Leading Change in the Age of AI with Mike Thompson at SVI

In this episode, we sit down with Mike Thompson, founder of SVI, ranked No. 3,013 (2025) on Inc, and Learner Mobile, to explore how AI is transforming how frontline workers access critical information when they need it most. Mike shares why frontline employees are essential to business success, how SVI is breaking down barriers to learning and information, and how technology can help people work smarter, faster, and safer. We also discuss SVI's evolution from a services-based company to a services-and-software model, along with the importance of culture, agility, continuous improvement, and thoughtful leadership. Discover how combining innovation with care can empower people and drive lasting business growth. Episode Highlights & Time Stamps 4:55 Frontline AI in Action 7:02 Culture Through Change 11:13 Services and SaaS Balance 13:18 Loving People at Work 18:21 Hiring for Agility 20:40 Authentic Leadership Today In This Episode, You'll Learn: ✅How AI is changing the way frontline workers access information ✅Why a strong mission makes organizational change easier ✅How to build a culture of agility and continuous improvement ✅Lessons from SVI's transformation from services to SaaS and AI ✅Why overdependence on a major customer can become a serious business risk ✅How to balance love, trust, recognition, and accountability ✅What to look for when hiring people who can thrive through change ✅Why grit and the ability to move quickly matter in today's business environment ✅How authentic leadership can help organizations navigate complexity ✅Why successful AI transformation ultimately starts with people Connect With Today's Guest Mike Thompson is the founder of SVI, whose flagship product, Learner Mobile, is an AI-powered knowledge ecosystem designed to help frontline workers access critical information in the moment of need. SVI works with organizations ranging from small businesses to Fortune 100 companies, helping frontline teams access the knowledge and resources they need to perform at their best. How to Connect with Mike Thompson LinkedIn: Mike Thompson (LinkedIn) Company Website: www.sviworld.com– to learn more about his work and platform Get In Touch with Mike at learnermobile.com

• 0:00Speaker 00

  These frontline workers are so essential to your business that you've got to make sure that you are getting them the right tools and resources to do their job most effectively. But there were a lot of barriers to that. One, there was a cost barrier to that. Two, there was a turnover barrier to that. Three, there was an access barrier to that. And so with learner mobile, we've been able to hit the cost barrier and we've been able to remove the the access barriers and things like that. And now what we do is we deliver the right information to the right person at the right time so that they can perform at their best. And that's what we wake up and do every morning.

• 0:35Speaker 01

  If you're a founder who's built something real and now your business can't grow without you in the middle of everything, you're in the right place. I'm Gene Hammond. This is Growth Think Tank, where founders who are ready to stop being the ceiling of their own company come to think differently, lead better, and build a company that doesn't need them. This is the longest running leadership podcast in the world. Hundreds of Inc. 5000 CEOs have told their stories here. Let's get to it. I bet your business is running at a speed that has never run before. Change is happening all the time and leading change is different than it used to be because things were slower. When you think about right now, leading change requires you to not only be clear about what you

• 1:18Speaker 01

  want, why you want it, but it requires you to get alignment with your people, requires them to execute like champions and to work through the challenges around this. And all of that leading change requires you to be a very powerful leader. Now, if you are going through this, then you're in the right place because we're here to to share with you the insights around it through this interview. We are talking with the founder of SBI. Their flagship product is learner mobile, and it is a frontline AI tool that is helping people do their jobs better, faster, quicker, safer. And we are with that founder, Mike Thompson. Mike and I talk about leading change.

• 1:59Speaker 01

  Some of the things we talk about is how do you have the people that are willing to move fast enough to accept a new business model? We talk about what does it take to actually make that change? Being clear about the mission, being clear about what kind of business you're in, why you're doing it. All of those things matter more than you probably realize because if they're weak, if they're not a strong foundation of the people and the mission behind this, when it gets hard, people are probably going to bail out. I know this from experience. I've seen this as an executive coach. And so Mike and I talk about leading change. Hopefully you enjoy it today. My name is Gene Hammond. I am a founder coach. We work with companies that are in chaos. They are

• 2:44Speaker 01

  growing fast. They are feeling the the stress and the pressures of that. And we know that the model of leadership that got a company to the Inc. 5000 doesn't keep them on the list because that is based on hustle. You probably can relate to this. If you're working harder, working weekends, barely able to take a vacation without unplugging, then you realize that working harder does come with a ceiling. Maybe you're feeling it now. If you're curious about the work we do, I'll grab my book because I want you to be able to download Get Founder Freedom. It is a free book for you. If you are feeling like you want more freedom and you've got people that you can lead, then this book will help you. If you don't have people yet, it won't be the book for you. If you

