LeaderImpact Podcast
LeaderImpact Podcast
Ep. 64 - Mark Peterson - From Tech Enthusiast to Business Success
Ever wondered how a fascination with computers could evolve into a national training empire? Mark Peterson, the visionary entrepreneur behind Train Canada, shares his extraordinary journey from a high school tech enthusiast to a pioneering business leader. Mark takes us through his early days transitioning from a developer to a computer trainer in the mid-80s, and how he scaled his company to 13 locations across Canada.
We discuss the costly mistakes of early tech ventures during the dot-com bubble and the invaluable lessons they taught. We also explore how Christian values have shaped his approach to business, fostering loyalty and integrity among clients and employees.
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Welcome to the Leader Impact Podcast. We are a community of leaders with a network in over 350 cities around the world, dedicated to optimizing our personal, professional and spiritual lives to have impact. This show is where we have a chance to listen and engage with leaders who are living this out. We love talking with leaders, so if you have any questions, comments or suggestions to make the show even better, please let us know. The best way to stay connected in Canada is through our newsletter at leaderimpact. ca or on social media at Leader Impact. If you're listening from outside of Canada, check out our website at leaderimpact. com.
Speaker 2:I'm your host, Lisa Peters, and our guest today is Mark Peterson. Mark is an entrepreneur, adult educator and business leader. In 1989, he founded Train Canada, a national training company that provided information technology and business skill training to corporate and government clients across Canada. After 28 years with Train Canada and then a very short retirement, Mark became a partner at Flint Learning Solutions, a Canadian-based e-learning business. Flint has developed a unique learning methodology that takes leadership and sales training to a whole new level. Innovation, planning, measurement and execution are what Mark considers to be the key factors to success in all business. Mark lives just north of Toronto in Canada with his wife of 40 years, and they have two grown children. To escape the world of business, Mark enjoys nothing more than a week of camping and fishing.
Speaker 1:Welcome to the show Mark. Thanks very much, Lisa.
Speaker 2:So are you getting any camping or fishing in lately?
Speaker 1:I did. It was well. Today's June 24th and June 15th was opening bass season, so I got out for three days with my best buddy and caught some bass. It was great.
Speaker 2:That is fantastic. Near you Like, do you fish near you?
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's actually. He lives in Ottawa, so it was just outside of Ottawa. And yeah, no wives were allowed, just the guys and a wonderful time.
Speaker 2:I think that's important, important. We all need time away. We recharge so well. I'm glad you. I'm glad you got away and I'm sure you have many more trips this summer planned. Well, I hope you do yes all right.
Speaker 2:Well, I want to thank you for joining us on the Leader Impact podcast. We've been having a great time over the past two years, and it's I love showing up here just to meet people like yourself, so thank you for joining us. We usually yeah, we usually start off our first question with if you can tell us a little bit about your professional story and how you got to where you are today.
Speaker 1:Sure. So I saw my very first computer when I was in grade 12 in high school and I just fell in love. I just it was the greatest thing, and so I knew I wanted to be in technology. That's from that day on. So I went to university for computer science back in the early 80s and I was a terrible student and being asked not to come back. But I got a job as a developer and I did that for a couple of years and then we moved to Ottawa and I was looking for a job and there was an ad for a computer trainer. So you have to appreciate this is in the mid 80s.
Speaker 1:Computers were just brand new in the workplace and so they were being put on people's desks and they had no idea what to do with them. So I was hired by this company that was selling computers and I would go out and train people on how to use their technology. I found out I really liked it, it was something I was really good at, and so I got to work in technology and to work with people, and so I did that for a couple of years. And then a friend of mine said you know, you should start your own trading business and I was 26 years old and I had no money. And he said well, 26 years old, I had no money. And he said well, I'll front you some money. And so he helped me set up. We set up six computers in one classroom and that's where I got started and we just grew the business over 28 years and we had 13 locations across Canada and it was just a really great time and I got to play with technology all day long and yeah.
Speaker 2:So where did you see your first computer? Because I don't know, if you like, they were expensive in the beginning yeah, so in high school our high school bought six Commodore 10s.
