Impact Innovators
Success Stories Worth Sharing by Startup Founders
Real Stories, Real Founders, Actionable Ideas
Welcome to 'Impact Innovators: Founders Stories Worth Sharing; the podcast where real stories and real founders come together to inspire you with actionable ideas!
Every week, we explore the journeys of innovative business founders who’ve turned their unique visions into thriving realities.
Explore stories of creative marketing breakthroughs, strategies that defy the odds, and tales of determination, ingenuity, and success alongside the inevitable failures and challenging days.
Join us as we explore the insights and lessons that can help propel your business forward.
Whether you're starting up or scaling up, these stories are here to motivate and guide you on your entrepreneurial journey.
So, get ready to be inspired as we uncover the impactful stories of business founders just like you.
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https://saas.bolderfuture.com/impact-innovators-podcast-guest-booking
Impact Innovators
The one thing Scott mastered that most startup founders never figure out—until it’s too late
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Discover how Scott Newman revolutionized the home renovation industry by turning a family-owned flooring business into a digital powerhouse. In today’s episode of Impact Innovators, we sit down with Scott to uncover his unique journey from selling hardwood products to offering top-notch refinishing services. Scott shares his early experiences with platforms like Kijiji, Craigslist and Service Magic, and how he harnessed the power of third-party verification services like Homestars to build trust and credibility before the age of Google reviews.
Scott also delves into his innovative digital marketing strategies that have kept him ahead of the curve. From mastering SEO to creating compelling advertorials, his tactics reveal the importance of adapting quickly in an ever-changing digital landscape. Hear how Scott draws inspiration from Simon Sinek to connect with customers on a deeper level, emphasizing the evolution of business strategies and the crucial role of online reviews in gaining a competitive edge.
But that’s not all—Scott opens up about the transformative potential of AI in business operations. Learn how tools like ChatGPT and Microsoft's Copilot are streamlining tasks and supercharging efficiency, freeing up time for more strategic pursuits. Scott also touches on his recent venture into real estate with Rare Real Estate, combining his renovation expertise with property investment. This episode is packed with actionable insights and inspiring stories that any entrepreneur will find invaluable.
Connect with Scott on LinkedIn here; https://www.linkedin.com/in/newmansk/
Linktree Website; https://linktr.ee/scottknewman
Hey, welcome to the Impact Innovators podcast. I'm your host, shane Johnson. This is the podcast where real founders talk about their real stories and we come together to inspire you with actionable ideas. Every week, we explore the journeys of innovative business founders who've turned their unique visions into thriving realities. We explore stories of creative marketing breakthroughs, strategies that divide the odds, tales of determination and ingenuity and success, along with some inevitable failures too, because we all have some challenges. So join us as we explore the insights and lessons that can help propel your business forward.
Speaker 1:And with that I want to introduce Scott Newman. Scott has over 20 years of experience in the renovation industry with Newman Refinishing, and he's honed a deep understanding of all of the nuances of home design, construction and value enhancement. And his journey has now led him into the world of real estate, where he's combining all of those expertise that he's gathered along the years of working in the home industry and his relentless work ethic to help clients make informed decisions about their significant investment and help them really improve the value of their homes. Is that what it's all about, scott?
Speaker 2:Exactly, you got it All right.
Speaker 1:Why don't you tell us a little story about how this all came to be?
Speaker 2:My parents actually had a flooring business that they purchased in the late 90s I was a teenager at that time and then about 10 plus years later they were looking towards retirement and I didn't like the way the industry was going. That's when the big box stores and stuff came in, but the internet was pretty young. Back then. We sold a lot of product-based stuff, but we weren't in the service-based aspect of flooring that much. So I started experimenting with different things like Kijiji, craigslist. There was a service called Service Magic that's now known as Home Advisor service called Service Magic it's now known as Home Advisor and I had a young fellow who worked for a company and, separated from that company, wanted to start a business on his own. But he had no clue how to run a business and it just so happened he was in hardwood floor refinishing, which is actually not something that we sold product, not services so I started playing around with it and experimenting towards the end of my parents' time at the florist store and the internet. You got to keep in mind there was no phones back then where people were on like smartphones and whatnot. I just started playing around with different things and I was surprised I was trying to tie in both the two businesses my parents and this new venture but nobody really cared about carpet and tile, but they loved about this hardwood flooring finishing. It was just like hitting it all like uh, lead after lead, and I, like the, we were getting lots of clients. I started looking into it more and you can't make that much money just working with one technician that's a one-man show because there's only so much capacity they have. So I started expanding out into the greater toronto area. If you know the Southern Ontario area, hamilton's an hour away from Toronto and Toronto's got a lot bigger population Through Distributor. I ended up getting a few partners from it and there was a service called Homestars that I was using at the time, which was a third-party review validation service. Now this is something that's actually going to tie into what's important today. There wasn't really anybody that were doing reviews and if you put reviews, you put it on your own website.
Speaker 2:I started using this third-party verification service and, sure enough, it took a year or two until I really started building up reviews, because it takes time, especially when people aren't on computers as often, and when I expanded out to Toronto, the lead flow was insane and people were calling me saying you came highly recommended, and, I'll be honest, I didn't know where these people were coming from, and I asked them all like, who referred you specifically? They're like nobody. I just saw your reviews online and you got to paint a picture. Back then, there weren't Google reviews. Back then, there weren't uh, third-party verification services, and I was using this service and people were like and they didn't even question the price, they just said you, at you, had a three bids. Whether you were the cheapest or the most expensive was irrelevant. They were like you came highly recommended. You're the only one that we could trust because you got all this validation online. So, unless it was like a referral from like a friend or a neighbor so this was revolutionary you came highly recommended. You're the only one that we could trust because you got all this validation online. So, unless it was like a referral from like a friend or a neighbor, so this was revolutionary back then, which has come to the North today. So, yeah, things just expanded out through that time period.
Speaker 2:The only thing, though, with the internet is it's ever changing, right? So when social media became popular, the service that I had really had a barbell approach. I wanted to provide good quality service to the homeowner. It's the same thing whether it's an email or text, but back then pick up the phone, call somebody, keep them updated, communication really light and that was all you had to do back then. And even today, in some sorts, it's still the same. And having that third party verification online, which was revolutionary back then, really was a game changer for what we were doing. However, with social media coming out there, I was more focused on the review aspect, not so much the Facebooks, the Instagram or whatnot. And now there was more contractors, renovators that were able to post stuff on the job site. So that conflicted with the service I was offering, because I was helping both contractors and homeowners. Now homeowners can reach contractors directly and my contractor partners, who appreciated the service I offered, were, like some of them were like posting their own stuff and generating their own business from it.
