Douglas Pipher

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[00:00] SPEAKER_00: It's Toronto's podcast on the Canada's podcast network.
[00:13] Speaker UNKNOWN: [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪
[00:19] SPEAKER_01: Hi everyone, I'm Phil Bliss, a business visionary,
[00:22] SPEAKER_01: and welcome to Toronto's Podcasts.
[00:24] SPEAKER_01: Part of the Canada's podcast network,
[00:26] SPEAKER_01: your source of the great insights
[00:28] SPEAKER_01: from entrepreneurs across Canada.
[00:31] SPEAKER_01: Today, we're talking with Doug Pfeiffer,
[00:34] SPEAKER_01: an accomplished entrepreneur and musician
[00:36] SPEAKER_01: and musical historian.
[00:38] SPEAKER_01: Doug, welcome to Canada's podcast.
[00:41] SPEAKER_01: Let's just sort of move in a bit
[00:43] SPEAKER_01: and talk about how did you get here?
[00:46] SPEAKER_01: How did your journey start, entrepreneurial journey start?
[00:49] SPEAKER_01: And tell me a bit about how you became an entrepreneur.
[00:52] SPEAKER_00: Well, I think it started from very, very young.
[00:55] SPEAKER_00: I grew up always working.
[00:57] SPEAKER_00: I grew up on a farm.
[00:59] SPEAKER_00: It was not a full, active dairy farmer, anything like that.
[01:04] SPEAKER_00: But we grew up with chickens.
[01:05] SPEAKER_00: So when I was a little kid, I'm collecting the eggs,
[01:08] SPEAKER_00: and we're selling them to the neighbors, and we're sharing.
[01:11] SPEAKER_00: And so I always understood the idea of getting up and working
[01:14] SPEAKER_00: and building a business from your own.
[01:16] SPEAKER_00: But at the time I was 12, I inherited a little paper root
[01:20] SPEAKER_00: from another kid who didn't want to do it.
[01:22] SPEAKER_00: And learned very quickly at what has to go on
[01:26] SPEAKER_00: to actually to grow it and build it.
[01:28] SPEAKER_00: And I learned customer management.
[01:30] SPEAKER_00: I got lousy tips from the people.
[01:32] SPEAKER_00: So I started being very nice and happy
[01:34] SPEAKER_00: and talking about their, oh, I see you painted your porch
[01:37] SPEAKER_00: and the tips got bigger.
[01:39] SPEAKER_00: And so I very quickly learned that the customer service
[01:42] SPEAKER_00: and customer appreciation is a big part
[01:44] SPEAKER_00: about building a business.
[01:46] SPEAKER_01: So we were just talking early.
[01:49] SPEAKER_01: We're somewhat mature entrepreneurs.
[01:51] SPEAKER_01: Well, I don't know whether we're ever mature.
[01:53] SPEAKER_01: So that's fine.
[01:54] SPEAKER_01: I can be somebody with a virus still on to the neighbors.
[01:57] SPEAKER_01: But what are you doing today?
[01:59] SPEAKER_01: You know, what you're focused today?
[02:02] SPEAKER_00: Well, today I'm actually celebrating my birthday.
[02:04] SPEAKER_00: So, yeah, I'm 57 years old today.
[02:07] SPEAKER_00: And part of me wonders how did that happen?
[02:10] SPEAKER_00: Because it feels like yesterday I was 27.
[02:13] SPEAKER_00: But what I'm doing right now is I'm running a marketing firm.
[02:18] SPEAKER_00: It's a niche advertising agency.
[02:19] SPEAKER_00: And I've been running that since 1989.
[02:24] SPEAKER_00: And it cruises along does its job.
[02:26] SPEAKER_00: We have a very limited clientele.
[02:28] SPEAKER_00: I'm not looking for new business.
[02:29] SPEAKER_00: We're just having fun running the business.
[02:32] SPEAKER_00: And I've really transformed a lot of my personal time
[02:35] SPEAKER_00: from that business to the passion that I've had all my life.
[02:40] SPEAKER_00: So throughout my life, I've been an entrepreneur.