Speaker 1:We're in a special room and you had to have special access to get onto them. And yeah, that was the first time I used a computer and it was pretty exciting.
Speaker 2:And those rooms were all like the air was controlled. Was that true? Yeah, I remember that, and now we're like sitting in the sun with our laptops. How times have changed, so I'm wondering if you can give us a couple snapshots that will maybe pivotal turning points along that journey.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so like when I started off, I knew technology, I had learned how to educate people, how to educate adults, and but I had no sense of business. I really had no business training and so my friend who had helped finance our startup, and so he remained a partner he never worked in the business, but he remained a partner of mine for 28 years and he had an.
Speaker 1:MBA and he knew all about business and he taught me and really it. You know those early years just learning how to run a business. But I think that the big pivotal point came about five years in, where we learned how to make money Just to give you a little bit of background that the biggest challenge in the training industry, and still is today, is that you don't make money on your first student. So you're running a class, one person signs up, it's not even the second or third. It's usually not until the fifth or sixth student, when you have enough volume in the classroom that you can make some money. And so the norm in the industry is that you'd put up a schedule here's the classes we're running and if you don't get enough registrations, you would end up canceling the course and or, you know, moving them forward to the next stage until you got enough people.
Speaker 1:Well, we came up with this idea and I can't take all the credit. It was actually our sales manager who was the brainchild behind. It was her idea where we came up with a way that we could make sure that we made money on the first registration, and so, consequently, I won't get into the secret sauce of what we did, but we figured out how we could make money on the first registration and so, consequently, we didn't have to cancel any more classes, and that really differentiated us from our competitors and we were able to guarantee all our classes were going to run, and then, once you could guarantee a class was going to run, other people would be willing to sign up knowing they weren't going to get cancelled out and yeah, we were really able to really skyrocket after that and took out a bunch of competitors through that strategy and that really has allowed us to grow.
Speaker 2:Yeah, there's companies today that still cancel when there's not enough people in the class. Absolutely, oh it's. It's makes me angry. I mean I'm the student, so it's like, oh, I can't. I mean I've arranged my schedule so I can see that being a big deal.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so that was. That was really, when we look back at the history of the company. We were struggling, trying to make ends meet, and when we came up with this strategy, it just turned everything around and we just grew like crazy.
Speaker 2:Yeah, good point. So can you give us the best principle of success that maybe you've learned and maybe tell us a story that you have that would illustrate that?
Speaker 1:Yeah, I would probably. You know two or three things that really come to mind. I mean, the first is, you know, just surrounding yourself with people who are smarter than you, and you know my mentor and business partner for all those years, he's still smarter than me and you know we hired people that were, you know, experts in their field and you know, just not thinking that you can do it all yourself, and so I think that's really important. Another thing that we really did well at was being able to innovate. And, as you can imagine, when we started in 89, computers again were still in their infancy and technology has changed. I mean, it's changing daily now and it has just changed over and over and we we had to stay on top of it because we were training the latest, greatest technology and you had to be continuously innovating.
Speaker 1:And two things that come to mind that we really innovated well at and it seems kind of some kind of funny to look at it back at now, but we were the first company to start doing remote training. I mean almost all training is remote now. I mean you go on a Zoom classroom, but nobody was doing that. It was all classroom based and we were the first company to start doing that, just when the Internet was in infancy. When the internet was in infancy and we didn't have zoom and teams and and we set up classrooms and connected together with closed caption tv and used conference phones and so on so that we could have, you know, students in different cities connected together into a classroom. So that was a real innovation.
Speaker 1:The other big innovation we made was when you're doing the higher end technology training, server training and so on, back in the day, you we would have to set up physically the equipment in a classroom so the students committed and have a hands-on experience. That was an expensive, you know, to set up the classrooms and of course, the technology was changing. So every year you're updating uh computers and software and so, again, we were one of the first companies to set up our own private cloud and put virtue and we created virtual machines in the cloud. So you come into a classroom you didn, you could just use any regular laptop or desktop and you remote it into our personal cloud and you would log into your server there. Now, again, that's commonplace, everybody does that, but we were the first in Canada to set that up and, again, that was just really innovative.