Speaker 2:Now, in the beginning, like it was that easy, but then, as things like keep evolving over time and that's the other challenge with it, business goes up, shoots up. I had that third party verification and then things take a dip when technology or what's the new thing. So the one thing that I found challenging was always staying on top of the latest, greatest thing. And then you have we're very cyclical in our business, so staying on top of the economy was an issue, because when interest rates go up or there's an economic dip, our business is very cyclical to that. So there's no excuses. But being in a specialty of sales and marketing, you got to look at yourself in the mirror. It doesn't matter what economic condition you're in, you got to be responsible and find a way of attracting that clientele, no matter what the situation is.
Speaker 1:This is interesting. It's very intriguing because, as I hear you telling the story, I have this vision in my head of Gary V, gary Vaynerchuk. He's a big marketing guy, but he got his start with his parents or father's wine shop Wine business. Yeah, so really interesting stories where you start out with something that's maybe a more traditional kind of a business and then explore ways of bringing it to a new market or getting it out there to getting your message out in a different way, using the various platforms that started to evolve. And in the early 2000s you're right there was really enough. Facebook didn't exist. Google really wasn't around much, it was more yahoo and some of the other search engines. So how were people finding you when the like, how were they finding these reviews online? Was google around at that point, like in its infancy, or was it on some other search engines?
Speaker 2:okay, google dates me back to university time stating my age now. But late 90s, early 2000s is when I think google like really started coming out, especially early 2000s very early 2004 ish yeah, because the paid ad thing, I think, started coming around that time.
Speaker 2:But google was already around because everybody was using this altavista yahoo, like you were saying. And then right over the late 90s, early 2000s, people started using google but they didn't have the advertising model yet. This business, uh, the new ridge refinishing business, didn't really start till 2006. Internet was still young back then because that was before the iPhone was created. People use BlackBerrys but again, blackberrys is more of a messaging service. So Homestars, actually I don't think started till 2008.
Speaker 2:And that was a local. That wasn't really. They were trying to be international, but that was really local to the greater Toronto area. Even though it was on the internet and it could be anywhere, it just seemed like they were based in Toronto and the first businesses that were on there were in the greater Toronto area. Even though I started my business in Hamilton, which again an hour away from Toronto, most of my business didn't really take off specifically using the home search tool until a few years later when I expanded into Toronto. So it seemed to be very geo-focused type of business and back then I really was building it. I know this will sound funny classified ads. So just if you didn't want to take an ad out that the Toronto Star or Globe and Mail or whatever your local newspaper was. You could also put an ad at a cheap rate in the classified ads in your newspaper, right?
Speaker 1:A lot less expensive, a lot less expensive, a lot less expensive.
Speaker 2:I don't think they do. Yeah, so the Craigslist, which isn't as popular where we live here in Southern Ontario or Canada, I hear it's still somewhat popular internationally, specifically in the US, but I started there was a service called Kijiji which I think eBay owned. That is very popular here in Canada For some reason. Here in Canada we really loved it.
Speaker 1:And so Similar to Craigslist for us in Canada.
Speaker 2:Yeah, exactly, and that really was a game buster. Now the business model is a little different then because right now we offer a premium service. Businesses evolve right. When you're a startup, you do what you can to get business. My original partner we weren't providing like high end service like we are today. So we were like we were very competitive in pricing back then so it was very easy to compete on Kijiji, but again the competition was lower. You would get looking on the classified ads but you had a much less competition back then. So, yeah, you had less people on there, but you also had less competition, less saturation, so it was a lot easier to close deals back then, but again, without the serendipity with that Homestar situation.
Speaker 2:As the years went by like 2008 is when I started I don't think it was till 2010, 11 that I really took off with the Homestar thing and I noticed my classified ads on all those services the closing rate started going. It used to be like well over 50%, but it started diving down because there was so much more competition that were undercutting Our prices to market wasn't working there and, like I talked about earlier about the ever evolving thing when you're putting your business focus in marketing specifically on the internet, which back then, I'd say less than half the businesses were focused solely or at all on the internet. I was focused solely on the internet. I didn't do any other form of branding or advertising, and when the markets changed that's where I had to adapt. So, because of my situation, I built all these reviews on Homestars. I transitioned more on focusing on that platform and other platforms that ended up the closing rate was just through the roof at the time yeah.
Speaker 1:It's interesting because I'm fascinated the way that you leveraged the internet and online like digital marketing, which it wasn't really called back then, not really knowing what it was, but you figured it out. You're bootstrapping, you're hustling, you're making stuff work, you're finding new things, which I think for a lot of the startup community, that's what it's all about. It's bootstrapping and figuring out the blue oceans where you can tap into something that no one else is really doing yet and you can get a big headway. Because back then around the same time, I started my company in 2003. And by 2005, I was really getting into the Google search stuff and figured out how to do some SEO work and got some free advertising from the local newspapers and the local cable television channels. And then I repatriated all of those articles that got written about me that was free advertising into. I called them advertorials. They were advertorials, but I called them blogvertorials. So I create little articles on my website to boost the SEO and then do a video at the same time, and I found that video would just boost the SEO like crazy and a backyard renovation kind of business, and it got to the point where a lot of the other vendors were calling me up going hey, how do you get? How come you're at the top of search Anytime? I search for a pool or a hot tub or anything backyard reno, and that's sometimes you just have to figure out how do you get some advertising out there? That's in a blue ocean that maybe doesn't cost as much as the normal. What the way? The guy, the normal guys are doing it. And so I think that's really key for businesses today is to figure out that those little blue oceans, like what is going on today.
Speaker 1:I also, like you, found a little app that I could plug into Facebook. Back then that went into I don't know if you even remember, but back in 2005, six, seven, I think, right into 2010, you could program little tab apps into your Facebook page and I put a review one in there. So you just got to zig when everyone else is zagging, especially if you're a small business startup founder trying to figure it out. You got to keep your costs low, but the opportunity is high. I have a question for you. I don't know if Simon Sinek he did that famous TED talk quite a few years ago and he in that TED talk he said look, the mind can be convinced, but the heart must be one People don't buy what you do. They buy why you do it. So these are fabulous stories and wonderful information I think that a lot of startup founders will be able to use and leverage off of. But why do you do what you do? You obviously have an interest here. What's driving, scott?
Speaker 2:have these like uh, either traumatic or amazing stories that like moments or situations that where that's where they're are they realize their why. My situation doesn't really have any of that stuff. Like I told you, with my parents business, they were retiring and I didn't like the way there was a retail business product, it was all liquidation type of business. I didn't like the way there was a retail business product, it was all liquidation type of business. I didn't like the way things were changing in the industry because Home Depot came in, I think late 90s, early 2000s. It really disturbed the market. Now there's tons of businesses that could be successful but I see guys opening up like a renovator servicemen that were opening up hardwood shops or just general floor shops, just like that. They go out of business just as quick. But at the same time the barriers are entry, the margins are starting to go down. I didn't like it. So I really love experimenting with the internet, or just how much internet I even today. I love looking at low hanging fruit. So we talked about the review situation, the Craig's, uh, the list of Gigi. That stuff doesn't interest me today. I'm like, for example, the ai coming out where how? I'm still trying to figure this out and I don't think it's been developed yet. But where is the low-hanging fruit in ai? Because in google ppc, uh, it's completely different now, but back then I experimented a bit with it and it was literally shooting fish in a barrel.