[02:41] SPEAKER_00: I've started a number of companies.
[02:43] SPEAKER_00: But what I love is I'm as goofy as it sounds.
[02:46] SPEAKER_00: And I'm a jazz musician.
[02:47] SPEAKER_00: I'm a saxophoneist.
[02:49] SPEAKER_00: And so the love of music, well, one thing I've learned
[02:53] SPEAKER_00: very quickly about being a jazz musician
[02:55] SPEAKER_00: is it's not a very lucrative career.
[02:58] SPEAKER_00: So I've kept it as a hobby.
[03:00] SPEAKER_00: And now I'm spending more and more time
[03:01] SPEAKER_00: in the world of saxophones and saxophone history
[03:04] SPEAKER_00: and playing and just my passion is becoming
[03:08] SPEAKER_00: potentially my future career.
[03:10] SPEAKER_01: That's cool, that's cool.
[03:11] Speaker UNKNOWN: 
[03:11] SPEAKER_01: You know, we both live in the great Toronto area.
[03:15] SPEAKER_01: Right here, you know, what do you think?
[03:17] SPEAKER_01: I mean, what are the benefits that we found
[03:21] SPEAKER_01: to doing business in this area versus sort of,
[03:25] SPEAKER_01: we're all so fairly well traveled versus other areas?
[03:29] SPEAKER_00: I mean, Toronto's just the mecca.
[03:31] SPEAKER_00: I mean, you know, in the United States,
[03:33] SPEAKER_00: every city has its one or two or three big corporations.
[03:36] SPEAKER_00: Well, here in Toronto, we've,
[03:38] SPEAKER_00: apart from the oil companies, we got everything.
[03:41] SPEAKER_00: The whole country is here, all the corporations.
[03:44] SPEAKER_00: I don't know what the number is,
[03:45] SPEAKER_00: but a huge percentage of Fortune 500 Canadian head offices
[03:48] SPEAKER_00: are in Toronto.
[03:50] SPEAKER_00: So it's absolutely a mecca,
[03:52] SPEAKER_00: where I built my business was in three key industries,
[03:56] SPEAKER_00: was the automotive industry,
[03:58] SPEAKER_00: package goods industry in the pharmaceutical industry.
[04:00] SPEAKER_00: Well, there's just a plethora of clients in Toronto
[04:03] SPEAKER_00: for all three of those industries.
[04:05] SPEAKER_01: Would you recommend Toronto for, you know,
[04:09] SPEAKER_01: some of the younger entrepreneurs starting a business?
[04:12] SPEAKER_00: Absolutely.
[04:13] SPEAKER_00: However, speaking personally,
[04:15] SPEAKER_00: I don't consider myself a Toronto boy.
[04:17] SPEAKER_00: As I said, I grew up on farms.
[04:19] SPEAKER_00: So I love land and cloud fields and that.
[04:23] SPEAKER_00: There are great opportunities just outside of Toronto
[04:26] SPEAKER_00: and within, well, especially since you don't have to commute
[04:29] SPEAKER_00: every day, it was downtown yesterday and was shocked.
[04:32] SPEAKER_00: It was 10 o'clock on a Sunday morning
[04:34] SPEAKER_00: and for the first time in a think a decade,
[04:36] SPEAKER_00: I didn't have a traffic jam on the Don Valley Parkway.
[04:39] SPEAKER_01: Oh, that's good.
[04:39] SPEAKER_00: You know, my personal take of it is have your business
[04:44] SPEAKER_00: a little on the rural side.
[04:45] SPEAKER_00: I don't think you need to have a Queen Street address these days.
[04:48] SPEAKER_00: I haven't had the downtown of an actual downtown client
[04:52] SPEAKER_00: for almost 20 years.
[04:53] SPEAKER_00: Most of my clients are north of the 401.
[04:55] SPEAKER_01: Yeah, we're in the west side of the city
[04:58] SPEAKER_01: and we have clients all over the place internationally as well.
[05:02] SPEAKER_01: So I think Toronto's great hub to do business from.
