Great stuff for you to listen to before going to sleep, which is more like the podcast. I do coy. This episode of the C Drive podcast is brought to you by business career college, business career college is a leading provider of financial services education, including the life insurance licensing program, the entire set of courses leading to the CFP certification, which is actually where I spend most of my time teaching and where I have met many of the participants in these podcasts.
We also provide continuing education credits, live classroom and webinar instruction in support of the elder planning counselor designation and a few other odds and ends in support of folks in the financial services industry. You can find the full catalog of course offerings at www dot business career college dot com. And welcome back to the C Drive podcast. This episode, we're trying a couple of new things. I'm going to first just go through the C credits here.
They're a little more restrictive than what we're used to. And this might be an object lesson in content marketing, which is the point of this episode anyways. So we're going to talk about practice management here and this is a non technical category. And because of that, a bunch of the provincial insurance rules do not allow C credits. So this episode is good for financial planning, Canada credits in the category of practice management. It only allowed five practice management credits per year.
There will be no Ontario life insurance credits, no Manitoba credits, no Saskatchewan credits and no BC credits. So what are you left with? Well, as I mentioned FP Canada's Practice Management credit that will be approved for life insurance credits in the province of Alberta. It's good for Advocates credits on the IAS side and as well, it's an IROC professional development credit.
So not that there's no credits to be had, but certainly with non technical content, we lose some of those opportunities. I won't do too many non technical episodes, but I thought Sean and Corey do have some really useful advice to share here. So, yeah, where did this whole thing come from? Well, Sean Todd and Corey Butler are a couple of guys that I know from Otto. I know Sean really, I've known him for years.
And if you follow me on social media at all, you'll see Sean occasionally pipe up on some of my social media feeds, which is always welcome. But they have been doing a podcast that I would consider fits very cleanly in the category of content marketing. It's this sort of idea that you're building a presence, you're building some content.
A lot of really good advice here, I'll talk about this in a minute in terms of how to think about content marketing and also the things you can do to make this effective. So I want to just point to a couple of things that they'll point out in the episode. First off, I think it's important if you're going to do something like this just to get started. And this was actually the topic of one of the recent episodes on the Kisses and Carl Podcast as well.
If you think you have something to say, you have something to say, just get out there and produce some content, it does not have to be brilliant or it doesn't have to feel like it's brilliant to you. And of course, Carl Richards makes this point in that episode where he says, you know what he thought was his sort of, his masterpieces went completely unnoticed and then stuff that he zipped out just before a deadline, that's the stuff that got lots of activity.
So what you think is brilliant is not necessarily what's going to appeal to others, so just get out there. And as of course, Nike says, just do it. There's a bunch of different things you can do here. I mentioned in this episode going on a Zoom show that's actually with Laurie Power, who was the subject of our last episode, you can do a blog, you can just go old school and do a blog and there's, I think still a ton of demand for that kind of thing.
I see blogs from insurance agents, financial planners, investment folks, lawyers, tax accountants. I see all that kind of stuff get traction when it includes useful information. And this is one of these things where you might write 10 or 15 blog posts. You're not knowing which one is going to include sort of the useful information. But I promise you have something in your head that is useful and there will be a bunch of people out there who will be grateful to have access to it.
So think about a blog or you can go old school. I guess this is old school like I've done and do a youtube channel. So, you know, we're 7000 or so subscribers now on our youtube channel and that's a valid strategy. It's I like youtube. I'm a big fan. You might say, well, I'm sorry, Jason, but I'm in the 20 twenties here and you might go tiktok. I know tiktok is under some controversy right now, but you can look at Brad Clans, for example, on Tik Tok, he's excellent over there.
I'm really happy to see him get some good traction and Brad, of course, does really great behavioral finance and therapy stuff. He's excellent and happy to see him on tiktok. I'm not surprised he's sort of that expert psychologist and I think tiktok leans really well into that type of expertise, you might look at local media. We've had one guest on this podcast who talked about doing radio appearances if you happen to know. And I know a lot of financial planners, financial advisers do.
You might know somebody in print or radio or even in television? And they're often looking for good interesting guests and especially if you have something, you know, in COVID, for example, FP Canada and I'll give props to Kelly Keane here have done a really great job of sort of promoting this idea that Canadians are under a lot of financial stress and that's a useful message.
And if you sort of prepare that kind of thing, well, you might go to local media and say, you know, I'd like to come on and talk about this. You'll find those places are always looking for content. Of course, not the kind of thing that I would be doing. Not really in my comfort zone, but maybe that's a reason to do it. Corey mentions in here that it's good to plan it out a little bit. I think this is Corey.
I think Sean echoes this comment where we really want to think not overthink the problem, but it's good to have sort of five or six episodes or five or six blogs or five or six videos, all kind of queued up. I've got a fair number of these where I've seen the adviser who does one or two podcasts. About one or two they want to do or one or two blog posts as much as I said, just do it. It's good to get it happening. Do the first one, do a few more.
Have enough that you can sort of drip it out to your audience every week or every couple of weeks or whatever the case is. And we've run into this problem here pretty happy now. We're getting podcast episodes out every two weeks. But if I don't have a whole bunch of content queued up going into exam season, going into sort of October, November, I know that I'm going to have a problem come December and January.
So even now where we have a pretty good library of content on this show, we still have to make sure that we're planning it out. Well, the point also comes up in here that either you're going to do this or somebody else will. So you might say, well, I really like youtube and I'm a big fan of youtube shows, but I have no idea how to do it. Don't worry about it if you want to do it and it will satisfy this sort of creative itch for you.
