The best thing about being an entrepreneur is the freedom and the unlimited ceiling it gives you

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[00:00] SPEAKER_00: Welcome to Canada's Podcast.
[00:03] SPEAKER_00: Hello, welcome to Canada's Podcast.
[00:09] SPEAKER_00: I've come to you from Toronto, which is great.
[00:14] SPEAKER_00: And as I always do at the beginning, before we get going,
[00:18] SPEAKER_00: let everyone know who you are, you know, a little bit about your kind of...
[00:24] SPEAKER_00: Basically, I'm not your elevator pitch, but just about yourself
[00:29] SPEAKER_00: and how you're sitting in front of me, basically.
[00:33] SPEAKER_01: Absolutely. Thanks for having me on the look.
[00:36] SPEAKER_01: To start, Kale is my name, obviously, as you mentioned.
[00:42] SPEAKER_01: Right now, I've got two companies that I'm working on.
[00:45] SPEAKER_01: One is called Digital Vision Media Group, and so that's a digital marketing agency.
[00:49] SPEAKER_01: We focus on... or very specific things.
[00:55] SPEAKER_01: So I do fractional CMO consulting, growth advisory, you might call it.
[00:59] SPEAKER_01: And then our agency focuses on PR, content marketing, and paid media.
[01:06] SPEAKER_01: We don't touch anything else.
[01:08] SPEAKER_01: We focus on what we're really, really good at, and we outsource, or we say,
[01:13] SPEAKER_01: hey, you've got to have someone on your team to do the rest.
[01:16] SPEAKER_01: So that is one aspect of where I'm focused on.
[01:20] SPEAKER_01: And then, in going through that journey, which I'm sure we'll talk about,
[01:23] SPEAKER_01: in terms of launching the agency, I get to a place where I thought,
[01:26] SPEAKER_01: you know what, we want a better way of reaching our media contacts and getting PR out there.
[01:33] SPEAKER_01: So we built a platform for that called Press Jockey.
[01:36] SPEAKER_01: And that platform Press Jockey filters thousands of requests from around the web,
[01:42] SPEAKER_01: and gives you a very easy way to get up to five times more press with like 90% less effort.
[01:49] SPEAKER_01: And so that's the thing that we just launched earlier this year,
[01:52] SPEAKER_01: and we're constantly making updates to it with interesting things like AI,
[01:57] SPEAKER_01: and algorithms, and all the rest.
[01:59] SPEAKER_01: So that's what I'm up to right now.
[02:02] SPEAKER_00: So how did you get here?
[02:04] SPEAKER_00: I mean, what's your... what's a little bit about your journey?
[02:08] SPEAKER_00: What did you mean, what did you mean, you know, why marketing?
[02:14] SPEAKER_00: Why entrepreneurship?
[02:16] SPEAKER_00: You know, why not, why not a real job?
[02:19] SPEAKER_01: The real job question.
[02:22] SPEAKER_01: So I never really worked a corporate job.
[02:27] SPEAKER_01: It's just not been something that has been kind of in my blood, I suppose.
[02:33] SPEAKER_01: I did at one point want to work on Wall Street and go down the big banking, you know,
[02:39] SPEAKER_01: hedge fund type of direction.
[02:43] SPEAKER_01: But in university, I started a temporary staffing agency with a friend of mine at the time.
[02:49] SPEAKER_01: We grew that and then made decent amount of money for it for a six to eight month kind of period at the time.
[02:58] SPEAKER_01: And I ended up closing that down, tried to tread my hand at a number of different projects.
[03:05] SPEAKER_01: None of those really worked out.
[03:06] SPEAKER_01: And so I started to learn sales because I had read a number of books that said,
[03:12] SPEAKER_01: all CEOs have sales as the number one thing that they're really great at.
[03:18] SPEAKER_01: Yes, they can manage people, but that's also part of sales.
[03:20] SPEAKER_01: And so if you know how to sell, you can be a great CEO.
