Welcome to episode 178 of the Business Development podcast.

And today we're chatting with the founder and CEO of Canada Prime Marketing, Fahad Khan.

And he is going to tell us how becoming a Tony Robbins platinum partner absolutely changed his life.

Stick with us.

You are not going to want to miss this episode.

The great Mark Cuban once said, business happens over years and years.

Value is measured in the total upside of a business relationship, not by how much you you squeezed out in any one deal.

And we couldn't agree more.

This is the business development podcast based in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada and broadcasting to the world.

You'll get expert business development advice, tips and experiences and you'll hear interviews with business owners, CEO's and business development reps.

You'll get actionable advice on how to grow business brought to you by Capital Business Development CapitaLBD CA let's do it.

Welcome to the Business Development podcast and now your expert host, Kelly Kennedy.

Hello.

Welcome to episode 178 of the Business development podcast and today we have an absolute rockstar marketing expert for you.

Today we're bringing you Fahad Khandhe.

Fahad is the dynamic CEO and founder of Canada Prime Immigration and marketing.

He began his entrepreneurial journey at the remarkable age of 23.

Under his visionary leadership, Canada Prime Marketing has forged strategic alliances with Fortune 500 giants like Telus and Sodastream, maintaining these partnerships for over a decade, his company has earned prestigious accolades, including top spot in Edmonton across all industries and being named among Canada's fastest growing companies by profit 500 and growth 500.

The HoD's relentless drive and innovative strategies have not only propelled his company to the forefront of the marketing industry, but have also cemented his reputation as a leading business strategist.

Beyond his corporate success, Fahad is a certified international business and life coach mentored by luminaries such as Tony Robbins and Brian Tracy.

His commitment to personal and professional growth extends to his role as a brand ambassador for Nate and his initiative, today's youth tomorrow's leader, which aims at inspiring millions of young people in emerging countries.

As a keynote speaker at global conferences like Lyft Pakistan, Fahad motivates audiences with his belief in the power of new perspectives and breaking free from limiting beliefs.

With a passion for shaping the next generation of leaders, Fahad Khan is not just a businessman, but a catalyst for lasting change, empowering individuals to rewrite their stories and reach unprecedented heights.

Fahad, it's an honor to have you on the show today.

Thank you so much Kelly, for the invitation and it is a pleasure.

It's the pleasure.

The pleasure is mine.

Dude, I've been following you on LinkedIn for quite some time and I love your social game.

I love the information that you put out in the world.

You don't really hold anything back.

You share a lot of great ideas with the world.

You're doing some really cool things around the world with your public speaking and yeah, it's.

I'm really excited to have this conversation with you today.

Wonderful.

I'll definitely share whatever I can and hope and I'm pretty confident the audience you have, which is phenomenal, and they will get some value out of it and worth the time for everybody.

It's.

It's really cool that you're right here in Edmonton and that you've been doing this for so long.

You know, what is it, almost 16 years in the marketing industry, you started when you were 23?

Yes, that's when I started the business.

But in sales been since the age of 16.

So when selling, you might have experienced some of those guys selling credit cards in the malls, airports, trying to stop you.

Take this credit card of that.

I think we were one of the pioneers used to sell and I was very blessed.

When I was under the age of 18, I managed to got into that marketing job and got some experience and built from there.

There's a lot of learning experiences.

But the biggest breakthrough happened when we started our own business at the age of 23.

Wow.

Man, that blows my mind because I think back to me at 23, that was when I started my business development career and I was just a young punk at it.

But just to think that you'd actually launched Canada prime marketing at 23 blows my mind.

Like, that's amazing, dude.

And the best part was the reason we started was through the adversity, because as you know, when we are doing some entry level jobs, some small credit card sales of this, my biggest thing was I was making good money, but I wasn't getting paid.

Sometimes the commissions wouldn't come in.

And then in our Tony Robbins world, we say there's a time comes in when you say enough, that's it.

And then it's a breakthrough moment.

And that's when we started Canada prime.

And fortunately, our first major client.

Even in the first six months, we started talking and was actually Telus as our first client.

Wow.

Wow.

Yeah, like, that's like most companies dream to work with a company like Telus someday for that to be your first client and.

Wow.

Like, that's all I have to say.

Well, timings is everything, you know, I always say wrong timings, no matter what you do.

Let's say you try to sell face to face during the COVID time.

Good luck.

You're not going to get it.

I believe when we got the client like tell us we were blessed and the timings were perfect.

I remember I worked on the pilot project at that time and they were about to launch Optic TV.

Not the fiber, but the first brand was their optic tv.

They were rebranding in 2009 and tend and we were right there at the right time and perfect timing.

Since when you show up as a savior and everything else is history.

We serve them for twelve years and always grateful for what I've learned from their leadership, what we have done and the impact which they have created in their own company and the company with my company and hundreds of people who have worked with us.

Right.

So it have impacted the lives.

Yes.

No, for sure.

I would love for you to take us back.