And you feel like there's maybe some good stuff you can show to your clients, you can either pay somebody to train you to do it. Certainly lots of media companies out there to do that kind of thing or you can go pay somebody to do it for you. You might end up paying a little bit more than you want to pay. This really goes back to the concept of return on investment that comes up in the discussion here as to whether or not you're getting a good return on investment.
And I think the very philosophical approach that we hear in this episode to return on investment is quite helpful. The color for today's episode is blue, the color for today's episode is blue. Ok, let's hear from Sean and Corey. Lots of good content here. And I really enjoyed this discussion. I think you'll hear it in the sort of direction we take with it. Lots of fun. You can tell that Sean and Corey are very comfortable with this type of discussion.
Ok. Joining us today, we have Sean Todd and Corey Butler. Some of you might actually recognize Sean and Corey because I've plugged their podcast a couple of times on this podcast. They are the hosts, of course of the Mind and Money show, which is a podcast they launched late last year. Is that right? That's correct. Both are financial advisers at a financial in Ottawa, guess technically in Canada, right?
But Ottawa and both are with the Canada life wise group, which is a group of high performing advisory teams and you would both be mutual funds and life licensed. I think I have that right. That's correct. And Sean, you carry CFP certification. Corey, I'm not sure. Are you carrying CFP certification yourself? Not carrying CFP at this point? Getting closer to my CIM got a couple of courses left on the never ending to do list. And of course you have a background, that's where you guys met, right?
You met on that wealth side. You used to be a wholesaler for lack of a better term. Yeah, I was a wholesaler for uh front street capital for, uh, quite a few years. And prior to that was a wholesaler with the Wrenching Bank. Actually on the investment side or on the credit side, credit side. And Sean, you've been an advisor really, since you left your previous career. I think that's right. Exactly. Right. Must be two decades or so now. Not yet. No, it's looking at almost almost 15 years.
Yeah. Ok. I wasn't sure. I'm trying to put together time frames in my head here. So, no, it, uh, it goes quick. It does, it does for sure. So the reason I reached out to Sean and Corey today is because they're doing something that I think is interesting. They're doing a podcast and the sort of title I think explains a little bit of it, the minded money. And it's really just talking to a broad range of people here, diverse set of guests I've heard on there so far and it's not just money.
It's a whole bunch of stuff. I've heard you talk about physical health and mental health and recreation, about career choices and career transition. That's right. And I think you do a good job of a fairly, let's say, nontechnical, just conversational podcast. And I, I'm curious here about what brought you, what really led to the decision to do the podcast if you can just enlighten us a little bit here. I think it was a bit of a collaboration. I think it, it would be in my mind for a bit.
It's something I've, I've wanted to do and I had pitched it to Corey early on and I know Corey and I are, are kind of the same mindset. We're both into a bit of a growth mindset and I, I was pitching those night opportunity for us to utilize it as another tool. And uh I think right away, Corey was receptive to it and we just did some brainstorming on how it might look and who we might talk to and the, the topics we might use.
And of course, there's so many different directions you can go in but we were able to find something. I think that's working. Yeah. And I think it was very much we wanted to, you know, our industry as a whole. People hear me say this, we do a really terrible job of explaining things to people like the industry jargon is. It's terrible. Er, you know, so many people don't even really understand what a dividend is. Or, you know, the difference between an rsptfs A on and on and on.
And so it was, you know, we wanted to be able to entice someone to want to listen to us for 40 minutes, uh, and not put them to sleep. And so we thought, ok, let's find some topics that are relevant to everyone and it doesn't need to just be about investments, insurance planning. You know, we need to kind of broaden the scope on that and so far so good. We're very fortunate.
We have uh we have access to a lot of interesting people that I think would be neat to be able to, if they're willing, share some of their stories and challenges and perceptions and it, it's allowed us to do that. I think fitting in with what you're saying, Corey about the types of conversations you're having, you're not having these technical, like I've never heard you talk about what an RSP is or what a dividend is.
And I think, you know, clients largely would tune out at that type of conversation. Is that, was that sort of your thought process here? Yeah, that would be great stuff for you to listen to before going to sleep, which is more like the podcast. I do. Corey. Yeah, no offense, no offense. We're not judging. There's always room for improvement. That's right.
Yeah. So when you set down this path, was there a thought process about what would success look like, what would your return on effort or return on investment look like? Was it just let's do it and see what happens or did you really set out and say we're trying to accomplish this? And this is how we'll know if we've accomplished it.
I think there's the, you know, as an advisor, you're, you know, you're, you're, you want to prospect, you want to reach out to people and connect and we all know what it costs to go for lunch or for breakfast or dinner with a client.
Um, and we thought, well, you know, maybe this is a way to touch hundreds, maybe thousands of people and maybe that would turn around and if something came to mind and they in, in the world of wealth management that, you know, that client might pick up or that person might pick up the phone and call us. And I think that's a, that's a great scenario and that's a successful outcome when we started it. I think with the original belief that this might not get off the ground.
But if nothing else, we've done no harm because we've added value to someone, whether we've interviewed someone and tried to, you know, help them connect their business to someone else. That's good value. We might not have success, but it starts, it's starting to morph into something much bigger and that, that is, that's really attractive to us. Do you have a sense of your listener? Base. Is it, is it your existing clients? Is it sort of the general public?
Is it geographically concentrated in Ottawa? Do you know any of that information or do you have a sense for that? Well, Sean would definitely have a good handle on some of the analytics, but I can tell you from my own experience, just, you know, I was at the home and garden center a couple of weeks ago guy, that's not even a client. Hey, I started listening to the podcast. It's great.