[05:06] SPEAKER_01: Importantly, there's great talent to have in our businesses.
[05:09] SPEAKER_01: I think that's one of the great things about Toronto, basically.
[05:14] SPEAKER_01: You've explained where your business is.
[05:16] SPEAKER_01: I want to know a little bit more about the saxophone side of it
[05:20] SPEAKER_01: and tell us a bit more about this looming thing
[05:25] SPEAKER_01: we've talked about it before.
[05:26] SPEAKER_01: I think it's cool.
[05:28] SPEAKER_00: Well, as I said, I started playing clarinet in grade seven
[05:33] SPEAKER_00: and then switched to saxophone.
[05:35] SPEAKER_00: It was a funny start.
[05:36] SPEAKER_00: I had a natural affinity for music.
[05:37] SPEAKER_00: I'd already been studying classical piano for several years.
[05:41] SPEAKER_00: So I did have it a bit of an advantage on the other students.
[05:43] SPEAKER_00: And one day my teacher came into, I was actually in German class
[05:47] SPEAKER_00: and he pulled me out of class and he said,
[05:48] SPEAKER_00: I'm starting a jazz band and you're my lead tenor sax player
[05:51] SPEAKER_00: and I rehearsals five o'clock.
[05:53] SPEAKER_00: And I go, but I don't play saxophone
[05:55] SPEAKER_00: and he goes, that's okay, you have all day to learn.
[05:58] SPEAKER_00: And he actually gave me a note to get out of class
[06:01] SPEAKER_00: and went down to the music room and spent the whole day
[06:05] SPEAKER_00: finding my way around a saxophone and sat in on the rehearsal that night.
[06:09] SPEAKER_00: So since then, I realized it's just something I love.
[06:12] SPEAKER_00: I gave him a lot of credit for recognizing the skill
[06:16] SPEAKER_00: or the possibility of the skill, whatever he recognized.
[06:19] SPEAKER_00: And so when I got out of high school,
[06:22] SPEAKER_00: I actually studied jazz at York University.
[06:26] SPEAKER_00: And while there, I got involved in some gigs
[06:29] SPEAKER_00: and two of the most important pieces of advice I ever received in my life
[06:33] SPEAKER_00: and I've lived by them both.
[06:35] SPEAKER_00: I was doing a gig down at Queen in Portland
[06:37] SPEAKER_00: with a Duke Ellington style band that was made up of some of the top musicians in Toronto.
[06:43] SPEAKER_00: Anybody knows jazz?
[06:44] SPEAKER_00: Most of the guys were from the boss brass, which was a pop band.
[06:49] SPEAKER_00: And I was playing baritone sax sitting beside Eugene Emerald
[06:53] SPEAKER_00: who at the time was again a major recording artist
[06:56] SPEAKER_00: and one of the top guys in town.
[06:57] SPEAKER_00: And he said, you gave me two pieces of advice.
[07:00] SPEAKER_00: Number one, he said, you're a fine player.
[07:03] SPEAKER_00: You could make it in the music industry.
[07:05] SPEAKER_00: But if I could do it again, I would do something else for money
[07:09] SPEAKER_00: and I would play music for love.
[07:11] SPEAKER_00: And then it really took that to heart.
[07:14] SPEAKER_00: And that's shortly after that, that's when I decided to take that advice
[07:18] SPEAKER_00: and my father actually had an advertising agency.
[07:21] SPEAKER_00: My father at a marketing background worked at Nestle
[07:23] SPEAKER_00: and then worked with Dave Nichol when they rebuilt La Blas.
[07:26] SPEAKER_00: And so as a kid, I went to TV commercials and radio commercial sets.
[07:32] SPEAKER_00: And so I knew that whole world.
[07:33] SPEAKER_00: So it was a pretty easy thing to step into when an opportunity came up.
[07:37] SPEAKER_00: But I continued playing music all the time.
[07:39] SPEAKER_00: And it's funny, I just took a break from gigging.
[07:42] SPEAKER_00: But in the last 10 years, I did about 1,100 gigs.
