It takes a lot of hard work by the right people to get there

Transcript

Full transcript page · Interactive episode

============================================================
TRANSCRIPTION WITH SPEAKERS
============================================================

[00:00] SPEAKER_01: Welcome to Canada's podcast.
[00:06] SPEAKER_01: Welcome to Canada's podcast.
[00:08] SPEAKER_01: Great to meet you.
[00:10] SPEAKER_01: And right from the get go, I want people to know who you are.
[00:14] SPEAKER_01: So you get to tell them who you are.
[00:17] SPEAKER_01: And you know, a little bit about yourself and what you're currently doing basically.
[00:23] SPEAKER_00: Currently doing is in this exact moment.
[00:26] SPEAKER_00: I'm just kidding.
[00:28] SPEAKER_00: Phil, thanks for having me.
[00:30] SPEAKER_00: It's a pleasure to be on and speaking to you and your audience.
[00:33] SPEAKER_00: Of course today, my name, as you said, is Kyle Koteck and the president of Skylar Media Group.
[00:39] SPEAKER_00: We're a full service integrated digital agency in just north of Toronto and one.
[00:44] SPEAKER_00: You know, cater to, you know, a bunch of mid size and large size enterprise scale clients.
[00:50] SPEAKER_00: On holistic solutions for, you know, communication needs and that could be anything from tech stack.
[00:55] SPEAKER_00: You know, integration and how that works within a communications platform to actually just, you know, typical.
[01:04] SPEAKER_00: You know, more typical advertising needs such as, you know, social media, digital marketing or otherwise.
[01:11] SPEAKER_00: And of course the whole gamut that runs in between.
[01:15] SPEAKER_01: So, you know, we're both really in the same business, but I mean.
[01:20] SPEAKER_01: You know, why did you end up here?
[01:25] SPEAKER_01: I mean, you know, you're an entrepreneur.
[01:28] SPEAKER_01: What we should, you know, what was your journey to Skylar Media?
[01:34] SPEAKER_00: Yeah, the journey is interesting.
[01:36] SPEAKER_00: I mean, look, why am I here at the core of what we do, both of us is communication, right?
[01:42] SPEAKER_00: And, you know, whatever you want to call the actual services we provide, whether it's advertising or marketing, web, digital or otherwise.
[01:50] SPEAKER_00: Communications at the core of it.
[01:52] SPEAKER_00: And I like to consider myself a strong communicator and effective communicator.
[01:56] SPEAKER_00: And I dig joy in that. I dig joy in communicating and communicating on behalf of people as well.
[02:02] SPEAKER_00: So certainly, I think I was born with a love for, for, you know, this type of industry.
[02:07] SPEAKER_00: I didn't know I was going to wind it up in it. I had a completely different path set up altogether.
[02:13] SPEAKER_00: Of course, life happens sometimes.
[02:15] SPEAKER_00: And I got involved in a family business that was a print business at the time.
[02:18] SPEAKER_00: And we had a great group of clients, great people that worked with us and for us.
[02:24] SPEAKER_00: And I think the decision was made at one point to, you know, get away from the commodity side of things and get into the more service oriented side of things.
[02:31] SPEAKER_00: And took a lot of hard work and a lot of entrepreneurial fortitude.
[02:35] SPEAKER_00: And that's putting it nicely to kind of get to that spot where we were able to really, you know,
[02:42] SPEAKER_00: compliments our clients with what they needed.
[02:45] SPEAKER_00: But, you know, here we are 10 or 15 years later.
[02:48] SPEAKER_00: And I think that we're, you know, we're in a fantastic spot.
[02:50] SPEAKER_00: And we've built a lot of long term relationships where, you know, we don't have a lot of turnover internally or external.
[02:55] SPEAKER_01: So, you know, we've gone through what two and a half, three years of, of, it's not just the sort of the pandemic side of it.
