In this episode of The One Small Change, the conversation between Yvonne McCoy and Bernie Franzgrote focused on the power of forging authentic relationships and how seemingly small introductions can spark remarkable transformations in business and life. The discussion explored the value of community, the art of warm connections, and the importance of maintaining curiosity throughout professional and personal journeys. Listeners gained practical insights into leveraging networks, embracing patience, and remaining open to unexpected opportunities, all while nurturing a mindset committed to growth and learning.

Guest Bio:

Bernie Franzgrote brings 36 years of experience in healthcare, with two decades dedicated to business development, before making a pivot toward a career centered on connecting people. Through expertise in relationship-building, podcast hosting, and leveraging community-based platforms, Bernie specializes in making cross-industry introductions that create win-win opportunities and support growth for individuals and organizations alike.

Chapters:

00:00 Using podcasting for networking

05:14 Networking and exploring collaborations

08:21 Retirement and new opportunities

10:19 Learning to be more curious

13:53 Origin of the word "Okay"

17:39 Adapting to technology changes

20:14 Benefits of getting feedback and assessments

24:10 Embracing curiosity and self-improvement

27:32 Wrapping up with motivation

Quote from the Guest:

"Sometimes like, you know, take it, go for it - try something, change it up."

Link:

FREE Profit 10 Business Assessment

https://www.profit10framework.com/k4b-snapshot

Welcome to The One Small Change. It's that time again, and I am

thrilled to embark on this journey of exploration and transformation with you.

And if you don't already know, I'm your host, Yvonne McCoy, and I bring

almost 30 years of entrepreneurial experience, and I have an

insane passion for discovering growth through the power of

seemingly small change. And I'm glad that you've taken time out

of your week to join me again on this journey. And

this week, as every week, I try to bring you somebody new and

somebody new to your orbit who's going to help you grow your business

and give you a different perspective. And this week it is

Bernie Franzgrote, and they're going to share

some small, unexpected, or insignificant decision

that sparked a remarkable transformation and growth

either in their personal or professional or both. Bernie.

We just met each other, but so far it's been wonderful.

Thank you for being here, Yvonne. Absolute pleasure.

And it's always, it's always great to meet a smiling, happy soul.

How are you, happy soul? I am good. I am, I am.

I think this is a simpleton smile because, you know, for those

of you that don't know me, when I went— when I got my concussion and

I went to the, um, the ER, my daughter said, Mom, you know, it's Triage.

Stop smiling or we'll be here all night long.

So, so Bernie, I don't want to take up time with my goofy stories. I

want to know what it is that you do and what happened that

made you start doing it and doing it so well.

Well, I don't think I started at age 1, but I, I'll probably pick something

in the more recent past. The— I spent

36 years in healthcare and last 20 of it in business development.

Retired out of that space and kept going with the cross-connecting with people.

Enjoy conversations with people. So what do I do? I do

introductions. It's kind of a Venn diagram. You have your

circle of people around you. I have the circle of people around somebody

else, and I've come along as a middle circle and make the cross

connections. I try to find the good fit. So if you're

if you're looking to get married, I'm not going to show you the

retirement home. That's you know that might be in your future, but I don't do

that stuff. You know I don't do the the I reach stuff. However, that

said, uh, part of what I'm doing is the

cross connections, and which has led me to other, other evolutions

in what I do. Uh, I, I capitalize on, on

a, uh, a platform that helps me maintain the connections, and

also another platform which you can tell by the background, uh,

is about podcasting. And that

I do a lot of podcasting, and so it's this kind of marketing other people,

and it's The nature of the beast is kind of do that warm intro as

opposed to like, you know, cold calling is. There's some people that do it and

love that type of thing. But you just don't know if that's

going to be a fit for you, right? And so, that kind

of rolls into let's do a podcast or I do an introduction where I'm

thinking, you know, this wine and cheese goes well together. You're

now being paired. That way, you're not having

a surprise like peanut butter on pizza. You know, or

pineapple. That's just me. I know I'm not a pineapple fan

on my pizza. Let me, let me just,

you know, highlight something that I think that a lot of times we

don't think is important. At least I didn't, I

didn't come to it till very late in my business career. And

that is relationships and community.

You know, people hear that, that's something you don't have, you know, you don't have

to, you know, go it alone. Right? But there are

so many benefits from building

relationships and not just being transactional.

And I think that's one of the things that's so

wonderful about the thing that you do. And I've met some people through you

already in the short time that I've known you. So guys, you need to

definitely, you know, to look into Bernie. But what

was it that made you decide that this was something that

people needed and that those relationships, like you said, those

more warm relationships were especially needed.