• 3:28Speaker 01

  want to get it for free, go to getfounderfreedom.com. And I will tell you, as we wrap this up, we help companies go from founder dependent to team driven. What that really means is helping you create a team and a business that you love and a team that supports you, is driving growth even when you're not in the room. So if that resonates with you, go to getfounderfreedom.com, download the book for free today. Now, here's the interview with Mike. Hey, Mike, welcome to the podcast Growth Think Tank.

• 3:56Speaker 00

  Hey, Gene. Good to be here. Thanks so much.

• 3:58Speaker 01

  Well, we're excited to have you and to talk about your business, talk about your leadership. So tell us a little bit about yourself and SBI.

• 4:05Speaker 00

  Yeah, so SBI is is our the name of our company and we have a flagship product called learner mobile, which is an AI powered knowledge ecosystem, which I can go into a bit of what even that means. But basically, it's a modernization of a of an LMS. And it's leveraging kind of a all of the AI tools that we have today and and just all of its inputs and all of its outputs and turning that into an ecosystem that that serves up information to frontline workers in the moment of need. So no longer backroom training, destination training, no longer, are you taking two hour or four hour

• 4:46Speaker 00

  courses? Really, it's about answers instantly so that you can get your job done well. And that's what we wake up and we do every day. And we've got a great team who who helps us deliver that.

• 4:56Speaker 01

  Well, this is the new era of AI, right? I would love to go a little bit deeper with that. Like, give us a use case for someone who's thinking frontline workers, access to AI. Like, how does that work?

• 5:07Speaker 00

  Yeah, so we've been we've been around for 20 years. And so our business model has changed very, very significantly over the past few years. But our clients are SMBs, you know, those small businesses, all the way up to Fortune 100. But everyone that we work with is has those frontline workforces. So Walmart, for example, they've got in-store associates. American Airlines, for example, they've got people on the ramps and people at the gates. And we've got healthcare centers. And so there's people that are taking care of patients at clinic locations. All of these people are very, very important to the success of the business, yet they're the they're the ones that have the least investment into them. And so frontline workers represent about 80% of the

• 5:52Speaker 00

  global workforce, and they are the least developed. And we just found out, you know, kind of thought and we're convicted of the fact that that is wrong. We've, you know, these frontline workers are so essential to your business that you've got to make sure that you are getting them the right tools and resources to do their job most effectively. But there were a lot of barriers to that. One, there was a cost barrier to that. Two, there was a turnover barrier to that. Three, there was an access barrier to that. And so with learner mobile, we've been able to hit the cost barrier and we've been able to remove the the access barriers and things like that. And now what we do is we deliver the right information to the right person at the right time so that they can

• 6:35Speaker 00

  perform at their best. And that's what we wake up and do every morning.

• 6:38Speaker 01

  Mike, allowing you to talk about what you're doing, being a 20 year business, and now you have an AI business. I'm assuming you weren't AI back then?

• 6:47Speaker 00

  No, no.

• 6:49Speaker 01

  That you were more of the serving the frontline workers with training and whatnot. And you've made that that business model change, but it is a fundamental approach to business change. And leading that is probably not the easiest thing in the world. I'd love to really understand how you led your culture through this change from the old way to the new way.

• 7:11Speaker 00

  Yeah, no, it's a great question. And I would say, you know, hits and misses, you know, I mean, we've done a lot of things and some of them have worked and some of them have not worked. But I would say at our core, we are a mission minded company. And so our mission is we love people. We're not afraid of the word love. I mean, it's it's it's important to us. We believe that everyone has potential, but not everyone has grown. We believe that love is a verb and it's our greatest commandment. So for us, loving means lifting people up through enablement and through learning. And so that became core to what we do. And from that, it just didn't matter how we did it because

• 7:52Speaker 00

  we knew why we wanted to do it. So so we had our why down and then we just needed to figure out the how. And early on, 20 years ago, we were successful with our how and and really the what. But gosh, if you can be so narrow minded that you fail to see the waves that are coming at us pretty quickly, the waves of change that are coming at us pretty quickly. And for whatever reason, we've developed a culture that had a lot of agility, a lot of nimbleness. We're a culture of people that ask questions. Those questions include what if, why not, how come? And and I love, you know, one of the things that I think makes us a little bit different in this

• 8:32Speaker 00

  space is just we value creative thinking. And while we're an operational company, we really, really value that creative thinking. So that puts us in a in a state of continuous improvement and always just asking, well, what's next? And how can we get a little bit better? And that's just kind of permeated throughout our team. And it's become, you know, how we're what we're known for as a culture.