[07:45] SPEAKER_00: And that's a lot of work when you have a day job.
[07:48] SPEAKER_00: And you get home at 1 a.m. and you're getting back up at 6 a.m. to start to get into it.
[07:56] SPEAKER_00: So Eugene gave me and he said,
[07:59] SPEAKER_00: every musician I know tells tales of woe,
[08:02] SPEAKER_00: of instruments they sold immigrants selling.
[08:04] SPEAKER_00: He tells son, he liked colony son.
[08:07] SPEAKER_00: Son don't ever sell a saxophone.
[08:09] SPEAKER_00: And to this day, I've never sold a saxophone.
[08:12] SPEAKER_00: The challenge.
[08:13] SPEAKER_00: I agree.
[08:14] SPEAKER_00: I hear you've got quite the collection as well.
[08:16] SPEAKER_00: Well, and that's where it actually came into.
[08:19] SPEAKER_00: You asked me what's going on with the saxophone.
[08:22] SPEAKER_00: Is you know, I'm a decent player.
[08:24] SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I'm a pro saxophonist, but I'm not the top guy in the city.
[08:28] SPEAKER_00: And I'm not the top guy anywhere.
[08:30] SPEAKER_00: I realized where I have an interest is being able to stack my skills
[08:35] SPEAKER_00: as a player, as a student of history.
[08:39] SPEAKER_00: I also have a strong background in game theory and math and building databases.
[08:45] SPEAKER_00: And I realized that there was a big hole in the world of the saxophones
[08:48] SPEAKER_00: is detailed study of saxophone development in history.
[08:51] SPEAKER_00: There's a lot to mythology about them, but very little.
[08:54] SPEAKER_00: Actual knowledge.
[08:55] SPEAKER_00: So I used my saxophone collection and my skill and basically wrangled my way
[09:02] SPEAKER_00: into a meeting with the top saxophone manufacturer in the world.
[09:05] SPEAKER_00: Their company is called Selmer Paris and they're not
[09:08] SPEAKER_00: unsurprisingly located in Paris, France.
[09:10] SPEAKER_00: And so I actually started working with them and became their archivist
[09:15] SPEAKER_00: and worked.
[09:15] SPEAKER_00: They have a hundred years of a Selmer saxophone production.
[09:19] SPEAKER_00: And they gave me full access to it.
[09:21] SPEAKER_00: So I became essentially, well, after years of hard work,
[09:24] SPEAKER_00: I essentially overnight became the world's leading expert in Selmer saxophone history.
[09:29] SPEAKER_00: And the funny thing, everybody knew that these archives were in Selmer Paris.
[09:32] SPEAKER_00: This is a lesson for anybody listening to this podcast.
[09:35] SPEAKER_00: Everybody knew they had these archives, but the mythology was,
[09:39] SPEAKER_00: oh, they don't share that with anybody.
[09:40] SPEAKER_00: They don't talk about it.
[09:41] SPEAKER_00: So when I went and had a meeting and said,
[09:43] SPEAKER_00: will you give me access to photographs and study and work with me?
[09:47] SPEAKER_00: You're like, everybody says you don't give access to it.
[09:49] SPEAKER_00: And Mr. Selmer laughed at me and he goes to be honest,
[09:54] SPEAKER_00: you're the first person who's ever asked.
[09:57] SPEAKER_00: And it's happened to me a couple of times over my career.
[10:01] SPEAKER_00: When you go, hey, this is a great idea.
[10:02] SPEAKER_00: Somebody must have done it already.
[10:04] SPEAKER_00: Do not fall into that trap.
[10:06] SPEAKER_00: The odds are somebody's done it already,
[10:08] SPEAKER_00: but it's entirely possible.
[10:09] SPEAKER_00: You just came up with a unique twist on something.
[10:12] SPEAKER_00: And I can create a career or business or a hobby or something out of it.
[10:17] SPEAKER_00: Always ask that question.
[10:19] SPEAKER_00: Always dig down.
[10:21] SPEAKER_00: And three or four times I found the answer to be,
[10:24] SPEAKER_00: holy crap, nobody's done this.