Well, one of the

things I found even outside of the business networking,

you ever move to a new place and you're going, hi, I've got a car.

It's not, you're not taking it to the dealership, but you need to get it

fixed and you're trying to find that mechanic that can work on that car because

of the, you know, if it's a foreign depending where you are. If

it's a foreign car, can they fix it? And, you know, can they

also do it without making your wallet so light that you almost know that

you were never there? Or, you know, leave a negative impression

or, you know, taillight warranty. And it's that kind

of nature of the beast. You're trying to do introductions between people going,

this would be a really good fit. There'd be some better yield out of it

for both parties. when I'm doing an introduction is, you know, uh,

I might go, Yvonne, do you, do you know, uh, Percy?

No. Well, Percy can help you with this. Or Percy, do you know

Yvonne? You know, she can help you.

And, and then, or better yet, the both of you are looking for the same,

um, same client base. 2 heads are better than one. And so,

you know, always looking for the, the advantage that you can provide someone else.

Some of this is driven, helps drive affiliation, uh,

fees back. Some of it deals It's just, it makes really good

sense in its community. And you never know what's behind door number 1,

2, or 3. Uh, I've, I've met some people

for podcasting interviews where I'm about,

you know, determine whether, you know, should they be on, on my podcast? Is it

gonna be a good fit for them? Uh, is it gonna be a good fit

for the podcast? And in the course of the conversation, I

find out there's like 2 or 3 other things that are— it's like a flower

when it unfolds, right? You don't see the full, the full bloom till you actually

go, well, hang on, that's interesting. Yeah. That

might be something that has a good cross-connection that would not be

apparent on the surface. And so all of a sudden you can meet that and

it just helps everybody get that growth that they might need.

It's interesting because like I said,

I made a huge shift. I think we all did after COVID.

But one of the things that I think, you know, that I say in my

Be Found framework is nurture all your relationships.

And by that, I mean, not everybody's gonna be a client. I mean, when I

first, first of all, I didn't network until after COVID.

And so, you know, I went originally seeing like a dollar sign on

everybody's forehead. Is this gonna be a client? Is this gonna be a client? You

know, and, you know, finally learned

that meeting people who could actually introduce you to other people was

actually more valuable than just getting a

client, you know, a potential client. But you never know

what somebody— I mean, I, I have a call next week with somebody

that I met 5 years ago. And somehow or

other, our paths crossed again. And she was like, yeah, let's see what we, you

know, what we've been up to. And so I think those

relationships are really important, knowing that they

can be all kinds of different relationships. You never know.

You know, and, and I think the other thing is

the more people you meet, the better your

outside perspective is on what you do. I was on a

cruise once and we were in a hot tub with this guy I'd never met.

And he was like, what do you do? And I did this. And so he

goes, oh, you're a personal development coach. And I

went, no, I, my message is

really off. That's

Maybe I help you do push-ups. I help you do push-ups. Let's go.

You know, so when you talk to people, you know, you can get

some really valuable information and you can give them really

valuable information. So how did you get— you said you were

in healthcare. So what, what, what

made you switch?

Retirement. Just 36 years

inside the, inside the machine and

You know, it's funded by the state here in the province of

Ontario, but there's always room for

development in the business space within the facility.

Retired out of that. I enjoyed the— enjoyed working

with the opportunity where here's a solution

or here's a problem, and can you solve the

problem through other means other than going, that's too bad? Right?

You know, can you provide a spin where you can—

how to best put this— if there are no problems, there are no

opportunities, right? And so that's kind of the focal point.

And that expression actually comes from a commercial

realtor I work with and who I actually am

on his podcast when we're talking with the Property Wizard

area. And that's kind of the basis. Sometimes problems will present

themselves And there's an opportunity behind that. And

so I just leveraged that. Case in point, for example,

in 2019, prior to the pandemic,

I met a gentleman. He says his company does clinical

trials. And I'm like, geez, I don't know anybody

playing Frankenstein. And then at the bottom of

2019, I found Dr. Frankenstein and he says, listen,

I want to do some pancreatic cancer trial treatments.

pancreatic cancer treatments, and they need to do clinical trials, and I want to

do them here in the Ottawa area. I said, oddly enough, I know somebody. Never

thought that card would come out, but it did. So you just never know when

the opportunity might pop up. You might not go immediately,

no, you know, turn left here at the corner of X and Y, because that's,

that's the path you got to take. Sometimes it's just, yeah, you got to wait,

and then when the moment's right, you go here. There's a connection

and work with it. I think the other thing that—

I don't know how to put this.