Speaker 2:You didn't like I hear your story, like what you are, of your situation with the hot tub business that you had and all these, all the money and the expertise that you put into it. Like I credit you for that. Like all my strategies were just simple what's the easiest low hanging fruit thing that I can leverage? I don't know if you ever heard of the one thing by Gary Keller, but yeah, I'm all over the place, like I always try sometimes that's my weakness is trying different things and whatnot, but it just so happened when I started this business at HomeDent on the classifieds at HomeDent, on the home starters. I always tell people that it was just I was there right time, right place. But you got to create your own luck. You got to be there, you got to show up and be there. But just going back to like your question of is the one thing I've found and I've spoken to people even recently telling me this they found me to be an amazing connector of things. So you're not going to have me go in, even though I'm in the business. You're not going to have me go into your house and be the one renovating your floors or sanding your floors, like I know about it. But I have great technicians that do that type of work. My ability is understanding. What does it take to get that contractor to focus just on what he's doing, like I want to find the business Like. That excites me because he's an expert.
Speaker 2:Being a tradesman is like the hardest thing. In my opinion. It's one of the most valuable businesses that I don't think we value today. I don't have that type of mental aspect to learn a trade. I've tried it. It just never worked for me. But I was one thing I was good at, and my original partner and I actually went on to a couple of job sites. I said, hi, how am I doing? He said, scott, stick to it, it's really good, give me your hammer. Exactly, and what I was good at was just finding ways of generating business leads. But not just that. The sales side tooth was conversing, like I said in the beginning communication, talking to the customer, making it, because in our industry contractors have. It's a, they have a like I'm trying to think of the word, but basically, like you say that word, if people are like, it's a trust factor.
Speaker 2:We talked about the reviews online and we were like yeah, like you come highly recommended really was validation to them. That's what I'm trying to get at is the validation aspect, and I enjoyed helping a contractor get business, but I loved a homeowner who was. We did a good job for them. I have a zero negative review policy. Now I know that's not necessarily you're always going to get negative reviews. I'm going to throw my hand up and say I've gotten negative reviews, but I don't ever want to do wrong by a customer and I also don't want to do wrong by a contractor. So we have high, stringent rules of technicians that work with us. But we also want to make sure clients happy. At the end of the day, you're not going to make everybody happy, but I want to always have some kind of resolution with somebody before we depart. I want to provide that service to somebody. I want to help the contractor out. I want to generate that business. It's exciting, I'm helping you out, you focus on your thing and then the homeowner gets a quality service.
Speaker 2:Because I get phone calls all the time and they're like yeah, I had this guy, I paid him X dollars, he disappeared or he ruined my floors. All these, he disappeared or he ruined my floors all these stories and there's a lot of those kinds of stories out there, exactly, and I just don't know how people do that. It's just not my, I guess that you could say is my why is I enjoy helping both sides. I enjoy helping good contractors focus on what they're good at and I get the business. But I also enjoy creating the opportunity for homeowners to find us, because a lot of these technicians, contractors specifically back then, but even now you're not going to find these people because they don't have the marketing power. That market are good or bad, it's just some of them aren't good and you're not finding out about these good quality companies and renovators.
Speaker 2:So to provide a service that you know prevents them from contacting the wrong person. That, to me, it makes me feel good at the end of the day is knowing that I'm doing something, cause somebody sent this to me. I don't know it was a week ago or something like that. They asked you we all want to be successful in business. When you're an entrepreneur, well, what value are you bringing to the public, or to the world, or to the greater good? And that's the thing at the end of the day. Like you got to get up in the morning, enjoying what you do and trying to help others.
Speaker 2:If that equates to hurting somebody to make that dollar. One is the days that you don't feel like getting up. You're going to be like ah, it's not worth it to do it that day. But also it's not what us as human beings is about. We're all here to help the greater good.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you can't be just fake. And I can see that connector. I can see the connector persona within you. I see you trying to help other people and connect all the time. We're a member of the DMZ Mastermind Group. Both of us and I see you doing that all the time. We were at the mayor's breakfast this week and I see you talking and networking and trying to connect, find people that can. One person has something that they offer, another person needs that, so that in people.
Speaker 1:I wonder and you said something about AI. I want to circle back to that, but first I wonder, and you don't have to answer, but I wonder if maybe some of your deep why Simon Sinek talks about maybe deeply connected to your parents' business. When Home Depot came in and some of the big box suppliers, where they're all about the DIY, I wonder if it was a struggle for your parents when that was happening, because you mentioned something about these big box companies eating a small guy's lunch and maybe there's something there that you should explore. There's a why in all of us and something is driving your deep sense of wanting to be that connector and your ingenuity and figuring out how to make all that happen.
Speaker 2:So I just find it interesting it could be like go back to what I just said. Is I remember going on installation jobs for carpet, which is not had nothing to do with my new ridge business because it was strictly focused on hardwood?
Speaker 2:floor refinishing installation, all that stuff. But that wasn't we did. That product actually was not one of the least products we sold, so I would try tile this and that I'd be a helper. But I don't know it. Just that wasn't my craft or my skill. But the one thing I was good at was like helping. Like I said that.
Speaker 2:A gentleman that came in, my first partner in the refinishing business, but he was like, hey, I have the ability to do this. I'm like, yeah, I don't have the ability to do what you do, but I have the ability to do this. I'm like, yeah, I don't have the ability to do what you do, but I have the ability to help, maybe provide the business acumen answering the phone. You don't have the time or the wherewithal to stay on top of it. That's my either inherent nature. But yeah, I'm sure there is a deeper meaning. I don't know if this is like getting to a therapy session, but yeah, that's it's brought up a few times to me. That's my strength.
Speaker 2:It's not so much I don't have an expertise in one specific thing. Like I'll say, it's shame when in our conversations I think you're a genius when it comes to a lot of these marketing strategies. My business is in sales and marketing and I have an interest in it, but at the end I don't have any specific knowledge on one thing where I could dive deep into it. A lot of my stuff is surface level and I tend to focus more on the macro than the micro in a lot of cases. I think that's where my ability is.
Speaker 2:I'm not going to know a lot about the one thing that I always talk about, but I do have this passion in this one area and I can connect you with the right person that knows this or does that, or in my business, I plug the pieces of the puzzle in of like how do I achieve this? I know it's not going to be on me and that's the one thing I learned. Actually, there's this gentleman who's like probably worth a half a billion dollars because he sold half his business and it keeps growing and growing and he's in the garage door business based in the US, and his key to success was one is the SOPs, what's the acronym for system operation?