[10:26] SPEAKER_01: Sort of like my thing is, your thing is always ask that question.
[10:30] SPEAKER_01: My thing is always make the call in terms of if you have a brilliant idea,
[10:35] SPEAKER_01: find out who's going to be interested.
[10:36] SPEAKER_01: And don't be scared to make the call.
[10:39] SPEAKER_01: It's the most of the so-and-so people.
[10:41] SPEAKER_01: And we were talking just a little bit.
[10:43] SPEAKER_01: We both started businesses and grown businesses.
[10:48] SPEAKER_01: In terms of what I term the wisdom factor,
[10:51] SPEAKER_01: what kind of wisdom do you think you can pass on to some of the newer entrepreneurs that we're
[10:58] SPEAKER_01: listening to?
[10:59] SPEAKER_00: Well, what I learned for about 20 years I ran what I called a micro venture capital firm.
[11:05] SPEAKER_00: Helping small businesses get beyond the startup stage and not get to the point where they're
[11:10] SPEAKER_00: going public, but get to the point where they're profitable and moving and hiring employees and such.
[11:17] SPEAKER_00: The biggest mistake almost every entrepreneur does is they don't plan pessimistically.
[11:21] SPEAKER_00: They plan optimistically.
[11:23] SPEAKER_00: Everything goes right. I'll have this much revenue and this much cost.
[11:26] SPEAKER_00: And as soon as something goes wrong, you're screwed.
[11:29] SPEAKER_00: You have to plan for problems. Plan for mistakes. Plan for getting kicked out of a rental or
[11:35] SPEAKER_00: the software you're building not working or you just have to have extra reserves or at
[11:40] SPEAKER_00: least know where you can get them. That's the number one.
[11:44] SPEAKER_00: I took it, was able to take it to my advantage a number of times.
[11:47] SPEAKER_00: People had great ideas and great businesses and they were just 20,000 short of being able to pull
[11:52] SPEAKER_00: it off. I could buy an inordinately large piece of their company for the 20,000 dollar investment
[11:58] SPEAKER_00: and then step in and help them manage it, right?
[12:01] SPEAKER_00: And I never, I don't like taking advantage of people, but I basically said for a number of those
[12:07] SPEAKER_00: ventures, I'll invest my money. And when you pay back my money, I'll cut my ownership in
[12:12] SPEAKER_00: house and over a period of time, there's a scaling amount of how much to get me out.
[12:17] SPEAKER_00: And a successful business, I invest my money and their main job is to get rid of me.
[12:22] SPEAKER_00: And they pay me double or triple my money over two years and I'm out. They're happy. I'm happy.
[12:26] SPEAKER_00: Everybody wins.
[12:28] SPEAKER_01: So what's been the greatest challenge you faced in business to date that you've hopefully
[12:34] SPEAKER_01: overcome, but not necessarily?
[12:37] SPEAKER_00: The greatest challenge that I successfully overcame was I was in a business where you're constantly
[12:44] SPEAKER_00: looking for new business. You're constantly potentially unemployed. I had a project-based
[12:49] SPEAKER_00: business and the biggest challenge I saw was converting projects into programs. So I in the early
[12:57] SPEAKER_00: 90s reinvented my company to say, you know, hey, I got a great job with Proctor and Gamble. It's
[13:02] SPEAKER_00: $50,000 and then it's done and I have to go beg for another one. I converted my business into
[13:07] SPEAKER_00: programs. I won't discuss the details, but my top client has been a client since 1994 and is
[13:13] SPEAKER_00: a six-digit monthly client. It's a wonderful way to build a business when you have essentially
[13:19] SPEAKER_00: guaranteed business that allows you to step off of the accelerator once a while and start
[13:25] SPEAKER_00: thinking of breadth and development and planning rather than frantic business marketing.
[13:29] SPEAKER_01: So we're going to do some rapid-fired questions now, so you know, don't spend too long thinking
[13:33] SPEAKER_01: about them, but if you weren't doing what you do for work now, what would you be doing instead?