[03:23] SPEAKER_01: So that's the direction I went worked for for an agency that had about 26 offices around the world and did Wolf of Wall Street type sales.
[03:33] SPEAKER_01: So really intense, intense sales.
[03:38] SPEAKER_01: After I left that, I wanted to learn marketing.
[03:42] SPEAKER_01: So I figured, hey, I know how to sell someone on the phone.
[03:46] SPEAKER_01: I know to sell, you know, directly, but I would like to learn how to do this at mass scale.
[03:51] SPEAKER_01: So how do you really market to people on mass?
[03:56] SPEAKER_01: And I decided to shift them to more technology and got into the marketing side of things.
[04:03] SPEAKER_01: And one thing led to another and help start helping a few friends with businesses.
[04:09] SPEAKER_01: And that started to expand and I started to get more clients and we went from there.
[04:14] SPEAKER_01: So that's the story and a nutshell.
[04:17] SPEAKER_00: Interesting.
[04:20] SPEAKER_00: So all of this time, you've always wanted to be an entrepreneur.
[04:26] SPEAKER_00: Yes.
[04:28] SPEAKER_00: Because that's kind of, you know, a strange one.
[04:33] SPEAKER_00: A lot of people have jobs and, you know, I mean, I personally think entrepreneurs have one thing in common.
[04:40] SPEAKER_00: You know, they can't keep a job because they don't shut their mouth basically.
[04:46] SPEAKER_00: But that's just my, my, my ability system.
[04:51] SPEAKER_00: You know, but what you like most about being an entrepreneur, what, what keeps you here?
[05:01] SPEAKER_01: Freedom and the unlimited ceiling.
[05:04] SPEAKER_01: And so one of the things that my partner and I do, her and I, like, we travel the world.
[05:12] SPEAKER_01: I can work from anywhere in the world.
[05:14] SPEAKER_01: So that's, that's fantastic.
[05:16] SPEAKER_01: And almost people have a corporate job.
[05:18] SPEAKER_01: And if you've got a corporate job and you haven't kind of experimented with the remote working over the last couple of years.
[05:26] SPEAKER_01: You should, you've heard about remote working obviously and you've seen like, hey, you can probably do your work from anywhere.
[05:33] SPEAKER_01: Unfortunately, you were locked down and it was in pandemic time.
[05:37] SPEAKER_01: But this is not new to what I do.
[05:41] SPEAKER_01: I'm working remotely from different places around the world for six, six, seven years.
[05:47] SPEAKER_01: And so this is one of the things that I really like about it.
[05:49] SPEAKER_01: And then also the unlimited ceiling in terms of how much you are able to impact others.
[05:57] SPEAKER_01: How much you're able to make.
[05:59] SPEAKER_01: And then just control of your own projects and your own destiny.
[06:03] SPEAKER_01: You know, like, I've got ideas that I want to create.
[06:06] SPEAKER_01: And I don't necessarily want to be beholden to other people who want me to do meaningless work.
[06:13] Speaker UNKNOWN: 
[06:13] SPEAKER_00: Do you have any challenges?
[06:16] SPEAKER_00: A challenge is, which I think is something we hit quite a lot in our.
[06:23] SPEAKER_00: What's the greatest challenge you face today?
[06:29] SPEAKER_02: And how did you overcome it?
[06:31] SPEAKER_01: I think there's a bit depends.
[06:34] SPEAKER_01: I think one of the ongoing challenges for entrepreneurs is to persevere.
[06:44] SPEAKER_01: And I like it.
[06:45] SPEAKER_01: There's ups and downs for sure.
[06:47] SPEAKER_01: And so I think it's important to have a very strong mental fortitude.
[06:53] SPEAKER_01: It's around yourself by people.
[06:55] SPEAKER_01: If you can, who are similar to you, watch inspirational videos, read books, learn from others, you know, that type of thing.
[07:01] SPEAKER_01: But I think that that's one of the most difficult things.
[07:06] SPEAKER_01: Now, like, as an entrepreneur, you will, you'll make money and you lose money for sure.