Speaker 2:Standard operating processes Standard operation procedures and he had somebody hone in on that ability or forced him to do this, and now he delegates every little aspect of his life. The reason he grew his company from 20 million to 500 million was because he delegates everything. He has a passion specifically for marketing and a little bit of sales, but he has no passion for the operations, although he did create the SOPs. However he's, I can't do all this stuff, even if I love the marketing. I just I'm trying all these different things. So I need to find the person that is good at the SEO, the person that's good at the PPC or the operations guy. He hired a COO.
Speaker 2:That's the one thing I learned is all like all the most successful people in the world are most successful entrepreneurs in the world. They may have been good at something, but at the end of the day, they delegate everything. That's the key to success is how do you get, find the best people and stay on top of things from a macro level? Yeah, it's kind of.
Speaker 2:It's the visionary thing from like the eos book, where I'm not saying that I'm a visionary, but just in general in business, people are so tunnel vision in their businesses and when I talk to somebody on a surface level say I'm like, oh, I know somebody that can help you with that. Or I can you give me some information? I'm like, have you thought about this? And they'm like never would have thought of it. And usually at first I'm like rejecting it. If I know what it's like when you're so focused in your business and I like talking to people and like connecting them and trying to help solve their problems, so I don't have a strict answer to it, but it's just one of the things that, no matter what business I'm in, what you're talking about.
Speaker 1:you're grazing the surface of something I think is really vitally important to all business owners, but in particular, startup founders that are just in the emerging early stages, is that you are your chief cook and bottle washer and finance person. You have to do that, so you need to have a little bit of knowledge about all of those aspects so that you can manage the people that you have coming in all of those aspects, so that you can manage the people that you have coming in. One thing that I find in my business is my best customers are the ones who are already somewhat knowledgeable and educated with marketing. It doesn't matter what marketing it could be digital marketing, it could be more traditional stuff, it could be copywriting but if they know something about it and, in particular, if they've tried it on their own, they become my best customers because they know what's involved and we can have really good deep conversation about what we do. And then we buy data and they participate in working through the analytics, because when we do advertising, we're really buying data so that we can decide what works and what doesn't work, and when they are more educated about it, even if it's just at a high level. They're much better customers because they know what's involved and they can help me steer where they want their business to go. At some point maybe you have one area of expertise that you really lean into but you need to be able to leverage hiring other people to do that work. But if you know a little bit about it, then you become a much better manager for them and for you and for your business. So it's a win.
Speaker 1:I want to come back to what you were talking about on the AI side, because you said something interesting when we first started talking. You said you're the guy that looks for the one thing, the simple things that have a big impact, and I call them Archimedes levers. If you've got a lever and a fulcrum, you can move. With a little effort you can move a larger object. Buckminster Fuller called it the trim tabs.
Speaker 1:They called them trim tab bucky because a trim tab is the little tab that's on the rudder of a ship and so when you steer a ship they move that. They don't move the whole rudder because that's hard to do. They'll move the little trim tab and then that moves the rudder. So it's if you can find those little things that help move something big by taking a small effort, then you're going to get big wins. What do you think, as that relates to the world of this ever-evolving ai? It seems like there's some new software or some new company pumping something out that's ai related. Do you have any insights, or have you tried some things that you think might be that Archimedes lever or that one thing that's going to help?
Speaker 2:Yeah, so I think we all use AI, even before the whole ChatGPT thing, and I love ChatGPT. I have a premium subscription. I try all the different like AI services To an extent from a surface level. Again, I don't dive deep into it Like some people are like really down and create their own AI tools, but that's just from an operational perspective. Going back and how I started with classified sites, the Homestars, which none of these services aren't great anymore. I'm not saying that they're horrible, I'm just saying they're not great.
Speaker 2:It's hard enough to run a business, so you want to find not just the one thing, but you also want to find the one thing that's like that low hanging fruit that you really focus on. You could put all your time and energy into servicing a client or focusing on your business and utilizing this one tool to leverage, cause you still have to work long hours to run a business. But like it's two things. I work so hard on getting all this marketing, like I work on running the business and then the sales and servicing all these different aspects. I think as human beings, that's our nature is to find things as easy as possible. So classified sites were good at one time, the Homestars thing, google PPC, which nowadays, if you think it's crazy, it was probably the easiest, best tool to use. I think we're talking 15 plus years ago. If you're young, you're probably scratching your head going what, but that's what it was.
Speaker 1:Now it's quite expensive to use.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think it was. So the mid-2015, say around 2005 or 2015 max was the sweet spot. I think even by 2015, it was already completely starting to change a lot. But we're in this situation today with AI where, I'll be honest, like I've used, I know the big co-pilot. I'm not an Apple guy, I'm a we call it Microsoft guy, so I have it already built in all my browsers and stuff. They're all built in the same thing. Whether it's just a random question, I'll ask the AI because it gives you a better answer.
Speaker 2:Now, if you're searching for a product or a service, you still go up Google and all that stuff. But let's say I damaged my hardware floors. How do I fix it? If it's a more intuitive question, you're going to ask the AI. And I noticed when I searched for something technical because I'm the least technical guy, so it was something to do with cars and I noticed there was like this was in Copilot specifically. There was like links to like Honda and other things. And then I investigated it further and I found out there were some big Fortune 500 companies that were putting ads within the ai.
Speaker 2:I haven't really delved into it too much because I haven't gotten clear answers. But I'm thinking let's go back to the google ppc 10 15 years ago. This is replacing how we search in the future, or will change how we search in the future. So I'm starting to think, okay, so you're not getting the entire population, but you're getting a certain segment of the population and a growing amount of the population focusing on using an AI tool over a standard search engine. There's no such thing as search ads specifically in AI. So I'm thinking, okay, how can I leverage this? Now here's the thing that probably won't be the same as it was 20 years ago or 10 years ago is we're ever evolving faster. The rate of change is going up and up. So meaning that I had what? Five to 10-year cycle back then. Now you're lucky if it's one year.
Speaker 2:I found ChatGPT in January 2023. Came out in November 2022, but I started to think things on it. I jumped on it and I was her to things things on it. I jumped on it and I was doing things. My wife knows it's now. I was posting birthday messages. She loves this on Facebook. I'm on a social media person, so always on anniversary birthday, I'd always post things on Facebook. It was like, you know, creating these messages and she was like honey, these are like, like, who are ready to hire people to write this? These are the nicest messages in the world. Sure, what was it? Six months, eight months later, I think the whole world you didn't know that to me, but that's the thing, though. That's my point. Nobody knew about it. I was leveraging a tool, but it only took six months to the whole world realized that it was. Funny thing is my wife didn't yell at me.
Speaker 1:She started using it. Of course, messages for me Anything to make things your life easier.
