How a group of misfits is changing the financial industry in Canada

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[00:00] SPEAKER_06: Welcome to Canada's podcast.
[00:05] SPEAKER_06: Hi, this is Celine Williams hosting for Ontario for Canada's podcast.
[00:10] SPEAKER_06: My guests today are Colin White and Josh Shellick of their Can Group.
[00:14] SPEAKER_06: They say they're working on changing the way the financial industry serves Canadians.
[00:19] SPEAKER_06: Welcome Colin and Josh.
[00:22] SPEAKER_04: Thanks, Lee. Thanks for being here.
[00:24] SPEAKER_06: Thank you for being here.
[00:29] SPEAKER_06: First and foremost, can we talk about saying you're working on changing the way the financial industry serves Canadians?
[00:36] SPEAKER_06: I love that. Very tongue in cheek.
[00:40] SPEAKER_05: Well, it's fairly accurate.
[00:42] SPEAKER_05: I mean, we are a group of missfits who didn't really fit in the traditional industry and had some ideas that we thought were worth exploring.
[00:51] SPEAKER_05: So we've organized ourselves and are out there trying to make a difference.
[00:57] SPEAKER_05: And it's a big world.
[00:59] SPEAKER_05: Things are pretty firmly entrenched, but we still believe that we have always the old and there are improvements that can be made.
[01:07] SPEAKER_05: And now we're having a lot of fun along the way.
[01:10] SPEAKER_05: We're having fun right, Josh.
[01:13] SPEAKER_00: For sure, we're having fun.
[01:14] SPEAKER_00: Maybe more fun than we should be having with it as you can tell from the intro.
[01:18] SPEAKER_00: But we all come from a background in a more traditional sense within the financial industry.
[01:26] SPEAKER_00: And in some way, shape or form, all of us.
[01:27] SPEAKER_00: And I think the reason we say that is because we've all seen things that we don't like with the traditional financial industry.
[01:37] SPEAKER_00: And we've been pushing against that ever since.
[01:40] SPEAKER_00: And I guess that we'll get into it more, but it culminated with our sort of relaunch of our business as Veracan a couple of years ago.
[01:48] SPEAKER_06: So let's start with.
[01:50] SPEAKER_06: I love that and I'm very excited to hear more about these misfits.
[01:53] SPEAKER_06: So let's start with that.
[01:55] SPEAKER_06: And I'd love for each of you to kind of.
[01:57] SPEAKER_06: Help me a little bit about yourself and your journey to getting to where you are today.
[02:04] SPEAKER_05: The chronologically my journey started before Josh's just well because time.
[02:10] SPEAKER_05: I came out of school as an accountant and I liked numbers.
[02:13] SPEAKER_05: I like patterns.
[02:15] SPEAKER_05: And early in my accounting career, I realized I didn't shit.
[02:19] SPEAKER_05: I did too much personality and I was trying to change too much and that's not well rewarded in the accounting profession.
[02:24] SPEAKER_05: So much to the horror of my mother.
[02:26] SPEAKER_05: I included a job as an accountant.
[02:28] SPEAKER_05: It was self life insurance because that looked more interesting to me.
[02:34] SPEAKER_05: That leap was, it seemed odd at the time.
[02:37] SPEAKER_05: And very early on, I realized they did completely fit in the industry that I just chose and you go try.
[02:45] SPEAKER_05: Some combination of being stubborn and having ideas that things could be better and maybe stick with it.
[02:52] SPEAKER_05: And so I right over the gate, I would be absolutely blessed by this.
[02:56] SPEAKER_05: I mean, anybody who looks at somebody who has got a promising career is a mid level management accountant who gives that up to go self life insurance.
[03:04] SPEAKER_05: There's my badge.
[03:05] SPEAKER_05: That's what got me into the missing club.
[03:08] SPEAKER_05: You know, I grew it from there into dealing with securities back in the early 90s.
[03:13] SPEAKER_05: Back in the days before shares, shares were trading on fractions rather than percentages.
[03:19] SPEAKER_05: They came back when people wrote tickets to stuff like that.
[03:21] SPEAKER_05: There was no computers, you know, self-honsuit.
[03:23] SPEAKER_05: So I started back then and I kind of rode the way of all the way through.
[03:28] SPEAKER_05: I want to know, Josh, what gives you the audacity to call yourself a missing?
[03:34] SPEAKER_05: What's your badge in line?
[03:36] SPEAKER_05: Did you quit a job as to count, did you go self life insurance?
[03:38] SPEAKER_05: I don't think that you did anything nearly that spectacular.
[03:42] SPEAKER_00: Do you think I'm a misfit, Colin?
[03:44] SPEAKER_05: Oh, I'm sorry.
[03:46] SPEAKER_05: I thought that was an evidence, but I apologize if I'm offended.
[03:52] SPEAKER_00: Well, so I'm sure there's probably lots that would classify me as a misfit,
[03:57] SPEAKER_00: but just to take you right back to the beginning for me,
[04:01] SPEAKER_00: I was delivering papers when I was 12 years old and decided that I should invest in stocks
[04:06] SPEAKER_00: at the encouragement of my dad.
[04:08] SPEAKER_00: So maybe that's where I'm a misfit because how many 12-year-olds are actually saving enough money from delivering papers that they can buy stocks.
[04:16] SPEAKER_00: And I think from there, fortunately for me, the first experience was a positive one and my money grew.
[04:25] SPEAKER_00: And I was like, oh, this is pretty cool.
[04:28] SPEAKER_00: I can make money by not delivering papers.
[04:33] SPEAKER_00: So that kind of grew into more than just a fascination if it became a bit of a passion for mine
[04:42] SPEAKER_00: and through university taking a bachelor's degree in economics and finance, kind of flourish from there.
