This is Your Business Unleashed, a podcast about building a business that makes money without you. I want to help you grow your company effectively so you can enjoy your work and your life more. I’m your host, Clayton Aiken. I’m an accountant and business advisor and entrepreneur and a family man. Every episode I’ll provide simple, actionable insights for entrepreneurs who want to get off the treadmill. We’ll talk to other business owners about their journeys and industry experts about the tools that they use to gain a competitive edge. Let’s unleash your business. ile, and who we’ve done quite a bit of work together. Mike Morrison. Mike, thanks for joining us.

Thank you so much, Clayton.

Yeah, Mike’s done a lot in the marketing space. He is the owner and operator of Social West, Social East, Socail Pacific, Social at Home. I don’t think that’s a thing anymore.

Now it’s Social Next.

And I think, correct me if I’m wrong, but all of them together make up the largest digital marketing conferences in Canada, right?

Yeah, yeah. Social West in Calgary is the largest in Canada, and then the others are growing Halifax. Social East is the next biggest, I think. Cool. Yeah. I mean, there’s no way to really track that, but I can’t find anything bigger, so I just say it.

Well, you know what? If you say it enough, then somebody’s going to pop up to either refute it or not.

Exactly. And I’ve been saying it for a few years and no one said anything, so Perfect.

And then you’ve also got a podcast called I Quit.

Yes. Which is one of those podcasts that I go back to every now and then, I interview entrepreneurs about the day that they quit their job, what led up to that decision and how they decided to do it. And so not necessarily about their entrepreneurial journey, but what led up to that journey? I think for so many entrepreneurs, they can be stuck in that pre quitting period where their wheels are just spinning and they think, oh, everyone else’s situation’s different. Mine is unique. And so I try to find people with different situations so people can be applicable. So I’ve had a sister who quit her sister’s company to open another agency, things like that, and they’re still friends. So I wanted to show the breadth of people that quit and why they quit.

I love that. I mean, we do talk about the entrance to entrepreneurship story, but I think what I’m trying to do with this podcast is say, Hey, listen, we all have a really hard go of this entrepreneurship game, and I’ve seen a ton of your content over the years, and I think that’s part of what’s really attracted me towards you is there’s not a lot of smoke and mirrors with you. It’s just here it is. It’s hard. We’re grinding it out. We’re doing it together. This is a great community of entrepreneurs, and let’s try and make a run of this, right?

Yeah, and I think as a short, bald gay guy, I don’t fit the molud that LinkedIn presents as a successful entrepreneur anyway, so I’ve never felt that need to disguise myself as that. And as someone who looks at my numbers every day like you do, I have good years and I have bad years. And the goal is to find that middle ground.

Where you used to be a producer somewhere. What brought you to quit?

Oh, yeah. I mean, I have a degree in Spanish from a Catholic university in New Brunswick. I have a teaching degree, which I never used. And then I moved to Alberta and I was a greeter at a bank. I worked banquets for eight years at the Sheridan. Then I started a blog, and then I started at the same time, I was a faculty advisor at the University of Calgary for fine Arts students. And then that led to me, I was always the guest for a few years. I was a guest on Breakfast Television, as a city commentator. And then they eventually asked me to work there as a TV producer, which is something I had no experience in.

So hold on. They brought you on as a producer, and you’ve never done any producing?

No.

How does that happen? They’re pulling people out of school for that, right?

No, I know. And the interns were definitely very mad because they knew way more. I’d be like, I need to put that thing on the bottom of the screen. And they’re like, well, how are you getting paid to nd work?

(04:45)
But I always worked with them. Actually, they asked me and I was like, but I don’t know how to do that. And they said… and the blog was pretty successful… but they’re like, you’re basically doing that. You’re taking a piece of information and applying it to your specific audience. That’s all you’re doing with us. It’s a TV audience. And because of the website, I was so connected in the city and I still am super hyper aware of what’s going on, and who’s doing what. So that segment-producing job wasn’t a very technical job. There was always the people who were around that could do that. Mine was more writing the scripts, meeting the guests, coming up with developing storylines. So I did that for almost four years, and I just sort of felt like there wasn’t really much growth at Breakfast Television here, because the rest of the network has shows in Toronto and stuff.