The more people that you meet, I think the more

curious you learn to be, if that makes any sense. And

that to me was a huge— again, happened in

COVID because one of my skills is

that I am very focused and very action-oriented. And I have

since learned that the downside to that is that I do

not sometimes pay attention to

details and stop and smell the roses. And so

I have to, I have to really say to myself, am I being

curious? Is this an opportunity for me to be curious? It's become

like a really big philosophical thing for me.

And it has changed my life. You know, instead of going immediately to

what I think the answer to the problem is, taking a few

extra steps to say, tell me more, you know, tell

me how you would do this. And knowing that there's more than one

path to get to an answer, right? And that everybody's got to, you know,

everybody— I often say, if

it, you know, if it doesn't work, it's not you. It's that

that solution doesn't work for you. Let's see how we can find a

solution that will work. And when you meet more people,

and you're in more community, you see more solutions. So

you, it's easier to be, you know, curious and try a lot more

different things, I think. Yeah. Well, it

also keeps your mind agile.

For example, you know, in the Knack for Business

podcast, I interviewed 3 IP lawyers in the

first season. And, you know, you'd think if you'd

interviewed one, you interviewed them all. The answer is no.

I discovered each one of them had a very unique area

that they did patents on. And it turns out

patent lawyers tend to be somebody who was studying in another

science or in another area prior, decided, nope,

that's not for them. And they decided to go for law and went for IP

law. And so they now, when someone shows up with the better

mousetrap, they go, you know, that's

actually a good idea. No, it's your No,

it's just no. In which case, you know, but that, that's interesting. In

fact, the— again, from season 1,

the guy's name is Michael Steele. I even remember his name.

He was telling me, and I was worried about going too long in the podcast

with him, and he said, uh, at one point in time in the

US, he said the, uh, the whole concept of, of a

patent, and it was baked into the Constitution,

not as an amendment, not about, you know, whether it's guns or rights to free

speech and stuff like that right in the, right in,

right in the core of it. You have a, you have a good idea, it's

your idea and not the crown's idea, and the crown being the state.

And I'm going, oh, that's interesting. So they, you know, they basically,

uh, France and Britain, you know, everybody, thanks guys but no thanks, particularly

Britain. I know that. But, you know, otherwise the idea becomes the

crown's, right? Which kind of leads back to serfdom.

It's interesting to hear that story. I never knew that. And I, I've mentioned it

to other people. I'm going, I've never heard that before. I said,

yeah, that's kind of cool, a cool factoid, right? If

you're having a cocktail with somebody and you're going, well, let me tell you this

story. Well, you know, it's interesting because I'm married to

somebody who is very, very, very curious.

And so he has made me a much more

interesting person because he captures me and we watch these weird things.

And probably the thing, the one that I share the most is the

origin of Okay, which is the most

well-known phrase on the earth. And it

came from kind of like in the 1800s, this kind of

bougie thing that they did to misspell in the journalism

space to misspell things. And it actually stood for all

okay, but they spelled it O-L-L, you know, all

not okay, all correct. And so the K was, you know, and

then it got shortened to okay. And then a friend of mine when I was

sharing it was in the military said, that's why you do it with your left

hand, because you get the O and the K. So,

and you can do that when, when you can't verbally do it,

right? And you're doing distance and they can see it. So

yeah, you can learn all kinds of things from all kinds of people.

And it makes you, it makes you a more interesting person. And it

gives you a perspective that you may not have had

before. And I think even though all of us, you know,

have business in our sight, We also have

passion projects and other things. And so people that you've nurtured

your— those relationships with, you never know whether they're going to be

in your personal life, in your business life, in your passion

project, or, you know, any of the things in between.

And you know what? Time doesn't stand still. So

people that may not be a match now may be a

match in the future. And the one that I think that we find the hardest

to deal with is people who are a match now, We may

shed them as we change and go forward.

So let me, let me ask you this. What are 3 things that,

that you've learned that people can do to help grow their

business? I, you know,

patience is one. If you're flustered

by something and if, if the emotion is running hot,

definitely stop. Back out, you know, take a minute. Whether

you're working on a project in front of you, you're engaging something and

it's frustrating the heck out of you, just stop for a second. You know, if

you're, if you're not in the midst of putting out an actual fire,

take a minute, you know, and just kind of reframe what you're

doing, right? Is this, is this kind of a, you know, is

this something worthwhile getting excited about? And then there's things

you can change and there's things you can't change. If today is

Tuesday, it is still Tuesday till Tuesday be done, right?

No matter, you know, if you might wake up thinking it's Thursday because the week's

feeling it's moving fast. But, you know, there's some things you can't change,

but you can change your attitude. And so, that's kind of key.