[04:53] SPEAKER_00: I took a couple of co-op jobs in first insurance related business and then an investment related business.
[05:00] SPEAKER_00: And that kind of solidified my passion and my interest in investing more specifically.
[05:05] SPEAKER_00: And that led to when I left school, my first job was at a wealth management company, Dundee Wealth at the time.
[05:14] SPEAKER_00: And I guess that would be how the first time that Colin and I got a little bit closer together in terms of our metaphorical proximity, I guess, would be there.
[05:27] SPEAKER_06: So I love the very different but also very aligned misfit stories that have been shared thus far.
[05:37] SPEAKER_06: So thank you for sharing that.
[05:38] SPEAKER_06: And how was it that so you mentioned that you and Colin, that the two of you became aligned when you were working at Dundee.
[05:49] SPEAKER_06: How was it that you two misfits found each other and decided to do something together?
[05:55] SPEAKER_05: Oh, let me tell this part, Josh.
[05:57] SPEAKER_05: I'll set you up to roll into your where we actually came together because it was, I think it's a cool story answering mutual things.
[06:06] SPEAKER_05: So Josh was a young punk that was was hired by back office that knew everything.
[06:11] SPEAKER_05: And if you needed something solved, you call Josh. He was annoying, but he got in touch.
[06:14] SPEAKER_05: And he was knowing because he knew everything. And if you didn't know, he would go find it.
[06:19] SPEAKER_05: How dare he?
[06:20] SPEAKER_05: Yeah, if you're on the wrong side of that, it was really annoying.
[06:23] SPEAKER_05: But he became the guy that everybody firm turned to.
[06:27] SPEAKER_05: If they were working on something.
[06:29] SPEAKER_05: And so we would have conversations about various things that were coming across this desk.
[06:34] SPEAKER_05: And I can't remember what I think was that there was an IPS or something that you were working on.
[06:39] SPEAKER_05: You guys are rolling into the IPS and we got an intern argument or something.
[06:43] SPEAKER_05: And it was one of those good arguments that workers kind of have the idea each other.
[06:47] SPEAKER_05: And you said to me that, hey, this is a great sales tool.
[06:51] SPEAKER_05: And I shot back to you and saw how many client meetings have you been in?
[06:54] SPEAKER_05: Interested, well, not so talking, talking to me heard my friend shout your phone about about sales tools.
[07:00] SPEAKER_05: If you've never been in a client meeting, if you want to be in a client meeting, let me know and we'll set it up.
[07:06] SPEAKER_05: And now normally when I say that to somebody, it's just like it's water off the back of a duck.
[07:11] SPEAKER_05: Nothing happens.
[07:12] SPEAKER_05: But Josh, Josh is odd enough that he took it.
[07:15] SPEAKER_05: Oh, yeah, you're right. I haven't been in the meeting. I'm going to make that happen.
[07:19] SPEAKER_05: So Josh, take up the story from that conversation to how you put yourself in a meeting.
[07:25] SPEAKER_05: The blanks you went to to get into a meeting.
[07:27] SPEAKER_00: Sure, sure.
[07:28] SPEAKER_00: So just a backup, my first job at Dundee at the time was in an operations role.
[07:34] SPEAKER_00: I spent about a year in an operations role moved into a more business building role where I was in a role as a part of a team supporting the different advisers and portfolio managers that that Dundee wealth at the time,
[07:49] SPEAKER_00: which became Hollis Weld, which became my prime.
[07:52] SPEAKER_00: Well, I'm sorry there, but supporting the different advisers that worked right across the country.
[07:57] SPEAKER_00: So I had pretty good relationships after working there for for several years with all it, two, three, four, five hundred different advisers that we would help get various things done, kind of coach them on some of the aspects of their business that pertained to the investment programs that we were running.
[08:15] SPEAKER_00: So that's how Colin and I got to know each other.
[08:18] SPEAKER_00: As he said, there'd be times of time where they would need some help with with something.
[08:23] SPEAKER_00: And if it was something that I had built some expertise on, I would be there to help them out.
[08:28] SPEAKER_00: So that that was kind of verbatim exactly how it happened.
[08:32] SPEAKER_00: It wasn't in IPS, which stands for investment policy statement in our world.
[08:36] SPEAKER_00: And it's.
[08:40] SPEAKER_00: Anybody who knows the financial services industry knows that it's document heavy and regulation heavy.
[08:47] SPEAKER_00: And this is one of those documents that is pretty important to the client relationship for us.
[08:55] SPEAKER_00: But most clients probably glaze over about one page into these documents.
[09:00] SPEAKER_00: So for me to at the time call it something that an advisor or portfolio manager could use for marketing.
[09:06] SPEAKER_00: That's why Colin laughed at me because any time anybody who's listening could can can know how how much attention you actually pay to a document that's put in front of you that you need to sign this basically a legal document.
[09:21] SPEAKER_00: Right. Nobody pays any attention to it.
[09:23] SPEAKER_00: So sure enough, I did make an effort to get out to visit our colleague and one of the founding partners Dan Leblanc.
[09:33] SPEAKER_00: And I was able to so we have an office as I mentioned to you, Celine and Nelson BC.
[09:38] SPEAKER_00: I was able to align one of our conferences that we had that was going on in Kelowna with some time that Dan was out in Nelson BC.
[09:48] SPEAKER_00: And I decided to drive across a couple of mountain passes in the middle of February to go sit with Dan in client meetings for a few days.
[09:56] SPEAKER_00: And that that kind of was again bringing us a little bit closer to this marriage that we're in now because I not only sat in meetings with Dan for a couple days, but went for breakfast with him went for dinner with them had beers with them.
[10:10] SPEAKER_00: And I know with them for a few days and I had known Colin and Dan fairly well over the years with that got us a little bit closer and built a relationship a little bit more personally.