Speaker 1:I think is good, Exactly I think we have to rein it in a little bit because, like anything, when you get a new tool or a new thing that makes life easy, we tend to overuse it. It just becomes mundane vanilla crap that's being output, the crap that's being output. So, like with my own business, I've taken it to another level and I've written several documents of phases where I can prompt the AI tools that I use, and I use a suite of them, including chat, gpt, but a suite of AI tools that I can use to prompt to do my entire marketing process, which I used to do manually. So that would start with rate, with who's the customer that you want to serve, that you can serve the best. Okay, who are they? Not just demographically, like age and all that kind of stuff, but psychographically.
Speaker 1:And then what is the emotional drivers that make that person make a decision? Because, let's face it, as humans we make most of our decisions based on emotion and then follow up later with logic. We might say we don't do that, but everybody does. So when I'm marketing, I'm trying to figure out what emotion are we tapping into, not in an evil way, not in a way that you're trying to manipulate, but in a way that you can help them, because when you can tap into emotions, you can move people to open up their mind to new things, and when they open up their mind to new things, then they're more likely to make a change, and hopefully that's for the better for whatever they're trying to do. So you're helping them get a little closer to their desired result.
Speaker 1:So I have all of these documents that I use to iteratively move the AI through, giving me the results that I want, but I have to teach it what to do to give me good output. So I feel AI is still very much in its infancy. In that respect, it is a good Archimedes lever. You can use it to move something that's hard to move with that lever and get a big jump or a big leap ahead. But you have to know how to use the lever and right now the AI tools that I see coming out, they do have push button capability, but if you really want to get a good output, you need to learn how to use all the different levers that are available. So it's still a little bit complicated from that perspective, but once you establish some templates.
Speaker 1:So I'm just trying to put across the idea that if you're an expert in whatever business that you are doing, you've probably done a bunch of things manually. How can you take all the things that you normally do in your world and automate it? By plugging those manual things into the AI automation tools and you can create your own what's called GPTs, which are they're just little workers for you. They'll go out and get you the information you want if you give it good input. So I don't know. To me, that's where you've got to do a bunch of the upfront work, and maybe a lot of that is already sitting on your hard drive or in your mind because you've been doing that work for so long. You have knowledge and expertise, so take that and systematize it. Put it into sops, plug it into the ai tools so that you can get them working for you. Now you've got a tool that'll work 724 for you tirelessly, but it's based on the knowledge that you have, so you have to feed it your expertise yeah, actually, that's another point too.
Speaker 2:My theory saying it just based on my own business is I would like to figure out how to leverage the ai. It is going to be curious to see how you can grow your business from a sales and marketing perspective, utilizing the AI tools, replacing the PPC and the Craigslist and all the things I've used in the past. Like how is that going to be today's tool to generate business? But on the other side, I'm so robust, really. We talked about the SOP, where I was talking about all these successful people. The key to your business is sales, marketing and operations. From a standard operating procedure aspect is because until you get to that level, you're never going to be able to grow your business from an exponential level. Now here's the thing, and I'm guilty of it. That's one of my weaknesses. I can talk about the SOPs, I know about it, but implementing them is pretty hard.
Speaker 2:Somebody like yourself, shane, I think, is incredible because I've seen your structure of how you systemize things. People always talk about AI replacing jobs. Ai is creating opportunities for people, entrepreneurs. Somebody like myself in my position, who doesn't have necessarily a special skill, like a legal, like I'm not a lawyer or a doctor, where AI can replace something like that. I'm a user of these tools and a lot of us are going to become users of these tools, and you're 100% right where the key, I think universities are going to start, or schools in general, or education platforms are going to teach you how to prompt things or utilize an AI. Not be the designer and creator of an AI, sure, but that's all technical.
Speaker 1:That seems to be what everyone wants. They all want to have their own AI software.
Speaker 2:But you're right.
Speaker 1:I think prompt engineering is a really big thing. That's what I was calling the levers earlier. Yeah, exactly. Well, I still need people to. Once I've established the, the process based on the sops and knowledge I've had, I still need people to use that and know what levers to pull and then take because you get the output. Even though you've, you know, done all those levers in the right way, you still get the output. Even though you've done all those levers in the right way, you still get an output that isn't perfect.
Speaker 1:You need people to be able to take all of that stuff and massage it into something that has your brand voice, has a unique way that you help people in the world built into it. All these things need some human interaction, exactly. And then the next level is for me anyway, in my world, once you start advertising, one of the biggest things is I'm buying data. I spend hours just analyzing that data to try and figure out the trends, to see where the next set of Archimedes levers are Like, what do we get rid of and what do we double down on that will allow us to move the needle forward. Ai can do that. Now I can download all that data and tell the AI what I want to analyze and what result I want, and it will figure out what the best stuff is. But I still need people to do that yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:And then just to continue on that thought is it? I think it is going to place her in things, but here's the thing A lot of us don't execute. And I'm going back to my thing on the SOPs. A lot of us just get busy in the grind, but what this AI tool or ability can, and you can outsource it. But here's the thing is creating an SOP is very difficult. It's tedious, annoying and actually that's what I'm guilty of.
Speaker 2:I just don't want to do it, but AI can take over that. Now you would never, for example, a copywriter or any basic tool that we all use to write an email or whatnot. Sure, some people have assistants. They're always going to use those assistants. But if you're a solopreneur or an entrepreneur or a small business, where you just either don't have those capabilities or wouldn't even think about using it, now you have it right at your hands on an app on your phone or at your computer. Within an instant second. You can prompt it and get it where you want. Now, are you prompting it properly? That's another discussion, but I think it's creating more growth potential. Now I don't want to get into the discussion. Like you were saying, there's all these potential risks, security risks, and is it good for society? That's beyond my pay grade and my knowledge. We're talking here on a podcast about helping startups or entrepreneurs, and this is how the tool can help you in a business. Don't be so worried about the negative. Focus on the positive. Is your glass half full or half empty?
Speaker 1:Yeah, so either jump on the bus or the bus is going to leave without you, because AI is here and you may not even realize it, but you're using it and you don't even know.
Speaker 2:Yeah, ai is everywhere and when I started my business, the New Ridge Refinishing business, I didn't know what the internet was going to become. But there was businesses run, I think, called Yellow Pages. This is for the young crowd. I actually got one in the mail recently. I'm surprised they still have it. You have them. Yeah, I actually one came in my mail, very thin. It used to be a thick book.
Speaker 1:I didn't know they were still around.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I didn't know either, but that was the big thing and it was very expensive and you had to be the big business to afford the big page and all that stuff Newspaper print, magazine print ads and it listed what advertisers used to love. There was no way of measuring it and I heard former CEO of CBS Media said you know what we loved about it? It was so easy to sell because you sell the sizzle of what they could get and you couldn't even measure it. Google, he said, was the worst thing for our business because when it came in now you can measure everything. I don't remember the name of the person, but he basically admitted it ruined their whole gimmick. He wasn't saying they were conning people because they didn't know themselves right. They just thought, hey, you advertise, you get eyeballs on it and they're right, it can create business.