Speaker 2:Yeah, because how this was like. I know we're talking about it like yeah, and so what? Because everybody's doing it now. What year was this?
Speaker 1:Oh, we started the remote training in the mid 90s, you know, yeah, yeah, it was really quite different and it was hard, it was a hard sell. People were like, what, I'm going to go sit in a classroom with nobody else is there and I'm still on a TV, and it's like, yeah, yeah, you'll really love it. And they did at the beginning. But, you know, and then, uh, you know, it was a big expense to set up our own cloud, um, but, uh, you know, the initial investment paid off in spades because we didn't have to keep reconfiguring our classrooms.
Speaker 2:So, yeah, and I can imagine that the people coming to see you for training, um, I'm thinking would have been senior staff at the or no, because I think at this point computers were still new. I mean, not everybody had one, that was for sure yeah, it was.
Speaker 1:Oh, it was all over the map. Um, so you know from just your regular office worker who needs to learn how to use Excel or Word to you know we did all the technology stack. So if you're a CTO you would come to us to learn the latest technology, and then you know we would also do executive training as well.
Speaker 2:So it was really all across. Yeah, good, executive training as well. So it was really all across, yeah, good. So on our show we talk a lot about failures and mistakes, because I think we know we learn more from them than our own successes. So I'm wondering if you can share one of your greatest failures or mistakes and what you, what you learned from it.
Speaker 1:Oh, I certainly had my fair share of failures. I mean, we learn from our mistakes, as you said. I think probably the biggest mistake, costliest mistake we made, again, this was back in the mid-90s, when we were working. We had started doing this remote training and we were looking to enhance that. And this was during the dot-com bubble and there was all these companies in silicon valley and um. So we hired a company to help us develop a software, something like zoom. So even before it invented, we we knew that's what we wanted, but we didn't know how to make it. So we hired a company to to do that. We gave them lots of money, uh, and, but we actually didn't even go and visit them. We just did this all online. And so a couple of months into the project we went out to Silicon Valley to, you know, meet with them and see how we were doing, and so in the development project and turns out that there was just it was just a storefront with a couple of guys who didn't know what they were doing.
Speaker 1:And so yeah, that was a very costly mistake because we had fronted like a quarter million dollars up front to get this project started and, yeah, we lost all that money. And then the dot-com bubble burst. So, yeah, learn to do your due diligence before hiring somebody. But it was a frenzy time it was. Everybody was just trying to get in and you know, and make as much money as you could, fast as you could.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think that happens probably a lot, where people want to get ahead of the curve, they want to jump on something and they don't do their due diligence. And you know, if it's $1,000, $10,000, quarter of a million dollars, the scale doesn't matter. You didn't do your work. You didn't lie down there.
Speaker 1:Absolutely.
Speaker 2:That's a great example. All right, we move into Leader Impact because I believe you're a member. Where are you a Leader Impact member?
Speaker 1:So in Vaughan, which is the north part of Toronto, so we started a group there. I mean, another fellow started a group there, I guess about 10 years ago now, and then during COVID we went remote and we stayed remote and so we've a couple of the guys have moved away, but it's still connected with the group and it's great. So we get together kind of once a quarter for breakfast, but the rest of the time yeah, our group is very similar.
Speaker 2:So obviously at Leader Impact we want to grow personally, professionally and spiritually for increasing impact. I was wondering if you'd be willing to share an example of how the spiritual makes a practical difference in your life as a leader.
Speaker 1:Like for me. As I said, you know, our business really took off when we started to learn how to make money. And I often say to my staff all the time you know we are a for profit company. This is we're not a charity, we're here to make money. But you know, money is not a driving force for me, it's, it's a necessary thing for business. If your business isn't making money, you don't really have a business.
Speaker 1:But what really is important to me is people, and you know, I think a business that has good people, has loyal employees, good clients, loyal clients, is one that will really grow. And you know, as a Christian, to me it's really important how we treat people. It's like every human is made in the image of God and everyone has immense value, and so we've always made it a priority in how we treat others. It starts with the client how do we treat our clients honestly and fairly, and how we treat our co-workers and how do we treat our superiors and our reports, and that really just became a big part of our culture and that all comes out of, you know, my faith and that that was really an important value in the company. You know I can give you a couple examples, you know, like we've had over the years had of employees who have had issues in their life family issues, sickness, health issues, that sort of thing. And you know we just give them the time off, paid time off. If you need to go, take a month, you need to take two months, we'll keep paying your salary, don't worry about it go.
