Rise From The Ashes
Welcome to "Rise From The Ashes," the empowering podcast designed for thought leaders, entrepreneurs, and visionary CEOs ready to turn their challenges into triumphs. Each episode delves deep into the heart of resilience, offering you a front-row seat to the comeback stories of business leaders who have dared to face adversity and emerge victorious.
Join us as we explore profound narratives of failure and success, narrated by those who have walked through fire and rebuilt their empires from the ashes. Hosted by seasoned experts, this podcast provides an in-depth look at the strategic maneuvers and bold decisions that define a resilient entrepreneur.
From life-altering challenges to innovative strategies, "Rise From The Ashes" equips you with the insights and tools to forge a path to success. Whether you're a battle-hardened CEO or a budding entrepreneur stepping into the arena, this show guides you through the tumultuous yet rewarding business world.
Tune in to transform adversity into opportunity, ignite your entrepreneurial spirit, and start crafting your remarkable success story. At "Rise From The Ashes," we don’t just tell stories—we inspire you to create your legacy of resilience and triumph. Listen now and begin your journey to becoming a phoenix in the business world.
Key Themes:
- Resilience and overcoming adversity
- Strategic business insights
- Entrepreneurial success stories
- Leadership and innovation
"Rise From The Ashes" is more than a podcast; it's a community of forward-thinkers turning their business trials into triumphs. Subscribe today and never miss an episode of inspiration, strategy, and practical advice to help you survive and thrive in the dynamic business world. Join us and rise victoriously!
Available on All major podcast platforms, including Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and Google Podcasts. Follow us to stay updated with enlightening dialogues and transformative insights that pave your way to success.
Rise From The Ashes
Mastering LinkedIn and the Art of Resilience with Allan Fine
Unlock the enigma of LinkedIn's untapped potential with the LinkedIn wizard himself, Allan Fine. My enlightening sit-down with Allan takes you through his captivating transformation from a traditional marketer to a maestro of professional networking. This isn't just a tale of success; it's a blueprint for turning LinkedIn into your personal lead-generating powerhouse. Alan decodes the mysteries of the platform, demonstrating how to transcend the noise and connect authentically with the high-caliber professionals populating LinkedIn's vast landscape.
Strap in as we navigate the intricacies of LinkedIn etiquette and strategy. Allan, drawing from a well of experience, lays out a masterclass in profile optimization and strategic engagement. Learn how not to sell but to serve, and watch as opportunities multiply. We probe into the essential consistency in content creation and the art of giving value to gain trust. Get inspired by Allan's dedication to his craft, rooted deeply in family values and an unwavering work ethic that shapes his every move.
Finally, brace yourself for a candid exploration of resilience in the face of adversity. Allan and I delve into not just surviving but thriving through economic downturns and business challenges. You'll hear stirring accounts of how setbacks can become setups for spectacular comebacks. Whether it's steering through a recession or launching the much-loved Pug Fest amidst business tumult, Allan's journey embodies the relentless spirit of entrepreneurship. This episode isn't just a podcast; it's a trove of wisdom for anyone determined to carve their path in the business world with resilience and resolve.
Friends, our time together is coming to a close. Before we part ways, I sincerely thank you for joining me on this thought-provoking journey. I aim to provide perspectives and insights that spark self-reflection and positive change.
If any concepts we explored resonated with you, I kindly request that you share this episode with someone who may benefit from its message. And please, reach out anytime - I’m always eager to hear your biggest aspirations, pressing struggles, and lessons learned.
My door is open at my Denver office and digitally via my website. If you want to go deeper and transform confusion into clarity on your quest for purpose, visit ceoimpactzone.com and schedule a coaching session.
This is Baz Porter signing off with immense gratitude. Stay bold, stay faithful, and know that you always have an empathetic ear and wise mind in your corner. Until next time!
Good afternoon, good day everybody, wherever you're from, whenever you're listening, I want to welcome you again to another episode of Rise in the Ashes. I'm your host, bass Porter, and today I have a special guest with me. He's a LinkedIn wizard and he's been in the industry for a few decades, to say the least. He's inspired so many leaders and changed their lives and also their businesses, and, without further ado, I'd like to introduce the LinkedIn wizard, alan Fine. Alan Fine, please say hello to the world. Who are you, hello world, and what are your passions? What do you love doing?
Speaker 2:Oh, I love my job for one thing, I love working out, love my family and, yeah, just living life, trying to be the best person I possibly can. And thank you for having me here today. I really appreciate that.