[03:08] SPEAKER_01: It's brought on a lot of change in the way we operate the way we do business or we do this.
[03:16] SPEAKER_01: How has it changed your business in terms of, you know, then and now?
[03:24] SPEAKER_00: People in technology are probably the two biggest changes that we found.
[03:28] SPEAKER_00: I think that, you know, from a people perspective, first of all, there's been turnover at our clients.
[03:34] SPEAKER_00: And that's taken some, you know, obviously some getting used to, especially when you can't meet in person, you know, you meet new people constantly orders, whom and teams and, you know, the different.
[03:44] SPEAKER_00: You know, solutions available there, you know, and even internally, you know, they talk about the great resignation or whatever may be, but I think that there's, you know, people that are, are, you know, kind of diving in and finding out what's right for them.
[03:57] SPEAKER_00: And that means that we've had people come, we've had people leave.
[04:00] SPEAKER_00: But, you know, there's certainly people have, you know, come to get used to something different as well.
[04:06] SPEAKER_00: You know, one of the things I loved about the agency environment was the working together in the collaboration, the yelling and the screaming and the, you know, the brainstorming and all of that, the fun stuff.
[04:15] SPEAKER_00: And then for the most part disappeared and got replaced by, you know, avenues like this and, and look, you can still do it in theory, but it's just not the same thing.
[04:24] SPEAKER_00: You can't feel the energy as well.
[04:26] SPEAKER_00: You can't, you know,
[04:28] SPEAKER_00: it doesn't, the spark isn't quite there, I would say, is probably the best way to put it.
[04:34] SPEAKER_00: So, you know, on the people side of things, there's things that have changed and there's things that we're getting used to.
[04:39] SPEAKER_00: There's things that are still changing and we're going to still get used to for long time.
[04:42] SPEAKER_00: But that's, that's probably the biggest change. The technology though, and the way that, you know, just the way we're talking right now.
[04:49] SPEAKER_00: Maybe we wouldn't have spoken like this a couple years ago or a few years ago.
[04:51] SPEAKER_00: Obviously, as a facility did something like this, that's amazing. It's incredible.
[04:55] SPEAKER_00: And I think the ease of use we can now fit in 100 meetings in a day instead of the seven because we don't have to drive to each of them.
[05:01] SPEAKER_00: That's good and bad. It can be argued in both ways. But the reality is that's actually affected the way that our clients communicate.
[05:07] SPEAKER_00: And so how are they communicating to their audience? We have to think about that. We have to think about the solutions that they're using and then integrating their communication tactics into the technology that they have available, making sure that things are working officially,
[05:18] SPEAKER_00: making sure that they have optimal use of the tools that they do have at their disposal.
[05:23] SPEAKER_00: Because it's, it's, it's not just a must or a need to have or a nice to have.
[05:28] SPEAKER_00: It's a critical component of operating business these days.
[05:32] SPEAKER_01: Yeah, it's, it's, it's definitely a piece of the communications puzzle.
[05:37] SPEAKER_01: And I think people are still puzzling over it. But, yeah.
[05:40] SPEAKER_01: But I mean, after three years, I'm getting pretty used to it. So I think most people, most people are.
[05:46] SPEAKER_01: In terms of, you know, your own business. I mean, what do you think?
[05:51] SPEAKER_01: What's the greatest challenge you've faced in the business to date?
[05:57] SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah. Yeah. I mean, yeah. And there's three, right? So the original pivot from a printing company into a full service digital agency is not, it's not your typical evolution.
[06:08] SPEAKER_00: And again, it took a lot of, it took a lot of hard work by like all the right people, right?
[06:13] SPEAKER_00: So, and most of those people are still with us today. But it doesn't happen without each of them buying in hooklion and sinker and putting that effort into it.
[06:21] SPEAKER_00: So that was from a, you know, a mission critical perspective.
[06:25] SPEAKER_00: Certainly that, you know, at some point you have to decide to cut the cord and we did it. And it's hard to do that.