I know my, my brother, he's in the military in New Brunswick and I think his whole regiment now is listening to us every time we're up, you know, when I've been traveling, uh you know, uh I had came across a guy that was an Uber driver and he, he started listening like that in the car while we were driving. And so it's, it's all over the place. So it's, I don't think we really, you know, have a, you know, a handle on, you know, as every one of our clients listening to it.
And I'm not really sure that that's the, you know, the desired result that you're looking for anyways. Like we do want to have that reach to clients. We do want to have that touch. But, you know, the hardest part of being an advisor, in my opinion, doesn't really have much to do do with your knowledge. It has more to do with your trust factor. Can you establish rapport? Can you build a relationship?
And so the podcast has become a way for someone to listen to us and decide whether they actually like us or not. Yeah. Great. Great point. No, I agree. Yeah. I, often when I'm listening, I think those are like the conversations you would have with a typical financial planning client where it's really just that sort of getting to know the client stuff, right? It's not, you're not talking money, you're really getting into the, the mind of the client, right? 100%. And I think that's how we started.
And when we first started talking about how we'd format this, I kind of pitched George between Corey and I to say, let's keep it casual, let's keep it like we're three or four people sitting on a, in a couch just talking. We've never had any issues, you know, really getting to the heart of a really good story with a client or even a group of people. So let's use this as an opportunity to dig a little deeper and, and have listeners listen to some things that never have never have heard.
Um And it seems to be really something that people are wanting to hear more of. And I, and my, my story is very similar to Corey. I've, I'm shocked at how many people from different areas have been tuning in. Our numbers are showing and we've got downloads in seven or eight different countries. Like I'm, I'm surprised at where these people are coming across our podcast, but that's just the way of the internet. So, very fortunate.
And I think, you know, for the advisers that are listening and, and thinking and considering, you know, ok, am I gonna go down this path and, you know, because Sean just triggered something where it was, you know, we've got listeners from all over the globe now. And so an advisor's initial first thought is like, well, why the hell do I want? Why do I care if somebody's listening to me in Australia or it's not about that, right?
And, and it's not even about the ro i on it in this context because it's about the reach, it's about, you know, the exposure, it's about the people that you're touching. And as we all know, the six degrees of separation, it quickly becomes maybe two degrees, maybe three degrees of separation.
So it's, and I think the sales cycle like if we, if we break it down, I'm not really a sales person, I'm I'm a really analytical, more of a planning style, but I still believe there's a sales cycle that has to happen. You know, we have to help people learn what they should be doing, inspire them to make some change. And I feel that's happening at a more rapid pace than ever before. And I believe that the decision making is happening earlier in that cycle, so to speak.
So if we went back 10 years ago, someone might have made a decision to deal with an advisor at the end of the first meeting or maybe even after the second meeting, they give the number opportunity to follow up and come back with some, some suggestions and say, oh, do I like this person or not? I believe that's happening much earlier. Now, people are making the decision whether or not to turn to a team of people.
Maybe even before the first meeting, they've done their homework, they've looked at the linkedin profiles, they've checked out the web pages, the Facebook, the social, listen to the podcast, whatever. I believe that decision's happening earlier. And for the reasons Corey's mentioned, I think we have to take advantage of that and get our message out so that we can help enable those clients to make those decisions and ultimately draw them to our firm.
And I think that's a great point and you mentioned this earlier to Corey, right? It's that you're building trust even before minute one of knowing that client, right? 100% now, as far as promotion for the podcast. Yes. And I know you have your brother, right, who takes care of the administrator side of the pocket ben. Right. Correct. Correct. As far as promotion and making sure that there's an audience out there for it. What efforts do you have on that front?
What we've learned is, you need to understand that all any content that you touched or produced, you have to recycle it. So it's not OK. I did this one podcast. OK. Move on to the next one. No, you need to use that one podcast in as many different ways as possible.
Whether you're pulling out a 32nd clip, whether you're highlighting it on the different vehicles for social media, you know, how you promote something on a linkedin versus a Facebook versus a Instagram are different times of the day when that's happening. So, uh it's, you know, so, and there is a little bit of trial and error. Uh You know, and so I think the biggest challenge when you start on this path and I can attest to it is you get very self critical, right? Did I say?
Um, and, ah, too much. Oh my God. I said, uh extraordinary 47 often times in that show that can't happen. That's crazy, right? So you kind of, you got to kind of let it flow and you get better and better. And even in this new, you know, environment where we're not sitting in the same room to do these podcasts, you learn to watch each other's mouths, you learn, you know, that it a pause is ok because initially you thought, well, everybody has to keep talking.
But the reality is, is there's always a pause in a conversation. So it's ok and it's kind of seeing that in terms of the expression on each other's faces. OK. Who's gonna talk next? That's extraordinary. Corey. That's extraordinary. Just so extraordinary, extraordinary. Yeah. And I think it's uh going back to your question too, Jason, as we spend time, the three of us talking a little bit of a road map on. What's your strategy gonna be?
So, like we've already sat down for this year and plotted out, you know, who do we want to have from a health side and who do we want to have? Because that was, that was a bit of Corey's idea. I, I want to credit there. It's like talking about this uh becoming a better person uh angle. And so we've, you know, we're working in health uh mindset uh money and we don't want to be repeating it too often.
We wanna have a break up of different topics, but we've, we've balanced it out through our team meetings and that's where we really target and decide who are we gonna reach out to. And it's funny because we've had uh it's about a 50 50 right now between having to reach out to someone to say, would you be interested in being on a podcast versus people who are actually reaching out to us to say I'd like to be on your podcast?
Can you, you know, is there any opportunity there now for those folks that reach out to you, they probably have not necessarily something directly to sell, but they have a message they're trying to get out or maybe they're actually trying to sell something and, you know, you want to bring that person on, but at the same time, you want to have good, interesting content. Where do you strike that balance? That's the creative side. So we really have to ponder over these.