Speaker 1:It's a privilege to have people at yourself. You've inspired so many people in the industries, and I love these podcasts because what it allows me to do is have conversations with people who have not just done it but also grown their businesses, grown their lives to suit what they do, and also follow their passions.
Speaker 2:Yeah, for sure.
Speaker 1:Okay, can you tell me a mind blowing career story that led you to what you're doing today?
Speaker 2:Oh, wow, a mind blowing career story. Back in, was it what? 14 years ago, 2010? Or 2009? I was doing my business before, which was internet marketing and website design, and all of a sudden, a buddy of mine said hey, al, you should probably check out this LinkedIn thing. It's really cool, actually. That was back in 2006, actually. And he said check out the LinkedIn thing. I went on it, okay, but the more I went into it I thought, wow, this is going to be huge, absolutely massive. You know, with the rise of Facebook at the time and knowing that LinkedIn is not Facebook, it's not X, it's not something else, not TikTok people go on there.
Speaker 2:And I think LinkedIn is really different in how it changed my life back then, back in 2010, even though I had been on the platform for a couple of years I don't know if I was too much with it at all, but then I had started having clients who were asking me, also back in 2009, about LinkedIn and I thought I should really put some money and effort and time into this. And, sure enough, the second I did, my business totally blew up. People were coming to me left, right and center. I couldn't hide in the volume. Even I had to turn people away, which was actually really nice because and how to say it nicely we've all worked with Dickhead out there in the world and what this has done for me is given me the choice of who I work with, and that has been so valuable, so wonderful. I get to work with great people and if I talk to them on the Zoom call beforehand and I don't get the right sense of them, I might say something or do something that's weird. And then I get to say, okay, you know what? I don't think I can help you. I'd love to help you, but I have a great day, take care of yourself and buy and then find the people who are great to work with, because we've all had amazing clients who pay us our price. They don't complain too much and we feel obligated like I feel obligated, obviously, to work better. We're backwards from my clients, but we feel really obligated to work with them and do as much for them as possible.
Speaker 2:And the way it changed my life and the master story is that basically took over my whole business. I stopped doing website design, I stopped doing all my other internet marketing stuff and I was concentrating on LinkedIn and the amazing tidbit and takeaway from this is LinkedIn has provided me with all my leads for the last 14 years 14 and a half years now and that's pretty amazing, considering I was spending probably between $2,000 and $3,000 every single month on Facebook ads, google AdWords and then also SEO. Anybody who's done SEO there will realize how much money they put into it in time with getting your site done properly and then doing backlinks and doing other things, google Maps and then all of a sudden, google would change the algorithm like 20 times one month and you've gone from page one to page five or page six, which no one really looks at at all. So I think the way LinkedIn has impacted me and the big takeaway from it is it totally changed my life and my business. And in 2024, I want to keep on spreading the word because in I think it was October or November last year, linkedin cracked a billion and that's really, really significant, because the old saying the money's in the list. Linkedin has a list. All you got to do is figure out how to tap into it. But I'm just amazed in 2024 that more businesses. I think that set out of over a billion people only about 20 to 30 million people in the whole world are really using it a lot like using it properly. That's a lot of people, but I think that leaves a lot of people out there with the opportunity to start using this platform in the proper way for marketing, lead generation, building your audience and also offering service.
Speaker 2:You got to lead with value, right? People who are having on the fence about it, thinking about it. Should I do LinkedIn? I've heard about LinkedIn. I'm on Facebook, I do TikTok, I do Instagram, I do all the other things. You should really start putting a lot of effort, money and time into LinkedIn, because the people there not only have a higher overall median income per person. I think the average LinkedIn earner person on LinkedIn earns over 80k a year, as that was I think I saw and you know that's amazing because I think their Facebook is like 30,000. The people on LinkedIn they have the money and the time, they're out there, they're serious, they're business people and, once again, that's the whole thing about LinkedIn. It's all business people, right? Business people working with business people and another crazy stuff another platforms like Telegram or Facebook or other things. So, yeah, that was a big difference in my life.
Speaker 1:What you said there was 100% correct. There are only people on the LinkedIn. 99% of them are there to do business. You cut out all the BS and the noise because of the elevated status of what they're doing in the world, how they show up and also, I think LinkedIn doesn't really tolerate that bullshit and if you are using the platform as a weapon, they just boot you off.