[06:29] SPEAKER_00: You know, you have guaranteed revenue coming in and you have a lot of guarantee.
[06:32] SPEAKER_00: But you, you know, you know, significantly amount of revenue. Yeah. Yeah.
[06:35] SPEAKER_00: And then all of a sudden, one day you're kind of cutting the cord on that and saying that no word is not what we're doing anymore.
[06:39] SPEAKER_00: We're doing that. So I mean, obviously, it was a much more of a, you know, a longer transition than that.
[06:44] SPEAKER_00: But the other part was certainly the recession 2008, you know, or their votes.
[06:50] SPEAKER_00: That was when we started the pivot. And I had taken out, you know, loans and I had, you know, moved into a new building and I had all these plans and I was doing.
[06:57] SPEAKER_00: And then the recession hit and we basically had no cash flow.
[07:01] SPEAKER_00: We had banks calling for our heads and it was not a fun time. We made it through obviously we persevered.
[07:07] SPEAKER_00: But, you know, I can't think of a year or a year and a half where I didn't sleep like that year or year and a half.
[07:13] SPEAKER_01: You know, from that experience, is there something that, you know, something that you could recommend to people.
[07:24] SPEAKER_01: Yeah, so you did that made the difference between failure and success.
[07:30] SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I think two things. I think the first thing that I did was I communicated very openly and honestly with my team about what was happening.
[07:38] SPEAKER_00: There were no secrets. There was no.
[07:40] SPEAKER_00: I mean, listen, let me take that with a green assault. I mean, obviously, you know, they spend my days disclosing every, every penny.
[07:47] SPEAKER_00: You know, every issue that regarded every penny, but open communication and full disclosure on so many things helped everybody align with what the ultimate goal was.
[07:56] SPEAKER_00: And I'm sure it wasn't easy for people to hear that. But I felt like that actually made a stronger as a team and everybody understood maybe where the anxiety might have been coming from or whether maybe why some of the energy was being put into a certain place.
[08:06] SPEAKER_00: And it helps everybody get on board and helps everybody align and you're all working towards one common cause. It's a big problem with the world today.
[08:12] SPEAKER_00: And a lot of the businesses that we work with is that there's fracture that exists from department department or person to person because they're not able to communicate like they would have if, you know, they were sitting up in that next.
[08:21] SPEAKER_00: But the other thing and it's so critical from a business perspective in my opinion is to diversify.
[08:26] SPEAKER_00: I was that, you know, 90, 10, you know, business where 90% of our revenue came from 10% of our clients and and a couple of our three biggest clients at the time probably got hit the hardest.
[08:38] SPEAKER_00: Subsequently, our business guy hit the hardest and I just promised to myself that if I ever make it through this, I will make sure that we're diversified in different industries.
[08:46] SPEAKER_00: We have different, you know, so whatever made effect of market in one situation won't affect it in another situation.
[08:52] SPEAKER_00: And then that way we've always got clients that are heads above the water and not just from a client perspective, but also from a services perspective because you can't have all the same services that may be, you know, I say killed, but, you know, killed in a certain, you know, economic environment.
[09:06] SPEAKER_00: So even at times where we feel like our, you know, maybe our web and UX services are in very, very high demand, but maybe creative is a little bit lower.
[09:15] SPEAKER_00: There are other times when then social media takes a, you know, a bigger, you know, climb and anyways, the point being that, you know, diversity in every single way that you can define that word is a great thing for a business.
[09:29] SPEAKER_01: We've got mentors by the parent, so what people we knew, I would like to ask, you know, in terms of mentorship, what's the best piece of advice that you've got given?
[09:41] SPEAKER_01: You know, you keep in your back pocket and pull it out every so often and it's just, you know, you didn't think of it, but you got it either around the basically.
[09:51] SPEAKER_00: Things are never as good as they are when they're going good and things are never as bad as they are when they're going bad and it's just so true, we have to look at the big picture with everything and if we look at tiny snapshots.