[07:11] SPEAKER_01: You both, both happen.
[07:13] SPEAKER_01: But maintaining that perseverance and pushing forward when you don't really want to.
[07:17] SPEAKER_01: I think it's something that is super important.
[07:20] SPEAKER_00: Do you have a process, you know, when you hit the chat, you hit a block.
[07:24] SPEAKER_00: If you like, is there a process you use to, you know, get around the wall, whatever you want, whatever.
[07:33] SPEAKER_00: Matter for you want to use kind of thing.
[07:36] SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I don't.
[07:38] SPEAKER_02: At the top of my head.
[07:42] SPEAKER_01: I might be able to say, you know, I do find.
[07:46] SPEAKER_01: We have the same one.
[07:47] SPEAKER_01: When we used to do sales, motion creates emotion.
[07:51] SPEAKER_01: And so if you are having a slow selling day or hour or whatever might be, you got to get up and move around.
[07:59] SPEAKER_01: And so this is one thing that I, that I still think is really valuable.
[08:02] SPEAKER_01: I know Steve Jobs used to like do this.
[08:04] SPEAKER_01: Jeff Bezos does this.
[08:06] SPEAKER_01: You know, it's walking and getting out outdoors.
[08:08] SPEAKER_01: So I think that that's very important.
[08:10] SPEAKER_01: I like to work out.
[08:11] SPEAKER_01: And so, you know, whatever it is that you do, where it's spin class yoga, walking.
[08:15] SPEAKER_00: Yeah, one first one.
[08:16] SPEAKER_00: I get it.
[08:18] SPEAKER_01: Yeah, you know, like getting out, getting out and moving.
[08:21] SPEAKER_01: I think changes your emotion, which then helps you get over those hurdles.
[08:25] SPEAKER_01: And incorporating that into your, your weekly life is super important as an entrepreneur.
[08:32] SPEAKER_02: You know,
[08:37] SPEAKER_00: mentorship is really important.
[08:39] SPEAKER_00: At least it's been for me and for many others.
[08:42] SPEAKER_00: You know, what's the best piece of advice that you've received?
[08:47] SPEAKER_00: You know, that one that you carry in your hip pocket.
[08:51] SPEAKER_00: It's, it's there somehow.
[08:53] SPEAKER_00: Or maybe, maybe there isn't, but what works.
[08:58] SPEAKER_00: Well, is there anything you can think of on that?
[09:01] SPEAKER_01: Never give up Winston Churchill.
[09:03] SPEAKER_01: And so I don't think your mentors necessarily have to be real life.
[09:08] SPEAKER_01: You know, I think like a life today.
[09:10] SPEAKER_01: I think that there's tremendous value in studying from anyone you, you connect with.
[09:18] SPEAKER_01: It can be YouTube, it can be audio, it can be.
[09:21] SPEAKER_01: It authors, it doesn't matter.
[09:23] SPEAKER_01: But I think that that one piece of advice.
[09:27] SPEAKER_01: I just always remember that.
[09:28] SPEAKER_01: I think that's important in anything, like not just entrepreneurship, but it's entrepreneurship.
[09:34] SPEAKER_01: Health, learning languages, travel, like overcoming any kind of obstacles you have in life.
[09:39] SPEAKER_01: I think that's a really great way to think about it.
[09:42] SPEAKER_01: It's just never give up.
[09:42] SPEAKER_01: Like keep pushing.
[09:44] SPEAKER_01: You get to it, but it will take time maybe and step by step.
[09:48] SPEAKER_01: You just keep moving forward, you know?
[09:50] SPEAKER_00: Sound like you've been very focused.
[09:51] SPEAKER_00: This is where you want it to be.
[09:54] SPEAKER_00: But if you were doing what you're doing now, what would you be doing?
[10:00] SPEAKER_00: What else would you be doing?
[10:01] SPEAKER_01: Another idea.
[10:02] SPEAKER_01: I've got like a list of ideas.
[10:05] SPEAKER_01: Like honest, there's like a few hundred ideas.