[10:22] SPEAKER_06: Was anything missing from that Colin?
[10:25] SPEAKER_05: No, no, no, that's the next story keeps going, but you know, I want to make sure that you know Josh rented the car and drove across to mountain passes just to come hang out.
[10:36] SPEAKER_05: He's February.
[10:38] SPEAKER_05: But it was based on a stupid ass challenge that I've thrown out to literally hundreds of people who I don't think they know what they're talking about.
[10:44] SPEAKER_05: Like I throw that challenge out regularly to people and say, you don't know which talk to you, if you want to know them, put some effort into it.
[10:50] SPEAKER_05: Josh is the one percent that actually, I'll come in. Yeah, I'll do that.
[10:56] SPEAKER_05: And you know, and that's the first like, oh, sure, that's not hard.
[11:00] SPEAKER_05: It's not quite giving up the job isn't a cap and to become a life insurance salesman, but it's still remarkable, you know, for the time and place.
[11:07] SPEAKER_05: So yeah, I think that's a great story. It's not the final chapter, but I'll let you decide on how quickly you want us to keep telling the stories.
[11:15] SPEAKER_05: This is your show.
[11:17] SPEAKER_01: Stay ahead of the game with our expert tips and strategies that will help your business thrive in a digital era.
[11:23] SPEAKER_01: Canada's podcast dot com subscribe now.
[11:26] SPEAKER_06: Listen, I love the story. So you I am quite happy for it to contain, although I would say the final chapter has yet to be written.
[11:35] SPEAKER_06: So we're not really final chapter.
[11:38] SPEAKER_06: More about getting to where you are today.
[11:41] SPEAKER_06: And I do before you continue.
[11:44] SPEAKER_06: Excuse me. I do just want to know.
[11:45] SPEAKER_06: I love that in both of your stories to this point, there's such a clear emphasis on the importance of growth.
[11:56] SPEAKER_06: And taking risks and trying new things, which is, you know, as I said a hundred times in this shows are so many of our so much of our audience is entrepreneurs.
[12:08] SPEAKER_06: And that growth mindset, whatever you want to call it and taking risks calculated, albeit like don't throw everything.
[12:16] SPEAKER_06: Don't just throw spaghetti at the wall and hope something sticks calculated risks.
[12:20] SPEAKER_06: But so this story is a phenomenal example of those two things working together.
[12:28] SPEAKER_05: It can spider we haven't even taken a chance yet.
[12:31] SPEAKER_06: Well, I feel like driving driving over two mountain passes in February is kind of taking a time just going to say.
[12:39] SPEAKER_00: Yeah, no, it was very fortunate for me that it was sunny for.
[12:43] SPEAKER_00: And this is miraculous. And I know this now from going back to Nelson, multiple times in the winter to drive across from Colona, and Nelson and not hit any inclement wider, whether at that time of the year, remarkable.
[12:57] SPEAKER_00: So I don't know the gods were we're shining on us. They wanted us to be here calling.
[13:02] SPEAKER_05: Yeah, that that's absolutely how it works.
[13:06] SPEAKER_05: So I and again, correct me or Josh, I even told the story together in a while. So again, memory skipped foggy and stuff.
[13:14] SPEAKER_05: But so let me see if I get this next part right Josh. You can be correct. The one right. I think I have the essence right but I may misalign some details.
[13:21] SPEAKER_05: But one of my trips to Toronto as I was doing at the time, Josh, I were going over beer and I just thought we're going over beer.
[13:29] SPEAKER_05: Josh looks at me.
[13:29] SPEAKER_05: I mean, you're in what?
[13:33] SPEAKER_05: And those I'm joining your team like to me, my memory, my head at that moment was, oh, this is sort of a blue.
[13:41] SPEAKER_05: It's awesome, but it's sort of a blue.
[13:43] SPEAKER_05: And I said, OK, because at the time we had offices in Nova Scotia and British Columbia. We just purchased a business in British Columbia.
[13:51] SPEAKER_05: We're on board and Dan, the other original partner myself.
[13:55] SPEAKER_05: And Dan was in power over at the time. So after I said, OK, Josh leave that with me. I called Dan and I said, Josh says he's in and said, what?
[14:04] SPEAKER_05: He wants to join. Oh, OK. So we don't have an office in Ontario.
[14:10] SPEAKER_05: We weren't recruiting anybody.
[14:13] SPEAKER_05: But the conversation is like, well, we'd be dumb about the higher room. We just have to figure something out.
[14:19] SPEAKER_05: So Dan and I both said, yeah, we're going to do this. No idea what this is.
[14:25] SPEAKER_05: So then I went back to Josh and started having conversations. And it's like, OK, what do you want to do?
[14:30] SPEAKER_05: And Josh got like the very methodical person.
[14:33] SPEAKER_05: Like he's very organized. They think so.
[14:36] SPEAKER_05: You know, I wanted to find your business plan.
[14:38] SPEAKER_05: I said, on years ago, I wasn't a portfolio venture. Like, no, we don't do five business plans.
[14:43] SPEAKER_05: I need something. Yeah, I get that.
[14:45] SPEAKER_05: I completely respect that we should do something. Let's put together the three year business plan.
[14:50] SPEAKER_05: So hold on to sell spreadsheet copy, paste it, write some numbers across.
[14:54] SPEAKER_05: There we go. There's the three year business plan.
[14:57] SPEAKER_05: And the Josh really wanted to be in but didn't completely understand it's completely foreign.
[15:03] SPEAKER_05: So now I only want to travel one week and quarter. I think we see initial comment and all the same.
[15:07] SPEAKER_05: And there's like, yeah, yeah, yeah, we're going to give you whatever you want.
[15:11] SPEAKER_05: And we kind of went with it. I didn't get to not have a job.