[10:04] SPEAKER_00: It feels like the world is our oyster some days and it feels like the sky is falling other days, but the reality is when you take a step back and you take a breath, you see that, you know, quite often things actually do level out and it's a lot more of a moderate.
[10:18] SPEAKER_00: But you know, climb or fall, then it feels like it is in the moment and I think breathing taking that breath, stepping back and remembering that it's probably been the critical mission critical thing for me to, you know, get through the bad times, but also the good times and not, you know, think that, you know, maybe meet plans based on where I am in the exact moment because in about a month or two things are able to level off and it's a good thing I didn't get to aggressive.
[10:43] SPEAKER_01: That's something, we'll have some fun questions. That was some great answers you gave the college was really good.
[10:53] SPEAKER_01: If you weren't doing what you were doing, what you're doing now, what would you be doing instead?
[11:00] SPEAKER_02: I'd be a hockey player agent.
[11:04] SPEAKER_02: It's interesting. That's interesting. Why?
[11:09] SPEAKER_00: Like the entrepreneurial aspect of it, you know, my original life plans were to get into law.
[11:16] SPEAKER_00: Also into business, I had, you know, just a different set of plans and I think in my business, I mean more of that, you know, NBA type of approach.
[11:25] SPEAKER_00: But I'm a huge sports fan and that was kind of my way it was even going through high school. That was my original plan. I wanted to do that because it kind of combined all the things that I really thought I was going to enjoy through my life.
[11:38] SPEAKER_01: What books are you reading? What book are you reading, listening to that you'd recommend to the sort of math, math, and impression?
[11:46] SPEAKER_00: I just finished reading a book called Breathe, actually, I just finished talking about breathing.
[11:52] SPEAKER_00: And it's actually one of the most profound books I ever read. A friend of mine just dropped it off and I'm like, I'm going to have a good one.
[11:59] SPEAKER_00: It's unbelievable. And I'll send you the link to it after.
[12:04] SPEAKER_00: Yeah, it speaks to the importance of breathing. And it sounds so, you know, redundant, right? It's breathing. We all do it. We do it every day.
[12:14] SPEAKER_00: There's a science behind it, but also a philosophy behind breathing that we don't even realize it that has existed for thousands of years that actually now people, much smarter than I have, you know,
[12:28] SPEAKER_00: scientists and just researchers have, you know, established conclusions about how much better we can make our life by letting our lungs do a lot of a heavy lifting that we actually don't allow them to do, believe it or not, but it's, it's helped me in a number of ways.
[12:43] SPEAKER_00: It's helped me sleep. It's helped me get through tough days. If it's helped me, you know, I've got three young kids. It's helped me get through times with them. It's been a, it's been fantastic.
[12:54] SPEAKER_01: Yeah, if you have to pick one word to describe yourself, what would it be and why?
[13:05] Speaker UNKNOWN: Ah.
[13:16] SPEAKER_02: Jesus, it's hard.
[13:29] SPEAKER_00: You know, I, I'm going to go with the word that describes what I'm doing right now.
[13:33] SPEAKER_00: Thoughtful.
[13:34] SPEAKER_01: I was about to say, obviously it's awful. So yeah, that's it. You know, you got it. You know, we're on the same page. We're all lying to it.
[13:44] SPEAKER_00: You know, I listen, I'll throw around ideas in my head like I aggressive and, and, you know, and progressive and I think at the end of the day, I, you know, I used to be a lot more reactive. I've become a lot more proactive and in my old age.
[14:01] SPEAKER_00: But also thoughtful, you know, really thinking through things. Why? How? What when we're, you know, all it's, it's so important.
[14:11] SPEAKER_00: You know, and I think it's a critical part of life, not just business, but life in general.
[14:17] SPEAKER_01: You're a fun one. Are you a morning or a night person?