[10:08] SPEAKER_01: I've got you know, the 150 domains that I've been sitting on.
[10:12] SPEAKER_01: Yeah, it's just like, you know, this is just a ridiculous.
[10:15] SPEAKER_01: I'm going to go 20.
[10:16] SPEAKER_01: Yeah, you know, it's one of those things where I look at my domain ball and like, oh my gosh, this is ridiculous.
[10:22] SPEAKER_01: So I would just be doing another idea.
[10:24] SPEAKER_01: Like just straight straight up.
[10:25] SPEAKER_01: Straight up.
[10:26] SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
[10:27] SPEAKER_00: You said about books, you know, books, podcasts, what, what, what, you know, audio books.
[10:32] SPEAKER_00: I don't really care.
[10:32] SPEAKER_00: Which one, you know, what are you currently reading?
[10:36] SPEAKER_00: I mean, I'm more importantly for me, you know, what books book, whatever would you recommend that somebody should definitely, you know, read or listen to basically.
[10:50] SPEAKER_01: It depends where you're in the process.
[10:53] SPEAKER_01: Right.
[10:53] SPEAKER_01: So if you are just, just starting out.
[10:58] SPEAKER_01: Yeah, it's going to sound maybe cliche, but some of the books that really have influenced my life or rich that poor dad.
[11:04] SPEAKER_01: So, you know, it's a book that my mom gave to him.
[11:09] SPEAKER_01: So reach that poor dad.
[11:10] SPEAKER_01: I think just shifts your mindset in terms of weight of second.
[11:13] SPEAKER_01: There's a different way to approach building wealth.
[11:16] SPEAKER_01: There's different way to approach life.
[11:19] SPEAKER_01: So I would definitely read that.
[11:21] SPEAKER_01: Built to sell in a Mark Zuckerberg, I believe, has recommended that book.
[11:25] SPEAKER_01: That book is fantastic for understanding how to system the ties, whatever you're doing.
[11:29] SPEAKER_01: Whether that's service work or whether that's a product or whether that software, how do you systematize it?
[11:35] SPEAKER_01: So I really like that book.
[11:37] SPEAKER_01: I've also read scaling up.
[11:40] SPEAKER_01: Now, this book is more like a textbook.
[11:42] SPEAKER_01: And I think it's more if you're already in the throws of business and you're already moving along and you need that.
[11:49] SPEAKER_01: And coaching mentorship advice or very specific things.
[11:54] SPEAKER_01: This book is like the the Bible.
[11:57] SPEAKER_01: It's like the go to book for really technical progression.
[12:02] SPEAKER_01: So that book, I think, has also been really fantastic.
[12:04] SPEAKER_01: So those are the three that that I would recommend just off the top of my head.
[12:10] SPEAKER_00: And the fun one that I ask everybody, are you a morning or a night person?
[12:15] SPEAKER_01: I used to be a night morning person for sure.
[12:17] SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
[12:18] SPEAKER_01: Like I don't wake up with them alarm and typically wake up between six and seven am.
[12:23] SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
[12:24] Speaker UNKNOWN: Okay.
[12:25] SPEAKER_02: So you the morning.
[12:27] SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
[12:29] SPEAKER_00: Six and seven wish I could wake up that late.
[12:32] SPEAKER_00: That late.
[12:40] SPEAKER_00: If you had to pick one word to describe yourself.
[12:44] SPEAKER_02: What would that word be and why would you choose it?
[12:59] SPEAKER_02: I would say.
[13:07] SPEAKER_01: Persistence is probably.
[13:09] SPEAKER_01: Persistent.
[13:10] SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
[13:11] SPEAKER_01: Persistent.
[13:12] SPEAKER_01: It's probably one of the main.
[13:14] SPEAKER_01: The main words.
[13:15] SPEAKER_01: Why would I say that?
[13:16] SPEAKER_01: It's just how I approach things.
[13:19] SPEAKER_01: I know like I've been in.
[13:22] SPEAKER_01: Difficult financial situations.