Obviously you've been doing sales a really long time but were you always this entrepreneurial motive like take me back to being a kid, what, you know, run me through a kid to today.

How did you end up on this journey?

So basically I came to Canada when I was 14 and back home I remember I have two older brothers.

My mom always used to say that one of my kid gonna be a business owner and luckily or fortunately I was the youngest one.

Both of my older brothers were studied from Ufa they become engineers and I was not the smartest one.

When it comes to the traditional education there's no way I would have got it to University of Alberta but I got into Nate which is a great institution and from there I enjoyed selling because after my first job was like Burger King which I hated it.

After two weeks I told my manager to fire me.

True story.

I made up me and one of my friend I remember we made in two minutes or something about 39 whopper juniors and then we were giving high five.

I'm like dude, this is not what I want to do.

I learned something but right after that I remember I studied at J.

Percy page High School.

So Milwaukee town center mall is right next to it.

We used to go sit there, chill.

After the school all the friends and one of my friends mom used to work for credit card sales and I would be and we are East Indians, right?

I'll go up to the I'll say auntie, give me a job, help me out.

I want to try, I want to try.

And I remember one of the best compliment I ever received was by her.

She said after a few months fahad, you're the most annoying, determined kid I've ever seen.

And thank God she gave me an opportunity because selling credit card directly, you're not allowed to sell under the age of 18.

Okay.

So she gave me a chance.

I was a supporter helper, and she knew I was good at getting people, and then they will do the due diligence.

So that's how I got my first exposure.

And I remember she wasn't my trainer, but one of my.

When she got me in, I had one of the other supervisor who was helping me and wouldn't take his name.

I still know I remember him.

I haven't seen him for the longest time, but at that time, my English, even, it's not perfect today, but it was a very, very heavy accent.

And he said, fahad, you would never make money in sales.

So when being a 16 year old, he tells me, you wouldn't make money in sales, you are this because what indirectly he did was.

Now if I talk about psychology, he labeled me, you're not good enough, you have an accent, and you will not make it.

At that time, I was always brought up with the mindset, hey, if he says no, I want to prove him wrong.

And he was so damn right.

We didn't made enough money in sales, but we made a fortune.

So there's a difference.

So from there, we learned, we grow and then always did credit card sales for five years.

Among all the best credit cards you can say for major leading companies.

I was fortunate to study at Nat.

I did my marketing diploma from there.

Not the degree, but people asked me in Pakistan.

Speech, sir, what do you have?

Do you have a degree?

Do you have a bachelor's or do you have a master's?

I'm like, I have PhD.

They're like, in what?

I'm like, results.

Not so cocky or anything, but as you know, even in business development world or in the world, the clients we work with, you are as good as what you deliver.

What you did two years ago, great job, you were rewarded.

They clapped for you.

They paid you.

What are you doing in the last six months?

What are you doing now?

So it matters.

So we've been paid 99% of my income, probably of what came on, of my career would be, is based on what we have delivered.

Not like, here you go, $10 million.

If you deliver, great.

If you don't deliver, not so great, but based on performance.

So that's a little bit of the journey.

And then before I started my own business, I was part of network marketing.

I know we have this dilemma, like network marketing is terrible.

This and that.

I wouldn't make those kind of comments, but I said the best thing about the network marketing I was at.

I had a great mentor who always said to me, still a good friend, he always said, fahad, the person you are today is not the same person who will be successful tomorrow.

And at that time I didn't, I'm like, what does he mean?

He's like go about, think about it and we'll have discussion in next couple days.

So he was the one who engraved into me, no matter how good you are, no matter how much sales you're doing, you have to keep investing into yourself.

If the person here today will be just here, if you want to be next level, you want to compete with the best.

Let's say I was listening to one of our podcasts where you guys were the best in Lebanon and Libya, I think two countries.

You were number one.

If I want to be, let's say I want to be the best podcaster, I want to be learning from somebody like you or somebody else who had done great things in these spaces.

So that's where I, he convinced me to go to my first seminar which was Tom Hopkins.

Now he doesn't, I don't think he's that common now but at that time I'm talking 2004 or no, not four, like maybe seven or eight.

He was one of the best sales trainer and when I walked into it I'm like dude, I don't want to spend this dollar 500.

I know about sales, it's all like, I know, I know, I know.

And thank God I went to that seminar.

Guess what?

After 20 minutes I realized I have no clue about sales because I was just had a great energy.

I was just a talking person and that's what I was doing.

But technicality I was wrong.

I wasn't following the process.

And if I want to do something like a million dollar sale I would never be able to get client like telus later unless I would have followed.

So thank God they invested and from there I started the first business, got Telus on board, saved the money, reinvested in others and 20, 1718 and 19.

That was very blessed year where we became a Canada's fastest growing company for three years in a row.

Revenues went skyrocket, teams were over 100 and 2250 people actively working.

And then the next major breakthrough for me was getting with Tony Robbins in 2018 where one of my friend recommended you should go see Tony.