(05:44)
And so I sort of felt trapped and the blog was still doing well. And so I told myself I kept waiting to make enough money to leave, but I was never going to be able to make enough money as long as I was working 40 hours at Breakfast Television. So I had to take that leap of faith and it’s terrifying. It’s very terrifying. Luckily, one of my first people that hired me was Breakfast Television. So I left on Friday and I was back on Monday as a freelance producer. So that helped. And I also, I gave three months notice. I was so scared. I mean, even now it’s hard to quit and to be a blogger is such a hard job. And so you imagine 10 years ago. So I use that time to build as many relationships as possible and establish different ways that people could work with me and things like that.

So the blog, were you monetized? Were you collecting? How do you make money? My blog doesn’t make, I mean indirectly I suppose, I put a bunch of information out there and hopefully somebody reads it, but were you making some money from it before you quit?

Yeah, I mean, there was money on it, definitely through some ads. I sort of had this angle of positive Canadian entertainment news, and so there weren’t very many sites that focused on that.

And so the brands and the networks and stuff like that, I became fast friends with them pretty quickly because they’re like, oh, here’s a guy. And while I didn’t study tv, I love tv. I understand it in and out. I know how it works, I know why it works, stuff like that. So when I was interviewing people, whether it was audio or writing, I’m a good interviewer and I am interested in who I’m talking to, and it helped me build a really nice reputation then. So definitely there wasn’t too many Google monetization sites just yet. So a little bit of money through that. But a lot of partnerships, so sponsored posts, sponsored campaigns, I got flown to Amex, flew me to Spain to see ColdPay in a bull fighting ring. And lots of wild opportunities that it was sort of the wild west for content creation. There wasn’t a ton of rules, but there was some money if you knew how to ask for it. Yeah, so it was mostly that. But then I started supplementing because I am always aware that what my profession is ebbs and flows, just because something is popular now does not mean you’ll be popular next year. You always have to be innovating. And so that’s how I started teaching workshops on social media to small businesses, which turned into these conferences.

You’re teaching people how to be an influencer? Because people would call you, I guess an influencer, right?

By that definition. That’s a weird word. By society’s definition or content, we try to say content creators now. It wasn’t that to this day couldn’t tell you how many Instagram followers I have. It’s not something that drives me. And I think I came in on the ground floor, so my success didn’t come from numbers. It came from the content I was creating. So I think that trained my brain differently than if a content creator was going to start today, it would be so much harder. But mine was more teaching small businesses how to use social media and how to know when they were getting a host by social media managers and things like that. I think I had a hard time seeing a one or two person shop hiring a social media manager to run their Instagram accounts. And I was like, no, you don’t have that money.

(09:44)
You don’t need to spend that money. I’m just going to show you how to do it. And then it has just grown. And so now Social West gets about 850 people at it every year, and it still has that education feel to it, which I think causes the success of it. So the speakers that do terribly at Social West are the ones who get up there and just talk about themselves and aren’t interested in teaching the people in the audience.

(10:09)
Most conferences, they pay to speak or they’re there because their company sent them to try to get new customers. And my philosophy when I work with the speakers is like, you’ll get those customers if you just give a good presentation because 25%, 30% in that room is going to say, “that’s really cool that you know how to do that, please just do that for me” as opposed to me learning how to do that. So I had talked to someone this past month, and they said what they really liked about it was that no one in this stage acted like they were better than anybody in the audience. It was almost as if I chose 30 people at random and they got to go up and speak. And so there was no ego about it, and if someone dropped out, I could probably find someone in the audience to give a presentation. And that’s sort of been this sort of secret sauce to our success.

Yeah, I think you’ve hit on a couple of really key points here, just key takeaways maybe for entrepreneurs that I really believe in. And one of those is we’re not here to sell anything. I mean, sales isn’t a dirty word, and we need to sell, we need to generate revenue. But I think that the real business comes from if there’s tier one thinking where it’s, okay, what do I think about myself? Sort of self-awareness tier two thing is what does Mike think about me? And by the way, what do you think about you. You said you’re good at interviewing, so am I doing all right?