Speaker 1:You know, fix what you never need to fix and that that is, you know, just builds great loyalty. Uh, the other staff see it as well and, um, it's the right thing to do when somebody's on hard times. You don't kick them to the curb. Um, you know. And then treating our clients with great respect, I mean, remember one time we got overpaid on an invoice by about $50,000 and there is no way that the client would ever know. And you know I called them up and said, hey, you overpaid, overpaid this. You know I'm sending you back your fifty thousand dollars and, uh, you know that just goes a long way to, you know, and I don't know how I could have ever kept the money it wasn't my money and that was wrong but, um, just building a great loyal customer. And yeah, so our christian values um can have a real practical impact into the success of your business.
Speaker 2:Great examples and I'm thankful. You know we are here to make money. I sometimes wonder if people think no, christians, they're really nice people in business. Nope, nope, we're here to make money, give people a living, a life that you know, and people first. So those are some great examples, great Practical examples. At Leader Impact, we are dedicated to leaders having a lasting impact. So, as you continue to move through this journey and I don't know if you're going to head to retirement and come back out again, who knows?
Speaker 1:Well, my wife has a thing to say about this. She wants me to retire, but I'm not ready yet.
Speaker 2:Oh yeah. Well, as you continue to move through this journey, I'm wondering if you've considered what you want your faith legacy to be when you leave this world.
Speaker 1:Yeah, absolutely. You know, I think of the story, the parable, you know, where the master goes on a trip and gives the responsibility to three servants, and you know, you know the story well. Well, where money gives, uh, you know, three bags of money and the other two, and one one and the, the ones with the, the five and the um two, they they're able to double the money, and the one with one bag of money, um, you know, hides it away and does nothing with it, and the master returns it's like you know, well done, faithful servant to the ones who doubled their money. And you know, so I really see that what our purpose is, and what I want my legacy to be, is to be able to maximize the time and talent and treasure that has been entrusted to us, and so I think that's really important.
Speaker 1:It's not I don't want my name on a building, but I want to know that I've made a difference in somebody's life. I've made a difference in a ministry, I've made a difference in a church, and you know so we've done many things towards that.
Speaker 1:You know, my wife and I, we chose very early on, when we started having some success, that we were going to live well below our means. So we don't live in a big fancy house, we don't have all the toys, we don't have a cottage and we could have all those things, but we've chosen not to and to use our, our time and talents and and our treasure to further the kingdom. And to me, that's really what I want my legacy to be to really have given it all and, you know, doubled it for the kingdom.
Speaker 2:Wow, it's very inspiring, mark. Thank you for sharing that. Living under your means means for some people, I think, would be very, maybe very hard right, we see other people living, we see other people doing the vacations, we see other people big houses, you know the boats, the, and you want to keep up so.
Speaker 1:Yeah, don't get me wrong, we, we have a nice house.
Speaker 2:We drive a nice car.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so it's. It's not about living in poverty, but you know, you can live in a million-dollar house. You don't need to have a $5 million house. You can drive a Honda Civic, you don't need to drive a Jaguar. You know, like it's, you know, okay.
Speaker 2:Thanks for correcting that. That was good. Our last question we ask everybody is what brings you the greatest joy?
Speaker 1:I think when I think about that it's in Leader Impact. In our group we did a book called the 10-Second Rule. I don't know if you're familiar with that book and just with the premise of the book is that when the Holy Spirit prompts you to do something, you have 10 seconds to do it, Because if you don't do it within the first 10 seconds, you'll probably come up with a reason not to do it, because if you don't do it within the first 10 seconds, you'll probably come up with a reason not to do it. And uh, so you know, as I thought about that, as we went through that book and we were, we were all practicing it within our group and we tell stories about you know how I felt the holy spirit prompted me to do something and you, you know, when I look back and some of the times that where I've been prompted to do something and then you find out that that was an answer to somebody's prayer and that really gives me the greatest joy. And I can give you a couple examples, I mean from simple things. Like you feel like this Holy Spirit telling you say, you know you should give someone a phone call. So you pick up this Holy Spirit telling you, you know you should give so-and-so a phone call. So you pick up the phone and you call them. Hey, how's the corner? I was just thinking about you. And you know they'll say, oh, that is. You know, I was just really needed to talk to somebody today and you know I'd love to get your advice on this or that, and it's just, you know, something like that. It can be really great.