Speaker 2:They don't miss a batch, they just go on and if you don't use the platform as a weapon, it doesn't make a mistake. Sometimes they boot you off. I actually started funny. I started a get out of LinkedIn jail service, which I probably have helped. Probably over 100 people now get their profiles back on LinkedIn because they did something stupid, nothing malicious at all. I asked people for detailed information about what they did beforehand and what LinkedIn has sent them and a lot of times, the stupid things like allowing a VA like the Philippines or India to go on your account, which is a big no on LinkedIn. So if you have a VA or you have someone who works with you who's not in your office, even someone in your office working with you, not a problem at all, because the IP address will be the same and that's what LinkedIn is looking for. That's what the robot from LinkedIn, the algorithm, is looking for. Who's logging in? Where are they?
Speaker 1:Yeah, and also, if you're going to do that, note to self, use VPN and get a normal one.
Speaker 2:Yeah, a VPN, yeah, if you're using. If you're not the person not in your area, definitely use a VPN. But the problem with VPN, though, is so many VPN services out there don't have the right targeting. I have never seen a VA or IP thing that you can buy to use that to my city, youngman, calgary, canada, and I see usually Toronto or Vancouver, but finding a different IP address server that is so hard in your city.
Speaker 1:The best one I found as people listening was actually Nord, and that provided. Nord really yeah, that's the one I found that worked well for me in that, in this desire of what you're saying right now, right, I don't know if it's the best one out there. I'm not. I don't have it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, there's so many out there now, right, yeah, but that's what I found.
Speaker 1:Certainly for me and my services and what I needed.
Speaker 2:Yeah, but that's not enough anymore, right? That's not just doing that thing. You got to watch out what you post also. Yeah, you post something crazy about something on the US election. Yeah, about who? Yeah, he will not be named. Yeah, yeah, yeah, you can also get kicked off LinkedIn, so it's very important. The two things I recommend to my clients when they go on LinkedIn as far as their content marketing goes don't talk about religion, don't talk about politics those are the two things that'll get kicked off pretty fast on LinkedIn.
Speaker 1:Yeah, no, I completely agree with that. So when they decided you're coming in the formation of it, what made it so unique? What made it you, as she said earlier that you really loved what you did? It was a passion of yours. Yeah, why is your company?
Speaker 2:so unique? Number one because I'm driving the force behind it. So that's really a big difference. Having done this now for I've been on LinkedIn. I've been on LinkedIn 2006. They started in 2003. And also I've been in internet marketing for over 25 years and website design and content marketing, those kind of things I think it was different about my company and different about me that no one else does the things I do. Out there is innovation, like my whole thing on LinkedIn is within following the rules on LinkedIn and being reasonable and those kinds of things.
Speaker 2:My number one question to myself is what can I do for myself or my client differently that nobody else in that industry is doing on LinkedIn for that person? And when do some research? Go on to lawyers or go on to professional accountants or even professional consultants, a professional business consultant. They go on to their profiles and you can go on to that and put on business consultant on LinkedIn on the search box on the top left hand side and you just right click on open link. Do tab to all the people who see on page one. You're amazed how many people have like just not great profiles no cover, banner, bad picture, headshot. What do you call it marketing consultant or management consultant or business consultant on their profile, or CEO of my company. It's like the Wild West, I think, where the landscape is still open, even what is it 21 years later? And, by the way, another big stat is Microsoft bought LinkedIn in 2013 for $26 billion.
Speaker 2:Imagine working in a company and all of a sudden, someone comes along later on and says I want to buy you, and they want to buy you for $26 billion. Like what a payout that is, what a testament to the work you've done. The whole thing, linkedin and me is what can I do differently? What can I do differently? And also how can I help my clients achieve their goals and really start to understand what the driving forces on social media are nowadays? Or people are looking for what's going to grow in your audience. People want to see people.
Speaker 2:I think that the word for 2024 on LinkedIn is authenticity. Don't just post those posts where you're trying to pitch your services or sell somebody something. Try to be authentic. Try to tell people your story. People want to see stories on LinkedIn. And also, I think the three things people want to see on LinkedIn is educational posts or videos on how to do something, how to solve a problem or something that's really close to you, like I did.
Speaker 2:I've done videos on how I took my camera down to my gym and my basement, how exercise is so important for entrepreneurs to do, to work out on a regular basis, so I got a really sweet gym set up there and some of my best posts that have had the most engagement are how, while working out, so important how I broke my leg in October of 2020. I broke my leg, slipped my driveway because there was ice on there and I wiped out. I got my ass. Didn't realize my leg was broken. For three and a half months I worked out on it. I did my treadmill on it. Nothing hurt and I'll send about three months later. I think it still hurts down there. Maybe she got checked out. My wife kept telling me guys, listen to your wives, they know what they're talking about. I, lo and behold, my smaller bone, the fibula, was broken and, yeah, it took me a month to recover. Afterwards Did a video on how important family is to people. Right, when you break your leg or something else happens to you, how important family is, yeah.
