one point, you really need to put the money in, correct?

Yes and no. I would say yes. I think a lot of businesses have a hard time scaling because they're not generating enough profitability to begin with. So, one of the areas that I love working with companies, big and small, is really helping them achieve strong levels of profitability and cash flow so they can fuel their growth. A lot of companies try and grow, but they're not generating enough cash. So, they can't grow because they don't have enough fuel, enough oxygen. So, that's really where I work with entrepreneurs to start is there's a lot of really successful businesses that just aren't generating enough cash flow.

Okay, so that makes sense. That was kind of silly of me that I'm thinking, you know, because I know and understand where you need to go sometimes in order to go over to, you know, You reach one mountain and you want to see the next mountain, right? I totally get that. And you want to move, you want to move forward. And, and I think that growing up in a family business, I also, you know, can tell my dad was very stubborn. So what stubborn looks like compared to opening up your books, literally, your doors, literally, and saying, come on in, take a look and help me so that I could, you know, help others. With whatever it is, the service I have. So, I get that. And I can get that you really know what you're talking about. But I want to hear the story. So, can we play story time? So, tell me your story of, you know, like some of those challenges that you had and how you turned it around. And maybe that first story of your first business that you were so sure you would scale it to $100 million.

Yeah. Yeah. So, I mean, the story, I'll give you the short version and you can go in wherever you want to go. But Started a business with a couple of friends, a hobby-style business, startup business, just like most startups you hear about, right? Have a good idea. Let's have some fun and do this. And did it for a few years and didn't really make a lot of money, but it started getting traction. And 15 years later, that business had become a $55 million global brand in the sports management industry and super proud of the business. A lot of years of building it, a lot of long nights and challenges, and, uh, but we had the best culture, the best team. We had north of 500 employees globally. It was the business of my dreams, and I had a vision of continuing to grow this company, and, um, but wanted to grow it a little too fast, I think, and, and made some mistakes along the way. And one of those mistakes wasn't, uh, you know, uh, we wanted to get some equity to investment capital to grow to the next phase, and we raised a $20 million round from private equity firm. And 6 months later, I was fired. And so 15 years of building this business, and I lost control of the ship, if you will, by trying to grow a little too quick, bringing on some investors that I didn't really know that well. That had different ideas on how they were going to grow this thing without me. And in one board meeting, got fired and lost it all. And along with that, lost my identity, lost, you know, 15 years of, you know, working through this business to create something, you know, had to come home and look my wife in the eyes and say, sorry, I messed this up and had to take my learnings from that to, you know, apply those learnings and say, okay, that's never going to happen again. What do I need to do to pick myself back up off the pavement and build the business the right way? And what were my learnings? What did I learn from that experience? What would I never do again if I'm going to build a company the right way? And thankfully, there's a silver lining. Applied those lessons to another business and successfully grew that company to north of $100 million the right way, applying those lessons. So that's the silver lining of the story. But And the moment of failure was pretty painful.

Wow, that is some story. Welcome, Katya. So lovely to have you. And Valerie— Valerie's clapping her hands. John, I'm sorry, I'm such a joker, and in my mind I can't help it. It's coming out, guys. I'm sorry, I can't even edit it out even though it is my own show. What would be worse, what happened to you or being caught on the kiss cam at a Coldplay concert?

Uh, you know what, I'll take what happened to me as being not as bad as the Coldplay concert. Uh, and I'll tell you why. Um, in my biggest moment of failure, when that happened to me, and I look back at 15 years and the people I love and the business I loved and losing it all, the one thing that really helped me was perspective. I had my wife, I had two boys, I had my health, had a nice home. You know, in the grand scheme of things, yeah, it sucked, but when you put things in perspective and have a little bit of gratitude for what you have, it puts everything in perspective. I can figure out how to build another business the right way and take my learnings and make sure, right? And now that I've built what I've built, uh, through those lessons, you know, those lessons were somewhat of a blessing in disguise. Uh, so I would take that over Coldplay any day of the week.

You know, it's so funny, even as a kid, I always put things into perspective. So when you were telling the story, I'm like, 'Oh, but it's not as bad as— like, that would be even worse.' So like, I don't— and I, I do that with so many other things like in life. I just— so, I mean, that's a good thing, right? But just always thinking because it— things could be worse, and things are— I love the solutions to every problem. Okay, so the growing too fast, and you're not going really deep into the growing too fast because I, you know, what does that really mean? Can you share what it really means?