The curiosity piece, that'll always be

coming around. So, if you're crossing paths,

why is something the way it is? And not so much to give

pushback. But it helps you, you know, you start at one layer and you keep

working your way down. Like, you know, the okay symbol,

right? Where did it come from? And so, later on when you're in

another conversation, you might see a parallel of things because

we human beings rinse and repeat a lot even though

we don't know it. It goes back to the adage, you know, history repeats

itself. Especially if you either don't learn it

or you don't study it or you don't remember it. And all of a sudden,

you're going, you know, you're having a sense of déjà vu. So, Things always come

in cycles, even with technology. You know, there, there are good things that come out

of technology changes. You know, I'm sure when the printing press was, uh,

starting to push out paper with words on it, you know, there were, there were

people that were, uh, really good at, you know, sharing

information, and other people kind of being, uh, yeah, a

little bit of a larceny of the hurt, you know. So just, you just got

to bear in mind, uh, some things are not new under the sun, uh, just

it might have a different coat on there. So just Again, you know, what can

you do? What can you manage? And how do you, how do you move on

from that? And also take time away from stuff too, right?

Downtime is important so you can reset. Good sleep, good food,

good coffee in the morning, I understand, is really important, right? Yes, we

had that conversation early this morning for me.

So before I comment on any of those

things, just to make sure that we do this. What, what is the

gift that you're giving? Well, I've got a couple

of things on the go here. Uh, first off, if you are a

person that wants to be on a podcast, reach out to me. There's a

calendar booking link. It doesn't necessarily mean that you're reaching out, that it's a done

deal. I, I'm looking for someone with an origin story, someone who's not like

they're, uh, in the witness box and view me as the, uh,

opposing counsel. Uh, you know, uh, this is not

cross-examination, this is a dialogue. And I'm looking

for an origin story. And even if you're a startup or you've been at it

for a while, or if, you know, you're in midlife of that process or near

the end, you know, the sunset stage, and you have some golden nuggets and

lessons learned. So that is one of the elements.

Then we also— I have something called Profit

10. That is a self— 5-minute self-assessment. And

what that's meant to do is like You know, how's your business

doing? There are 10 ratings. This covers 3 of them

and it's free to use. 5 minutes, all yes/no. And you just

kind of go through that and it'll help you define what's missing

in your business, that kind of the gaps. Because if you can't take 30 days

away from your business, well, you know, there's a gap,

right? And what is it? Is it just because it's just you and that's it?

You're the owner that bakes the cookies or what? Right. And the

last little offering is we offer GoHighLevel for

$47 Canadian a month right now. Uh, you know, long-term

contract, first dollar, uh, and then Canadian funds. So if you're in

the US, it's a lot cheaper. And, uh, yeah,

it's better than the open market rates. Well,

first of all, one of the things I want to say is, um,

you're invitation, even if they don't get

on the show, if it's not a good match, it's a great experience

to talk to somebody and see what someone else—

someone has an outside perspective on who you might be a good match

for. And as I said, Bernie has already matched

me up with some people in the short time that we've talked. The other

thing is an assessment is always a great thing. I mean, it,

I don't believe that one assessment gives you 100%, but I think

that as you take them, you get that layered thing like, oh my God,

the, this came up twice. This is probably something that

I'm really doing. And I find that, I, I find that to

be really interesting to see, you know, where it pulls weird

things from, you know, other places. So

here's the question. When was the last time you did something new for the

first time? When I woke up this

morning, I didn't wake up before this morning, so I guess that would— that's me

being cheeky. Uh, when was the last time I did

something new, uh, for the first time? I find it interesting how

people answer this question.

Well, yeah, it's— I'm trying to think what's,

you know, like, for example, when I'm doing my podcasts, right,

and then doing the production because I do the post-production.

I always look at a way that I can enhance what I'm doing,

right, with the content. And that's so that the

person gets the mileage out of that time

spent with me. But also I get the mileage. So even when I'm

doing the editing of the podcast, I've learned now as people are

talking and they go, you know, and I do it all the time, you know,

and you hear, you know, you know, it gets too frequently. All of a sudden,

yeah, that's starting to sound repetitive. Let's rip it out, you know, as much as

possible. Yeah, so I still have— so it's not, you know,

rinse, repeat, rinse, repeat. Um, the,

the key out of that is you start picking up on other things. You're understanding

that when someone is using that expression, that might be— that's their gap right

before the, the next thought comes to fruition. Um,

even the blog I'm using, blog.nack, which is the word

knack 4, the number 4, business.com. That started in

February, and the purpose behind that was to,

uh, get a bigger footprint and so people can search the

database. I'm, I'm sitting there going, how do I make all these podcasts

findable and, and searchable different ways? And

so what I'm using now is there's a, a, a bot that I got, and

the guy, yeah, he's a, the SaaS developer here in the Ottawa area.