Speaker 1:I agree.
Speaker 2:Those are the things that really really drive engagement.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I love that and this is great advice, because people who would now just sign out and LinkedIn oh no, it's scary. What would you suggest to these people who are breaking out to LinkedIn? They discovered this platform. Yes, there is opportunity on it. Like you said, education in the right framework is great. What would you suggest to these people to really write home in on their messaging?
Speaker 2:Yeah, first ask yourself this question If someone was approaching me on LinkedIn, what would I want them to say to me to make me book a meeting? Don't just think about those messages on LinkedIn where someone's trying to pitch you in the invitation, like the connection message or the second. You click on that acceptance button and they're trying to pitch you right away. Don't do that. No one. This is a big takeaway, big statement. No one wants to be sold on LinkedIn. They want to be helped out. So find some way to be of service, find someone to help people and then at some point in time in life like I won't fix my car engine, I won't fix my own furnace unless it's popping a new fuse in there or something At some point in time you've got to think about maybe I should hire somebody and put a little bit of money into it and do things like a profile makeover package from somebody. Or if you're really serious about LinkedIn and I tell my clients, on average you're getting five to 15 leads a week after 30 days spend some decent money on LinkedIn. I've seen people on LinkedIn charging four or five grand a month. I've seen people charging 500 bucks a month and you've got to find some, I think, some happy medium along the way there. Most people most small businesses or even medium-sized companies they want to spend four or five grand a month, but they will spend anywhere between $1,000 to $2,000 a month. I think that's a sweet point for people on LinkedIn to realize. If you're charging services or people will pay for your services. Yeah, and those are the things that people should know At some point in time, do I hire an expert to help me out, to get me there much, much faster? If you hire somebody, they will take you years later than figuring things out yourself like really years, and you've got to think about what is that time and energy and effort working for me to possibly get my profile If I did by doing something wrong. I've also heard people who have told me I am getting people, except for my connection request, but after they accept my connection request, pick it. No, reply back. I message them again. No reply back. I message them again and they tell me to f off. Right, so you've got to think about your messaging. Your messaging can be asking, leaving questions, trying to offer support.
Speaker 2:Give away as much free stuff on LinkedIn Like I give away so much free stuff on LinkedIn. I have a webinar that happens every month and I had one on Wednesday. We had 40 people there. I got about six, seven clients on the deal and just give away as much free information.
Speaker 2:People go on LinkedIn they call it the credibility hump and look at your profile. The three things you're looking at on LinkedIn is your profile, your company page and then your website. It's like going to somebody who's trying to sell your services and they go yeah, no problem, what's your website address? And you're going I don't have one, right, what do you do? It's like, what do you mean? You don't have one, unless you're Tony Robbins, a rock star already in the industry. People are looking for the things that will make them feel safe. Yeah, recommendations are also very important. You've lost one in your go to the bottom of the profile and see recommendations. I'm up to 100 and you're 43 now. Myself, I want to bowl people over with how much social proof that I'm the right guy, because I really do. I care. I care about people, I care about people's results, I care about people's lives. I'm a father, I'm a husband, and people want to know they're safe before they hire you.
Speaker 1:Yeah, of course. Yeah, yeah, I love that and that's great advice for anybody going into this. And they're like holy crap, what's?
Speaker 2:the way to go. Now. This is also yeah. What's first, second, third, fourth, I have no idea. That's where a professional can help you. Yeah.
Speaker 1:Who did you, who was your role model, with doing what you're doing today? Was there anybody that really stood out in your life that you aspire not necessarily to be, but at your user standard.
Speaker 2:My biggest inspiration, I think, in business was my dad. Okay, he passed away in March of last year and he was always thank you. I always thought to him. He had an amazing work ethic. He worked like a dog. I remember him being up till two o'clock in the morning. Sometimes Dad go to sleep already working. He left after legacy and, yeah, I just a matter of those people who inspire me. Mom inspires me, my wife inspires me, my kids inspire me. As far as any business people in LinkedIn not really. I've all seen people if people are out there doing their jobs and doing a great job of it.