Yeah, I can. Um, I guess the first part, uh, you asked earlier, do you really need to put a lot, you know, do you really need a lot of investment to grow your company? Well, what we did is, you know, myself and a couple of partners started the company, right? So we own the company a third, a third, a third. We had 33% each ownership, but we controlled the business. We owned 100% of it. When I was fired from the company, I owned 8% of it. I lost control of my equity over the business because we were getting investment capital and they would dilute the company and my ownership would be diluted. And then I didn't have control or say anymore. And so if I wanted to grow a little slower and a little more controlled, we could have used our own cash flow to grow our own business and not keep investors, not have investors come in. And I'd probably still be running that business today. I tried to bring on capital to grow fast. Not realizing that that capital would take control of the business and they would be making the decisions and they would direct where we needed to go. And so I lost a little bit of control of my own business was really, really one of the first principles that I learned in that way. The second one, which is a little bit different, is I wanted to grow so fast that I was chasing shiny objects. I didn't just focus on our core business. Our core business was working really, really good. But then I was like chasing other verticals and other businesses along the way. That were creating a lot of need for cash, and a lot of investment was going into those other areas, and it was eating up our resources. So I had to go get more investment capital. I go get more investment capital, I lose a little bit more equity.

That circle kept going.

Okay, so this story is incredible. You know, it's funny, I was going to ask you if part of the issue was anything to do with your, um, your partners, you know, who you were in with. Um, and it sounds like— well, without saying too much, I actually have a new podcast that'll be launching soon called the Minority Shareholder Oppression Podcast. So, and yeah, that's all I'm going to say about that because I'm understanding what kind of what you're saying. So, okay, lessons that are horrible, but lessons that absolutely need to be learned and wonderful lessons that you're sharing with us so that we can look at that. And that can be one of the hardest things is when you're going in with partners, you know, and what does that agreement look like? Yikers. But okay, so then let's, let's move forward to like the business that did everything that you've learned. And then what else did you learn for the business that did grow to that number that I don't even know if I could write it down, it's so big. What was it like, like 10 digits?

Yeah, so in my book, The $100 Million Journey, I talk about 7 principles. First principle is protect and grow your equity, which we just talked about. Principle 2 is build your own cash flow for growth instead of depending on investors. 3 is reinvest smartly instead of chasing shiny objects. Principle 4 is build your own culture of intrapreneurs within your company that grow your company as if it's their own. Principle 5 is protect the house, protect everything that you're building, and do vulnerability assessments on your business to make sure you're not exposed. Principle 6 is how do you access the liquidity that's on your balance sheet as your company is growing? Because growth takes cash. How do you do that to continue to fuel your energy as an owner so you're being paid as you're building, not just waiting till the end? Because the end might not happen sometimes. And Principle 7 is how do you move from CEO to chairperson? How do you become a strategic owner of your business versus the chef, cook, and bottle washer of your business where you've bought yourself a job? So those are the 7 principles that I talk about in my book of what I learned through my journey and applied to my business, you know, being able to grow my business successfully the right way. Whereas today I control 100%, not 100%, but I have majority control of my business. I don't oppress my minority shareholders, though, but I am a majority control, you know, owner of my business. I control it. I make the decisions and I take my time to make sure I'm making the right decisions along the way as we grow.

Wow. Okay, that, that, those were 7 pieces of amazing advice. And I just want to open the floor. We have Bobby, Valerie, and Katya in the room, which is lovely. We're live on ChatterSocial and then streaming out to some other multi-streams. John, I'm so glad that you said yes to this live because I, I, you just dropped so many. I like, I want to kind of go back to go over them. But, um, first of all, I wanted to ask if Bobby, Valerie, or Katya, did you have any thoughts, questions, feedback?

I, I just want to say, uh, you know, thanks for coming in to the, to the cast, and, uh, very nice to meet you. And I can't wait to, uh, hear the conclusion to the show. But very nice to meet you, John.

Thank you. Nice to meet you as well, Bobby.

And Valerie, Katya, if you want to speak, just unmute. If not, we understand. I just want to say thank you so much for having us here and sharing your story. I know I came in late, I missed some things. Maybe y'all could recap the 7 things, but I love it. Thank you so much for being here.

Awesome.

Thank you, Valerie.

Hey, hey. Thank you, Adrienne, for hosting such amazing, amazing people in here. So, John, nice to meet you. I'm Katya, and I came in late as well, but we will have the chance, right, to go and re-listen to it. Is that right?

You got it. This turns into a podcast afterwards. So yes, it does. And I love that. Thank you, Katya. And let's go through the book because I agree with, um, Valerie, those 7 were amazing. So right now, let me just look and see what it looks like on the screen. Okay, so I have this website up. John, I love this photo.

Oh, thank you.

Right, right. It's just, it's so, it's so relaxing. It just shows like the part of you, the personality part of you, which is great. Oh, so wait, oh, oh, you were franchisee, trans-franchisee for College Pro Painters.

Back in college.

Yeah.

Oh, I love reading this. And then you joined handymanonline.com.