• 8:58Speaker 01

  Well, again, a lot of value there, but we got to go deeper to really uncover what this is. Let's let's start with the hits and misses. I it'd be really fun to talk about the hits, but I'm kind of curious, what are some of the misses when we're leading change into this AI era?

• 9:15Speaker 00

  Yeah, you know, I think one of our our big hit out of the gate was our company was founded in in Northwest Arkansas. And now we have offices in Northwest Arkansas, Dallas, and then in Delhi, India, actually. And there was a time early on when we were in Northwest Arkansas, and we said, you know what, in order for us to experience the type of growth that we envision and to become the kind of company that we want to become, Walmart's right down the road, and we need to we need to lean in and we really need to to try to secure Walmart as a client. And if we get that opportunity, we need to not miss it. And so so we begged and pleaded and and somehow, some way, got a crack in the door at Walmart and and that work had to go well. And thankfully, it did.

• 10:00Speaker 00

  Walmart has been a client since that time and it's still a client today. The difference, though, is Walmart was over 90% of our business and diversifying away from them was very, very tough. And even Walmart doesn't want all your eggs in their basket, you know, but, but it's easy. They, they have so much work that you can find yourself so busy with just them. And, and so we, you know, while we were nervous about the lack of diversification that we had in our business, we were loving the work, you know, and, and we were loving bill, the growth that Walmart brought to us. But, uh, but it got to a point where, you know, if something happened and we lost Walmart, we would have been dead.

• 10:44Speaker 00

  And, uh, so at that point, we had to prioritize diversification. And, uh, that's when we opened up our Dallas office, uh, being in Northwest Arkansas, we could try to diversify. And there's a lot of great business up there, but for us, we saw a significant marketplace in, in Dallas. And so we, we came into Dallas and started building the organization here. And today Walmart represents about 20% of our business. So, so it's been, it's been a very, very good success story there. And, uh, so diversification was one of those things that we had to prioritize, uh, pretty early. The, the second thing, Gene, is just, we were a services organization and that meant we were a billable hours company. And it, that kind of company is really hard to scale.

• 11:24Speaker 00

  And so the miss that we made is we started to get into the software side and we built our, our software product. And then we were just waiting for our services side to, to die. And that was, that was a mistake and our clients made us very, very aware that that was a mistake. They said, hey, don't you dare get rid of your services. We lean on your services. We love your services. We love the speed that you bring behind your services, the ability to customize. And so we were caught in this, in this area where are we a services company or are we a SaaS company? And what we discovered after many, many inputs from our clients is that when we're both for a client,

• 12:07Speaker 00

  that's our ideal customer. We, we have responsibilities from a services standpoint and we have responsibilities from a SaaS standpoint. And if we can bring those worlds together, that's where we have the best experiences with our client. That was really, really hard, really hard. But that's where we sit today and there is so much value in being able to have both of those connections to our clients and we're making some pretty big impacts from it.

• 12:32Speaker 01

  Well, thanks for walking us through that. If you're listening to this show, chances are you're a founder who's built something significant, but you're still too deep in the day to day to see the path forward. That's exactly what the Founder Freedom Strategy call is for. It's free. It's 30 minutes with me personally and we'll pinpoint exactly what's keeping you stuck and what you need to do about it. Book your time with me at my personal URL, schedulewithgene.com. Now back to the podcast. You know, I'm going to go back to something you said earlier, Mike. We love our people. I remember giving a speech to a, a small group of executive teams and I, I mentioned the need to love your people. And the CEO questioned me on it. I didn't back down.

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  Yeah.

• 13:14Speaker 01

  But I will tell you, he didn't have the same thought that you and I do.

• 13:17Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 13:18Speaker 01

  What is your response to a CEO who, who would say, ooh, loving your people, like that might be taking it too far?