Speaker 2:Just a matter of being consistent, and that's another thing. Also on LinkedIn, you have to be consistent. Have you just do a bunch of stuff on LinkedIn for a couple of weeks and then all of a sudden stop because life gets in the way or you get a new contract and you don't have a system keeping that those things happening on an automatic basis behind the scenes. Then, all of a sudden, your contracts will be up. All of a sudden, you'll be going oh what are you now? Where were my next contract coming in from? Then you guys start marking again. So you need to be consistent with LinkedIn. People ask me like things like how am I coming to post a week? I tell them, on the average I would say two or three times a week, no more than that.
Speaker 2:Really, people who post every single day on LinkedIn, if you look at their posts, not a lot of their posts don't get much engagement.
Speaker 2:And that's also something very important because the algorithm says on LinkedIn for the end of 2023, that within the first 90 minutes of posting 90 posting on LinkedIn if you don't get some really significant 20, 30 likes, 20 comments, 10, 15 comments at least LinkedIn goes. Your content not getting engaged with must have not be that important. It actually restricts the amount of people who see your content. So if you're getting like one or two likes and no comments, or one or two likes and two or three comments, that's it on a regular basis. Because you're posting every single week, the links and algorithm will shrink your audience of who sees your content to about 10%. If you have 10,000 people, about a thousand people will get that post on their feed and then they got to be on there right as you post because we all know that you're impressed the page on LinkedIn for the feed and also in your post, is no be found anymore at all.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you pills for many people are posting every single day that's great advice and also what you're doing, and it's building up consistency with. This isn't why I like doing these podcast, because people pay lots of money for this advice, but they get a lot of. It is not statistic back, yes, irrelevant, or it doesn't work.
Speaker 2:Oh, Let me stop for a second. That is a personal pet peeve of mine. Well, linkedin, a lot of the platform on the people but how many times have we gone to Google something about how to do something on LinkedIn? It takes us to a LinkedIn interior page and the information is outdated. So that's what also sometimes why you want to hire a professional, because Professionals, generally speaking, will have a community of other professionals around them who will help them understand what's happening with the changes on LinkedIn, and because LinkedIn, unfortunately, it's really bad at Moting their own changes or telling people what changes there are on LinkedIn. Yeah right, wondering what's going on, but that isn't just with LinkedIn, I think it's with all platforms, because they is it?
Speaker 2:I don't know? Come on on anywhere else.
Speaker 1:The one thing I was told was, before you go omnipresent, get one platform done, get it honed in, get it automated, get it to work for you.
Speaker 1:Before you go on me, there's a lot of influencers out there who pay Huge amounts of money to these massive firms that go omnipresence and they make and go viral with certain things. But it isn't about going viral, not right. It's about, how you said earlier, education in spur true inspiration and authenticity, yeah, and if you're showing up as yourself with a purpose, with a mission, saying, hey, this is how I got from a to be, this is how to do this, that's what that's binge worthy content.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's worth watching. That's the gold.
Speaker 1:Yeah, the one thing I want to go into now it is about resilience and how you became a Bit about your story, about where you come from, into what you're doing now, but behind the scenes, yeah, what's the what is resilience to you?
Speaker 2:resilience to me is like courage being afraid to do something but doing it anyways. Yeah, being courageous. I think that resilience is not giving up a. Resilience is doing something even though people around you telling you that you can never do that never work at all, just saying you know what, let's try it anyways. This could happen because you just never know.
Speaker 2:People out there have so many opinions on what you should do and If you're not the own arbiter of your own life, somebody else is gonna do it for you. So you got to make sure you control the message. You control your own life. That way you do, you're in control. And I've been so many I can tell you so many instances where I've been up till 2 or 3 o'clock in the morning Working on clients stuff. My wife's going, you're gonna come to bed error and it's gonna get this stuff done, honey.
Speaker 2:That's resilience to me. It's like really making a commitment and also saying what you're gonna do and keeping to it. And then also communicating and going to somebody say you know what? I thought? I told you how this by Friday. I'm not gonna have it Friday for you, I'm very sorry, but I'll have it to you by Sunday morning, is that okay? And communication I think that who many people out there don't communicate properly nowadays. I guess if a quite send me something, I'll always send back an email saying received, because you don't know if they got it. How many times you said somebody something and you get no confirmation.
Speaker 1:All you want to know is did you get it, that's all yeah, no, we've all been through that and it's can be very frustrating when you don't know something.