[15:15] SPEAKER_05: We weren't ever tried somebody we weren't sure handed.
[15:18] SPEAKER_05: This is just a completely or really, really smart quality person who demonstrated the kind of initiative that Josh had wants to join a UCS.
[15:26] SPEAKER_05: But you work the details. So, but you say yes.
[15:29] SPEAKER_05: And because the Josh is amazing reputation within the industry,
[15:35] SPEAKER_05: the announcement of the firm that Josh was joining us.
[15:39] SPEAKER_05: Such people with this off of it.
[15:41] SPEAKER_05: But an hour 42 minutes later, I get a phone call from somebody in the interior.
[15:44] SPEAKER_05: Great. Now you can buy my business.
[15:47] SPEAKER_05: Who is this?
[15:49] SPEAKER_05: And introduce themselves and say, oh, I remember maybe you met you at a conference or something.
[15:54] SPEAKER_05: And yeah, so there are three year business plan lasted and now we're in 42 minutes.
[15:59] SPEAKER_05: I call Josh back and said, we now have an office in Berlin.
[16:02] SPEAKER_05: And this is what we're doing.
[16:05] SPEAKER_05: So again, you met a three year business plan lasted an hour 42 minutes.
[16:10] SPEAKER_05: Not a fan of business plans.
[16:12] SPEAKER_05: But that can be another another question.
[16:15] SPEAKER_05: So Josh, did I catch the essence of how that occurred or from your from your seat?
[16:20] SPEAKER_05: Now, I'll do this from your seat.
[16:22] SPEAKER_05: Yeah.
[16:22] SPEAKER_05: How did that story roll?
[16:24] SPEAKER_00: Well, I don't think I was nearly as presumptuous as you alluded to.
[16:28] SPEAKER_00: Like I did a come in saying, well, hey, I'm in.
[16:31] SPEAKER_00: You haven't offered me.
[16:32] SPEAKER_00: We haven't even talked about a job.
[16:33] SPEAKER_00: You haven't offered me a job.
[16:34] SPEAKER_00: But hey, I'm going to join you guys.
[16:35] SPEAKER_00: Like I did happen like that.
[16:36] SPEAKER_00: I think there was some discussion about, hey, if you'd like to come to this side of the table, let us know.
[16:42] SPEAKER_00: Right.
[16:43] SPEAKER_00: And I had a couple.
[16:45] SPEAKER_00: I personally had kind of felt like my corporate road was coming close to it.
[16:53] SPEAKER_00: Because I had done it for I think by that time, it was six or seven years.
[16:58] SPEAKER_00: And I had kind of seen how that thing goes.
[17:01] SPEAKER_00: And I was ready to step out of that zone a little bit to be more entrepreneurial in one way or the other.
[17:08] SPEAKER_00: So I had a couple of things on the table and ultimately this did happen.
[17:14] SPEAKER_00: And I did we did sit down for beer at the Irish Embassy in Toronto.
[17:18] SPEAKER_00: I distinctly remember it.
[17:19] SPEAKER_00: And I did say I'm in.
[17:20] SPEAKER_00: And it kind of went like that.
[17:21] SPEAKER_00: Colin was caught off guard.
[17:23] SPEAKER_00: Like, I didn't think we were quite here yet.
[17:24] SPEAKER_00: So that is all I think fairly accurate from my recollection as well.
[17:31] SPEAKER_00: But I mean, Colin has been very complimentary to me.
[17:33] SPEAKER_00: But it wasn't an easy decision for me to leave a job that I quite liked still.
[17:41] SPEAKER_00: But I had built relationships with a lot of different advisors and portfolio managers over that period of time.
[17:47] SPEAKER_00: And so I think it's just as important for me to say that Colin and Dan, as I said,
[17:53] SPEAKER_00: were two guys that I got to know pretty well.
[17:55] SPEAKER_00: So on a personal level, I had a pretty good idea that this was going to be a good fit.
[18:01] SPEAKER_00: Just because of how we got along and both varied down to earth and thoughtful guys that I thought the relationship on a personal level would work very well.
[18:12] SPEAKER_00: And then I think they were doing a lot of interesting things.
[18:15] SPEAKER_00: I had seen them sort of push the envelope in terms of building a business in a very unconventional way, starting into a discussion and all of a sudden ending up with offices in BC, basically unheard of and thought, OK, here's something I can definitely help I can definitely add some value.
[18:31] SPEAKER_00: And we're doing something that's pretty cool.
[18:33] SPEAKER_00: So it wasn't without a lot of of a forethought in mind that I made that I'm in decision.
[18:42] SPEAKER_00: And yes, I did want a plan.
[18:45] SPEAKER_00: I did I did want to plan because I wasn't I'm not not quite as comfortable with Colin, I guess jumping off the cliff into being a life insurance agent with, you know, no safety net or anything like that.
[18:57] SPEAKER_00: I needed to see something a little bit more tangible.
[19:00] SPEAKER_00: But as Colin said, it didn't last very long before everything got torn off.
[19:04] SPEAKER_00: And I guess the big thing for me was if I'm making this move, I want to be a partner in this business. I don't want to be an employee in the business.
[19:13] SPEAKER_00: That was the only thing that I really cared about in putting together a plan.
[19:17] SPEAKER_00: It's like, I don't care really what it looks like for the next two months. But in the near term, I want to be, I want to be a part of this.
[19:24] SPEAKER_00: The whole thing, not just working for, you know, a paycheck from a different company.
[19:30] SPEAKER_00: So that was part of my intention of getting some type of plan in place was, hey, I want there to be a clear path for this.
[19:37] SPEAKER_00: And again, to Colin and Dan's credit, we put something in place. I think we said at the outset, hey, we want to have something in place where, you know, there's either a partnership opportunity on the table within 12 months or not.