You’re doing great! You’re asking questions about the things I actually said. That’s like interviewing one-on-one. Good people don’t even do that. So you’re doing great.

Well, as I say, I’m not here for me and you can’t be right. It’s like we’re all on this crazy journey together. And so then you get into tier three thinking, which is where the real good stuff happens. We’re talking about this in our three to five club this month, where you go, what is the other person thinking and feeling about themselves and how can I help that journey? Even when it’s maybe to my own detriment, and I’ve seen you do this so much in the years that I’ve known you where it’s like, you know what? I’m going to just do something and maybe I won’t get any benefit of it out of it worse. Maybe there will be a detriment to me. I can think of a lot. We’ll talk about covid later, but maybe there will be a detriment to me, but it’s good for other people. And so I think that that’s where the real great entrepreneurs live is in that tier three thinking, right?

Yeah. I say my accountants probably don’t like me, but I’m actually talking to my accountant now. But I do tend to put on events, come up with ideas without much of a budget in mind and that it is something I need to change a bit. But also, I don’t want to not rent out a movie theater to show a really cool movie about a topic that lots of Calgarians are talking about. I’d be like, oh, there’s actually a movie already about this. I’m just going to rent out the plaza for 500 bucks and we’ll all watch it and we’ll discuss it afterwards. I don’t want things like that to be budget driven necessarily. And I definitely, I’ve been lucky having done this so long, I sort of know what’ll work, but even recently, depending when this airs, so technically last night, but recently I had a 10th anniversary party for my company and tickets were $59 and there’s a silent auction and things like that.

And it’s great, by the way. Thank you. Yeah, thanks for coming. It’s really lovely.

And I think I have an amazing network, and so I always love when I see them together and connecting. And at those events I tend to just sit back and watch people and that stuff makes me so happy.

Hold on. And you raised almost $7,000 for Centre for Sexuality, which was great. That’s a good chunk of change. Well done.

Thank you so much. Thank you. But to charge tickets for that was weird for me, but I couldn’t take on all those costs myself. And so the event coordinator I work with, she’s like, oh, I thought way more people would come. And I was like, this is a very weird event. This is event that’s celebrating me and I’m charging people to come to it. I was like, the fact, never thought about it that way. Yeah, I was like, but the fact that 75 people came is incredible. I was like, I don’t know if I’ve ever seen an event like this, but that doesn’t, when I thinking of that stuff, that doesn’t really occur to me. I sort of know what makes a good event and how to pull it off and what strings to pull and who to ask favors from. And that’s, I think sometimes, like you said, sometimes they make money, sometimes they lose money. Most of the time they help me pay my mortgage, which is great. Yeah.

Well, and I would think from visiting your website and looking at the things that you’ve accomplished, you’ve had some big, I’m not going to say who they are, but you’ve had some pretty big companies paying you to spread a really nice message and talk candidly about stuff. And it’s like, that’s pretty awesome. And so I would think, Hey, this guy’s got to be, he’s probably on his own private jet buy now.

That’s not true.

Yeah, I know. But with the appearance, it’s so interesting. And then when I get to talk to you and see you live, it’s like, no, it’s just a normal dude, so I love that about you, right?

I’d like to make more money, but I even worked for Oil and Gas here in Calgary for a little bit and it doesn’t reverberate with me. Well, there’s something about it where I’d like to make more money where I’m comfortable, but very rarely do I make decisions based on money in terms of my company.

So how do you measure success? You’ve said once in this podcast that you alluded to that you’d achieved some level of success. So how are you measuring that and what does that look like to you? How do you go? You know what? I’m good with what I got here.