Speaker 2:It's not yeah, you don't know something to someone's received something or what. What do you think about it? What I sent you.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, anyways, yeah, yeah, that's great advice if you. So, if you listen to this going, all that's me. Take a hint, call someone back. Even it's a text message. Don't you send an email message to get on something. Communication is the most underrated thing in the world. There's a huge lack of it and it's all One-sided or all version in a box. People don't really understand. Yeah, give it. Give an open view, give a high perspective, without judgment, before you have a conversation.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and sometimes if you're sending a text back and forth from somebody, just pick up the phone. Just call them up, because sometimes you can lose so much in in the wording of a text where they don't really understand you think, oh, that's pretty rude, it's like no, that's not what I meant. So they call pick up the damn phone and call somebody. Don't be afraid to pick up the phone.
Speaker 1:The one thing that I was I got to know when I was going through my my journey I'm still going through it is, if you're having to send technologies back and forth, dumped, like you said, pick up the phone. And also, if it's a more than a three or four minute conversation, book a meeting. Yeah, yeah, allocate that time, dedicate to that. Whatever that is, yeah, gives respect on both sides. It isn't just, yeah, having a conversation. The only things I'll find for if it's not booked and it's not a conversation, is my family, my wife, yeah, my stepchildren, and something that is like an absolute emergency. I will pick up the phone, I will stop everything.
Speaker 2:Yeah, exactly, I think anybody would if someone's calling me saying I really need to speak to you right now, and the great thing about it is most people out there. I found, like one of my dad passed away back in March of last year and I had to tell my client my dad's dying in the hospital cancer and I got to go there and stay with him for a month and I'll be on my computer. Everything's happening, all my staff are doing things in the background, but I won't be. I won't be as available for my meetings with you. Is that okay? It's all gonna be happening. Still nothing to be stopping at all. People are so kind to me, no problem out, take it easy. I feel bad for you. I hope that here's the best. Here's the best for your dad. Yeah, and you'd be surprised if you communicate properly with people. Generally speaking, most people will be going Okay, as long as we're going in the background, not gonna pay the worst for calling it background. Is this common sense? But as long as that's happening, you know we're okay.
Speaker 1:Yeah, but that also comes back to choosing the right people to have in your business, in your world.
Speaker 2:So exactly we've all people say, oh, I don't care, that's a you problem, not me problem, right, and they're the wrong people. It's just there are the wrong people and I fired. I remember a long time ago I had a couple a husband, a wife. I was working on a website design project for them and In our meetings they start arguing in front of me and it was so uncomfortable. It's you guys got to get your stuff together so you're on a unified front of the thing. And then eventually I just fired them. I said, sorry, guys, I can't, you're fired.
Speaker 1:And We've all. I think we've already any entrepreneur who's seasoned enough has gone. I'm done season enough.
Speaker 2:Yeah, don't be afraid to fire a client that they're if they're not the right people to work with me exactly.
Speaker 1:Not sure we nurture at the resilience or we look at versus. Is there a situation in your life or a memory you've had that you can go back and you wanted to prove the Pete, the naysayers wrong. I can't do that, you're not worthy, etc. Etc. Is there anything like this happen?
Speaker 2:to you, I think, when I opened my first real business back in Toronto. I'm from Toronto originally and I opened my first tanning lawns slash, a spa, body wrapping, body toning, those kind of things and was my first business. And I had to put in back then the significant amount of money for equipment and things. And people are saying are you sure about this now? Well, we haven't really heard about this too much over here. Are you sure? And I can?
Speaker 2:I can honestly remember being inside my location when I was renovating, being there till 2, 3 o'clock in the morning, finishing the renovations and Then having to clean up afterward for their hour or two for the morning thing and it's going. Oh, my god, I'm dying here. I'm just dying and I want it could be. And because I wanted to prove people that I can get this done, I was so confident I could get it done and, yeah, it would. That was a booming business for about ten years almost until the recession hit Toronto back in 1990. For about three years I had that like 1980 to 1990 approximately and I wanted to make sure people, I wanted to make sure that I could prove to people and myself also I get it done here and I did, we would. It was a very big test. I.
Speaker 1:I love that and it's also about raising your own standard within yourself as well, because people they're very challenged with going. I'm able to do this. I'm capable of doing this because I listen to the outside noise a lot.
Speaker 2:When you were, please that's the many people around you sometimes don't support you. If you're around people who don't support you, either A stop listening to them or B find new people.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you're in the wrong room, yeah.
Speaker 2:You're in the wrong room. If you're the smartest person in the room, you're in the wrong room, man.
Speaker 1:I've got a story. I'll tell you later on about that. Not here, but it's an interesting, very poignant. I was in a few months ago, but it was something very similar to that. Can you explain the major setback that you had in your life? But it turned out to be a springboard into something much greater.