[19:48] SPEAKER_00: And we can go our separate ways. And I think it was four months later that that all came to fruition. So I mean, everything's worked out very well.
[19:56] SPEAKER_05: Let's say that you want to jump in and speak to the audience a little bit about, you know, being not to go to a growing business.
[20:02] SPEAKER_05: One of the things I think set us as a separate and continues to set us apart is we don't want to be closely held.
[20:08] SPEAKER_05: Like we want, you know, the, all of the talented, I mean, some people were attracting should participate meaningfully and the growth of the business, the contributing to that she could appease of it.
[20:19] SPEAKER_05: And one of the mistakes that she have a lot of work is that I found her hands on the business and their 70s.
[20:27] SPEAKER_05: They still 180% plus of the business and they're trying to find an access strategy.
[20:31] SPEAKER_05: You've thrown away a lot of good talent over the years, but you don't have as much as you could have by very early on saying, you were the most talented and the most interesting factor people I know, they deserve a piece of this.
[20:48] SPEAKER_05: So that is something that absolutely I stand behind and we continue to do today.
[20:55] SPEAKER_05: If you want truly most talented, we have to be blown there. They need to feel like the person.
[21:02] SPEAKER_05: And it was one of those ones I didn't really do that walk. I didn't take a course. I didn't have a coach telling me. I just seemed to be made the obvious to me.
[21:08] SPEAKER_05: Now, so that's what I chose is I want a piece. Show a question to her. Why would you come up with this if you didn't have a piece?
[21:15] SPEAKER_05: There's one of those things that we've seen to be we've all known as self-evident truth. Now, again, not everybody wants to be an entrepreneur.
[21:24] SPEAKER_05: But if you're an entrepreneur and you want to try some good talent, offering them a meaningful statement of this.
[21:32] SPEAKER_05: There's no substitute for that. I watched many, many entrepreneurs make that mistake.
[21:37] SPEAKER_05: Hold on to something very, very tightly. You know, some really, really good.
[21:42] SPEAKER_05: I shouldn't complain too much because we get some really talented people from situations like that.
[21:47] SPEAKER_05: So, I changed my message. Yeah, please. I call you the founders of their hold on to everything.
[21:52] SPEAKER_05: Keep pissing off all the good talent. It's better for us.
[21:55] SPEAKER_06: Well, I think there's a, you know, I hear that in one of the lessons that stands out to me is that it's about meeting people where they're at.
[22:04] SPEAKER_06: Right? Like, you know, put my coach hat on, but the language applies in that you there are great.
[22:09] SPEAKER_06: There's wonderful talent who always want to be an employee because they want that feeling of safety.
[22:14] SPEAKER_06: So, if you can offer that to those people, that's a wonderful thing. They'll stick with you. And there's people like Josh who want to have some skin in the game.
[22:24] SPEAKER_06: They're not just looking for that feeling of safety in that way.
[22:27] SPEAKER_06: So, if you can meet them where they're at, if they're upfront about it, then you get the best of both worlds.
[22:32] SPEAKER_06: And I think that to me is a really important lesson. And which, you know, in my world, I always say it's, if you put people first, if you meet them where they're at and whatever that is, you will have the best people, you will have loyal people.
[22:45] SPEAKER_06: It's when you're, when you are putting, you know, I need to have, I need to have all of the stake and I need to control everything or profit over everything.
[22:53] SPEAKER_06: We have to meet all of these margins in this way. Profitability matters don't get me wrong. But then people are like, but then we don't matter.
[23:01] SPEAKER_05: But there's a correlation between those who want to have a state. Those who are going to be able to like, they have a state.
[23:10] SPEAKER_05: So, there's an absolute correlation there. That's very powerful. Now, again, a, some people would say it's like, well, you have to tie them up so they can't go anywhere.
[23:22] SPEAKER_05: That's one of the stupidest things I ever, here's like, if somebody is not happy, I don't want them to be tied to the firm. Like, you know, they should be easy to walk to the door.
[23:30] SPEAKER_03: Yes.
[23:30] SPEAKER_05: So, this whole concept of that is this is a mechanism to tie people. That's, that's a very negative way of framing it.
[23:39] SPEAKER_05: We frame it. It's like, I want everybody to participate. And there's very easy mechanisms for those who decide to move on.
[23:52] SPEAKER_05: You know, simple expression, you know, they were heard of a happy marriage breaking up. You know, there's people around happy. Then the breakup should happen.
[24:00] SPEAKER_05: So, both of those things are true. You should be, you're going to have a much bigger pie.
[24:07] SPEAKER_05: You mean the 100% of the small time or much tiny a percentage of a much bigger pie? I think you're smart. But it was giving up control. And that's a tough thing.
[24:20] SPEAKER_06: Especially for, and I say this, we'd love to all of the entrepreneurs out there myself included, especially hard for people who are entrepreneurial because a lot of times they want to be entrepreneurs to have the control.
[24:33] SPEAKER_05: Yeah. It's a self-awareness thing. And, you know, I've gone through an art. Josh is going through an art as far as, you know, initially you're doing the granular things I need to be done.
[24:44] SPEAKER_05: But as things progress, if things are going to progress, as they progress, you can't be that person. You have to move upstream. Thank you. You have to develop a bigger skillset. You have to walk away. And walking away from things means you're trusting somebody else to do them.
[24:58] SPEAKER_05: Now, if you want to hire somebody to execute a policy manual, that's one person or start out there. I are really smart, motivated person. And they may change the way that that's being done.
[25:09] SPEAKER_05: But if they're a good quality person and you trust them, what they've had it, because they couldn't be stopping so arrogant that we only know the right way of doing it.