Like we've had, we've had several, like, I, you know, probably more than six business owners have reached out and all interesting in their own way. And we kind of have to see do they fit? And the hardest part really in that process is just going to be able to go back to them in a nice way and say, you know, we're not saying no, we're considering it, but we just do have a bit of a road map and we're gonna try to fit you in. But yes, I agree.
We, when we look at the front end of the show, what we don't want is someone coming on and just spending 60 minutes talking about selling something. It's more like uh we want to talk about the challenges they face as business owners, uh you know, their entrepreneurial spirit. Uh What are they doing to me themselves, a better person? So I think that part of it, that human part is the interesting part that other business owners and other entrepreneurs are really going to relate to.
And there's also the element too as to the person that's coming on, you know, that helps into decision making if they want us to participate, who do they have following, who are they connected with? Right. Because if you recall, we're all old enough back in the day when Linkedin first started, well as an advisor, you did not want to connect with another advisor because you might see who each other are working with.
And I believe that it's clearly evident that that has changed and been put on its head and it's really the amount of connections that you have. It's a commodity now, it's so important and, and for anybody that's sticking their toe in the water in this world, connections matter, contacts matter, you can't have enough or even driving the bar up in the bar up is how we are all gonna do better in this business. I mean, that's uh I use this, I probably use this example too, too many times.
But I say, you know, when people talk about this, the challenges of sharing, you know, is always an issue. People are like, well, you know, maybe let's go 20 years ago, we wouldn't talk to anybody about this Corey and I would just write this out, never tell anybody. We did a podcast because it would be unique and we wouldn't share this idea with anybody. But now I believe we really get to a better place by sharing the same way as if we were dentists. 100 years ago.
And I came across idea that said, you know what? If we brush our teeth and clean them, pick it out. Once every six months, your teeth will stay in dentistry and teeth cleaning. Get to a far better place. If we just announce to the whole world, we have to use dentists. Like there's gonna be more dentists, more people will use them. It just gets to a better place. And I think financial planning ends up in a better spot by simply sharing and raising that bar with your peers.
The more CFP S and the more financial advisors raise the bar on their practices and service offering, the better we're all gonna end up in that sense. Do you know other financial advisers who are listening? Have you talked to others? Like, do you run to people at events where they say we're listening to this thing? And is this then a question of sort of a rising tide floats all boats? I think that's the message you're giving here, Sean? What do, what do their advisers say?
I think lots are listening. I think some are not wanting to make the change at this point. Like there's a lot of advisors up until three months ago that were unwilling to really invest time and money inside of a technical platform and, and run their practice uh remotely or uh look for business outside of their own circle. And there are some others that are, are embracing that. And I think uh I hear lots of good feedback from other advisors in my peer group. They say this is fantastic.
I love the idea. I probably wouldn't do it. I just don't have the time on that note. Do you find that doing something like this has prepared you well, for sort of remote meetings with clients. Were you already doing some of that or have you made that shift? Well, it's, it has definitely helped with how you're speaking to the camera, right?
This world of video conferencing, you know, everybody's like, well, you know, I kind of, I've attended a few Zoom meetings and go to meeting and I, you know, that the investment firm or the insurance company sent me the invite.
But when you actually have to start hosting things and sharing documents and learning how to whiteboard and do all these things, it's, uh, you know, we've basically done a, a 1 80 pivot with how you're conducting yourself in what, less than three months, you know, and, and if you're not doing that, then, you know, you're, you're going to struggle and you're going to fall behind here and you'll probably get gobbled up because where we're headed, it's more of this, not less.
And so when you see that your senior demographic based clients, they now are logging on to teams, they're now getting on to Zoom, they're doing facetime, they're doing all these things. And so before it was the old adage. Well, you know, my clients are too old. They're not gonna touch it. Well, that's a bunch of BS now because you don't have a choice.
And so if things continue with this COVID the way that they are and I don't mean to time stamp our podcast, but it's, uh, the reality is, is, this is around for a while and our older clients, you know, getting them into the office is gonna be a little bit of a challenge probably for the foreseeable future. So, you know, so I guess in a long winded roundabout way, yes, it's helped, but it's, it's, it's helped with speaking.
Um, you know, I just said I'm there and I actually notice it now when I'm on a podcast, but you, you have to speak a little bit slower. You have to, you know, really articulate what's coming out of your mouth and you can't get away with things like you could in a conversation, sitting in your, sitting in your office. And I feel like we were pretty well prepared, you know, for the online search for the last two years, we've been definitely doing meetings online and we're reaching out to clients.
We've got base, you know, a base of clients out in Toronto way, felt very comfortable with that whole process. If nothing else for me, I feel like this whole podcast thing has made, it's open or really opened my mind. It's opened my mind to how we can connect and the ability to bring in other people into our client base that we never had access to before. But without the podcast, we probably didn't have that reach or we didn't have that ability.
And now we do and I feel like that that's a game changer. So it's, it's been good for us. On that note. Have you had folks outside of the Ottawa metropolitan area, reach out to you as a result of the podcast. Have you had, let's say, marketing success from that? Yeah, I've, I've had people who are not in our, in our regular circles who are normally not connected uh that have talked about the podcast for sure.
And we're probably, you know, early in this whole process for me to say I've had definite ro i on a, you know, a placement of, of product or something to that effect. But definitely, I feel like because of, because of those relationships and the way that they're growing at this point, I can definitely see this. It's gonna turn into something where we're gonna have some Roy here.