He was coming to Calgary for my success resources which was as a guest speaker I'm like, I've heard him, he's great.

But sure, I took my team with me.

I remember I took twelve people, and right after Tony Robbins, I'm like, holy cow, this is amazing.

His energy jumping.

This guy is like me.

So he.

And I love how he sells, and he wasn't even selling.

I think he goes at the end.

I'm doing this big event, Miami, Florida, West Palm beach.

This is not for everybody.

This is business mastery.

It's about 15,000.

Like, technically, it was cad20,000 with your expense, flight and ticket, and not everybody qualifies for it.

If you don't have money, if you don't have it, don't come and blah, blah, blah.

He's did everything.

I'm like, dude, I want to be there.

And that's when my first major event happened with Tony.

And from there, we built a lot of other things.

And maybe when you ask me more questions, I might be able to shine some light on those things to you.

Yeah.

And actually, I'm just going to.

I'm going to take you right into that right now, because not everybody gets to meet Tony Robbins.

Like, I think that if you spend any time in sales, in business and entrepreneurship, you've listened to Tony Robbins, right?

Like, you don't end up in this world unless you've spent some time listening to Tony Robbins.

What was it like to meet him and work with him?

So, basically meeting once, it's one thing when you become a platinum partner, there's like four or five things.

Like, in a business world, we say it's the highest ticket item which he promotes, but it's not just he's selling you.

Look, if I like to give you an idea to become a platinum partner with Tony Robbins, if I do all the math, in canadian dollars, it's about $220 to $250,000.

Wow.

It's the criteria is a lot of people can afford that money.

By the way, the problem is you are traveling away from your business every month for five to ten days.

That's where the challenge is.

Many business owners are not the owners, they are the operators.

If I go for ten days, my business starts sinking.

So for me, the experience was like, I did qualified, I did God, and we had a great teams.

And I said, you know what?

I'm going to take this leap of faith.

And I told this Tony, and it is publicly, it was my last event when I was attending Tony in a physical space.

He goes, he picked me.

And I don't know how.

I was like, he said, we were talking about cars.

And I told him, I'm Tony.

A year ago, right at this spot, I came for the first time, and I was thinking, should I go buy my favorite car, McLaren, which I was very close to buy it.

I really love McLaren, and it was going to cost me around $250 to $300,000.

Or should I go invest into Tony Robbins and thank God I made a better investment?

He comes, give me a big hug in front of 5000 people.

And when you become a platinum partner, we.

It's not.

He does spend a lot of personal events with you where you get to spend time, you get to learn.

Like, I have, of course, a lot of pictures with him, too, in my other office.

Like, I have a big frame where he's hugging me, and I.

Yeah, I always.

He said, one thing is, why live an ordinary life when you can live an extraordinary one?

So the main money we are paying is not only for learning.

What we are paying is for the network, because the people who are in that group, there's usually 300 active members on a yearly basis.

They are all very successful.

If I see myself, I would say I'm probably bottom ten or 15% net worth.

So let's say you and me, Cali, let's say we both are at the platinum partnership.

We have our exclusive seating at the front stage.

And if I'm talking to you and we are not there for an hour, we are there for 15 hours a day.

We are there for 12 hours, learning over the five days period.

And if I have a challenge engine my business, and true story, this happened with me.

He has about four or five billionaires in that group, and he doesn't tell who it is because then people start looking from different lens.

And I was sitting with one of the gentlemen, and it been 12 hours.

We are talking, you know, sharing our things.

Okay?

This is my breakthrough.

This is ours.

And one of my other friend from Tony Robbins, he looks at me like, dude, do you know who that guy is?

I'm like, yeah, this is what his name is.

He's like, really?

I'm like, yeah.

He's like, do you know what does he do?

I'm like, he does.

He manages.

He has a golf course management company.

He's like, that's what he told you?

I'm like, yes.

He just laughed.

He's like, that guy.

He's one of the billionaires.

And he owns some of those courses, too.

I'm like, holy.

But the thing is, that person was so humble.

I learned so much about life, and he made me feel like I'm a superhero.

So what it is like in that group is basically you meet a lot of other successful people who you can share your problems.

Some are great at business, some are great at making money, some are great at saving money, but some are great at, like, relationships, or they're good at spirituality, or they're good at fitness.

And it's the synergy which we have.

And still most of those people are on my contacts.

We talk time to time, and it's just the brotherhood which he's created.

What he's selling, I would use the word selling because of the world we are in.

He's selling is the experience and the network and how you collaborate together.

So if I say, Kelly, I need help with investments in my business, I'm sure you are you one or ten other people who would be able to help me, and that's the people we need in our network.

So for me, it's a worth investment, and it's the best experience I did.

And the funny thing is, in Pakistan, when I used his name, I tell people about him.

Most people they knew, they say, fahad, does this guy pay you to talk about it?

I'm like, no.

He taught us one thing.