It’s funny, there’s two things. So again, going back to short, bald, gay guy, so high school and stuff wasn’t great. I don’t have the horror stories that lots of people do, but it wasn’t great. And so now being a person that people recognize on the street or are excited to do podcasts with, stuff like that, that sort of fills a little 17 year old Mike’s bucket, things are going to be okay someday people are going to like you, you’re good. Stuff like that. But I think I remember last year when we did Social East, we had an opening reception for the speakers and stuff, and I went home and cried and I’m on a lot of antidepressants, so it takes a lot for me to cry. And I cried because I couldn’t handle the positive feedback that the speakers are saying about what they get out of our events. It does tend to be zeros and ones and connecting emails and stuff like that. And so then to see people, and I mean you work with some of ’em, but some of our speakers go on to start their own businesses, to start their own podcasts, to grow, to be super successful. The fact that maybe that starts with me, that to me feels like success.

It’s interesting for me in growing Achen Henderson, you knew us when we were very small. You started with us when it was just a couple of us and now we’re pushing 20 people if you include everybody. And for me coming into work and going, okay, together we are putting food on 20 people’s tables. We’re doing a thing here where we’re creating and we’re growing sort of our message. And we get to do that with our clients at a level two, we’ve just gotten into the fractional CFO game with some construction companies, for example, and bookkeeping is important, but it’s not going to change the course of a business very often. Originally I thought it would, and I was saying that publicly and it didn’t happen because bookkeeping is recordkeeping, the fractional CFO stuff and the visionary stuff is what’s important.

(19:28)
And we’re working with these companies now with some high level resources. I could see some of the success stories, but it’s so hard, Mike, the emotional stuff. I go to conferences, accounting tech conferences mostly, and listen to other firm owners talk about how great everything is. And it’s like you’re not telling the whole truth. That’s another thing I love about you is you kind of tell the whole truth. And just here’s the real thing, and it’s emotional man. This journey is really, there’s a lot.

Yeah, it’s really hard and sometimes it’s really easy and sometimes it’s really hard and I don’t think I want to do anything else right now. I also know by now I tend to be a person that once I’ve made up my mind about it, I tend to think about things. And once my mind is made up, then you can’t really go back from it in my head. And I don’t think about leaving this kind of world I’m in right now. I think about evolving it. So I’m not involved in the minutiae of events and sort of hiring that out a bit more. But I want to be the person that is the access to the best information and I want to find the best speakers who are growing and make sure that they learn about asking for the right rights and getting the opportunities that they deserve and things like that. So I don’t want to sound sanctimonious, but definitely my moral compass runs a lot of my business and a lot of my decisions are based on that for sure.

Yeah. I want to talk about how you shifted your business on a dime very, very uncomfortably during the C word period, during the before time and we’re in the after time. Now I always talked about, without actually naming you, I wasn’t sure if you’d be comfortable about it as one of our success stories and saying, here’s a person who figured, and not everybody had this option, by the way. Not everybody had this option. You could go online and all that. But I just want to talk about for a minute about change in evolution and how you were able to turn on a dime to make that happen and what you did when everything, because you host didn’t person conference, and that’s weird.

90% of my business was wiped out in a day. And I mean it was so hard. And honestly, when I think about those first few days, they’re really hard for me to think about because as an entrepreneur, you’re used to making mistakes and being like, oh, I learned from that mistake, or that’s my fault. I shouldn’t have done that. But all of a sudden everything was gone and I did nothing wrong. And that was so hard for me to process, but also no one could help me. It felt like no one could help me because everyone was going through it at the same time. And I really pride myself on not asking for help and not coming off as Buy my tickets please so I can keep going. So I was like, I actually don’t know what to do right now if a lot money that people, a lot of money for an event was already spent in terms of marketing, booking flights, all that stuff.

So give me the timeline. So everything’s shut down in March. So you had money in the door, you paid a bunch of money.

So we had Social East and Ottawa planned. So we were about three weeks away from that and we had about 250 people going. And then we had already sold about 500 tickets to Social West in June. And so our runway was super short, but I knew that it was an opportunity to become sort of an expert very quickly. And so while I didn’t know what I was going to do with our tickets and refunds and stuff, I was like, as long as I show that I’m thinking about it, I think people are going to be okay. So many things going on, a $600 conference ticket is not a priority for lots of people. So especially where most of our attendees are professional development. But for me, obviously it’s priority. So by March 20th, so a week later we were holding a webinar, a crisis webinar on, we did that together.