But I, I agree with Sean like it's, you know, this is uh there, this is not a short play, this is a long game when you go down a path and, you know, if you were to look at, you know, what type of capital investment you would have to put in to get another 300 or 400 clients, it's a significant amount of money and a significant amount of time. So everything that you do is gonna take time and effort and there's no quick get rich strategy out there.
And so if we have more people listening to podcasts, watching social media, reading things on social media, email, like these all kind of merge into one big uh con of marketing, right? And so you have to continuously feed the machine. It's not OK, I do one post. Uh I'm done. No, this is, this is the the new norm and the reality that you're on this train till death.
Do us part until or until there's some other new intervention with technology that it's not social media and you got to pivot at that point hashtag creating content like for the rest of my life. Mhm So this goes back to the earlier question I had about your preliminary discussions here. Does that mirror sort of what you said before you started Corey or have you developed your views on that being a wealth guy? I'm all about ro I on everything, right? I I want a rate of return on everything.
So I kind of had to retool my thinking on that and I had to think OK, is a new follower ro I is a like from a nonsubscribers. An Roy is somebody connecting on Facebook or linkedin and Instagram? Is that now an Roy? The answer is yes and so it just becomes well from a sales standpoint. Well, when are they going to be in the sales cycle? And that's a good point, Corey because, and that, and that's how I feel too.
Like when we, I'll use this example as well and break it down is that I'm in Death Valley two years ago on a motorcycle trip, we stopped at this gas station and there's two little restaurants in the middle of nowhere. And uh, one of my buddies goes, oh, we're gonna eat them on the left and I go, oh, really? Like we're in the middle of a place we've never been before in the middle of Death Valley. How did you just come up with the left one? And he goes, oh, I googled it. I checked it out.
It's got the better ratings. So right away, you can see that people make decisions every day without even you knowing about them based on your presence based on how your firm is being seen on the internet. And this podcast example, someone may make a decision to do business with us before we even meet them. And that's, it. Speaks exactly what a core just said that ro I might not be a sale. It might even be earlier than that. Now, have you experimented or have you had starts and stops or even?
Are you were doing other content marketing previously? Is you have a blog out there or is there anything before this contributions to community newsletters, something like that. I've been doing some, uh you know, joint article writing with a couple of different people that I've been asked to. You know, can you, can, I, can you say a few words and you might make the paper the odd time I did some white papers on linkedin that I would share. I did that.
I started a couple of years ago I started feeling very comfortable sharing articles that were relevant to our industry and uh the more they got shared, of course, that's just adding more credibility to your brand. So that was another angle that I was using for some period of time and creating original content at the same time. And for myself, it was, you know, I came from coming from the wholesale world.
You know, we had a marketing department here, here here, Corey, we're pumping this out, here's this. Do you like this? Yes. No. OK. Moving forward. So that was definitely, you know, and, and Sean can attest to me bitching and whining about oh man, content's killing man. I hate this and I don't want to do this and you know, I just want to rinse and repeat and uh and, and, and, and do my spiel, right?
And so that's definitely, you know, that's taken a little bit of time for me to swallow the jagged pill because that is the big problem for advisers is where do you spend your time in your day. Right. And so if it's not been something that you've normally done, then it's, you know, it's like, uh, climbing a large mountain.
So it's, uh, you know, as you just got to get into the weeds a little bit and keep working away on it, there's nothing you can't do marketing wise that you don't have some form of free access to information to learn. You just have to have the willingness to, to go through it on the uh content side. How much of what you think about here when you're creating this, where you say, you know, we have an a business goal around this ties into some of what you commented on earlier, Sean.
But how much of this where you say, look, we're gonna have this guest on and we have this sort of specific goal of having this guest on or is it, you know, this person's interesting, let's just invite them on and an interesting conversation will pay off. Well, that's a good question and I, and that can easily happen. I think we've kind of agreed to have a couple of different target areas which is gonna be entrepreneurs and business owners who have achieved success and talk about challenges.
We could talk to athletes or people who are in the mindfulness area, talking about how to better yourselves or better your health. But even more recently, we're, we've talked to a couple of part business partners who run a podcast and a youtube channel on like a, a food group. They actually do barbecuing food. It's like 32nd clips that probably got on Twitter.
And, uh, they have a good following and, you know, I, I think it'd be really great uh, to be able to speak to them about how they're building their practice, building their business and getting their message out. But also some of our, some of our listeners are gonna say, you know what this is really interesting.
And uh yeah, I think it can fit in so, but I do think it has to have some, there is AAA target area of, you know, the people that are probably gonna want to listen to our podcast in general is gonna be probably an entrepreneurial minded or success minded person who is either practicing as a, as a professional or in a business because these topics would be interesting to them and they're not gonna appeal to everybody. You mentioned the time commitment here between the two of you.
What's your time commitment weekly monthly, something like that? Do you have a feel for that? It changes? But it's probably, you know, the reality is, is if you're gonna pump out a couple podcasts in a month. But, well, that's an hour per podcast just actually performing in it. And then there's the actual prep before it's the back and forth of booking the, you know, the next guest. It's Ok. How, what's the topics? What are the questions gonna be?
Let's get their bio, you know, you're probably for one show, you know, if we were to add up, I bet you you're in the 3 to 4 hour type time range to, you know, to do it properly. There's definitely some effort that goes into it and, and that is reflected in the quality of the show as well. Yeah, I'd agree with that. That's, that's about the right time frame. And, uh, we're very fortunate because we made the decision to hire, hire somebody specifically to look after that side of it.
But if we weren't, that's coming right out of your, out of your day. And I found it interesting for the show. We were chatting about this Sean where you said you're actually using a professional podcast studio in Ottawa for most of your recordings. Well, that was one of the routes that we ended up taking and, and it's only, I was, I was a little bit inspired and I'll give you Kudos Jason. You know, I was listening to your podcast.