[13:24] SPEAKER_01: I've been in, you know, not difficult financial situations.
[13:28] SPEAKER_01: I've.
[13:28] SPEAKER_01: Fail the number of times.
[13:31] SPEAKER_01: And I just keep on.
[13:33] SPEAKER_01: Keep on going forward.
[13:34] SPEAKER_01: You know, no.
[13:36] SPEAKER_01: And so for me that.
[13:37] SPEAKER_01: It's not.
[13:38] SPEAKER_01: It's not just.
[13:39] SPEAKER_01: It's not like a.
[13:40] SPEAKER_01: Hey, I have to be persistent.
[13:42] SPEAKER_01: It's just something that I want to do.
[13:43] SPEAKER_01: Like I know that this.
[13:44] SPEAKER_01: That entrepreneurship is.
[13:45] SPEAKER_01: Like I've got a hundred and fifty two hundred ideas.
[13:49] SPEAKER_01: Like there's like there's got to be something that's.
[13:51] SPEAKER_01: Going to succeed.
[13:52] SPEAKER_01: And I want to bring those to the world.
[13:54] SPEAKER_01: So let's persist.
[13:56] SPEAKER_01: Let's move forward.
[13:56] SPEAKER_01: You know, let's go.
[13:58] SPEAKER_02: What's keeping up at night.
[14:04] SPEAKER_02: Speed of growth.
[14:06] SPEAKER_01: It's, you know, it's one of those things that I think.
[14:08] SPEAKER_01: Every, every entrepreneur, every business owner.
[14:10] SPEAKER_01: And they're.
[14:12] Speaker UNKNOWN: In the end, you know,
[14:14] SPEAKER_01: I mean,
[14:14] SPEAKER_01: it's like.
[14:16] SPEAKER_01: And so this is something that.
[14:18] SPEAKER_01: That I think about is.
[14:21] SPEAKER_01: How do I.
[14:22] SPEAKER_01: I think Peter T.
[14:23] SPEAKER_01: T.
[14:23] SPEAKER_01: What's your.
[14:24] SPEAKER_01: How do you take your ten your goals and compress it into six months,
[14:28] SPEAKER_01: which seems ridiculous.
[14:30] SPEAKER_01: But if you can have that kind of mindset.
[14:32] SPEAKER_01: Is not to say that you are going to do it in six months.
[14:35] SPEAKER_01: Maybe you can.
[14:36] SPEAKER_01: But it's more to do the thought exercise of how can you.
[14:40] SPEAKER_01: It's.
[14:40] SPEAKER_01: How can you think outside the box.
[14:43] SPEAKER_01: Per se to accelerate your growth to a level that.
[14:46] SPEAKER_01: Is way, way beyond anything that you can imagine.
[14:50] SPEAKER_01: And so this is what I think about most is how can we accelerate growth.
[14:55] SPEAKER_02: You know, I know you canadian, but why.
[15:01] SPEAKER_00: Why did you know what makes you stay in Canada to do business in Canada.
[15:06] SPEAKER_00: Versus you said you've traveled over.
[15:08] SPEAKER_00: Versus go to other places.
[15:11] SPEAKER_00: The probably bigger of larger economies in Canada.
[15:16] SPEAKER_00: And the business there.
[15:19] SPEAKER_01: When do you do business there, like I'm physically located here,
[15:23] SPEAKER_01: but most of most of our clients and.
[15:27] SPEAKER_01: Our pushes in the United States, you know, right.
[15:30] SPEAKER_01: And I think that.
[15:32] SPEAKER_01: I think that that's just it's it's good to be transparent about the fact
[15:37] SPEAKER_01: that the United States has.
[15:40] SPEAKER_01: Ten times the population that Canada has, but really there's probably.
[15:45] SPEAKER_01: 20 30 times more purchasing power.
[15:48] SPEAKER_01: Valuations for companies are.
[15:51] SPEAKER_01: Five to 10 times higher.
[15:53] SPEAKER_01: The amount of investment you'll get is 20 times more down states.