Speaker 2:I know there's probably a yeah Back when I had that first business in Toronto Actually, no, I had my second one. It was my second one, so I opened the one in Toronto. I moved to Calgary in 1995, and I had the same kind of business from 1995 to about 2004, approximately Pardon me, I had a really terrible property management company and I had a really terrible property manager.
Speaker 2:This company I won't mention the name at all, but the type of property management company that all of a sudden would send you a letter in the mail saying, oh, you would own extra $3,000 or $4,000 for things like canvass expenses, canvass expenses or common area maintenance expenses, for air conditioning, heating, all that I asked them. Okay, please give me an accounting of that. You're asking me for extra 4K. Show me why. They never would. And I send them letters saying I'd be happy to pay this bill for you. Show me why. How you come, came about this reasonable question for anybody else they wouldn't. And then all of a sudden they came back to me and said oh, you haven't paid your bills, we're kicking you out of your location, we're suspending your lease to the cell. So I remember going on vacation one time to Mexico, my wife, and being so depressed.
Speaker 2:I thought I was losing my business and I came back and then it all worked out in the end. But that had upholstered me to eventually get rid of the business, get out of the location, get out of that toxic situation while I'm at work and then start my internet marketing business. And I started my internet marketing business back in about 2000 and for yeah.
Speaker 1:So you've gone through the ringer with different businesses and you've had obviously a lot of experience in many areas, but you've always been successful. Come out the other side of it okay. Within that journey, is there any tips that you could share? For five of them maybe of resilience, maybe not business level, but also on a personal level, that you've discovered along that journey a vast amount of spirit behind you, so I'm sure there'll be a huge value to people now listening, going yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I'm trying to think of situations where, yeah, that really I'd say, maybe build a community of people to support you, find the right community of people to support you, that they'll be there when you need them. My thing has been me, it's been my family mostly, but funny story as far as support goes and what you can possibly do if we get the right people together. Back in 2000, actually, no, it was, it must have been 2000 or not. What happened to my business? I owned a couple of dogs, a Chinese pug. I love pugs, mad about pugs, I have one, I have a pug cross right now.
Speaker 2:But I had heard of people in the US putting on a dog event to bring dogs together and for people who have the same breed and have a fun time, and so I came up with this idea of something called pug fest. And so in Calgary I ran it for about three years until it just became too big a thing. I wasn't making any money from it, so it's just too hard to do. But we had at three of those pug fest we had about 300 dogs, 500 people, a small volunteer army of people coming in charge people, 20 bucks to come in. Most of the money went to renting stuff and putting a big ad in the local paper to announce it and tell people. A couple of ads in the paper to announce it. People are coming and we just had a great thing. So just imagine the chaos of 500 dog owners and 300, not just like a couple, but 300 dogs.
Speaker 2:We had races, we had costumes, we had baddest pug, skinniest pug, smallest pug, biggest pug, ugliest pug, best looking pug we had pug. We had races, right. We had so much fun there and I think that I never could have pulled it off unless I had created with my wife. It was a big part of that. She was huge and making that happen. So kudos to you, honey.
Speaker 2:But yeah, it was quite the experience of doing that. I could not have done it without being resilient because at the same time I was doing that, I was running my business also. So imagine trying to put on a huge event that you're making no money from and also putting on your business. It was hard. I had to be resilient. I had to be very resilient, especially doing that three years in a row to make that happen and still have my business running. So that was a big example of resilience. We had tents, we had cooling stations, we had kiddie pools of water for the dogs. Because it was summertime, they could cool off, and so you really had to permit putting on a small dog event. It sounds like not much, but it's really a lot of work.
Speaker 1:I mean I love I box a man, so I get the pug thing 100%. I love that. If you could start a global movement, not religious, not political, but just a movement within yourself to leave a legacy or change the course of the future, what would that be?
Speaker 2:I'm actually working right now on taking my insurance license because, as I mentioned, my dad passed away in March and he had insurance, he had a will, he had insurance and then, unfortunately, my wife's grandfather passed away a couple of months ago. He had nothing no will, no insurance and I saw the contrast between both situations of people who had those things put together, and what's happening right now is it's still going. Now People, your families, are just doing each other and that's horrible. So I think the global movement would be make sure that you have your affairs in order, because you never really know when your time's up. You don't. You could walk out of the house tomorrow, you hit by a bus, you don't know. I had no idea my dad was going to go that way. All of a sudden he said I'm having a little couple going to the bathroom and all of a sudden he's in the hospital and before I know it he's gone. And then having all of the affairs in order, made, being there for him and the family, and no one thought there was some tension here and there.