(24:01)
Yeah, yeah. Well, we did a couple things. So we did one instantly that was like, what should your brand be saying right now? And 800 people came and then the next week we did something similar and another 800 came and then we switched to, and this was all while I was trying to figure out, we still even then it was like, oh, two weeks lockdown. We had no idea. So I was like, well, I don’t want to keep, and so then April was, we created this four week workshop where we had different speakers every day and I basically said, look, I think it was like I’m going to make up a number, and it was like $25 for four weeks, and if a hundred of you buy tickets, I can pay our speakers and if 200 of you buy tickets, I can give myself $2,000 that month.

(24:50)
And we had four or 500 people sign up. And so I think we really quickly became the go-to stop for, okay, everything we know about marketing has changed exchange. And it was the Canadian perspective too. I think that really helped and that we found technology that was super easy to use, that wasn’t cumbersome, that wasn’t all that stuff. And then when we finally decided that we had to cancel everything, what I wrote this email, and I honestly think I had four or five crisis comms people read it. It was the most perfectly worded email. It had to convey, yes, we’ll give you a refund, please don’t ask for a refund. It was this perfectly worded thing. And so what we offered them was full refund or two virtual conferences and no one had done virtual conferences yet. And it was basically, if you’ve been to our events, this is not going to be a boring virtual conference.

(25:47)
We will figure it out. We’ll make it cool, we’ll make it fun. So our hope is that you do this, but of course we understand it’s your money, it’s the pandemic. And 80% of the people took the virtual conference. And so that saved us that all of a sudden we had money to put on these virtual conferences. And so then we ended up doing five of those. But what made us unique was we sent everyone boxes, bitch and gift packs, man, they were calling and then they were engaging with the customer, with the attendees. So some speakers would put stuff in the boxes. So during the presentations they’d be like, Hey, look in your boxing at this, or some sponsors, we did drag bingo with a t b, and so there was a bingo card and dabbers. And so what I liked about that though is that we were hiring the print shops lost all their business.

(26:38)
So it’s like, no, we found work for them and we found work for the drag performers and we were bringing all these people for this journey. And for that first year, especially all the companies, they still had their sponsorship dollars, they still had their marketing dollars, they just had nowhere to put them anymore. So that was sort of our pitch, like, hey, we’re doing stuff. And I remember our retention was sort of our biggest key to show success was retention. And I think the first one was maybe six or 700 people and it never dipped below 95% retention for a six hour conference in front.

A new business is born.

So we’ve kept that to a degree. I want to do it more, I just need to plan it more. I don’t think a virtual conference can’t exist in this day and age. And what was really great about it was that it doesn’t need to be as expensive as a real conference, but also it can reach people. We had people from every territory, every province come to our virtual conferences. It’s way more affordable for them to attend a virtual conference if you live in Nunavut than flying down, getting a hotel, stuff like that. So it was so fun for me as the person we were coordinating, shipping the boxes and just seeing where all these boxes were going and knowing that to this day that we made custom socks for each event and that those socks are all over the place and stuff like that. That was a really, I can look back in that time now and be like, that was really effing cool and I can’t wait to do stuff like that again. Hey,

That’s such a neat, I remember when we got to the end of it, I remember when we got to the end of it and you’re going, you were posting about should we go back to in person, you were really agonizing about whether or not to rent an event space and start hosting in person again because, and this maybe is a good segue about this renaissance of human connection that I think is happening right now. I believe that, and you’re fretting about will people want to attend in person? And were sort of polling and going, because this is going to be a big outlay to get the in-person thing going again, right?

Yeah. I mean that was so hard and especially during this time I moved to the east coast to be closer to my parents. How the East coast was dealing with the pandemic was completely different than Alberta where our main event is. And so on the East coast, there was no way we would be able to hold an event. The rules were still really strict and people were really, I dunno if scared is the right word, cautious. They were still very cautious where Alberta was sort of we’re open for business, dah, dah, dah, dah. And so I was sort of like, are you actually, if I put an event on, are you going to come?