[25:20] SPEAKER_05: Somebody else can do it differently as well or better. And, you know, stay in touch with it. Make sure you're batting it from publishing goals on the rest of it.
[25:28] SPEAKER_05: But come from a place of, yeah, there's probably another way to do this. And that's okay. The world's not going to stop revolving. If they make a small change of policy that data, the ecosystem, the same.
[25:42] SPEAKER_06: It's a, it's a growth mindset. It's an aspect of growth mindset, right? It's being open to the learning and the change. And my favorite part is I live my life. Obviously, it was going to touch the things. Okay. So we're going to call.
[25:53] SPEAKER_06: Yep. Yep. Listen, I agree with you. And I use those labels because it's easier to do when I'm working with people and then there's familiarity. But yeah, that's just it.
[26:04] SPEAKER_06: You attach labels to thing.
[26:06] SPEAKER_06: So I am curious how long have you been working together formally at this point? And Josh, one of the things that you mentioned was that this was about doing things differently, right?
[26:19] SPEAKER_06: Like you, you know, I'm kind of paraphrasing, but leaving the traditional corporate world. And this was an opportunity.
[26:30] SPEAKER_06: I forgot the other person's name. I'm so sorry.
[26:33] SPEAKER_06: Yeah. Yeah. Got it. Colin Dan, we're approaching things and thinking things differently. So what was that? And what was that? What was the appeal in that for you?
[26:44] SPEAKER_00: Yeah. So, so,
[26:47] SPEAKER_00: Dan, the answer to the answer, the answer to the question, the easy one first started working with Colin Dan and the rest of the team September 2018.
[26:56] SPEAKER_00: So, you know, it's been six and a half years or so now.
[27:01] SPEAKER_06: I'm pure bliss. I imagine. What's that? A pure bliss. I imagine.
[27:07] SPEAKER_00: Any entrepreneur that tells you it's pure bliss along the way, I think is full of it, right? So I think we all know that there's easier times than others.
[27:17] SPEAKER_00: The relationship side of things has always been awesome, which I think is the most important part of it.
[27:24] SPEAKER_00: But to say that I've enjoyed every single day in the last six and a half years, I'm doing picture. Yes, but small pictures of some days have been tough.
[27:34] SPEAKER_05: Well, I think we should share the audience that we actually lived together for most of the first month you were with us in a relatively small condo.
[27:41] SPEAKER_05: And we're different personality types, Josh, when I come start personal lives. And we have different standards with how we hold ourselves. So yes, after living together for a month, there was some friction.
[27:51] SPEAKER_00: Yeah, well, I've spent more time in an outside of work with Colin than probably anybody else, aside from my wife over the last six and a half years, if you can believe that.
[28:04] SPEAKER_00: So, it's true, right?
[28:07] SPEAKER_00: Yeah, we lived together for weeks at a time over that six year stretch. So it brings you pretty close.
[28:15] SPEAKER_00: You guys, you get to know each other pretty well.
[28:17] SPEAKER_00: But what were they doing differently? So first of all, as I said, people from Nova Scotia or an office in Nova Scotia buying an office in BC that I don't I don't think I've ever seen that happen.
[28:29] SPEAKER_00: I don't know that it never has happened, but it's definitely extremely unusual, especially when you consider it's Nelson, BC, which isn't the easiest or most locatable place on the map.
[28:41] SPEAKER_00: So that was unique. And I think highlighted their willingness to kind of step out of their comfort zone and step out of the normal track that that would be doing things.
[28:55] SPEAKER_00: And so for me, joining from Ontario again, we didn't have any location in Ontario. We didn't even know on day one where I was going to work out of.
[29:05] SPEAKER_00: So for me to get comfortable with something like that, to have seen them sort of take that type of location based risk before I think is encouraging.
[29:17] SPEAKER_00: But then, so as I mentioned before, I worked with a lot of different advisors and you see elements of how they run their business, how they manage their team, the way that they interact with you as a person or the back office as a person or other members of
[29:33] SPEAKER_00: your organization or other colleagues like other investment advisors and portfolio managers. So you get a bit of a sense for people's personality and ego or lack thereof.
[29:46] SPEAKER_00: And if you're me, as Colin would call me some young punk trying to join an established team or an established business and wanting to make an imprint and and be something in that business.
[30:00] SPEAKER_00: If you're joining somebody whose ego is going to crowd you out of that business or not allow you to even enter the room, that's going to be a problem for somebody like me.
[30:12] SPEAKER_00: So personality wise, as I've said a couple of times, I thought that there was likely to be a really good fit with Colin and Dan and again growth mindset. You mentioned it multiple times, but it's I think so important.
[30:27] SPEAKER_00: If you're going to build a long lasting and growing business to really want to push the envelope and learn new things and put yourself out there and be uncomfortable, be uncomfortable with, you know, pushing the envelope a little bit and they had demonstrated that too.
[30:45] SPEAKER_00: And I had I'd watch it happen for five or so years at that point. So I had a pretty good idea that that type of thing would continue. So it's all those things and probably a whole bunch of other other things, but that's it in a nutshell.
[30:58] SPEAKER_01: Join our thriving community of like-minded individuals who share a passion for success and innovation.
[31:04] SPEAKER_01: Canada's podcast dot com subscribe now.
[31:08] SPEAKER_06: Colin, I want to ask you a question because you know, as Josh mentioned,
[31:13] SPEAKER_06: located in Nova Scotia deciding to buy this business in BC.
[31:19] SPEAKER_06: When I think of our audience entrepreneurs who, you know, that isn't typical. That isn't an usual thing to do. There's inherent risk in that, especially now the blah, blah, blah.
[31:28] SPEAKER_06: It just says stupid. No, I listen. I am it's clearly not. I cannot call it stupid. It's clearly not stupid. It's unusual. But what?