That's right. Yeah. Yeah.

And then you took the role as president of worldatmydoor.com. Wow. Oh, you guys, look at this. And then, okay, then you're the select sports management is what you were talking about. Yep.

Yep.

Okay. Amazing. And then before being replaced. So love that you are sharing that. And what a good story— not a good story. I hate to say what a good story is, but good learning lesson. Because I think a lot of people feel, for both companies and nonprofits, like, well, nobody can remove me. But yes, you can.

Yeah, I certainly felt invincible at times, right? Oh, they can't, they can't get rid of me. Like, this is my vision. This is my company. That didn't work out so well.

Yeah, it's pretty crazy. They didn't, they didn't mute you on Zoom and just like so you couldn't talk. I actually had that happen one time. It's kind of crazy. I was chair of a, of a nonprofit that, uh, was less than a year old and they were so wrong. And then they like, when I whistle blew them to say you can't do this, they like closed me out, muted me. It's kind of funny. All right, wait, Rhombus Services, Brand Point Services. This is interesting. Can you tell us the $100 million journey?

Yeah. So, I own currently a holding company of multiple businesses, but the largest business in that portfolio is BrandPoint Services. So, that's a national facilities maintenance contracting company that does a little over $100 million in annual revenues. We do a lot of work in retail environments and Essential grocery store, pharmacy, anything from fixtures to handyman work, plumbing work, HVAC work, more like facilities management type of work. Oh, wow.

Okay. That makes sense that you're saying extraordinary entrepreneurs because they definitely are. So, love that. Love your podcast. Wait. Oh, from 2020?

Yeah. So, we have a podcast. We're on our 6th season called the Entrepreneurs United Podcast. That, that we've been running. So it's, uh, it's a fun way to communicate with entrepreneurs like you're doing here, John.

I'm confused right here.

Sure.

So we're looking at everyone, we're looking at what people say about John and on his website, which is 100100mjourney.com, and spell it all correctly, and you will see his book on the book. All right, so John, what do you think that I'm noticing right now? With Rich, Charlie, Cameron, Steve, Jeff, Jason, Steve, and James.

Uh, no females.

Thank you. Yes, yes. Are women unable to do the $100 million journey? Are we like excluded for purpose?

No, no, that's a, that's a great point. Uh, I'll have to go back through and see if, uh, we have more on the other pages of testimonials. I know there's a bunch, uh, throughout the website, uh, people that I've worked with directly, but certainly work with female entrepreneurs as well.

This is so great. I, I, you know, besides this, I, I, I'm— were you ever— I'm going to ask you, uh, like 2 questions, like crazy ones, but were you ever interviewed by Gary Halton on Grow Your Business and Grow Your Wealth?

No.

No. Um, uh, um, Seth Green from Sharkpreneur?

Nope.

I feel like— look at all your— but you've, you've been on a lot of paths, so I must have— I must be following you. I must be, because I, I love this. Okay, sorry. All right, guys, I apologize. I went down the About section. So if you are listening, just hop on YouTube, or the video will be on Spotify because it is pretty amazing. All right, I agree with Valerie. Valerie, I'm going to say it, I want those 7 principles again too, if you don't mind.

Sure. Yeah, absolutely. So, you know, I found through growing a business that if you apply these 7 principles the right way, you can grow your business the right way. And the first one is a lot of business owners feel like they need partners. Like, you know, you talk about minority partner— minor partners being oppressed sometimes, but a lot of times when we go into business, myself included, I always started with I needed a partner. I don't know if it was just not enough confidence in myself, imposter syndrome, or whatever it may be, but equity in a business is where you create wealth. And so principle number one is protect and grow your equity at all costs. You don't need partners to start a business. You can start your own business and own 100% of it and do sales and create revenue to generate, uh, the cash flow needed to grow your business, which is principle number 2. You need cash flow to grow, and so you should maximize your cash engine in your business to get capital infused in your company versus going to banks and investors right out of the gate. You don't need banks and investors to grow your company. You need a good product or service and revenue to reinvest. Principle 3 is reinvest smartly in your business. Don't chase shiny objects. Principle 4 is build entrepreneurship culture in your business where the leaders run your company. Train them and develop them and treat them well so that they can someday run your company for you. Principle 5 is protect the house. Do vulnerability assessments on your business and make sure that you're— you have good risk management practices. Principle 6 is make sure you're getting paid as you grow. So how do you access owner's liquidity in the balance sheet so you can start getting paid as you're growing your business and not just being a slave to your business and never getting paid. And Principle 7 is moving from CEO to chairperson so you can work on your business, not in your business, and be more strategic.