[14:20] SPEAKER_00: Oh, a night. I can stay up all night, but I cannot wake up for the life.
[14:24] SPEAKER_01: Well, that's interesting. You know, I would say by 80% of the people I interview say morning, it's kind of interesting.
[14:32] SPEAKER_00: I'll tell you why I think it is. I'm a big sports fan and sports starts at seven o'clock at night and end at two AM sometimes.
[14:40] SPEAKER_00: I've trimmed my body to stay up so I can watch all the sports I can't, I guess.
[14:44] SPEAKER_01: That's good.
[14:47] SPEAKER_02: So what's keeping you up at night?
[14:51] SPEAKER_02: The three kids.
[14:56] SPEAKER_00: Without clashes, they're probably keeping my wife up more than they're keeping me up.
[15:02] SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I mean them certainly, you know, their share and what what I'm doing and how that will, you know, positively impact them and their opportunities in life.
[15:12] SPEAKER_00: I think from a business perspective, certainly what's next? I'm always that person who goes with being thoughtful.
[15:18] SPEAKER_00: What's next? I'm always thinking I, I, I, I'm a thinker, right? So I like, I mean, I guess we all are, but I tend to stay up.
[15:24] SPEAKER_01: What is next? What, what are we going to be in our industry in the next five years?
[15:29] SPEAKER_00: Yeah, you know, that I don't even think, oh, okay, I, we can definitely answer five months.
[15:33] SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah. I think five years is way too long.
[15:37] SPEAKER_00: I think that, you know, technology is just developing in such a rapid pace.
[15:40] SPEAKER_00: And it's not only the technology that we use, but the technology that our consumers, our audiences are adopting is rapidly changing the way they adopt technology is sometimes different than the way that the technology is originally delivered to the audience.
[15:56] SPEAKER_00: And so subsequently we have to really fly off the seat of our pants.
[16:00] SPEAKER_00: I don't know, I don't know where we are. I don't, I, I can tell you that it's not where we are right now.
[16:05] SPEAKER_00: I can tell you that, you know, some of the departments that we have right now look different than they do down the road.
[16:11] SPEAKER_00: You know, like, look at web web used to be like its own little thing, where it was just creating websites.
[16:15] SPEAKER_00: Now it's about creating user experiences. We still have a lot of the same people doing the same work, but it's involved in this entirely other, you know,
[16:22] SPEAKER_00: so, organism that kind of operates, you know, within itself, but still with the rest of the company.
[16:29] SPEAKER_00: So the social media change like that, you know, is how this creative continue to evolve to, you know, to the line of still being on the cutting edge and on the innovative edge.
[16:41] SPEAKER_00: Look, I'm excited about where the next three to five years are. I want to make that clear. I'm not worried about it.
[16:46] SPEAKER_00: But I use to stay up at night thinking about it, not because, and the thing that does worry about it is, I don't know when I hate not knowing that that's just the truth.
[16:56] SPEAKER_01: That's really that's true. Yeah, I think it's very hard. It's very hard to to nail it.
[17:03] SPEAKER_01: I think we're going to come to the end of it, because I can yak on all afternoon, but you know, we're not whatever we can't do that.
[17:11] SPEAKER_01: How can people get ahold of your Kyle? If they've listened to this and something's something's there that they want to connect with it?
[17:20] SPEAKER_00: LinkedIn, Twitter, our website skylarmedia.ca, but I'm available under my full name on LinkedIn or Twitter.
[17:28] SPEAKER_00: Look, I always say if anybody has questions or wants to talk, and whether it's about business or otherwise, a conversation never heard anybody.
[17:39] SPEAKER_00: And sometimes conversations are go places and sometimes they don't, but I welcome them. So just as you welcome me here today.
[17:46] SPEAKER_01: Oh, thanks for coming on, Candace. Welcome to the media.
[17:49] SPEAKER_00: Yeah, you too, Philip. Thank you.