Add so much value, so much value in other people that they become your raving fans.

So I'm one of that.

Where I spent quarter million dollar to learn from him, and I go talk about it, and he's paying me nothing and I don't care.

But the thing is, he's impacted my life.

If you impact my life, I'll go endorse it without having any agenda, I'm like, look, Kelly was great, or XYZ person was great, and they helped me, so why not?

Because we don't have to be selfish.

We rather have the mindset of abundance rather than scarcity.

When you said, like, I've shared, like, I've given the best secrets to best things in Pakistan or international forums, I know 99% people will not go and execute.

Knowledge is not the reason they lose.

The reason they lose is because of this mind.

And that's what Tony builds.

It's the mindset.

If you were to go back to the beginning, before you ever went to one of Tony's seminars all the way to today, is there like an overlying lesson, one big lesson that you really took away from all that time before.

Entering to the world of Tony Robbins?

Yes, I think the best one was, like I said, one of my mentors said, you got to start investing into yourself.

And sometime I always say when you start feeling, you start building that gut feeling.

And when you are pinned against the wall, there are two things.

Two or three things happen when you're doesn't matter, professional athlete or business.

Sometimes you're so much against the wall you don't have any other option to go and break through.

Because for me I knew I had to build something otherwise I wouldn't be able to hit my goals, what I have.

And that's where I had to knock some doors for Telus and to get them on board.

And even my first contract for Telus was not the fancy, fancy, sexy contract where hey, you do the marketing, do a digital ads.

No, our first major contract was pure sales, door to door selling.

He's like, father, we know you are a door to door salesperson.

You have done this for us.

Can you teach 25 other people at that time?

I'm like, is that what you're looking for?

They're like, yes.

I'm like, let me get you started.

So the biggest thing is the hard work.

Now we both lived in Alberta for a long time.

I knocked at -30 degrees celsius -40 the hardest day, hardest day I would say door knocking day was for me was -48 where mostly of our sales teams, we send them home.

But if I'm enjoying my life today or struggling with Tony Orlando doing things, you have to pay the price, you have to.

If you think people just want to have the end result, they see a nice car, travel, this house, XYZ things, they look at the materialistic and other things.

They want to have your lifestyle, but they don't want to walk on that path.

And the problem is now, especially with the younger ones, like I'm in the high thirties now, but the younger audience we are working with, the problem with that is with the media and everything, we are living in a world of instant gratification.

They want everything now, they press the button, it's done.

You want the food, you press the button.

You want something else, you press the button.

Anything you do, we have a phone in our hand, we press the button and it's done.

But the success is not a press of a button.

It's a lot of work.

It's a lot.

And even when I listen to some of your podcasts, you talk about the cold calling and warm calling, how to change that.

It's some places it's 1% on a cold calling, but you might have to go through thousands of people unless you create a better system of warming up the leads and make it better and my biggest lesson was pay the price, work hard.

I was in summary and, yeah, doesn't matter.

I remember the day where I sent the guys home after -35 couple guys went out because in the morning I just wanted to have at least two or three contracts in my hand that we did some work because I don't want to be embarrassed in front of a client.

Go in the morning, go give them the contract.

I have nothing.

And he will be looking at me like, dude, you had zero.

What?

I'm like, at least I'll go get two of my sales, couple other guys, so at least we have something.

Save our face.

Right?

You're right.

And, you know, we talked about this earlier, like, obviously you, sorry, you brought this up earlier, and one of the things that you had mentioned is that the clients don't care how hard you worked.

What they care about is the result your work delivers.

If you're able to deliver that result more efficiently, great for you, because you can obviously either do more work or provide better results and get paid more.

But the reality is that so many people are focused on showing their work but not actually getting the results.

And I think that's what we need to change.

Because your client doesn't give a shit about how hard you worked or how many people you talk to.

Absolutely.

What they care about is how many of those converted into something for them.

So that's how the big corporates are working, right?

They are all very business intelligence.

They have AI, they are like every single matrix.

This, this, this in my year.

And one thing is like, I've been like, even the clients I work, yes, they are always number driven.

I would say some of those big clients, even now we are working for another big telecom since, again, the timings is perfect.

Again, people don't.

I've said about timings, and as we know, Shaw was getting bought out by Rogers.

We knew that in 2019 and 2020 ish, I think the news was out and we knew we'll go with Rogers eventually when the timings is perfect.

And the day they started here, we were the first team out there for them because timings is everything.

And coming to the culture thing you were talking about, the mindset about numbers.

I'll just share an example.

I believe, again, this is my philosophy, which I've put it in my company, too.

There has to be some human touch.

You have to see humans as a human.

They're not slaves.

They are not just the numbers.

They're not just the robots.

Yes, they will be good days.

They will be bad days.

Because I've been in the field, I know what it takes.

I know they are hard at work, they're tough days, they're bad days.

But sometime we have to understand our people.

A few days back, one of my even guys, like I randomly call him good guy from different country moved here and I just felt his voice was really, really low.