[13:39] SPEAKER_00: Yeah, what I would be doing and what I will be doing is taking advantage of the knowledge I
[13:43] SPEAKER_00: built in saxophone playing and history and such. And I'm actually in the process of launching
[13:50] SPEAKER_00: my own podcast series on saxophone history. If I wasn't doing that, God knows. It might be a farmer.
[13:56] SPEAKER_01: What books are you currently reading, listening to, whatever, and in today's world, what would you
[14:03] SPEAKER_00: recommend to the audience? I'm a fan of history. We don't study enough time with history. We can
[14:10] SPEAKER_00: learn from it, read mistakes, read biographies, read Churchill, read Eisenhower's biography, read
[14:17] SPEAKER_00: Julius Caesar's biography, read biographies of famous people. They've learned, they've lived,
[14:23] SPEAKER_00: and a good biography admits mistakes, and there's a whole lot of learning out of reading about
[14:29] SPEAKER_00: other people's growth and development. Kind of like what you're doing here. I mean, I love this
[14:33] SPEAKER_00: podcast. I'd listen to a bunch of them and, you know, young, eager people. Great ideas, great
[14:38] SPEAKER_00: opportunities. You know, I'll say anybody listening. Just listen to 20 or 30 of these things. It's
[14:44] SPEAKER_00: really, really interesting how many different ways there are to build your life. Yeah, thanks. That's
[14:49] SPEAKER_01: the kind of stories that we were trying to get out of there. If you had to describe yourself in one
[14:54] SPEAKER_01: word, what would that word be? You can try to, if you want. Yes, it's a long pause now, as I'm thinking.
[15:05] SPEAKER_00: A couple, a word that comes to mind is persistent. Get something in my mind. If I could find a
[15:12] SPEAKER_00: a clever phrase, patient, persistent, and elegantly aggressive. You don't want to be offensively
[15:20] SPEAKER_00: aggressive, but find a way to be elegantly aggressive. I want to tell you one story. I was,
[15:25] SPEAKER_00: when I was a teenager, I had an interest in my life, an interest in flying airplanes. So it
[15:31] SPEAKER_00: wasn't very popular at the time, but I joined the arcadettes and then spent a little time in the
[15:35] SPEAKER_00: royal region and after that. Another great piece of advice I learned was in the arcadettes. When I
[15:41] SPEAKER_00: learned the Canadian military definition of leadership, every business leader, every person
[15:47] SPEAKER_00: starting out needs to memorize this and live by it. So here goes, quote, leadership is the
[15:53] SPEAKER_00: art of getting you to do what I want you to do because you want to do it. It sounds tripe and
[16:01] SPEAKER_00: simple, but you know, repeat that to yourself a couple times. And it perfectly describes it.
[16:06] SPEAKER_00: Every business, you create the environment where people want to succeed. And it just makes so
[16:12] SPEAKER_01: much sense. I try to look by that too. My version of that is never sell anything to anybody.
[16:19] SPEAKER_01: Let them buy it. Exactly. And those two dovetails right together, don't they?
[16:23] SPEAKER_00: That's right. Yeah. What's your most favorite place in the world and why?
[16:27] SPEAKER_00: Well, I've got three. If you're looking, vacations, Hawaii is heaven. Hawaii is beautiful.
[16:35] SPEAKER_00: I've been spending a lot of time in France lately. So I would say Paris is beautiful, but to be
[16:40] SPEAKER_00: perfectly honest, five years ago, I made a change in my personal life. I lived in Marcom and I moved
[16:46] SPEAKER_00: out of Marcom into a very quiet, very remote forest. And it's my favorite place in the world. I wake
[16:54] SPEAKER_00: up in the morning in the deer and the turkeys are on the front lawn and it's heaven, it's serenity
[17:01] SPEAKER_00: and it's just the perfect way to wake up every day.
[17:06] SPEAKER_01: Roof teams are really important. What do you kind of know? Three, it doesn't have to be three. What do
[17:11] SPEAKER_01: you know, negotiables in terms of your morning and evening routines? Get up early. I get up,
[17:18] SPEAKER_00: you know, I'm not frantic, clearly, but I'm up at six by six, 15. It's kind of living remotely.
