Saving Lives Through AED Training And Public Access | John Collie from Rescue7

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Stay relevant to your visitors and increase conversion by 50%. By number one, adding in Pathmonk to your website in seconds. Number two, letting the AI do all the work. And number three, increase conversions while you keep doing marketing as usual. Check us out on pathmonk.com. Hey everybody. Welcome to today’s episode of Pathmonk Present.
Today we’re joined by John is the CEO of Rescue7. John is the man you want to speak to when it comes to rescue and safety. John, welcome to the show.

John Collie: Thank you for having me.

Rick: Of course, excited to speak to you, John, and maybe we start with the basics. We start about talking about Rescue7. What’s the big idea behind your company? And if you were to explain what you do to a friend over coffee, how would you describe what you do?

John Collie: So I started Rescue7 28 years ago. I was a firefighter with the city of Toronto and Canada here, and we were going to many calls out on our truck where people were in distress, whether it was a medical emergency, and people would be standing around that person lying on the ground not knowing what to do.

And I thought we need to educate people more about what to do in emergency situations until we got EMS on site. So I started Rescue7 primarily as a training organization for first aid training and I wanted to train the masses, ’cause the more you know, the more you fight, the less you know the more you flight. So I thought that would help a lot in saving lives.

And as we went along, we progressed. Within the next couple of years, from the start, we got into the buzzword was defibrillators and a lot of people didn’t know what a defibrillator was back in the day. They couldn’t say it, nevermind spell it. AEDs, as we short know ’em, short terms, automated external defibrillators, we started into that market and working with public access defibrillators and trying to put them into the public places as much as possible, because we have found that somebody that goes into cardiac arrest, which in Canada here we did a study happens to approximately 60,000 people yearly, with they go into that cardiac arrest and they aren’t defibrillated within 10 minutes, their chances of survival are not very good.

For every minute you don’t defibrillate somebody in cardiac arrest, their chances of survival decreased by 10%.

We got into the AED market. We now have over 60,000 defibrillators deployed around Canada, mostly the B2B market, the business to business. But now we’re going after the consumer market where we think they should be in homes ’cause they’re just as important, if not more important than fire extinguishers. So we got the training side and we got the product side that we work with here at Rescue7.

Rick: Amazing. Thanks for the overview. John, I’m curious—you just touched on it, talking about the care homes and whatnot, but are there any certain type of businesses or industries where you feel your products really shine or there’s more need for them even at the moment?

John Collie: It’s good question. I think they shine everywhere. It doesn’t matter what kind of business you’re in—unfortunately cardiac arrest can happen to anyone, anywhere, anytime.

But we do have great success with a large fitness organization, fitness clubs that are around Canada. They have over 600 defibrillators in each of their locations. And just in the last year alone, we’ve had over 12 saves with their locations.

We have our defibrillators on every major airline in Canada. We have ’em in every major grocery store in Canada. We work with government levels from federal down all the way down in the different government levels, putting the defibrillators in. Hockey teams are now putting them in hockey rinks. We’re getting sporting events. Schools are very important because they have a lot of activity in their schools, whether it’s post-secondary and high schools and grade schools.

So I think they’re important everywhere. And now, like I say, I think they’re just as important in a home setting. And not just a home residential, but we also have here in Canada cottages that are like cabins out in the woods. People are in a remote situation and they have an emergency—there’s no ambulance coming with a phone call. So these little units are very important to have everywhere.

Rick: Of course. Yeah, I absolutely agree with that. And it’s impressive that you’re pretty much everywhere in Canada.

To get a little bit more technical—this is a marketing podcast—are there any marketing channels that become your go-to for bringing in more business? How do most people discover you?

John Collie: Of course social media plays an important role for us, between LinkedIn and Facebook and Instagram. All of the above.

With Shopify—we use Shopify—so e-commerce, people can order right online with us and we can ship out. We have now teamed up, and as of four years ago, we became part of a Safe Life group outta Europe. They’re outta Sweden. And we have 46 affiliates in 16 countries that we work with.

So if we have international organizations that work with us, and they have headquarters here but they’re in the US or Europe or the Asian market, we can help them on a global spectrum.

We do trade shows and magazines and podcasts. Word of mouth to me is always very important. I think it’s one of the most important ways to advertise because when you do a great job, it travels well. If you do a bad job, it travels even faster.

So you wanna do that good job, train people well, give them a good product, so they talk about it and you get repeat business.

Rick: Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. Word of mouth was the first marketing channel ever invented, and it’ll be the last one to die. Great point.