He almost like sounded crying or something.

My brother, is everything okay?

And as a CEO, it's not my job to take care of it, but I just random call and I maybe the God or something happened and he wasn't feeling great.

I'm like, okay, you know what, I'm like five minutes away from your house, let's go out.

And he did, and we talked and it was more like a human to human conversation because at the end of the day he was going through something.

And if I could have helped, why not?

And most companies need to have that.

The word I would use is empathy.

Understand people and feel a little bit flexible because we are so much about policies.

Okay, two weeks is the maximum time off you can take.

I've guys who take a month, month vacations depending on the situation and what timings of the business we are in.

If it's the crunch time, we want to make sure.

Let's wait a little bit, maybe take the vacation longer after.

But if it's a slow time, like summer is very busy for us, right?

So I wouldn't recommend taking somebody.

And one of my other gentlemen, he's a manager in our company, says, ro, I will take my vacation in December, but I'll go for longer.

I'm like, done deal.

So that's where I think we need more of that.

And every company is going to have their own policies and culture.

And my culture is we don't want to be just a marketing company.

We are a training company first.

We want to train our people.

We want to create an army of salespeople.

Doesn't matter.

You work with me after three months or not.

Maybe you are a summer student who is looking for a summer job making 1020 $30,000 go back to school.

But my goal is, and I say this in orientation, if I'm doing it, no matter how you come in, by the time you leave, my goal, our team goal should be is you become a brand which is truly unstoppable or who will be accepted wherever you go.

And I knew at that time when we used to sell for tell us if one of my guys who have worked for Canada prime for more than three months and they go to interview for Shaw at that time, they would have hired him.

And a lot of my guys got hired right away because they go, yep.

You work with these guys, you've done three months.

We know.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So it's.

These are some of the things, like, I've done that in my company because I wish we had that.

And other humanly touched, I would say is not many companies does this, but I always take my guys to Mexico.

Like, it's been about seven trips or eight trips we have done over the last eight years, minus the COVID where top performers, we will always take them on the long weekend in September.

And just because I know some people will go back, back to school.

So at least if I am the top rep and I'm a student, I should at least be able to experience that trip.

And Mexico is not just like, for you and me, might be different, but for a lot of these people, they have never, never experienced anything like a five star hotel, a nice food or they haven't been to that experience.

Like the world's biggest zip lines, cave swimming or scuba diving or skydive or having those atv's on a sand dunes next to the ocean.

It's just different experiences.

Right?

And that's.

And my, for me, the best experiences.

The last day when we're about to leave, when these people are crying, literally, like, we don't want to go back.

Because that's when I know.

I hate that.

Because you made an impact.

Yes, because the thing is, the top guys who qualify, they might have made 30 or 50,000 during that three months.

If I would give them $5,000, it will be this much difference to them.

They will.

They will say, hey, thanks for heart for a month, two months, three months.

But when I create that experience, that experience stays lifelong.

They will never forget that.

And still I receive phone calls time to time.

Like, I went with my family.

I'm not having the same extra same hotel.

The guy went to the same hotel, which is very expensive hotel with his family.

And he calls me, he's like, bhai.

Bhai means brother goes, man, I'm here.

But, you know, when we went together, that was totally a different thing.

So I'm like, damn right, we hit it.

I love that.

I love that.

I love that.

What you want to do is make an impact.

And one of the things that I really wanted to talk to you about, just based on what we were just discussing and the way that you treat your employees and look after them is, I think one of the challenges, like you said me and you and other entrepreneurs of this time are experiencing leadership in a slightly different way, I think, than has ever happened before.

Right.

We have to create a world that our employees want to be a part of.

They want to feel like they're a part of something very big, in which case we want that.

I think one of the challenges that we face is how do we bring them in and give them this autonomy and freedom, but also get the results?

Because I think there's a lot of companies that are really struggling with this transition of, okay, we got employees working from home, we got employees doing all sorts of things.

There's a lot more freedom, or I would say maybe a lot more responsibility, personal responsibility on our employees than ever before.

But how do we manage the results with that personal freedom?

And, you know, I mean, I'll say that I've struggled with it.

I know lots of people that have struggled with it.

You know, it sounds like you've kind of got a really great balance.

Can you tell me a little bit about how you do that?

So let's use two examples.

So I have a lot of teams internationally, too, because a lot of my back office is in Pakistan.

It's because when we are in a, let's say, sales industry, we are in a recruitment business.

We always say, which, which business are you in, which business are you really in and which business do you need to be in?

We say, oh, I'm a marketing company, but the real business I'm in, I'm in a recruitment and training business because I hire salespeople, I train them.

And right now, even in Calgary and Edmonton, we are doing 30 to 40 interviews scheduling a day.

Wow.

So if you have to schedule 40 interviews a day, my question is how many resumes do you need?

How much call time it takes?

You have to talk to the people.

You have to screen them a little bit.

It is a two minute conversation at least.