Speaker 1:That was the demise of the traditional newspaper publications, and there was a lot of local ones too, but they were free distribution. So because they were free, they would say look, our distribution is 250,000. Yeah, but it's free, and when I drive down the street I see them all in the blue boxes. Nobody even reads them, but still they. So they would price your ad by size and distribution and that was the only measurement that they had. They'd go look, you're advertising to 250,000 people. That's why the cost is so high. I remember back in the early 2000s the only way that I could get anyone to really see the ad is do it in color and do either a half page or a full page ad, and those ads cost me between $2,500 and $3,500 for a one-time ad.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:That's a ridiculous price.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it was insanely expensive, no-transcript, and they were skeptical of it and I just took advantage of it. I don't want to say it was a low hanging fruit. It was convenient because you could do it. For I was a small guy, I was running a flooring business and at the same time we had the internet, which was a big deal because not all stores had it, and I was leveraging it in the off time to build another business and you could do that from a computer and all you needed was a phone and a computer and that was revolutionary. I know today it doesn't sound like it, but that changed everything. People are skeptical. They're like I don't know the internet, I don't believe it's going to take off. Old school things in print media, radio advertising, tv advertising. That's just a true and trusted method, which nowadays we know is not.
Speaker 2:I'm not saying don't use it, but I'm saying there's better options nowadays, and I think that's where we are right now with ai specifically, but the rate of change is going to be a lot faster. But in a year from now our talk on this is probably going to be so outdated, because things are ever changing. For sure You're going to need to eventually do it. So everybody now needs to have a website. But those same people in the early 2000s didn't necessarily have a website or believed you ever needed to have one. Whether you want to change or think you're going to be forced to change, no matter what.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and now I could clearly see that there could be an evolutionary path where people don't even need websites anymore. Like I have chatbots. Now that I put on people's websites, the chatbots are programmed to answer all the questions, just like a trained employee does. Why do you need a website? Just talk to the chatbot and you can get all your answers much quicker than trying to find it in a complicated UI designed website.
Speaker 2:A thousand percent. I'm guilty of it too. I still use Outlook and the old school email, which is still important. People still use it. Yeah, and it's like my Bible, like how I just manage and organize everything but young people today they'll use a basic Gmail, a Gmail account.
Speaker 2:It's not organized the same way and they're like I don't really like email. It's not organized the same way and they're like I don't really like email. I'd rather just chat to somebody, use a different type of chat service, whether it's WhatsApp or whatever the chat services are, and that's just the way the brain is.
Speaker 1:I have two kids that are in their mid-20s and they can't stand email. It's like email is boomer land to them. They're all about the messaging apps and Discord, WhatsApp, whatever. That's how they all communicate. It's live and it's in here and now and it's quick. So, yeah, you're right.
Speaker 1:I think there's a lesson for all businesses, no matter what point you're at in the evolution, whether you're in the startup early stages to a more mature one, and that is experiment. Try things like don't blow your all your budget on it, but allocate a certain amount of your time and a certain amount of your percentage of revenue. I like to go with like around 15% has always been my kind of rule of thumb. Put 15% towards some kind of testing to I'm talking in the world of promoting your business and marketing and advertising 15% and try the new things.
Speaker 1:Try AI. Don't be afraid because, like you said, you're going to be left in the dust. Yeah, maybe there's going to be some bad things down the road. Maybe it's going to become sentient and take over the earth, I don't know, but for now it's definitely helping. It's greatly helped my business in the last three years of using it and I don't see that slowing down anytime soon. I think that's a philosophy you and I share. You seem to be an experimenter. Try new things, look for the leverage points, look for those growth levers, but look for the things that are going to give you a big jump forward with a small pull on that lever Would you say that's true.
Speaker 2:Not only that, but I want to hit on a point you just mentioned about. Don't you know, break the bank, I'm gonna let you know a little secret when I started, I didn't spend any money it was all like blood and sweat. That's all it was. It was just like hard time is money, though.
Speaker 1:Yeah, when you're putting your time in, that's time that you could have used somewhere else. Percentage of you got to put a dollar to your time and say, okay, that is, even though I'm not spending cash out of my bank account, I'm spending time, which is there's a dollar a thousand person hate saying me when I say a thousand, because there's all sorts of things. It's a thousand but yeah, a hundred percent right there and I'll tell you right now.
Speaker 2:So back then I was in my early twenties, had all the time in the world no stresses, no expenses, really relative to now. And now I have lack of that time. So I will spend a little bit of money or outsource things and try to get to the answer quick, and if I can't do it, I want somebody else to do it. I don't have the same time to experiment back then, so time is much more valuable. It doesn't matter what age you are, I'm just the same back then, so time is much more valuable. It doesn't matter what age you are. I'm just saying back then to me my time was a little cheaper because I had more of it and you don't need to a lot of these things. Actually, what I'm trying to get at is a lot of these things when they're new.
Speaker 2:The Google PPC back then was not what it is today. I think Google PPC has become things get. It's like an arbitrage right. When you when something's new, the big guys stay away from it. So you have less competition, you have less eyeballs, but you have less competition. That window goes away as the big guys start coming onto it.
Speaker 2:When I say big guys I mean a bigger company with bigger budgets because they start swallowing things up and they spend more money. They'll outspend you. Even this, the honest story I mentioned that is in the garage door business. It's like a $500 million a year business base in the US. He's like look, nicest guy in the world, has a podcast, tries to help other businesses, but he's going to tell people he's like be careful when you use these services, because I'm the guy that will outspend you and I purposely do that to like not swallow you up or destroy your business.
Speaker 2:But my job is to be the number one and I'll. I don't care what the price is, I'm so big I could spend whatever I want. But in the beginning most of the big companies are not experimenting because it's like a cruise boat right for them to shift and change. It's hard. Most entrepreneurs, especially startups you're that little speedboat like miami vice before my time. Did you have that scene beginning on this small boat? They're chasing somebody down. That's what we are. You can change on a dime and take advantage of that.
Speaker 1:The early adopter time is the time for all of us smaller founders to capitalize. You're right, the big enterprises. They'll swallow it up at some point and then they'll ruin it for all of us, because they'll overuse it.
Speaker 1:I think it was I don't know if it was Peter Drucker who said this, but he said the business who can spend the most to acquire customers is the one who will win. And what does that mean? I think a lot of people don't realize it, but in the world of advertising, many companies will spend more than what they get back from that initial customer because they know that over a period of time they have all the data, so they know how long does it take to recover and then start to go positive for even as much as 18 months. They look at what is the lifetime value of a customer and how much time does it take to recover and how much money can we spend to acquire those customers. So they'll spend double, triple, sometimes even quadruple the amount that they get back first. So they're not getting an ROI initially, they're getting an ROI over time.