[15:57] SPEAKER_01: So this is where we.
[15:58] SPEAKER_01: This is where we operate.
[16:00] SPEAKER_01: And you know, again, I trouble a lot.
[16:02] SPEAKER_01: So, you know, I lived in Los Angeles for about a year of lived in Austin, Texas.
[16:06] SPEAKER_01: For about a year and a half.
[16:07] SPEAKER_01: Like if I spend time in the States and.
[16:11] SPEAKER_01: You know, eventually we'll probably go down there.
[16:14] SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
[16:15] SPEAKER_00: All right, interesting.
[16:19] SPEAKER_00: There's more entrepreneurs in Canada for head than in the United States.
[16:24] SPEAKER_00: Is that correct?
[16:24] SPEAKER_00: I'm absolutely.
[16:26] SPEAKER_00: We have the largest entrepreneurial.
[16:29] SPEAKER_00: Kind of percentage.
[16:31] SPEAKER_00: Of any of the Western country.
[16:33] SPEAKER_01: I think I think to your point, Canada, Canada really is a.
[16:40] SPEAKER_01: Fantastic launch pad for entrepreneurs.
[16:44] SPEAKER_01: We are very.
[16:47] SPEAKER_01: A fortunate to have a lot of services to make sure that.
[16:52] SPEAKER_01: There is a bottom.
[16:54] SPEAKER_01: Like there's a floor that you.
[16:55] SPEAKER_01: You are not really going to fall below.
[16:58] SPEAKER_01: Let's let's just call it.
[17:00] SPEAKER_01: You have health care taking care of.
[17:02] SPEAKER_01: Now, we pay a ridiculous amount of tax for that.
[17:07] SPEAKER_01: For all of those services, but you've got that.
[17:09] SPEAKER_01: We've got standardized education.
[17:11] SPEAKER_01: You have the ability to borrow to go to university.
[17:14] SPEAKER_01: You know, university doesn't cost $50,000 a year.
[17:17] SPEAKER_01: Like it may at Princeton or Harvard.
[17:20] SPEAKER_01: And so this creates a fantastic launching ground for entrepreneurship.
[17:25] SPEAKER_01: And I think.
[17:27] SPEAKER_01: It is it is a great place to start.
[17:29] SPEAKER_01: But it is not necessarily a great place to grow.
[17:32] SPEAKER_01: If you want to take your business.
[17:35] SPEAKER_00: There's a talk.
[17:36] SPEAKER_00: Exactly.
[17:37] SPEAKER_00: It depends what you want to do.
[17:39] SPEAKER_00: You know, that's exactly.
[17:40] SPEAKER_00: You know, sometimes you can build yourself perfectly good on.
[17:44] SPEAKER_00: For a new life here.
[17:46] SPEAKER_00: It just depends what business you're in.
[17:49] SPEAKER_00: And how.
[17:50] SPEAKER_00: Exactly.
[17:53] SPEAKER_00: You know what?
[17:54] SPEAKER_00: We come to the end of our of our time.
[17:58] SPEAKER_00: And.
[18:00] SPEAKER_00: I'm really good observations.
[18:02] SPEAKER_00: If people want to get a hold of you.
[18:04] SPEAKER_00: What's what's a good way to do that?
[18:06] SPEAKER_01: Yeah, the best way is to.
[18:08] SPEAKER_01: You can reach out to me.
[18:10] SPEAKER_01: You can connect with our team at press jockey.com.
[18:13] SPEAKER_01: So there's options there.
[18:15] SPEAKER_01: And you can also connect with our team at digital vision.io.
[18:20] SPEAKER_01: So digital vision media group is is our agency fraction of the CMO consulting.
[18:24] SPEAKER_01: And press jockey.com is where you can go for any of your press needs.
[18:30] SPEAKER_01: Okay.
[18:31] SPEAKER_01: Thanks very much for coming on the town's podcast.
[18:33] SPEAKER_01: Been great meeting you.
[18:35] SPEAKER_01: Thanks for having me.