[17:23] SPEAKER_00: Some mornings I'm on my tractor cutting line at six, 15. Get up early and get going on the day.
[17:29] SPEAKER_00: If I'm not up and showered and doing something by six, 30, then to me, it's feeling like a waste of
[17:36] SPEAKER_00: a day. Number two, do something. You can't solve every problem. People make great big to-do lists and
[17:43] SPEAKER_00: they get bogged down by them. Just do something. Just anything. Like solve something, fix something.
[17:50] SPEAKER_00: And number three, learn something. Learn something every day. I've become a fan of podcasts.
[17:59] SPEAKER_00: I've become disillusioned a little bit with typical TV and radio. I just love, you know, I pick a
[18:05] SPEAKER_00: podcast. Right now I'm listening to a wonderful podcast about the Anglo-Saxon history of England.
[18:12] SPEAKER_00: Does that affect my life? Not really, but they're all the same people doing all the same things.
[18:17] SPEAKER_00: And just learn something. Learn a new language. Learn a new math skill. Learn something. Learn
[18:23] SPEAKER_00: anything. And the day you stop learning is the day you should start getting worried, I think.
[18:31] SPEAKER_01: So there's this tropical island. It's beautiful. It's not Hawaii. In the middle of the ocean,
[18:37] SPEAKER_01: it's got one fond booth and no internet. We drop you off there with no technology.
[18:43] SPEAKER_01: You can use a fond booth to call us to come and pick you up. How long would you last before
[18:48] SPEAKER_00: making the call? And what would you do? Oh, this is easy. It's tough to do. When they drop me off,
[18:55] SPEAKER_00: I'd be on that same planer boat or whatever. I don't have time to relax. And I would consider that
[19:02] SPEAKER_00: a waste. Get me back to where I can do stuff. No time at all. So same day for me. Same day. Same day.
[19:10] SPEAKER_00: I've got things to do. It's funny. It's the one thing is I don't like I don't like going to
[19:22] SPEAKER_00: well, I mean, we've just had this terrible hurricane in the Bahamas, but I have no interest in
[19:26] SPEAKER_00: just going to the Bahamas and lying on a beach for a week. Maybe for an hour, but I'd be bored of
[19:31] SPEAKER_00: that. Let's get let's get stuff done. And I think that's from a lifetime of always having stuff to do.
[19:36] SPEAKER_01: Like I will never be bored. Doug, it's some jams in this interview. Thank you. I think people
[19:43] SPEAKER_01: listen to it and really going to enjoy it. And if it sparks them, you know, how can they get a hold of
[19:48] SPEAKER_01: you? You know, do you want to add anything that I missed out? I'm not actively investing in
[19:55] SPEAKER_00: businesses right now. So if somebody thought about that, it's probably not where I'm going,
[20:00] SPEAKER_00: but I'm certainly happy to answer questions. I have I have started managed and sold about 40
[20:06] SPEAKER_00: businesses in my life. A couple of them spectacularly unsuccessfully, but most of them successfully.
[20:12] SPEAKER_00: And so if anybody wanted some advice on building a business, they can always reach me.
[20:18] SPEAKER_00: My email is the same as my name. Douglas at pifer.com. And that is pifer is spelled P-I-P-H-E-R.
[20:28] SPEAKER_00: Anybody can just reference the podcast by only sending me an email and happy to help.
[20:34] SPEAKER_01: Doug, thanks so much for coming on account of this podcast. As I said, I think it'll be
[20:39] SPEAKER_01: and it's a great, and a great listen. Thank you. Pleasure. Thank you.
[20:44] SPEAKER_01: Thanks everyone for taking the time today to listen to Toronto's podcast on the
[20:48] SPEAKER_01: Canada's podcast at work. I hope you enjoyed the podcast today. Make sure you sign up for a
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[21:06] SPEAKER_01: You can also check out what other entrepreneurs are doing across the country. I'll see you next time.