Speaker 1:Small businesses can't really afford to do that. So you're right, when those big guys grab ahold of this, then we got to find the next new leverage point, the next new growth lever. We've got to be early adopters on something new. So staying out on that curve, I think, is important for all of us little guys.
Speaker 2:Yeah, for all of us little guys. Yeah, and I've learned this Look, we all want to find something and stick to it and just day in, day out, bleed it dry and use it, because it's not a matter of doing less work to make more. That is the goal. But you still have when you're a small entrepreneur. You still have the day-to-day stuff. You still have like regular operational aspects of your business, no matter what you're doing, even if you systemize the whole thing.
Speaker 2:Yeah, but you always got to stay on top of the ever-changing thing. And in the beginning, you know when, once the tools I was using became saturated, the competition went up, the closing ratio went from. I didn't have it properly measured back then but literally on some of the services I was using, the closing rate was well over 75%. And I know some people say oh yeah, my close rate is 90%. But I'll admit today my closing ratio in a lot of things is like a quarter. I'm lucky if I get 25% in a lot of things. I don't want to say I'm looking for that new 75% closing rate and I know that time window from being a few years is going to condense down to six months to a year with the rate of change changing. But you just got to get used to it and own up to the fact that you always, like you, were saying you got to stay on top of things. If you don't stay on top of things, you're going to be left in the dust, you're going to go out of business, you're going to struggle, you're going to spend more time trying to catch up, because once you fall behind, trying to catch up to the new thing is going to be harder. So if you're always looking for the new thing and look, I'm guilty of it because I was slow to pivot, because when I found a couple of things that were working great, you know what I mean my leveraging like in the beginning it was serendipity that I caught on to the review thing from one platform to another. I hit a real hurdle there and it took me a long time to learn and pivot and realize that this is just an ever-changing cycle. But here's the thing when you do find something that is low-hanging or easy leverage, you got to take advantage of it at that time Because, just like I said, the window is going to change. People will sit there, especially engineers, and I don't mean to insult engineers. We all experiment to make sure everything works out great. But if you find something that's worth it, go for it. Just use it, because that's going to especially when I'm talking marketing. That window is going to be gone before you know it, so take advantage of it while you can.
Speaker 2:My business would not be where it was today without services. Like I always tell when I do presentations at Homestars, I've done it for their sales teams. I told about my whole story, my business and this would not be where it was today without them because of that right time, right place to grow it. But at that time I wouldn't be in the same place. But you got to find that tool that's going to get you to the next level. But that tool that gets you to the next level isn't the one that's going to get you to the level after that. And it's the same as, like bigger companies, but small and medium companies that have an executive team, your CEO at 10 million is not going to be your CEO at a hundred million dollar year business. It's going to change and that's okay. You know what I mean. It's not rules for different people. So you just ever evolve and ever grow, no matter what you're doing.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, I think you're absolutely right and so like looking out. It's about tools and techniques and tactics and all those new things. So you should be testing and experimenting and I find no disrespect. But I find the Canadian small business owner is very conservative in comparison to our American counterparts. Say what you want about the US, but those business owners there's a lot of small business owners in the US. I know they're 10 times our size and population, but I think that it's algorithmically bigger in terms of the number of people who have their own small business but they're much more willing to test things to see what works.
Speaker 1:If there's any advice I would have for our folks in this community, in this audience, it's don't be afraid to test these things. Look for them, and not just outwardly to the new tools and tactics and techniques, but also look to your customer. Your customer will tell you, they'll tell you what they need, help them find with your unique capacities and your unique way of doing business and helping your clientele. There's something in there that's a cross intersect between the tools and technologies and the evolution that's happening out there and the service you provide to your customer and what they need. If you can find the intersection of those three things and, believe me, the path is with your customer. They're everything. What do they need that maybe they're not getting right now? If you can find that you tap into that blue ocean man, it's going to go crazy for you. So it's not just about the tools and techniques, but how do you do that in a way that is going to maybe lower costs for your clientele or give them something that they can't get somewhere else? And it can be really simple. Things Like I know.
Speaker 1:There's a book that I read I think it was called Growth Leavers actually where they talked about PayPal, and I think this was in PayPal's early days. But what they found was they had a lot of. They were doing their advertiser, doing whatever they were doing. They're getting a lot of signups, but then what they found was people weren't running transactions through it. That's how they make money. They don't make money from somebody signing up and installing PayPal as a payment method. They make money when you run a transaction because they got a percentage of that transaction. And so, by talking to their customers, they just started doing surveys and following up with them and having phone conversations. What they found was that 80% of their audience were small businesses who didn't really have much transactions to run through yet. So they separated it and they started doing something that's very popular in the world of email marketing, which is segmentation. So segment your market.
Speaker 1:These people need a different service than these ones, so you've got two segments. Now, 20% of them are great businesses, so they would give them more of a white glove treatment. They got an account manager assigned. They got some special help to help grow the business online. This is like in the early days, when a lot of that wasn't happening and then for the others, they got digital training on how to grow their business or how to get the business started, so that they could eventually become part of that 20% too. And when PayPal recognized that it's like the Pareto principle 80-20 rule 20% of your effort gives you 80% of the results, but the opposite the inverse is true too. If you're spending 80% of your efforts on the things that aren't really working, then you're only getting 20% of the results. So you got to figure out what is that 80-20, divide it and spend most of your time on the things that are getting you the biggest results.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and I think it's also a disbelief too, is find that low hay and fruit. Like it sounds like we're all looking for a unicorn and a holy grail and the easy way out, but it's not that. It's when you find something that's working and you take advantage of it, utilize it. And I think it's disbelief, like we just don't believe that something simple or something like when we catch on to something that is new and it's working well, we're like no, this can't be, we're just ingrained in it. It's got to be hard, it can't be that easy, and if it's easy, it's too good to be true type of thing. You got to put things in perspective and when you were mentioning PayPal, the story with PayPal, because if you look at the founders or a lot of the people in the executive team in the beginning, some of the richest people are most influential people today.
Speaker 2:No question yeah, anything that they say is good.
Speaker 1:Yeah, all right, we're just rounding up to the hour, so I want to be respectful of everyone's time yours and our audience. Just to close this out, I want to make sure we get back to you. I know you've recently started your path in the realtor world, so tell us a little bit about that. And if somebody wants to get a hold of you, how would they do that?
Speaker 2:Yeah. So I joined a new innovative brokerage not your typical brokerage called Rare Real Estate here and my wife and I are a team together, really the brains of the operation. She'll know you have any question about real estate. She knows prices of homes, everything about all the homes in the area. I think there's huge opportunity coming in the future because with the population growth, things becoming saturated and expensive down in Toronto, I think from a perspective, we just don't have the infrastructure up here and it's going to have to be built and there are proposals and projects in there. Just like we were talking about the connection aspect of it, I'm very involved in the Innisfil community and I want to be part of that growth, from developing that infrastructure. So that's one of the reasons why I got into the real estate as well, as it also ties in with my other business, the New Ridge business because the main aspect of what I do is sales and marketing and the real estate is revolved around the home, just like New Ridge refinishing.