• 13:25Speaker 00

  Yeah, I, I've read it a lot. I've read so many articles and, and things like that that just say, don't, you can't use the word love in business. And I said, well, then we're done, you know, that, that's foundational to us, you know, I, I, I'm a sports fan. And so I just, I, I love, you know, to me, the best, so, so there are two types of cultures. There's cultures of accountability where, you know, you're, you're constantly pushing, you're constantly pushing, you're constantly evaluating. And sometimes those cultures of accountability, you know, there, people don't feel like whatever they do is ever good enough. And then there's those high love cultures where it's all about the relationships and it's all about being liked. And so therefore accountability is really, really tough in those organizations.

• 14:07Speaker 00

  But for us, it's like the, we think the best companies don't, don't sit in any, either of those arenas. We think that they maneuver back and forth at the appropriate time. So I think about Kobe Bryant. Kobe Bryant, you know, big fan of his and, and I just saw somebody, same thing with Michael Jordan and, and, and other athletes that I followed. They, the locker room was an incredible place for those championship teams. There was real talk. There was probably crying and hugging at times too. And then there was yelling and screaming as well. So what those championship teams did very, very well is they loved their team.

• 14:48Speaker 00

  Kobe loved his teammates, but that didn't keep him from being the hardest on his teammates. And so if you can create that culture where you can have the high love culture without losing the high accountability and somehow, some way you can manufacture both of those things together, then I think you've got a championship team. So for us, I have very good relationships with everyone in our organization and I love them. But we also have hard conversations and the love part of that does not get in the way of the conversations. And those hard conversations go in all directions. Those hard conversations come to me too, as the CEO. And so I get really nervous when I stop getting feedback. I never want to be a guy

• 15:34Speaker 00

  in my position or in any position that doesn't get, doesn't receive feedback. Uh, sometimes brutal feedback, but I also never want to be a guy in my position or any position that also doesn't love the people that I work with. Uh, life is too short and, and, you know, for me, it's important to, to have those strong relationships.

• 15:53Speaker 01

  Now, as you go through in that, I don't know if you know much about my background, what we've done here. But one of the things we believe in the hard conversations too, but we call them tough.

• 16:01Speaker 00

  Yeah, yeah. Nice.

• 16:03Speaker 01

  We wrote this book, uh, my wife and I is in, in, are in the business and it's, it's not the easiest thing to co-author a book with your wife.

• 16:09Speaker 00

  But, but it's appropriate how to have tough conversations.

• 16:13Speaker 01

  It is. It happens in marriages.

• 16:14Speaker 00

  It's right.

• 16:15Speaker 01

  Right? And it should happen in workforce. And one of the things that comes out of this, when you talked about love, and I put, I put a chapter in here because it's so important. What sets up a really good, hard conversation? We call it tough conversation is, is loving on your people. And it's surprising how often as an executive coach, I have to ask my clients who are, you know, founders, 30, 40, 50 people, a hundred people. And I go, how often do you praise your people? And they go, what do you mean? And I asked them, you know, do you praise your people? Like you just told me this great story of loyalty and dedication, whatever it is.

• 16:47Speaker 00

  Right.

• 16:47Speaker 01

  No, I don't really need it. So I don't give it to them. I would imagine, Mike, you're pretty good with praise.

• 16:52Speaker 00

  Yeah. I, you know, I, I, I think you have to be. I mean, it's, but, but I think you have to be both too. I mean, I, to me, it's like a bank account, Gene. You know, if all you're doing is making withdrawals, that bank account is going to close quick. But if all you're doing is making deposits too, then you're not, you're not using a bank for what it's built for. So properly navigating and managing your balance with the right amount of withdrawals and the right amount of deposits, ensure that you're not overdrawn. And so we kind of look at it that way to where, you know, if, if, if I'm, if I'm in a season where I'm hitting someone pretty hard on the, on the accountability side, then I, you know, I, I better be sensitive to when, when is the, when is the deposit

• 17:37Speaker 00

  need to come in here and, uh, and vice versa.

• 17:40Speaker 01

  I couldn't agree with you more. And I had to open my book to see exactly how I titled that chapter.

• 17:45Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 17:45Speaker 01

  You're going to be surprised when I say this. Chapter 21, Making Deposits in the Goodwill Bank.

• 17:50Speaker 00

  Yeah, yeah.

• 17:52Speaker 01

  And it's all about.

• 17:53Speaker 00

  I believe it.

