Neil C. Gagne
Digital StrategistHelping your business reach its full potential
Hi, I’m Neil.
Your tech should add to your business, not distract, frustrate, aggravate or drain valuable resources. Don’t you think?
My Story
I spent 20 years as a commercial pilot in Canada. This provided the opportunity to experience the people and places of Canada from coast-to-coast-to-coast. I loved learning from and serving our customers. This desire led to a course in conversational Cree to better communicate with a key customer group. In many ways that personifies my approach to being in service to someone else. Immerse, participate, understand, then seek to add value.
Twelve of those years were spent in aviation management serving as Chief Pilot, Manager of Training and Standards, and Operations Manager. While it did take away from flying, the experience was invaluable for building knowledge and skills in a highly regulated, highly structured business.
In 2012, I took off my flying boots for family reasons and decided to apply the lessons learned to help small businesses navigate the rapidly changing world of digital marketing. I have always been a technology geek. While it may not seem to overlap, many of the principals of aviation structures can be directly modified and applied to other business models. This approach helps gain control and produce predictable results even under rapidly changing circumstances.
My Values & Beliefs
Your technology should serve your business
In the words of the late great Steven Covey, “Technology is a wonderful slave but a horrible master.” Sometimes technology can create demands that erode efficiency rather than adding to it. I believe that technology can be provide a competitive advantage but only within the environment and capacity of those using it.
Know your customer
Who is your ideal customer? Where do you find them? What do they read? How do they consume information? Which type of customer do you normally attract? Why? Which customers should you send your competitors? When? The better you can answer these questions, the more intentional you will be about building your business.
Your data is YOUR data
In this day and age you can get some pretty spectacular functionality and services from the multitude of platforms available. However, many of these services help themselves to our customer analytics and data. That is what you agreed to when you clicked that little “accept” box on their terms of service. Worse, in some cases, you may not be able to get that data out of their platform.
While it is your choice, I recommend you provide customers control of their data and not building systems that are dependent on any one individual product, service or person that you don’t have control over or are difficult to replace.
Healthy local businesses are the key to healthy communities
Most Canadians are employed by small or medium sized businesses. When a local business thrives, its employees, profits, and taxes stay local to strengthen the community. By contrast, big US based box stores may add to convenience but ultimately weaken communities and local sovereignty.
My Approach
Every business owner who has grown past their first employee, knows how hard it is to find good people. But is the problem really with the employee? (ouch!) How is it that some companies can seemingly get almost anyone to adapt to their way of thinking? (Yes, it does exist.)
The problem with many growing businesses is typically not the entrepreneurs vision or model of conduct. In fact, that is what usually leads to early success. The problem to sustained business growth is the ability to replicate that unique signature beyond that of the entrepreneur, into their employees and thus into the fabric of their business.
My goal is to is to reach into an owners head and the soul of an organization, sift through and identify the key components of their vision, values and way of doing things. Then capture that information in ways that can be replicated, provide the structures needed to disseminate that information in ways that produce consistent and predictable results within the identity of the organization. Well implemented digital adoption is often a part of that plan.
Henry Ford was asked when he was going to fire an employee who made a mistake that cost the company $100000. He responded, “Fire him?!?! I just spent $100000 training him.”
Featured Publications
Favorite Podcasts
- The Way I Heard It – Mike Rowe
- Tides of History – Patrick Wyman
- Web 3.0 – Sam Kamani
- I Love Marketing – Dean Jackson & Joe Polish
Recommended Books
- 5 Dysfunctions of a Team – Patrick Lencioni
- Influence – The Psychology of Persuasion – Robert B. Cialdini PhD
- E-Myth Mastery – Micheal E. Gerber
- The Contrarian’s Guide to Leadership – Steven B. Sample
- The Law – Frederic Bastiat