You know, this was already already ruminating in my mind that I, I wanted to have a show and I've been pitching it to Corey and I'm the only thing stopping us was this entrance Burger, how are we gonna do this? And what's it gonna look like? And at one point I'm thinking, I'm gonna, I'm gonna set up a podcast studio in our office and have the mics and the, you know, the soundproof walls and all that jazz.
And then I reached out to you and you were explaining the equipment that you're using and how you're setting up. And I thought, you know what, there's probably somebody that's willing to do this for us. So I did reach out and look, started looking and there is people that will, if of course, $4 you know, for real dollars, they will, they will do that stuff. So it's either you do it yourself or someone else will do it. But in this case, we chose someone else, you know, that made it easier for us.
We just had to justify the cost and decide. Is this, you know, is this an expense that we want to have or not the same as hiring an extra person to run the backside? It's like it, it just ends up becoming extra expense. So is this ro I that we get out of this? Is that important to us? And some people are gonna say no and I, and then for us, we're gonna say yes. So you're in a family practice Sean, right? You've actually had your folks on the call previously, right?
Or on the uh amount of money before. What do they think about it? Have they embraced the idea or do they say, oh, this is too indirect, too intangible? Do they have some perspective on that? No, they, they like it.
I'll, you know, I'll, I'll all fairness to Brian and my mom, uh, Doreen that, uh, they've been very open minded with any suggestions that Corey and I come to the table with, you know, and I realize that, you know, Brian's got a long practice, you know, 47 years plus in the business and things are a lot different and the way we connect is a lot different. But at this point, he's more like if you guys wanna do it, go ahead. Uh but he's not standing in the way of it for sure.
And definitely does see the advantages and through our team discussions, that's evidence. So we're very fortunate to have that. I know some practices might struggle with that because if you have an owner or a partner who is not open minded to the change, they may not be quite as willing to flex on that. And I think it comes down to as well. Where do you plan on spending your marketing dollars and time?
You know, if you can only meet with X amount of people in a week and you can only send out so many email, blast updates to clients to prospects, like how else are you planning to touch people? That's why I've said earlier on like, what does it cost you to go for lunch with a prospect? Yeah. What does your specific outreach to clients look like with respect to the podcast? Is it just embedded in a newsletter or how do you, do you do a loom video or something like that?
What's the, what do clients get to see as to the podcast right now? Now? It's a lot of just social Jason. So we're using and I forget which program Ben has it set up, but he's doing 10 or 22nd clips that he's pushing out via social that clients or people who are not connected already to the podcast but aren't aware of it can see and say, oh, well, maybe I wanna click on this. So what Corey and I have done right now is we often will push those out onto our own personal feeds.
So people who aren't clients that aren't connected to any of our business pages might see them and go, oh, you know what? I wouldn't mind, uh, jumping over there and look, that's sort of what you alluded to earlier, Corey where you talked about taking the podcast and using it for multiple purposes. Right? Yeah. Yeah. And that's, that's the big thing that I've learned is you really have to learn how to recycle your content, right?
Like, just because you did something a year ago doesn't mean it's not still relevant, right? Like sure tax rules change and depending on who's running our country, et cetera.
Uh It depends what's happening, but at the end of the day savings is savings and risk mitigation is risk mitigation and things do change a little bit, but you can recycle so many things and you, you know, if we factor in when somebody looks at your social media, how many people looked at it that week and then it's, you know, it's, it's old and so you can recycle that and make it new again with the podcast too. I, I find it's, it's amazing the compounding as well.
So Corey makes a good point about the recycling because when I watch the numbers and we release a new show. So if we release a new show next week, I can instantly see people connecting with that show. But I also see them going back to the first show and starting at the first show, then the second show and the third show.
So it's not like you just released one and you grew up from there, you add one new person and you, they've instantly now started usually tracking all of the shows so that, that growth is, is incredible. Yeah, absolutely. Agreed with that, that every new person adds that. And you've had some guests on who have real impressive, either traditional or social media presences themselves. Do you find they become advocates as well?
Sure. I think they've uh they've done a nice job of supporting us, you know, and we were very fortunate that uh we got that kind of support early on reaching out to them and seeing if they participate. And uh yeah, they push it up to their own network. So of course, you get some great exposure that way as well. Now, both of you are on M FDA side, both at firm at a firm that has relatively, let's say traditional view of compliance.
I think that's a fair way to say that this is one of the concerns I hear from advisor when I talk to them about content marketing or this type of effort and they say, oh, I can't do anything interesting because compliance is gonna shut me down. Is this something that it's on your radar at all? If you do, you talk to your compliance department about this or is it, you stay away from sort of technical and it's not a concern at all.
We've had a pretty open conversations with our compliance team and they are very, and I'll be, I say strict in a fair way, they're not strict because they're, they're mean or something. It's just that they're strict because they are traditional and they're making sure that the, the business practices are compliant. You know, any of the topics that we're discussing, you know, we're not talking about Brazilian oil futures, you know, not suggesting any type of weird, you know, investment play.
Any of the conversations we have are open dialogues that, that might involve finance at times, but on a, on a broad 30,000 ft view and uh they've been, they've listened, I know that they, they've actually told me they've listened to the show, they've had people from the compliance team listen to the show and they did, they did say it's, uh, I have, I have heard the comments that it's in an uncharted area that it's, uh,
they don't have tons of rules at this point on podcasts only because they don't know, they have the rules that they have from previously. But they said from what you, what I see that, uh, everything you're doing and talking with the way you're talking is absolutely compliant. So, by Brazilian oil futures, I got that right. Yeah. Well, I'm just saying, you know, it's not some, not something obscure like we're not talking about.