• 17:54Speaker 01

  Praising, because I think the, the crap sandwich doesn't really work, that compliment, feedback compliment thing. But you, you should be complimenting and praising at other times when you see it, catch them in the action. Do it sometimes publicly, sometimes privately, sometimes when they're not in the room. And it really does go back to loving your people, like really being able to express that, not just, oh, I pay them. That's good enough. I literally had people tell me that. I pay them. I shouldn't have to praise them. I'm like, dude, it's free. So, Mike, I want to go back to one more thing. You talked about a culture

• 18:27Speaker 01

  of agility. If you're leading change, I can't think of a better word to talk about to have a culture of agility. And I'm kind of curious, I, I bet you have some hiring practices to allow you to hire people that are agile.

• 18:42Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 18:42Speaker 01

  Is that true?

• 18:43Speaker 00

  Yeah. I, you know, I, I think we could be more prescriptive on that than we are, but, but for us, you know, this is nothing new, Gene, but you know, we, we hire attitude, you know, we, we, we hire attitude and, and, you know, we, we will, we will conduct an interview and, and deliver, you know, a hundred questions and, and have them walk through scenarios and problems and things like that. But, but, uh, but we want to, we want to see someone that, that aligns with our values. And so for us, you know, our, our first value is lift others up, you know, are they, are they going to be a, a negative? You know, or are they going to recognize people who have influenced their lives and, and, and be eager to share?

• 19:26Speaker 00

  Be eager to talk about the, the good things and the good investments people have made into them and lifting others up. The second thing that's really important to us is, but can they think differently? Can they not just go with the, the, the dogmatic answer? Do they have some of their own, you know, thoughts that, that, that shows us that they, they think differently? The third thing is just, can they push progress? Are, are they progress driven? And that really speaks to the productivity side and are they going to have, I guess, you know, just that, that drive and that, are they driven to win? Uh, we want to see that in their attitude. And then the, the, the, uh, the fourth one out of five is can they act fast? Can they think on their toes or do they get stuck?

• 20:11Speaker 00

  And do they, do they need time? Or, you know, do they, do they have some of those street smarts and, and can they back that up with real action? And then the last thing, and I love this one, it's, is do they have this mindset of refusing to lose? There's got to be a grittiness with everybody that we bring onto the, into this organization because you will get knocked down. And, and so it's important to know, are they going to stay down or will they have the grit, uh, to get back up? And a lot of those things are just, it's, it's about attitude at that point. And that's what we try to hire for.

• 20:41Speaker 01

  Well, Mike, we've had a great conversation about leading change. It seems like it comes down to having the right people and those people being dedicated to the mission as well, which it takes the right leadership to do that. Any final words you want to add to this?

• 20:54Speaker 00

  No, I, you know, I really enjoy what you're doing, Gene, and, and thank you for putting on this, this podcast and the books and all that. I mean, I think leadership is probably more, yes, you hear this all the time, but it, it is so important today because the speed of business has never been faster. The complexities in business that we are faced with today has never been more serious. And so I just think that it requires this authenticity. You can't fake leadership out anymore. Uh, you better figure out how you lead according to your unique learning style and in a way that it's not just logical, but it's emotional. And if you're leading from a logic, a pure logic perspective right now, watch out, you know?

• 21:36Speaker 00

  I think a, a bit of vulnerability, transparency, openness to lead, to lead with, with genuine love, you know, for the people who you lock arms with every day and those that you serve, your customers. If you can arrive there authentically and genuinely, then, you know, I, I think people are going to follow you and that's what you're going to need today to take on some of the, the challenges that we have in front of us.

• 21:57Speaker 01

  Mike, thank you for being here on the podcast, sharing with us what you do at SBI and for really just, you know, sharing your wisdom.

• 22:04Speaker 00

  Yeah. Well, thank you, Gina. It was a pleasure.

• 22:06Speaker 01

  Another great interview here on the podcast. Mike and I talk about leading change. And what I'm really excited about sharing with you in this message is how important people are. If you don't have the kind of culture where people are willing to endure the pressure of change and, and have that agility to move fast, it's going to be a tough road for you. And so if you don't have those things, one of the things that, that we could help you with is just talking about what leadership is getting in the way. If you don't know what's getting in the way, it's very hard to lead powerfully. If you want to download our free book, Get Founder Freedom, go ahead and do that. Getfounderfreedom.com. If you are curious about the work we do, then if you download the book, you'll get some opportunities to actually have a chance to talk to me

• 22:50Speaker 01

  one-on-one, no cost, just to help you be a better leader. When you think of growth and you think of leadership, think of growth, think tank. As always, leave a courage. We'll see you next time.