[31:37] SPEAKER_06: Like I'm curious. Why?
[31:42] SPEAKER_06: I'm going to sum it up with why I'm like, where did that come from? This is a great, this is a great story.
[31:47] SPEAKER_00: I know this a good.
[31:48] SPEAKER_05: So, so when you talk to many entrepreneurs on their path, if they talk about a certain amount of skill and certain amount of tenacity and then there's a certain amount of luck.
[31:59] SPEAKER_05: And you kind of need them all in proper percentages in order to have a success.
[32:05] SPEAKER_05: So the mid range version of the story, this is going to be longer story or shorter story.
[32:09] SPEAKER_05: Mid-range version of the story was Dan and I made a leap. This is going to change my set.
[32:16] SPEAKER_05: We have purchased a software package and we were told we were in the first of thoughts. We televised us in Canada to purchase this package.
[32:21] SPEAKER_05: There was about a $35,000 spend. But we're geeks. We like data. We like having all the data.
[32:28] SPEAKER_05: So we took a leap. Again, selling argue stupid. But we we we overspent our technology to get the software package. And I was having fun.
[32:37] SPEAKER_05: Because there's lots of data. I like data. So that that software vendor called up said, hey, we have another advisor asking about this package.
[32:45] SPEAKER_05: Would you take a call? Absolutely. I'll talk to anybody who is going down this road because you never know who you're talking to or what's going on.
[32:53] SPEAKER_05: So we got a call from the guy in Nelson, British Columbia. We had a long conversation where what was going on.
[32:59] SPEAKER_05: And that somewhere in the conversation he said, you know, to graduate closer and I said, why is that going? I'm trying to sell my business.
[33:05] SPEAKER_05: And he said, oh, okay. So I gave him the name of somebody and I grew her. Who I knew was purchasing businesses. I feel this person to call and have a good time.
[33:13] SPEAKER_05: Now, the other thing was playing out. But we were having one of the worst winners that Helix has seen in a deck. I had 13 feet of stone.
[33:20] SPEAKER_05: I drive away. It was really close because leaving my keys in the house is starting to walk south to find better weather. I think I was.
[33:25] SPEAKER_05: I would say. And this guy calls back and he says air conditioning running in the background. So just second, I turned off my air conditioner.
[33:34] SPEAKER_05: Other muckern. Anyway, I was really angry about this. And you know, so that's percolating in the back of my head. We're still having a conversation about other stuff.
[33:45] SPEAKER_05: Anyway, so he calls me up like a month later and says, hey, it didn't work out. You know, would you still be interested in buying the business? Nothing.
[33:52] SPEAKER_05: Do you see that stuff? But I wrote it on a piece of paper. I put it in the corner of my desk and I kept looking at it.
[33:57] SPEAKER_05: Air conditioning. So we just sat there. It just percolated. I had a dimmer trend of the phone call. I was sitting at my desk.
[34:05] SPEAKER_05: One month later, the phone rings. I looked down the call. This place says this is called me. Well, I'm sitting here.
[34:13] SPEAKER_05: So I picked up the phone and I was in a mindset of, you know, hey, DC. It's a misnomer because Nelson isn't that much better than Elevates.
[34:21] SPEAKER_05: But at that moment in time, that one data point. The climate was way better than Elevates.
[34:26] SPEAKER_05: May as well have been Hawaii at that point. Yeah, exactly. So I was just motivated for a change.
[34:32] SPEAKER_05: And this is where Dan gets a lot of credit because Dan is another whole personality type. That could be another whole podcast for you.
[34:39] SPEAKER_05: But this isn't Dan's chance. This is when normally, but Dan very much is a reflective thinker.
[34:44] SPEAKER_05: And then when he decides to go along with something, he goes along. He's that. So somehow convinced him that he let's go and complain.
[34:51] SPEAKER_05: I've never seen DC. So let's line the country rent a car by flu Rockies and go visit this guy.
[34:59] SPEAKER_05: And we meet him in whatever reason like this person I talked to over 30 other advisors and what I can I wouldn't be good to tell the stories to how I got him to over the finish line to actually do this.
[35:12] SPEAKER_05: Because we didn't have a lot of common.
[35:15] SPEAKER_05: But we were able to get a deal done. And we walked into Nelson and he had a particular appetite for very aggressive gold mining stocks and very speculative stuff, which is nothing that we do.
[35:27] SPEAKER_05: Like we're very conservative and everything to do. And we were able to tell a story that the clients are very comfortable with and we're able to execute on.
[35:35] SPEAKER_05: I mean, along the way, I can remember the vivid scene and you can add to the soda if you need to, but get a phone call at five o'clock in the morning from our RPG because well, he to understand time zones.
[35:46] SPEAKER_05: So I'm sitting in my underwear on the deck of our hotel room because Dan and I were sharing one hotel room because back of the day. That's what you did trying to convince him to lend us something like.
[35:56] SPEAKER_05: $700,000. So there's a down payment to buy this book and he was calling you calling his stupid and what's wrong with you and can't use something closer.
[36:05] SPEAKER_05: And I can't remember what I said to him. I can't remember how I described it, but I was able to convince him that yes, this was a good thing.
[36:12] SPEAKER_05: And he signed off on it. And they gave us they finance the down payment for us to make purchase.
[36:18] SPEAKER_05: But I was vividly looking at a beautiful mountain. You see this. The sun was coming up very cold in my underwear.
[36:26] SPEAKER_05: And that was the moment that we were able to actually close the financing side to the deal started.
[36:32] SPEAKER_05: There's a million other stories about all of the other challenges we went through that actually stick and land that deal.
[36:37] SPEAKER_05: There was one of the staff that was working in office at the time was in part time. The minute assistant, who the advisor was telling us we needed to fire because she was lazy.