You know, I think, I think that's what compliance is always worried about is you're gonna, you're gonna say something that is, uh, you're gonna promise something that doesn't work that way you're gonna, uh, deceive or just, you know, use deception, uh, in order to earn a sale. And of course, any of the discussions we're having on our, our show or are not about that. And that's the kind of mindset that we've always had, we steer away from that kind of trouble.
But if you're, if you're flying close to the sun and, and those advisors probably know who they are, this is probably the wrong medium for that because you, you, you could definitely by, you know, you're by virtue of the fact it's recorded and it's out there and people can hold you accountable to every single word. If you're already in that wrong area, you're gonna get called out on it.
And it's pretty tough to talk about, uh you know, an investment strategy and insurance strategy play on a podcast, right? Like it's pretty tough to, oh, I'm guaranteeing 10% based on this investment if like that's so tough to do in this, in this format. So, II, I think you really have to be, uh, doing something severely wrong, promising something, guaranteeing to really be worried. And I, and I think who's gonna even listen to it? I always think back to and I don't listen to it too much anymore.
But those, uh, paid 30 minute spots you get on Sunday morning talk radio stations. I often wonder about those in that compliance light. Who knows why people listen to that? Exactly. And, and, and the consumer is not even realizing that the person who spent $25,000 for that 20 minute discussion, they're thinking they were fight it on the radio show because of their expertise. But in fact, that person has actually big money to be there.
They're a paid expert by virtue of they paid money to be on the show. I don't know when I start to see advisor podcast show up or whatever the case is. I always think about that. Right. Is this a subtle product promotion or that kind of thing? And I think you've done a really good job of staying in that lane where it's really just conversations about people's whatever mental physical states, that kind of thing. Right.
Yeah. And it's like it really like they, they built for somebody, even if they were, you know, as Sean mentioned, flying too close to the sun. This is not the vehicle to do that no matter what, right. You're trying to get followers and subscribers to your show. So by positioning a one-off strategy, well, what are you gonna talk about the next time? Let let alone that.
As I alluded to at the beginning of the conversation, 95% of the general population don't even really know the difference is between things. So how do you actually do that in this format? It's a good point, right? As you're assuming a fair bit of financial literacy or something when you wander down that technical path. Exactly.
After having done, I don't even know what you're at now for a number of episodes, but you have been at it for a little while and starting to see, I think some real good benefits out of it. What advice would you have for other advisers who are thinking about something like this, a podcast or a youtube show or I'm going on another advisors, a group benefits advisors, uh Zoom show at the end of August here, I think.
So, what advice would you have for somebody who's thinking about this kind of thing and hasn't taken those first steps, pro probably plan it out a little better, I guess, like Corey and I just jumped right in and that's worked out and we're very grateful for that. We learned trial by fire. Basically. I think, you know, if we did it again, I don't know what we do exactly. But I believe we should have probably banked five or six episodes earlier on before we actually announced the show.
You know, because we were under a lot of, you know, pressure. But it was clear that after the first two episodes went out, we really need to start ramping some of these shows up because now people are listening and saying, oh, this is fantastic and they want to see more content. So we, we were to be fair to us. We should have done five or six shows before we really announced the show. And then at least we had some material to start pushing out on a regular basis.
Yeah, a runway of, of content would have probably been good. But at the same time, there's only so much time you can commit to it, right. So to go and do five shows back to back. That's a lot. And so, and, and we definitely in between the shows, we learned a lot, you know, we learned in terms of how we're speaking, how we're interacting, you know, how we're watching whose mouth is about to open whose eyebrows are raising, you know, are you getting in the evil eye? Stop talking about that.
You're talking too long, you know. So there's, there's definitely some, you know, learning curve that I think everybody has to go through and I, and I think you just have to accept that there's gonna be, uh, a learning curve and even for myself, like, I, I've struggled with a few things in the, in the marketing area and, and it's just like, OK, you're not gonna be perfect at this right away. You're gonna kind of go from a rookie to being a veteran over some time.
It's, it's not gonna happen overnight. It's just accepting that, that you'll get better and better with practice. And we were lucky too. We got the and Co coy remembered this, but we got the 15 minute schooling by uh Leanne Lang because she's, and she's a professional interviewer. So she, she spent a whole career with the news. She's now moved on to, to, to bigger and better things. And we were very fortunate to have her as a guest. I don't know if it was before or after interview.
She's like, OK, guys, this is a great stuff, good, good feedback. But here's some stuff you gotta work on and then it's like four or five things. And uh Corey and I went for, uh and I went afterwards and we just wrote everything down because we, we, we literally learned from a professional interviewer and what not to do and what to do next time I did really enjoy that episode.
Actually, she was a really good interview and I hope that that's what happened that, you know, her network sort of domino into some good things for you otherwise too. Yeah, it's been like that every time I agree. That was a, that was a good interview. I find we learn every time, you know, every time we do it, we learn something from the either from the guests. Uh We learn something about the process and uh of course, we're adding from those networks as well.
Like even today, Jason, like, you know, very, very fortunate to be asked to be on your show and there'll probably be some residual benefit both ways. You're gonna have uh people who listen to your show that will maybe listen to our show at one point and vice versa. So I think these networks that they, where they, where they collide can be very beneficial. Yeah, I, I will comment here. You mentioned it earlier. Coy, but uh you talked about your body language.
You're clearly accustomed to this, both of you and I can see your personality differences. Do you notice this, that Sean who, you know, you said for more analytical, a little more intense, I think Sean's leaning right into the camera or he is lean back here and I don't think this is an accident. I'm the same as you Sean. Well, it's good together.
