Who is Guy Reichard and Why Does He Help Small Businesses?

For starters, I write almost every word on this site so let me speak in the first person and introduce myself properly. On the website I use the more formal 'we' much of the time because I don't want to give the impression that it's only me doing all the work around here - you may end up working with one of my esteemed partners or affiliated companies. So back to the question....

I am Guy Reichard and I thank you for taking the time to get to know me. I hope to learn more about you and I invite you to give me a call or email me and tell me more about you and your business.

How I got here?

I'll skip the whole where I was born and what I did until I was 20 part and jump right into the past 10 or so years.

I have always been interested in people and what makes them tick - – learning about them, understanding them and helping them. Psychology was the focus of my Specialized Honours Degree at York University in Toronto. I later learned that pursuing a career in psychology itself wasn’t exactly for me. It didn’t afford as many opportunities for me that I really wanted to pursue.

Growing up I had a variety of jobs and entrepreneurial pursuits, none too exciting to mention here. I worked in both my parents’ businesses doing a variety of things from bookkeeping to computer support to bigger things like project management, hiring and managing teams and learning how to do incredible things on a small business budget.

By the time the web really took off in 1995 (for me at least), I was addicted and I already started making money online. But through encouragement or coercion, one or the other, I was convinced that if I wanted to succeed in life, I needed more education – i.e. more letters after my name.

I chose to believe that then got my MBA and focused on the things I liked most – Strategy and Entrepreneurship. I didn’t leave the web altogether, during that time I made money by building websites for small companies, friends and I was even the first Webmaster ever for my MBA student council.

Exante Solutions Opens: All Things IT for Small Business

In 2001, I opened Exante Solutions aka eXante.ca to help small businesses grow using technology. I did everything from building and setting up computers and networks, to building e-commerce websites from scratch. I focused a lot on search engine optimization and got my clients many #1 rankings on all the major search engines.

I achieved pretty much any goal a client set for me at a lower cost than they could get anywhere else. I was getting very good at delivering precisely what my clients wanted. But, after a few years I realized that wasn’t good enough for me any more.

That’s when I got scared. I wasn’t satisfied ‘doing what I was told’, I never have been. I always asked WHY and aggravated my parents, my teachers, and any authority figures in my path. I got scared because I knew I had to start telling people that if they don’t take my advice, they’re wasting their money. My fear was that I risked losing new and existing business.

That’s one of the small business mindtraps: Fear of loss.

I got to the point where I was so convinced that most businesses are doing the web thing all wrong that I was willing to consider selling my web design company to a bigger firm and walking away.

Instead I chose to confront that fear and tackle it, and that’s when things started to change.

eXante Finds Internet Marketing

I found a few mentors who helped me realize I was doing the right thing and that I didn’t have to close my business. Instead, I would be rewarded for telling the truth. I just had to learn a few important things and adopt a new mindset. That’s when I went back to the books, so to speak, and absorbed everything I could about internet marketing, the psychology of selling, human behavior etc. And this is where my study of people and psychology really came into play. I found the answers I was looking for and it all started making sense.

I then learned why few websites succeed and why most fail. It fascinated me. I built several web businesses myself based on the new things I was learning, all with increasing success. I also deepened my understanding of people – the people who run small businesses and why they do the things they do.

I came full circle and started developing my coaching skills to help people overcome certain stumbling blocks, whether they are technologically related, business related or completely personal (and they're usually the latter).

I learned that when people are confronted with things they don’t understand, most tend to act and react from a place of fear. Now I can smell fear from a mile away and when fear’s talking, alarm bells go off. If the person is open to accepting my help, then I will give it gladly. If they aren’t open to my help and only want me to do exactly what they specify when it goes against sound business principles and experience, I thank them for their time and point them in another direction.

For those who ‘know they don’t know’ and have the right mindset, they choose to learn by seeking out the best teachers and partners they can find. Alternatively, those people hire the best people they can find to fill in the gaps of their knowledge, to work as a team and to build mutually successful relationships. All without fear. Success is an inevitable result.

Thank you for taking the time to read this and get to know me better - I hope we get to meet one day soon, work together and grow together.

To your ultimate success,

Guy Reichard, MBA, BA Psych
Web Designer, Internet Marketer & Coach
www.eXante.ca
Local GTA: 905-508-6008

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