(29:20)
And I was like, I’m going to do things to make sure that it’s as safe as it can be. And so we did some things, but we put it together in seven weeks, which is insane for a conference. Never do that again. But I had to, it was in seven weeks or next year and people were sort of moving on for the virtual conferences a bit. Our numbers were going down. So I was like, I am in this fluxx again. How do I decide to come back? And we came back and I don’t think we made a ton of money, but we established ourselves as we’re back. And that made us coming back next year easier. And even this year has been, tickets went on sale five hours ago and they’re great already. So I’m glad that we came back, but it was really, really hard to gauge what people wanted. And I remember the biggest difference was how much people wanted to talk. So we had a major sponsor, a title sponsor, and they had done these really elaborate activations. They’re listening. It was a flop basically because that’s not what people wanted. People wanted to sit and talk and so human connection. And so they hadn’t talked to anyone. And so the second day we honestly scrapped the whole thing and we turned it the lobby. It was outdoor lobby that was covered and we brought in food trucks and we had a DJ and we had cool places to sit and people just hung out and everyone knew it was the sponsor that put all that on and that worked so much better. So

Hold on. You did that overnight, You did that change? 

Yeah. Yeah. I don’t know how to package it, but I have a really good observation. I can tell when something’s not working and I’d rather fix it right away as much as we can.

Listen to your customers. 

Yeah, I always say the customer’s not always right, but the customer always decides. 

Always a customer.

Yeah, I can do what I think they’re going to do, but they inevitably decide what they want. And it’s not just me. We had an amazing event team, lots of colleagues helping us, but I’ve always had, I plant moles in each of our theaters, so colleagues or friends or if someone’s like, I really want to come but it’s out of my price range, I just lost my job. I’m like, cool, come, go collect intel.

And I was like, just tell me as the days are going on what people like what they don’t. Is the theater too cold? Is the screen not working? I don’t want to find out about that stuff in that post-conference survey. I want to be able to fix it right then and respond to it and react to it. And I think in the 10 years I’ve been doing this, most people are fine with any speed bump as long as you a acknowledge that there’s a speed bump. So it’s as simple as when you’re at a restaurant and they’re really busy. If the server comes and says, I’m very busy. I’m going to be about five minutes, but I’ll be right back. You could be in half hour, I don’t care. But if you don’t talk to me at all in those first five minutes, then I start getting really anxious. And so acknowledging what the customers might have issues with or making a joke about it saying, yeah, it’s super hot in here, but blah blah. We’re like, there’s free. We brought in a bunch of water outside or really responding to it I think has been a lot of our success that people know that I’m genuinely interested in making sure that they have the best time possible.

Yeah.

So many not just at the next event they paid for that event, they don’t want to hear that you fixed it at the next event. They want you to fix it. Yeah.

Well, I mean that’s why you’ve got the largest conferences in Canada in this department. I think there’s so many great takeaways in what you’re saying, and I kind of want to wrap with a some key thoughts that you have for new entrepreneurs. 

So I don’t know everything that’s going on in my conference, but I have people there who are watching each theater. And so it’s knowing to sort of delegate and to trust people and say, there has been times where the event team I work with will say, we should do this. And I have to be like, no, I think it’s this. And they’ve come up and been like, oh, you are right. And then there’s other times that I’m not right, and they were right. But it’s having a team around you that where the goal is the same and the goal for us is always that the attendees have an amazing time. I think a lot of events. Context.

Yeah,

A lot of events. I think they think about the event up until the event starts, and then it’s sort of on a rollercoaster where I think I am still thinking about that event two weeks later, all the little things, because one of my philosophies is I spent a ton on marketing at Facebook ads to get the word out and stuff like that. One way I can combat that is making it easier to come back next year. So if you have a great time, hopefully I don’t have to spend a ton of money marketing you to come back and you’ll just come back. My hope is that my marketing budget, the longer we go on the marketing budget gets smaller and smaller.

For attendees.

For attendees. Yeah, exactly.