It's, uh, Corey II, I like, uh, when I look, listen, listen to our interviews, I really enjoy the way that, uh, that we work together in those interviews. So I always have, it's always fun listening. I think it's, it just ended up being a really good combination. Absolutely. It's, and, and I think that's important for any business is that you need to have similar interests but you should not operate the same way. Everybody has their strengths and weaknesses.
And I, and I think, you know, the person that is successful and doesn't matter what they do, if they recognize that their success rate will be much faster. 100% a little bit of friction, a little bit of difference of opinion can absolutely help. Right. Never. No, never, never. No, no. Completely frictionless operation over here. It's been perfect.
Yeah. So, um, any last minute thoughts for anybody that might be looking to dip their toe into this podcasting world, anything that you would say to or maybe not even podcasting, but something, some new venture on the, reaching out to client side.
If people were considering podcasting, I think it, I would just encourage them to start, you know, they probably haven't listened to a lot of podcasts perhaps so, maybe just start listening to podcast and start, there's so many different styles and so many different formats and I would encourage them to start looking at that and seeing the differences and if they're gonna commit to this, commit to a, to a,
a plan that envelops what they like about the podcast that they're really fond of because it's, there's no sense trying to do a podcast. It doesn't fit your personality style, you know. So for me to do the analytical one probably wouldn't have fit what Corey and I wanted to achieve nor would it fit uh the way we speak in general. So, but this one does. This one is uh when you listen to our podcast and we're having a chat, that's just really how Corey and I talk to people every day, all day.
And it's, that's why it's so easy for us. People often say, oh, you must have uh written down like must take you hours to write down what you're gonna ask. And it's like, no, that's just us being us and you gotta kind of think like it's, I, I, how would you talk with somebody on the couch? Uh How if you're grabbing a coffee, you know, what would that conversation look like? And it's just kind of reining in some of the things that come out of your mouth. So it's appropriate.
And the other thing is sometimes people think that, well, I have to be very prim and proper and don't swear, don't know. Oh, you have to be yourself because you are promoting yourself to people. And so don't false advertise, don't try to be something else and you just gotta go for it and, and, and you just gotta keep working through it and, you know, we're moving into a uh an era of video, which is another new vehicle for everyone.
But speaking on camera is very different than speaking on a podcast is very different than writing a blog. And, and right, and so it's all about rinse and repeat, rinse and repeat, you know, video yourself speaking to someone. If you're gonna go down the path of podcasting, listen to your voice, see what it sounds like. Uh You know, are you slurring your words or do you struggle with certain words or, you know, figure that out? Right? And that's the key.
But at the same time, I'm the worst critic of myself when I, you know, the first time I heard my voice, I was like, oh my God, we gotta delete this and start over. This is terrible. I'm sad, you know. So it's, there's a little bit of that in there that you, you know, and it's good to be self critical, but you have to kind of roll with it at the, the same time.
And, you know, I used to say to Sean that when we first did this, it's like, it's like taking your pants down, you're showing everybody everything, but pretty much, no, it's, I mean, I find it terribly painful myself, still just listening back to my interviews and there's nothing good about it. It just hurts every time listening to it. I don't think you ever get used to it. I want to thank you both very much for being willing to do this. I really appreciate it.
I think you've had some excellent wisdom about communication in a podcast format. But also I think just communication in general just about how you deal with clients, how you have those conversations. And I hope that this brings a lot of value to the advisers that are listening to it. I'm very appreciative of this opportunity. Thank you so much for having us on today. Yes, absolutely. It was great.
And if advisers are listening and they want to reach out, don't be shy, happy to have the conversation 100%. All right, you can hear some good times there. I really did enjoy that and nice to get to laugh a little bit. We usually get so technical with these things. So I appreciate that opportunity. I want to just emphasize something that Corey makes the point that it's important that your voice as you have it in whatever media you're producing is the same way that you communicate with clients.
And I think this is a good point that people shouldn't be surprised if they've heard your podcast or seen your youtube video or whatever the case is and then they sit down with you and you're a completely different person. That's not, I think what you want to shoot for here. So find a way that you can really express yourself be you and communicate with clients in the way that you're going to communicate with them where you're dealing with them in a, in a normal client facing engagement.
Anyways, I think that that sets a better expectation. You're going to attract clients who are going to be comfortable dealing with you. I think for most of us that comes fairly naturally. The big thing there is, I think just not to force the issue just to ease into it. The number for this episode is four. The number for this episode is four to obtain your ce credits for listening to this episode. You'll need the color and number in order to get through the quiz.
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So please pop on over to BC C quiz dot online and subscribe. Ok. Uh This episode is going to wrap up season two, we're going to start season three in September. So this episode will have us at the tail end of August. I hope everybody's made the best of summer. Starting with season three episode one, we're going to have another lawyer, a real run of lawyers on the podcast lately. This is one that I enjoyed quite a bit. Although spoiler alert here, the outcome isn't what I was hoping for.
But this is an interview I had with a fellow who approached me to do some financial planning work in support of a workers' compensation claim. Very interesting and a level of expertise here about workers' compensation that I just don't think we would find anywhere else other than maybe somebody who spent their lifetime working at a workers' compensation board, but really right down to the policy level and so forth.
So I was happy to get to meet Howard, but we're going to have Howard Gold Ford on for season three, episode one in a couple of weeks time. So thanks very much and enjoy your continued studies. Ok. A few people uh help out with getting this podcast to air Joseph Tong does music and production. Arjie Lewis produces continuing education certificates. When the machine doesn't. Marian Nguyen does all of our continuing education approvals. As Ray Kau and Penny Watt take care of our marketing.
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