Meet Our Mentors: Chris Herbert
Chris Herbert, Catapult Tech Network lead and one of six mentors at Fast Lane Plus™
Meet Chris Herbert, a husband, dad, papa, Catapult Tech Network Lead, Fast Lane Plus™ Mentor, and a proud member of the Grey Bruce community. Outside his (home) office, you can find him playing squash, enjoying the vast outdoors of the country, or just spending time with his loving wife.
Chris has over 25 years of experience as a professional marketer and entrepreneur. He is the founder and leader of two companies, Mi6 and Silicon Halton, which have both been active for over 13 years and are still engaged with their local and international communities today.
Located in Keady, Ontario, Mi6 helps businesses excel in their digital marketing goals. Its programs are custom-tailored to each client and involve features such as website design, value exchanges, audience and business networks, and more. Chris has assisted several businesses through Mi6, including Cisco, Windmill (formerly Yakidoo), The Michener Institute of Health Sciences, SAP, and many others. In particular, he spearheaded an influencer marketing campaign for SAP — before influencer marketing became mainstream — and yielded the corporation with approximately $3 million in revenue.
Chris’ second organization, Silicon Halton, empowers local technological entrepreneurs within the Halton region. Founded in 2009, it serves 1,500 members, has hosted at least 20 live events, and fostered a supportive and collaborative environment among the Halton tech community. Some of its services include monthly meetups for entrepreneurial education and networking, collaboration days to foster coworking opportunities, and a community portal to connect Tech Entrepreneurs through social media.
One of Chris’ proudest professional achievements was forming the Tech Under Twenty program for youth entrepreneurs in Silicon Halton. “It started off with a young high school student who wanted to do a meetup,” he stated. “She came up to me and said, ‘My dad’s a member but I want to be a member and I want to do a meetup and show all these cool things my friends are doing in high school with tech.’ …[And] it just grew out of that.”
He continued, “Tech Under Twenty is very much something that I’ll always be proud of, and I wouldn’t say it was my achievement, but the achievements that the kids have gotten, the things that have come out of it, is quite cool.”
However, Chris wasn’t always the experienced entrepreneur he is now.
Chris began his entrepreneurial career for a fundamental reason: choice. According to him, “it was the choice to try new things, the choice to have more than one business, the choice to not work on a day if I don’t want to — as long as clients are okay.”
“I formed that agency [Mi6] because I was pretty good at helping technology companies grow through marketing and sales, so it just seemed like a no-brainer,” he added.
Additionally, he started Silicon Halton for another reason: “...As a marketing consultant and an agency owner, I didn’t want to have to fly around to the tech hotspots or travel too much from home base [then, Oakville]. …I figured that if there were a lot of companies and tech entrepreneurs in the area, over time I’d get to know them and perhaps they would appreciate what I could do, and I’d be able to get business as a result.”
Of course, starting a new business (or two) has its challenges.
One of his main challenges was learning how to scale a business, while establishing healthy boundaries for his workload. He claims that not only is it crucial for an entrepreneur to learn when to let go of certain tasks, but “you have to learn when to say no, not just in terms of what clients you bring up to work, but also who you want to work with.”.
Another issue was managing his finances and pricing strategy. “We weren’t as diligent in terms of making sure that we understood where the money was going and where the money was coming from, so we had to make sure that we had a process in place that keeps our books up to date,” he added.
Fortunately, one crucial skill Chris has implemented to ensure the success of his entrepreneurial career was learning to view his ventures as business models that create, deliver, and capture value, rather than a series of short-term transactions.
“I didn’t [think about business models] as much when I first started; I was just getting started, trying to get that first sale, taking whatever business I could,” he reflected. “But I’ve had the benefit of learning what not to do as much as what to do. And, the key thing I think for any entrepreneur today is to find frameworks, systems, and methods that they can apply to their business.”
“Tech Under Twenty is very much something that I’ll always be proud of, and I wouldn’t say it was my achievement, but the achievements that the kids have gotten, the things that have come out of it, is quite cool.”
Now, as an experienced entrepreneur, Chris wants to help shift peoples’ perspectives of their own businesses by designing effective business models via the Business Canvas Map. Working with him would be a rewarding opportunity because according to him, “[business model design] isn’t emphasized enough in school [or] any sort of entrepreneurial based learning.”
One of the main messages he wants to instill to fellow entrepreneurs is that there is a way to grow their business, and he hopes that by volunteering at Fast Lane Plus™ as a mentor, he can provide entrepreneurs the resources and education to succeed. With his knowledge about effective business model design, his 25 years of experience in sales and marketing, and his vast experience within the tech industry, Chris is a valuable asset for any Grey Bruce entrepreneur or small business owner looking to take their business to the next level.
One final tip from Chris: “Build relationships as much as you can, make connections where you can, and think of your network as your asset, because nobody can take your network away from you.”
Click here to learn more about Fast Lane Plus™ and apply if you want someone like Chris Herbert to mentor you on your entrepreneurial career.