Speaker 2:So I just found the two go together and it adds another again ever growing, a new aspect to the business as well.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I know we just recently had a friend that sold a place down in Mississauga in Toronto, and it was an older place that had been owned by his grandfather so we had to do a renovation on it. We went and helped him do the renovation on it and definitely by dressing it up and making it look nicer, it sold for way more than it could have. Is that something that you're talking about, marrying the two aspects of what you're doing now?
Speaker 2:Yeah, like right there. I've noticed investors, wealth planners, bringing up clients. I spoke to one last week that is not from here, they're from Toronto. Their clients are like very wealthy, high net worth earners that invest internationally, believe it or not, and locally. But I've asked them why Innisfil? Like I know why Innisfil, but I want to hear why other people do. It's nice to hear when you hear an outsider who doesn't live here give an unbiased view and they see that I'm hearing a lot of mirroring thoughts as well, that they're seeing the same opportunities. And the thing about a town like Innisfil you could say, because we're here and we don't know necessarily about all other small towns, but I have seen other small towns as well and I, even when before I moved up here, I found it very interesting Some of the innovative things that they've done, whether it was like that partnership with the Uber, where it was just supposedly was the first small town in North America to do that type of innovative public transit system partnership with.
Speaker 2:Uber. Yeah, the DMZ partnership. I also like they realized they were a small town and wanted to create a tech entrepreneur or even a startup entrepreneur incubator. To facilitate that, I think they started it Don't quote me on this but they started doing it within the town team. They realized it's just going to take too long to develop that in that innovative thought process to partner with somebody that's already got the systems in place. You could just like a switch of a light switch, turn it on and it'll start running.
Speaker 1:They don't have to develop it themselves.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so you need a talent to have that futuristic thinking and be able to change. Yeah, they're a cruise boat. We're that speedboat.
Speaker 1:You're Miami Vice. Yeah, there you go.
Speaker 2:I never even watched the show and so just like a small business. Yeah, there you go. I don't know, I never even watched the show. I was like too young to watch this, but I don't know why I popped into my head.
Speaker 2:That's the image I like, the song in the background and the town is looking towards that. There's some small towns that just want to stay the way they are. I know you talked to some people in town. They're like, yeah, you got to jump on the boat. It's either going to leave you or you're going to go with it, and I already see the change that's happening in the town.
Speaker 1:I've only lived here for five years and it's been a dramatic change and it's probably again ready to change. It's just going to ramp up. I totally agree. I love this little town. It's going to take a few years to build but eventually it's going to be like a live and work in hub with a go train station coming through and I think it's gonna be wonderful, great place to uh, to live and grow in, for your family and commercially. So it's great that you and your wife are taking care of you, taking care of the residential and the commercial side of things.
Speaker 2:Yeah Well, like right now, residential is the low hanging fruit, because the town hasn't gotten to that level, yet I'm already in talks and talking to investor groups and people out there that are interested in and other people that have assets that are either looking to sell or develop. So I'm already in the works of it. But, like you said, things like that take time, even including the orbit as well. That's a project I'm interested in as being involved with as well. Those things take time.
Speaker 2:But we also have I don't know if people know this, if you're outside the area is we also have the unique aspect of being like a cottage area. We've got a beautiful lake here, beautiful beaches Right by the lake, and you got a lot of like opportunity here, with upscale homes, wet on the water and off the water, and just subdivisions. You got like the old school farmhouses and older folks. You got everything here. I know I always hear that we talked about the one thing and the focus, but sometimes when you're in a, an area like a small town, our focus is the community, right. So whether it's commercial, residential, lakefront, we're really, uh, focused on the community in and of itself from a estate and the commercial business development aspect as well.
Speaker 1:So you said you're part of rare real estate now and you said it's a unique place. What's unique and different about it?
Speaker 2:Yeah, think of what's a good comparison. What do we all know? We all know the remaxes, the century 20 ones. I don't know if everybody does this, but I spent a month talking to all types of brokerages and I know, at the end of the day, when you're in this business, it's all about you, but you want to work with. Just like I said, I always want to work with something that's different. We spent the whole hour talking about how I started my business and the focusing on what is the new thing. So I went out seeking something different and I didn't like what I was hearing. It's like oh, I'm part of Remax Century 21. A the branding message isn't there and B the structure isn't there. With Rare, they have an opportunity. They have a killer rev share plan that, if you want to build a team.
Speaker 2:They actually have the ability to, like you could rev share with sharing the profits of the model, so you have a double income source passive income and growth. One of them is into pre-construction, so they have the ability with commercial development. They have that background and they also have the network in Toronto that they don't have those types of brands where we are here, or the thought process the same way. So I wanted to be in something that was different, whereas if I was going to be part of a brokerage that has a different network, different thought process, I could bring that to an area like we are here. So that's some of the things, and even technology wise, it's very simple, not bloated, like they got a cloud. They're building this new cloud system, but it's not bloated. It's very simple to use. It's just like we were saying with young kids nowadays they're building it so that it's easy to use it from your phone you can message and they're very forward thinking with that, whereas the older ones they got a CRM. They spent millions of dollars on.
Speaker 1:So it doesn't have the same growth.
Speaker 2:They're more of the Miami Vice powerboat. Yeah, exactly, you got it.
Speaker 1:Okay. So if they want to get a, if anyone wants to get ahold of you, what's the best way to do that on your LinkedIn profile or website? Well, or?
Speaker 2:yeah, that's one of the things I know. We spoke about that. It's one of the things I have it. I finally got a chat button on my site. I've had it for a while and we're working on it, but it's uh, it doesn't have the ai capabilities. That's the one thing that I am going to give you a shadeless plug share. But I've seen your tool used, uh, when I've communicated with it, and I've never used an ai service where I'm communicating with you via text, and not only are your responses quick, but it sounds like you're responding to me.
Speaker 1:They're programmed it with my voice, so hopefully it sounds a little like me.
Speaker 2:maybe not exactly, but I've never seen that before. But to communicate with me, before I have that AI chatbot, go to my website, scottknewmancom. My email is me at scottknewmancom.
Speaker 1:Okay, I'll make sure we put those links in the show notes. So if anyone wants to get a hold of scott, you can just click on that link yeah, all right scott, I want to. I'm very thankful for your time coming to be a guest on the impact innovators podcast and I'm sure everyone got some really great tips on helping to grow their business and I just want to thank you, bless your your heart, for spending the time to help some fellow entrepreneurs.
Speaker 2:Yeah, thanks a lot, shane.
Speaker 1:Okay, man, have a great day, take care.