Yeah. I am super grateful for some of the connections in the marketing industry that you’ve helped me make. And it turns out they’re speakers at your conferences. So if anybody listening is interested in all things marketing, these conferences are a great idea. And the people who I actually work with present at your conferences,

And they’re not just for marketers, they’re for people who need marketing. That’s the big, and everyone needs marketing. I was talking to a tech startup group last year and they’re like, oh, we’re more tech startups. But I was like, okay, but what happens when those tech startups go into the real world? They have to know how to talk about it. They have to know what they should be spending money on. They need to know what the customers are going to a light, all that stuff. But they tend to just think about getting that funding and moving forward and they forget about the marketing part. As you probably know, when budgets get tight, marketing’s the first thing to get cut, first thing to go, and it’s the stupidest thing to let go. You’re not going to get more customers without them hearing about you.

Absolutely. Okay, let’s do a quick shotgun round here on Give me your top tips for someone starting out a new business right now, because I know this is sort of a passion area for you. What are the things that you’ve learned through the I Quit podcast and doing your essays and all this, I’m about to start a business. What do I need to know?

Yeah, I mean I think really first of all, just start it. Just do it. You can’t plant Rome wasn’t built in a day. What you start your business on day one, your business is not going to be the same 365 days later, so you have to start to see if you even like it. I started to be, I left basically to be a writer and blogger and I liked it, but that’s not my lot in life. I’m still trying to figure out my lot in life. But you can end up spinning your whales forever and you won’t know until you start it and you might not like it, but at least then you tried it. And then you can go back to a different kind of employment. And

Then number one, get moving, stop analyzing. 

Even with events, when people, I get a lot of questions, how do I do events? And I always say, book the venue the first thing you do, then you have to do it. You pay your deposit, your neighbor come. Yeah. And then I think too, sort of really rather quickly identifying your weaknesses, I ended up at your office door. I wasn’t doing my bookkeeping for five years or something like that. And with the events were happening, so there’s hundreds of thousands of dollars going into my bank account and out of stuff to do every month. And I passed grade 12 math. My teacher felt bad for me, so why would I, that’s very true. Why would I think that I can handle those numbers when I talk to you? I’m always like, I have no idea what you’re saying. Just do it. Just I have no idea.

(38:37)
And that’s why it can had her sense. So great. But thank you. It’s sort of identifying your weaknesses. And now it’s funny, now that I’m 10 years into it, I’m really trying to focus on the things that bring me joy to my company. When you’re an entrepreneur, there’s lots that doesn’t bring you joy. You get stuck doing the stuff you really don’t want to. But can I hire that out or is that idea dead? That thing. I’ve been trying to get started for four or five years. It’s not working. I have to move on. And just sort of clear cutting my schedule and my goals a bit and really focusing on the stuff I really, really like. So definitely not taking on too much and finding colleagues or finding Derek and so many people, they’ve sort of built this collective of people, which I’ve seen where they sort of recommend people. And he had a really good LinkedIn post today that rubbing, rubbing shoulders with his competitors. But sometimes you’re fault, and so you’re like, I’m full. Use this person instead. 

The pie is very, very big. We just sent the customer over to one of our competitors.

Oh yeah. Great. Yeah. What was the competitor’s name? No, I’m just joking.

Yes. Okay. So tip number two is going to be, you know what you’re not good at and don’t focus on fixing it. Focus on the things you are good at and get rid of the rest.

Yeah, I’m 41 now, and if I really cared about CRM systems, I would’ve learned how to do that by now. I don’t care. I’m going to find someone else who cares passionately and can build it out for my company.

Yeah, good tips. I appreciate it. I’m so grateful that you agreed to come on, and this was great. I learned a whole bunch about you today, so yeah, maybe we need to go for beer more or something. Yeah,

Please. I’d love that. That’d be great. No, you’re always so great, and it’s always great to chat with you, and I love that. I love all the things that you do for small businesses and entrepreneurs, so thanks for me, the opportunity.

Right on. Alright, Mike Morrison from Bloggity Inc. Thank you so much for joining us and we’ll see you on the next one.