Boy, I absolutely love that. Thank you so much. So, so yeah, it's interesting though. So number 2, you need capital. Would make total sense if you can get your capital from your own profit, but if not, you definitely need capital to grow, whatever that looks like. Cheese. John St. Pierre, we, I mean, like, it's so funny, but so many companies don't even have like a business plan or marketing plan, a budget. Like, it is crazy. It is crazy out there, John. I was with SCORE as a business, you know, certified business mentor and the first female SCORE chairwoman here in Volusia County. And yeah, I do notice that when I look at boards and committees that sometimes we are missing that, you know, woman, because, you know, it's taken a long time for us to be seen and to be heard and to be serving on boards and committees. So it's funny that, that I noticed that right away. But I also just noticed, you know, again, like when I'm looking at boards and I'm like, why are you not having a female? Okay, so I don't think— yes, Valerie, I don't think I have any other questions. I love the book. I know what I want to ask. So you— so just working with you. So there's coaching? Are you doing retreats, workshops? Like, are you speaking engagements? What does that look like? And is there anything coming up you want to promote?

Yeah, so, uh, we have the Entrepreneurs United podcast where we have a podcast every week, uh, launches on Mondays. It talks everything entrepreneurship and business, uh, again in our 6th season, uh, of that. So about 300 episodes deep. Nice entrepreneurship lessons. There's the book, The $100 Million Journey, which I'd really recommend anybody that would want to learn more to start there on Amazon. The $100 Million Journey. It's also on Audible where you can listen to the book if desired. And I think there's a lot of lessons. There's the whole story of what happened through my failures to picking myself back up and finding my purpose and, and driving my business forward. I do do speaking engagements and I do coaching one-on-one for entrepreneurs and businesses, strategic planning services, those types of things that can all be found on my website, 100Mjourney.com.

I am so glad that you came across the PodMatch. Of course, I have to say yes to everyone. I actually had Alex on, and I had him, like, you know, I was doing the interview live like this, and I had him show me PodMatch, and he's like, well, what do you do, match or pass? And I'm like, I have to say yes, let's do it to everyone, and I give my cell phone number. That's what I have to do. But there's times when I'm just so thrilled to get, like, have a guest like like you on. So I'm really appreciative of it. And I know that Bobby and Valerie and Katya are, and as we go, Chatter— as we grow ChatterSocial, would love to have you on there. So there's just so many different communities out there. So thank you for speaking to my community. And is there anything that I did not ask you that you would like to share?

No, you know, I'll, I'll end with this. You know, I get asked sometimes, of all the things you've done, what is the biggest learning of all that you've had? And what I share is this new concept that I have, which is called patient ambition. And I was very ambitious, but I lacked the patience. And you can't be too patient without ambition because you won't get anywhere. But there's a long time, uh, you know, ahead of you. And if we do things systematically and we have the patience to combine with the ambition you can grow your business the right way without trying to run too fast and get too far out from over your skis. So, I talk a lot today about just having patient ambition. Know exactly what you want to do over the next decade and have a really good plan to go do that.

But be patient.

Katya, I feel like that would resonate with you.

Absolutely. As I call it, Nervous system regulated entrepreneur. So yeah, that's it.

Yeah. Yeah. And when I heard, when I heard John St. Pierre saying that, I'm like, my gosh, that is, that, that is something I've got to like sit down with and think about. That, that is so interesting.

Wow.

Wow.

John, now John, if you're on ChatterSocial, I would be like, oh, can you just do a room on that? Katya, I think that would be such an interesting room, uh, talking about that because that is— I, I maybe I put both of them together. That— so wow, okay, thank you. I, I, I'm— I love this conversation. Thank you, John. Thank you for your time. Thank you for being understanding because it is really a pain. I have to use two, two URLs and I have to do these like whatever the cables. And so in order for us to be streaming live River, thank you for being here. We are going to close, but it's so nice. And I'm just going to show you guys again, if you're watching, this is Chatter— oh wait, I think I'm— hold on so I can just show. And let me put myself back here. Let me take this handsome man and make him a little smaller. I've got you taking up the screen. And then I'm going to just make myself a little bigger. And see, this is the app. It's Chatter Social. So we've got a few people in the room. River. Oh, and oh, Nula. Nula's here too. But we are closing out, you guys. Sorry, I have to put a time in for the next time. But, um, John, this is so— you've got an audience here. You guys want to follow John St. Pierre? I have, um, I'll send you the information. He really is cool. Nula, he's a cool guy. Nula is an author too of I don't even know how many books. She's amazing. All right, we're gonna close out. Thank you, John. Anything, any last words to the Chatter fans out there?

Thanks for having me. And yeah, let's, uh, everybody out there, please connect on LinkedIn. Uh, John St. Pierre, love to meet you all.

Awesome. Thank you so much. Love it, love it, love it. Okay, bye everyone. I'm gonna end the stream. Thank you so much. Thank you, John.