And then you have to send them the email and follow up.

It takes an hour if I have to do that here, it's very expensive.

So my whole HR actually works from remote.

It was just working from Pakistan.

That's one of the innovations we do.

But coming to now, you asked, how do we manage the balance for international remote teams?

There are two things, the physical teams and remote teams.

Remote teams are great.

They can be as long as people live in, mature and they are target driven.

So I know many times we wouldn't have the best days when they're scheduling interviews.

But when, if I'm going to Calgary, I say, hey, I'm going to take four managers and we need to have 60 interviews scheduled every day for next three days.

They will, they will push, push through.

So numbers is one thing for me, and reward them.

Like in Canada, we have a lot of benefits, culture, but country like Pakistan, you don't get paid vacations, you don't get gym allowance, you don't get some extra like Christmas and XYZ holidays, that the local holidays we have, we give that.

We do reward them a little bit good, but we give them flexibility.

For canadian teams who are local, I always say it's about culture you're going to create.

And I keep on focusing.

My goal is we have values in our company, me, and the second value which we always put is have a culture of always learning and growing.

So that is one of that.

That is something we learned from Telus.

I remember when I used to go to tell us, buildings all across Canada, they will have these values written on their wall.

And I loved it.

I'm like, it's a great idea.

We should have two or three or five values which we should stick with.

And my, one of the, one of the values which was close to me was learning and growing, so we increased.

We make sure in our office doesn't matter.

You're selling door to door, you're selling in a mall, you're selling at a trade show, events, anything.

Training always goes on.

And second is the culture of celebration, individual success and the team success.

So team successes, individual successes could be like in Mexico.

That's a big one right now.

Last weekend, not this weekend.

The weekend before, some of my guys moved from Toronto, they were running my teams there, and they transitioned to the new campaign here in Edmonton and Calgary, they've never been to Banffousen, so we had the teams in Calgary.

I called some of my five, six guys.

I'm like, hey, you know what?

Finish your work on Saturday night.

Come on over.

We'll stay in Calgary and Sunday morning we'll go to Calgary and then we'll celebrate with the night out with all the guys and the girls teams.

We have, like the management, so having something together, like as a bonding thing, like we did a small hike, we sit together, chilled together, pushed each other, and we did a hike in a suit, most of us, but it was like a 220 minutes.

It wasn't really a hike.

It's like 2030 minutes, right?

You got to create that culture.

And now, and I like to listen to my team.

So I remember one of the new guys in Calgary, he mentions like why don't we do conferences like every year?

I'm like, we do once a year kind of a Christmas thing.

But that's a brilliant idea.

Maybe we should do quarterly between Alberta team and when we launch BC, maybe in Kelowna or maybe in Red deer in the middle.

So for me is accountabilities first.

And for the physical teams, it's always going to be a culture.

Culture what you want to create, you want to have fun.

Because my guys, and when I say guys, girls and guys are mostly 18 to 25 year olds and it's different to manage somebody at my age or your age where we are in different phase of our career.

So the needs for them are different than the need of somebody who's 30 or need of 40.

And the day we know what really drives them and if we can give them, we win.

Yeah.

Okay.

Okay.

I have a question for you because you are working with a much younger generation.

That's what Gen Z's right at this point at that age, what is your experience been like to work with them?

Challenges are there.

I would say it's more challenges, more challenging.

The reason is again that instant gratification we talk about people want success.

My most of the team members turn out to be the one who does well.

Again, don't want to sound like discrimination, but usually they are not the local.

Mostly they are new in Canada, international students who are willing to work hard, who are willing to do more as compared to somebody who has spent 20 years at born in Canada because they take a lot of things for granted.

I think again that would be my hallucination.

But I've seen, I have my data in front of me and I can see if you ask me for hat give me your 20 reps in the last one year who are top and 18 will be the ones who have moved from another country in the last five years or usually they are still a students.

So now I know my ideal customer because when we are hiring, that's my ideal customer is 18 to 25 who are usually looking to get settled in Canada.

That's why when you see another company, which I have, which is.

Which is an immigration.

I don't do a lot of immigration here, but from Pakistan and international countries I deal with that.

But the thing is when somebody student is here, we all know somebody who's spending 20,000 to 25,000 a year for two years or five four years degree.

They're not coming here just for the education.

As we know their goal is eventually to get settled in Canada.

Things are tight, things are tougher now, but they always want to come here.

And if I could be the vehicle to give them better communication, give them better selling skills because most people, especially from eastern countries, many of them are not very great in communicating as compared to they would be like how I was.

I felt the pain.

And if they practice selling, they practice.

They're going to be better.

And later when they graduate, if you, I always tell them, if you are my consistent seller, you do good, you are my top 20%.

We'll sit together and I will see how can I or my company can support for you to get settled more like in a legal manner rather than you cutting corners left, right, this and that.

And I always say we are very blessed.

We have supported lots of people, lots of people over the last, now, what, 15 years to get settled in Canada.