Speaker 2:My dad was a bit of a hoarder His apartment he moved into he had 20, 30 boxes still a year or two later, so we had to get rid of those. But there's a huge difference between people being ready for that situation because unfortunately, like death and taxes, right, everybody's gonna die at one point in time. So I think my global movement was make sure that you have your affairs in order for your family's sake Not for your sake personally, but for your family's sake. Pass some kind of insurance policy to cover costs, but have a will. You'd be surprised I think the stats were that 80% of people in Canada don't have a will or insurance Percent. That's huge. That's huge, isn't it? Imagine the absolute nightmare of having your loved one passed away and going through that and then, on top of that, having to deal with funeral expenses and everything else. Who gets what? People fighting over picket, fighting over jewelry, fighting over stuff in your house, and that's the legacy you definitely don't wanna leave your children.
Speaker 1:One of the things that I do, alan, is help build people's legacies. So if that's a part of it allocation of finance, assets, et cetera, et cetera. And, like you said, it's not just about the passing of somebody, it's the whole concept. Afterwards and the unknown, and then the greed and the egotistical people that come in to try and get a piece of the pie.
Speaker 2:That's wrong. So yeah, it is wrong. It's all necessary, right, it's all necessary it is 100%, so I love that.
Speaker 1:If there's any way that I can help you make that a reality, please let me know I'm happy to.
Speaker 2:Yeah, we'll talk about that later on. Yeah for sure, definitely.
Speaker 1:So we're coming to the end of our time today together here. I wanna really give value to you in this. If someone wants to work with you or reach out to you, where do they go? Please share that.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I'm sure you'll put it on the screen afterwards. My website is leadwizardca and we have different kinds of programs and packages. We have stuff people are starting out. We have stuff people who are very serious.
Speaker 2:I think that one of the big things also I realized about LinkedIn and stuff. I say to the majority of people 90% of my customers buy my done for you service because when you're going to do something brand new like that, who wants to figure out the learning curve or doing stuff themselves? People want also realizing. People don't want like for me. They don't wanna lead generation service. They don't wanna LinkedIn thing, right. What they want is more income and security for the family. They wanna make more money right. That's what it really is.
Speaker 2:Think about this statement. People buy with emotion and then follow up their purchase with facts or those kind of things. Right, left brain, right brain. So people buy with emotion and then justify their decision with the logic right afterwards. So realize that anybody who buys anything nowadays, they buy with emotion.
Speaker 2:So make sure that in your content marketing, in your way approach things for people, you're really solving that problem of how can I make this work for me with the least amount of hassle so I can do what I wanna do, which is run my business, and I can make more money and I can get this thing done in an easy, seamless, no hassle way. People don't want hassle, they want problems at all. They want someone to do it for them. But for people who don't wanna do it for them, I have training courses on how to do it yourself like a large training course on how to become your own LinkedIn master and learn how to do all the things that I do for my clients. And then also things like just like a profile makeover package to help you with your profile, your company page, what kind of scripts to send out, what kind of content marketing you need to do.
Speaker 2:And getting back to that content marketing piece, I think I'm the only LinkedIn lead generation expert out there who does not only does content marketing for my clients, but also boost that content to make sure you get the likes and shares and comments on it, to train the algorithm on LinkedIn that your content is important, but at least all of your actual, real potential clients out there. These are stuff, because if only 10% of your audience is seeing your stuff on a regular basis and you have, let's say 20,000 subscribers or things on LinkedIn, then who's gonna 2000 people got to be on LinkedIn at the same time for making your offer available to them. To really think about. How do you lead with value, how do you lead with generosity and caring, and you'll be very successful and be authentic. Don't be afraid to be emotional on LinkedIn. Don't be afraid to really ask for help. People are willing to help you fast for help.
Speaker 1:Yeah, awesome, that's awesome advice. Alan, thank you very much for your time, energy and your love and compassion here. It's been amazing speaking with you.
Speaker 2:Thank you, Baz, so much. You're a great guy. I look forward to working with you in the future. All right For myself.
Speaker 1:Thank you very much for joining me. Please share this message. You never know. It will change someone's life, and sharing is free. If you want to subscribe to the podcast, please do help me make platforms and make episodes like this For myself. I'm Baz Porter. Thank you for joining me and have a blast.
Speaker 2:Thank you, baz, have a great day. Thank you.