It's called Web Indexer. And so he said, this goes on your chat, and what

it does, it goes into your website and digs up all the information

that somebody might be looking for. So that's interesting.

Turns out it also can go to the blog and pick up the information. So

if someone types in, I want to know when Yvonne

spoke last, right? Well, there you go. All the Yvonnes

that have spoken at the NAC for Business will populate,

right? Or I'm looking to find something, so it's searchable, right? So

That was, that was in February. And I even remember the first guy I

parked in there. His name is Joel Shurtok. He's a chemical engineer out of the

US. And he says, Bernie, how do I fit into the

scheme of things in a business talk show? I said, Joel, are you in business?

He said, yeah. So that's a good opener. You have an

origin story. You have some golden nuggets and lessons learned. I said, Joel, I haven't

interviewed a chemical engineer before. So that's, that for

starters is a bonus round. And if you need to know how to take your

witch's brew from 1 gallon to 10,000 gallons, he's your man. You

know, he, he can help, you know, scale your, your production.

So I think, I think that your thing, your, your whole

life is about how can we make this better, which

means that you're constantly doing things, trying things new

for the first time. And, you know, I find that I do that too. It's

like I do something and even though I do my, my monthly

workshop, it's like, what, what did I feel

like people didn't get? Or, you know, how can I say this more clearly?

Or here's an idea that I think I've missed, you know.

And on top of that, I think, you know, we have the opportunity to be

curious in our own personal life. Like, I just did a—

I just did a passion project

I've started with my husband. And it's called A Curious American

Chat. And what we discovered, you know, because weird things are

going on in the world and in our country in particular, is that

we had very different experiences. He was raised in the South and I

was raised in the North. And, you know, so it

kind of is— the country

started as a promise and we haven't totally fulfilled it yet.

And ideas and things like that. So— Yeah. Yeah,

I think we— if we take our curiosity, we can find different ways

to apply it in a lot of different ways. All right, got to do the

commercial because I think we probably— Ta-da!

We probably could talk for much longer, right?

So I hope everybody will take a minute and

subscribe and share and engage with this on social media

about the podcast. The reason I did it was

I wanted to supercharge your business through connection. I wanted to have

a way to give back to this community and fuel

your quest for growth and impact. Let's see if I can

talk today. And so I hope you'll continue to join me for The

One Small Change. I hope that you will find ideas that you can use,

people that are interesting, and, and in this case, opportunities that

are there for you. So before we leave, Bernie,

what would be, if you had to give a quote or your last words, what

would you say? A quote? Well, you know,

I'll just go with the easy default, just do it.

It's not so much I'm a Nike fan, but sometimes like, you

know, take it, go for it,

you know, try something, change it up. Even when

I'm doing the podcasting, it's season 1 to season 4. Totally,

totally different animal, right, in format, everything else.

And if you're inside the NAC for Business podcast space,

even if you didn't— if timing doesn't work well, not even that you don't

qualify, but the timing doesn't work well, you know, there are other avenues and

other speaking opportunities that can crop up either in

the East Trade Winds or at Canada Growth Network.

You know, so there's always an opportunity and a lot of people

have spoken on the podcast have made it to Canada Growth Network. And

so, it gets leveraged again as a

podcast and gets out there into the wild. So, ta-da!

You know, just come on in. You know, it depends what you

have the appetite for. It depends what you have the appetite for and what you

have the time for. So guys, this has

been another episode. And I want you to remember that change

may seem like it's simple but it's not always easy. It requires

courage, resilience, and a willingness to step outside your comfort zone.

If you are comfortable, then you are stagnating. You are not

excited. You are not, you know, trying, pushing the edges of

things, right? So I want you to do that, but I want you to do

it in a way that, that, that, you know, you've got some feedback and some

information before you jump off the cliff. Okay? So I want you to

join me for the next One Small Change. And if you've never been,

if this is the first time, there are a couple of episodes in there where

I Where, because I like to talk, that I've just kind of given you a

half an hour of me talking with my thoughts. And,

but there are many, many others. There's over 100 episodes there and

everybody has given a wonderful gift. So I hope you will come

back. I hope you will see this as a resource that you use as you

grow your business. Bernie, thank you so much.

Yvonne, I appreciate you inviting me in here. This is great. Good

conversation. Hard to beat. Hard to beat. And for

everybody else, until the next time, stay very, very

curious. Bye. Bye.