Most of them now our PR citizens, some are running their own businesses.

One of my actually director in our company now he is a 31 year old, came as an international student.

Now he owns still a director in our company.

Six restaurants doesn't belong to a rich family.

And six restaurants, when I say they are franchised.

So three Ido Japans, three Kasadas.

So all of them are worth $500 to $600,000.

So he owns that.

He built his network.

He spent time and he's like a brother to me right now.

Right?

We spend time together.

We have traveled together.

But that's the whole thing.

When he comes back and say once in a while or once every month, father, I'm grateful for this.

Or some of the other guys who were graduated with us in 2013 and 14, some of them are running their landscaping company, engineering company, marketing agencies, different type of business.

We're still friends.

That's the impact we have created.

That's what it's about.

I've created my own competition.

I have.

But you know what?

I'm not worried about it.

Yes, I'm not.

Because I'm going to go keep on growing.

Well, what you've actually done is you've given them the skills and empowered them.

Like, that's what I see.

That's the.

When I wrote my mission life statement, I used to believe in this before, but it became more clarity.

I remember.

So on my car I've written 23, right?

So people always ask, why do you have like 23 like this?

It looks like a race car, too.

They're like, do you go to rally?

And it's a conversation too.

Actually, it is a conversation tool for me especially.

Let's say if you bump into me on a white tab or downtown.

Hey, that's a nice car.

Why does it say I'm unstoppable on it?

That's my brand.

And we did it.

I like it.

It looks good.

Then I said, 23.

There's two days which are the most important in our life.

And both days, one day we don't have control on.

That's the day we are born.

So the day you're born, you don't have control.

But the second most important day for us is the day we find our true purpose, our calling for you.

It could be like podcast for me.

It was happened to be on the same day on my birthday.

I remember I was in Australia, Keynes date with destiny with Tony Robbins.

And it was the third day, and it was my birthday, second or third day.

That's when Tony Robbins, he start crafting your mission life statement he gives you through the workshops.

And he asked a question to me, he's like, when I say life is, what's the first gut response you get?

At that time, my first gut response was life.

It's a gift that's been given to us.

It's like a present.

We didn't have to do anything to earn it.

Some people like, it's happy, it's miserable, it sucks, it's great, whatever the meaning is.

I wrote, it's a gift.

And same day, I remember later, he asked, he put us through a meditation and into a very emotional state.

And then he asked, what is your purpose of existence?

And that day I wrote, giving should be a lifestyle.

So you see that.

Then I wrote my mission life statements.

And life is a gift.

Giving is a lifestyle.

Combine them together, and that's where whole philosophy changed.

And at that time, I happened to be in Pakistan right after that.

And I.

I.

Somebody tell me, like Fahad, in Pakistan, there's 65% youth under the age of 35, and they have a 230 million population at that time.

Now 240.

I'm like, holy cow, why don't I go and start empowering these?

So when you said empowerment, then we just took it to the next level.

Honestly, I'll tell you, I've spent over $200,000.

That does not include my time.

That's just a travel cost of the tickets and some events, which I put it together where I've taught thousands and thousands and thousands of people on my own expense, and people still don't wrap their head around.

They're like, why are you doing it?

Because there's something has to be bigger than just the money.

I always say one thing again, philosophies.

We get to the point where we have our own beliefs.

I don't care how many millions you have made.

Of course we have hit that.

I don't care.

Are you a billionaire?

My question going to come down to is my way of judging somebody or measuring success with be is how many lives have you really impacted?

Yes.

How many lives have you created where you have saved a life?

Somebody who was given up on their life, suicidal or something you have saved, or maybe somebody who has given up on their life and couldn't make money and you taught them how to make dollar 500 a month in a country where that's about the way, like five times above the poverty line.

I think that's where more fulfilling is.

When I received that text message from one of the young 18 year old, 20 year old kid in Pakistan, he goes, go buy.

I just want to share a good news with you.

I'm like, tell me.

He says, remember I used to drive beyond a motorbike, which is like motorbike in Pakistan is what, 500, let's say, let's $1,000, right?

And then I'm buying a car, even used car, old car, beat up car, whatever it is, that is a progress.

And when they send that message, nothing is more fulfilling.

And that reminds me when Tony always says, success without fulfillment is an ultimate failure.

You can have all the money, you can have everything.

But if your heart is not contempt, if you are missing from inside, you are technically screwed.

There are billionaires in this planet who have a lot of wealth, but they are miserable inside.

So what's the point of it?

Yeah, no, I know what you're saying.

And I also see, I've talked to you like, obviously at this point, you're like, probably interview 75 or 80 for me at this point of very successful people like yourself.

And, you know, it goes back to that kind of beginning statement that nothing is going to happen for you without hard work.

And I've seen those people lose, lose a lot to accomplish what is eventually work life balance, in their opinion.

And most of them say, yeah, I hit a point where now I feel content, I feel fulfilled.

I've hit that point in my life where I feel like I am balanced.