Speaker 1:Um, you know, when it comes to to money, there's been occasions where, like you know, my wife and I'll be praying and we'll it's like you know what I feel like we need to send this person some money.
Speaker 1:And uh, it's like okay, and so, um, you know, we're again a big part of, um, what we, what we really like to do, is to share our wealth with other ministries and so on. And so I remember this one occasion. It was this pastor that we've known well and we pray for periodically, but we don't really support their ministry and we were just praying and it's like, yeah, the Holy Spirit was saying, yeah, we need to send them some money. So we wrote him a check for $5,000, sent it off in the mail, didn't think twice about it money, so we wrote him a check for 5,000, sent it off in the mail, didn't think twice about it and about a month later or so we ran into them somewhere and they go. You would not believe the difference. That money we had been praying, desperately praying that the Lord would provide some money for.
Speaker 1:I can't even remember what it was, and it came just at the right time. And so just knowing that the Lord is using us to answer other people's prayers, knowing that the Lord is using us to answer other people's prayers, that is just a real thrill and I think that you know, you just feel great.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:And so that's what really gives me the greatest joy is just being part of God's plan and working through other people's lives.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think, for maybe people listening they don't, they may not know it's the Holy Spirit. They may call it a gut feel, you know, and maybe that's okay until they could. I mean, you recognize it as the Holy Spirit and I do, and I can't say that I act on it all the time and then I just shake my head.
Speaker 2:But if you are calling it a gut instinct, maybe next time act on it. And when it is something like this, like oh, I needed this phone call, know that it goes big, it's bigger than that, you know. Yeah, that's a great story, because I don't act on my own gut sometimes and then shake my head.
Speaker 1:I can tell you a whole bunch of stories when I didn't act on it. I can tell you a whole bunch of stories when I didn't act on it. We have those too, unfortunately.
Speaker 2:I like to believe that it will come around again, if it's meant to happen, If I didn't, you know, the Holy Spirit tried and I didn't. I want to believe that you know it will come around, you know.
Speaker 1:God's not giving up. Yeah, I mean God will use us. We're not willing to use somebody else.
Speaker 2:Yes, well, mark, I want to thank you for taking the time with us today just to sit down and chat. It was a pleasure to meet you. If anyone wants to connect with you, or even find out more about your companies, or just find you, what is the best way to connect with you?
Speaker 1:Yeah, probably the best way to get a hold of me is through LinkedIn. So there's a couple thousand Mark Petersons on LinkedIn. But if you look up for if you look Mark Peterson and then Flint learning solutions just Mark Peterson, flint you'll find me. And yeah, I check my messages on LinkedIn regularly. So, yeah, I'd love to Okay With anybody. Yeah.
Speaker 2:Good point, because, like I'm a Lisa Peters, there's probably about a million of us too. Anyway, I want to thank you for joining us again, mark. Thank you.
Speaker 1:Great pleasure. Thanks, Lisa.
Speaker 2:Well, this ends our podcast. We hope you enjoyed our time together. If you're part of Leader Impact, you can always discuss or share this podcast with your group. And if you are not yet part of Leader Impact and would like to find out more and grow your leadership, find our podcast page on our website at leaderimpactca and check out our free leadership assessment. You'll also find on our webpage chapter one of Braden Douglas' book Becoming a Leader of Impact. You can also check out our groups available in Canada at leaderimpactca or, if you're listening from anywhere else in the world, check out leaderimpactcom or get in touch with us by email info at leaderimpactca and we will connect you. And if you like this podcast, please leave us a comment, give us a rating or a review. This will help other global leaders find our podcast. Thank you for engaging with us and remember impact starts with you.