You mentioned Shopify—how much of a role does your website play in pulling in new business and generally getting your brand out there?

John Collie: Yeah, the website’s very important. People can go on our website and register for a class around Canada for first aid CPR training, right online without having to make a phone call.

With regards to product, they can order right online and we drop ship it out, put their credit card in, order it there and it’s good to go.

So the website—we wanna keep it fresh and updated at all times. Each month we try to change it up and give it a fresh look. And it’s also important for your Google Analytics so that you get to the front of the line when people are searching for things like us.

Rick: Absolutely. Thanks for sharing that.

Now I wanna switch gears and talk about you as a leader. What does a typical workday look like for you? What are the main things you focus on day to day? A day in the life of John at Rescue7.

John Collie: That’s an interesting question. Because to me, I don’t work. Everybody asks me about how work goes and I say I don’t work. I get to come into an office here with my team. There’s 13 of ’em in headquarters, and then we have 150 contractors around Canada.

I’m usually in the office by seven in the morning. And when people say, how much do you work? I say, I don’t work. I get to go to a sandbox and build castles with my team. I’m very passionate about what we’re doing. I’ve been doing it for 28 years. I don’t wanna slow down. It’s all about saving lives.

Every time we get that phone call where one of our defibrillators has been used and somebody’s been saved, it makes the hair on my arm stand up because if we didn’t have a defibrillator out there, that person may not be going home to their family.

So a day in the life for me is getting up and working with everybody to get our product and our message out there so more lives can be saved. Our slogan is, start today, save a life tomorrow. And we’re not selling cars—we’re selling lifesaving devices and I think everybody should have what we have.

Rick: That’s awesome. I love that. When you frame things as “I get to” instead of “I have to,” that mindset makes work feel like play.

John Collie: Sorry to interrupt you. I have four grown children now. When they were going through their education, I said to them, it doesn’t matter what you ever want to be, I’m gonna support you 100%. But whatever you do in life, make sure you have a passion for it, because then you’re gonna love what you do and you’re gonna take that and make it grow and learn and make it even better.

Rick: Do what you love. Have fun with it. Love it.

We have a rapid fire segment. First one: what type of content do you prefer—watching, reading, or listening?

John Collie: I’m a sports guy. I love my sports. But documentaries are right up there. I love watching documentaries of history and where we come from and how we can make it better.

Rick: What’s the latest piece of content you picked up—and did anything stick with you?

John Collie: Right now I’m reading a book on Pamela Harriman’s account of world politics, called Kingmaker. She was the daughter-in-law of Winston Churchill. She got divorced and went on to America and got into politics.

I find it very interesting and engaging to learn how she, a woman with no formal education per se, spun it to get into the political arena and have influence on world leaders and decisions.

Rick: That sounds really interesting.

If you had a magic wand and could fix one frustrating thing in your life with tech, what would you pick?

John Collie: AI right now. It’s so fast moving. I’m trying to get a grasp of how to utilize it to advantage, but also how to discern what’s real and what’s not real.

Even at home, I’ll ask my wife: are you sure, where did you find this, was it real or AI playing with you?

So it’s trying to figure out how best to take advantage of it while making sure what you’re seeing is correct.

Rick: Great point. Hallucinations and made-up sources can be dangerous if people don’t double-check.

If you could go back and give your past self a pep talk at the start of your founder journey, what advice would you give?

John Collie: I came from fire service. I had to learn business along the way. One of my sons is an accountant, and he once asked me if I understood all these big business words. I said I didn’t understand a word and he said, I thought you’re a business guy. I said, I’m an entrepreneur.

Entrepreneurs think out of the box, business people think in the box. I wasn’t structured. So learning business more structured might’ve helped.

But the biggest takeaway: treat people the way you want to be treated. We need to make money to stay in business, but we’re all human. Treat people equally, with respect. That’s why I’ve got a great team and they’ve been with me a long time.

Rick: Beautiful.

John, thanks for being on the show. Last word: if someone forgets everything, what’s the one thing they should remember about Rescue7?

John Collie: Treat people with respect, treat people equally, and help people. If someone’s in distress, take notice. Help them.

Even calling emergency services helps. If you don’t know CPR, you can get instructions and jump in. Anything you can do helps. The more lives we can save, the better.

Rick: Love it. Where can people check out Rescue7?

John Collie: Rescue7.net. All our information’s there. My email is there too. I’m always open to talk to anybody.

Rick: Thank you again, John. Wishing you a wonderful day.

John Collie: Thank you very much for having me.

Rick: Of course. Bye everyone.

John Collie: Bye now.