[36:47] SPEAKER_05: She now owns part of the business and runs our administration team. So, you know, we got in there with the different mindset that it is.
[36:55] SPEAKER_05: There's all expression if you judge a talk and stability by its ability to climb a tree, talk and so is going to disappoint.
[37:02] SPEAKER_05: And the less than there is that there's people who really thrive and write environment.
[37:08] SPEAKER_05: And you need to judge the people in that environment. So, in this particular case, but change in the environment, the staff there became future owners of the business.
[37:18] SPEAKER_05: I think the truth is that that's what we try to go back to the start of this whole story with attracting really good people.
[37:25] SPEAKER_05: We feel that we've done an environment that attracts and rewards rewarding both personally and professionally really good group of people.
[37:34] SPEAKER_05: Did I do a good job for the telephoto part of the story that you like to actually listen to?
[37:40] SPEAKER_00: Well, yeah, I think kind of what you emphasize there at the end is maybe a huge part.
[37:46] SPEAKER_00: Maybe the hugeest part of our collective success is that having the right people on the team in place is crucially important because if we didn't have the right team in Nelson or Pal River or wherever.
[38:01] SPEAKER_00: That would not have been a successful transaction.
[38:06] SPEAKER_00: And as you said, those the people in that office have become an extremely integral part of our organization.
[38:14] SPEAKER_00: And without them, we would be not nearly as successful as we've been.
[38:22] SPEAKER_06: Thank you for this conversation.
[38:24] SPEAKER_06: And before we wrap up, I just want to ask one question of each of you, which is if there was one thing, whether it's a lesson or a thought or takeaway that you would like anyone who's listening or watching this to have top of mind, what would that be?
[38:45] SPEAKER_04: First of all,
[38:49] SPEAKER_00: one lesson for being an entrepreneur or building a business or whatever I want whatever you want. It's open on purpose.
[38:56] SPEAKER_06: One, it can be a lesson. It can be a thought. It can be, you know, what stands to you.
[39:00] SPEAKER_05: Okay, I saw all by you.
[39:02] SPEAKER_05: I'll give her mine. I thought you probably have something.
[39:05] SPEAKER_06: This is good partnership right there. That's what partnership is all about.
[39:09] SPEAKER_05: The, and again, I can't claim any high ground on, you know, make this a conscious decision. It's just who I am and who the founding members of this firm are.
[39:20] SPEAKER_05: The biggest mistakes I watch, entrepreneurs may is trying to maintain 100% of the control and not recognizing what it takes to attract other talented people.
[39:34] SPEAKER_05: If you insist everybody do everything your way all the time around you, you're going to get frustrated that you got nobody there to really help you grow the business.
[39:45] SPEAKER_05: So the key to success, the key to long-term success, key to having a succession, the key to growing your idea to all it can be is knowing how to originally give up control gradually in the right way.
[39:59] SPEAKER_05: That's still maintaining the direction of your idea. And that is the best opportunity to attract the best talent and grow the overall mind.
[40:11] SPEAKER_05: Now, it's the same difficult, it's very risky. You've got to sit back and be able to accept other people failing around you or thinking they're failing around you and sometimes going,
[40:19] SPEAKER_05: or, sure, I thought they fucked that up. Oh, no, that's way better than I would have done it.
[40:24] SPEAKER_05: But, you know, so that's the biggest learning that I've taken, kind of the biggest power I think within our group is being willing to give up ownership and control of various aspects of what you're doing while still maintaining the direction of the overall business.
[40:40] SPEAKER_05: And that's going to attract and keep the highest quality of people you can ever imagine.
[40:47] SPEAKER_06: Excellent. Thank you.
[40:48] SPEAKER_00: I'm going to go, like, almost way simpler than that and way more millennials. So sorry in advance, but
[40:57] SPEAKER_00: because I'm not even though I'm like right in the middle of the millennial cohort, I don't think I really identify with most millennials and Colin shaken his head in agreement.
[41:06] SPEAKER_00: But I just think it's so important if you're building a business to like the people that you're aligned with.
[41:17] SPEAKER_00: And really, like, forget everything else.
[41:20] SPEAKER_00: The fact that I enjoy coming to work with Colin and Dan and Steve and everybody else in the office here every day and enjoy going for a beer with them or going to a social event with them or
[41:35] SPEAKER_00: having their families over for dinner on the weekend or whatever it is, that I think gives the business a level of, I don't know what the right word is, but you know, a commitment and a cohesion that you just can't get in my mind by strictly focusing on, well, let's grow the business or how do we optimize the profitability of this, the
[42:05] SPEAKER_00: interpersonal relationships, maybe I think are the most important thing that we've built here.
[42:11] SPEAKER_05: And you can't get there if everybody's trying to get as much as they can for themselves at these kinds of others, if that's your mindset, you can't get it.
[42:19] SPEAKER_05: It's one of those ones that if you have what Josh is describing, that only happens in an environment where you're not trying to stream, like it was not, you can't have a business with power struggle with people competing to try to control or own something.
[42:32] SPEAKER_05: And so have the relaxed first relationship. So I think maybe what Josh is describing is one of a symptom of a really good company or something to aspire to and the only way you're going to get there is by adopting certain set of principles to run your business.
[42:46] SPEAKER_06: I could not agree more that's that's those are wonderful takeaways for the folks who are listening or watching this. So
[42:55] SPEAKER_06: to find out more about verican, you can visit them online at verican, B-E-R-E-C-A-N dot com or at maybe the world's best URL, annoying the competition dot com.
[43:09] SPEAKER_06: And to the audience, thanks for listening to Canada's podcast, like, comment and subscribe to all our channels to get the latest podcasts from entrepreneurs across Canada.
[43:19] SPEAKER_06: Thank you both.
[43:20] SPEAKER_04: Thank you.