But so many of them lost so much to get there.

But I don't see a shortcut that doesn't involve that hard work.

You know, like, in your experience, how were you able to do that?

Funny thing is, when I started first two, three years, my with the tellus, I remember I still have some very common friends with our brothers and everybody we sit.

And recently they made a comment.

And even before slack bhai, I never get to see you.

You're always like, sometime in Pakistan, sometime in Mexico, sometime here, we don't know where you are.

And even on my social media, you wouldn't know where I am because my team or when I'm posting, one day it will be Pakistan, then Turkey, then this.

But I might be in Edmonton because it's nobody business where I am.

The people I really care about, they should know, but other people, they should let them be confused.

They're like, holy cow, whatever is happening, right?

He always says, I never get to see, man, you're living your life.

I'm like, if I go 15 years back, because I know that person for more than 15 years, because childhood we spent together, high school and things like that, I'm like, when I was working for three years, you didn't see me at that time either.

The only thing was, at that time I was very busy just building.

Now you don't see me.

It's because sometimes I'm experiencing.

So balance is never.

The thing is that everybody's different for me.

If I say I'm a workaholic, I enjoy what I do.

Again, not if you ask me to do something I hate.

I'm not going to be passionate about it.

If you say, fahad, you have to fly to Pakistan tomorrow and you have to be on a stage, I'll be there next day because it's my passion.

It gets me going.

A lot of people, even close people to me, they said, I don't understand why you're spending money doing all this.

So balance for everybody has their own definition.

When you say balance, what is your definition of balance?

When somebody says success, you said they feel successful.

If somebody, I mean, I can go and meet a lady, she will say, well, I'm a mother and I grow.

And true story.

And actually, I asked, I'm like, do you feel successful?

She said like, yeah.

I'm like, tell me why.

She's like, well, I have two kids and I raise them good.

They both are going to university and they are getting settled.

So I think I'm successful.

Who am I to judge?

I'm like, you are.

Because some people say million dollars, some people say 10 million.

Like I said, how many lives you impact for me, whatever your definition of balance is, it has to be yours.

Nobody.

Neither you should tell or I should tell.

You know what?

5 hours of gym, 2 hours of this, 5 hours of work, 3 hours of family time or whatever numbers are like, who are we?

So for me, I enjoy what I do.

I'm going to continue doing that no matter how much money I make.

If not this, I'll continue doing something greater than that.

Yeah.

Well, I think so much of balance, unfortunately, can be not just you, right.

Especially if you're a family person, right.

Living in a family, you're going to have difference of opinion of what is balance at any given time.

And I know, like, we've struggled with that because, you know, like, I have four boys, I try to do my best.

I'm trying to grow this podcast, my own company.

Everything that I'm doing is, I'm very busy.

Like, honestly, I schedule all my time for that.

If you, if I was to show you my calendar, it would just be blocked up because that's how I have to live my life in order to accomplish what I know I need to accomplish.

But sometimes it's very, very hard to balance that.

And I'm sure I look at you and your success, and I know, I have a feeling you're very similar to me in that front.

It's so, it's so very hard to be an entrepreneur and try to balance everything.

And I know that that's one of the biggest struggles that I've seen come across this stage, you know, with, with a lot of the executives that I've spoke with is that balance is, it feels almost impossible.

Like you said, it's, it's an opinion, but it's, it's also not always in your control, if that makes sense.

I would say a strong word which will help a lot delegate a lot of your work.

Honestly, we can save so much time delegating.

My philosophy changed a while ago, and it's all about somebody said, control is an illusion.

I don't know if it was Tony Roberts or Brian Tracy, somebody said, and they went, tapped into it a while ago, and I'm like, what do you mean?

We want to control everything.

This meeting, that meeting.

Why not?

The day we let the control go, that's when we will grow.

Because in business, as a small or mid sized business, like even right now, sometimes I have to do certain things.

Like last five months, I have to spend a lot on business, but I know these five months will give me five years back.

Yes.

So I know that.

And biggest thing is for especially entrepreneurs, if, let's say, Kelly, if you make, let's say, dollar 200 an hour, let's say your price tag when you go to the market, you get rewarded dollar 200 an hour.

Then my question is, why are you doing $25 an hour job that somebody else can do or $10 an hour, let's say your admin stuff, or maybe booking the appointments or maybe editing a video, let's say.

Or editing an audio.

You know, you will do the best, but we can outsource some of those things.

A lot of, like I said, my hr is outsourced within my company, but it's all done from Pakistan.

Even half of my things like my social media, I shouldn't be saying.

Mostly I don't post myself.

I've teamed, they have seen some of those team members are old ones with me.

They know how I talk.

They've seen my every single event.

They take the audios, they make eclipse out of it.

They make something out of it.

Why should I be doing all the time to time I will post.

Sometimes I feel good or something happens, I'll just post it myself.

So a lot of tasks, rather than a lot of people say, oh, you should work on your weaknesses.

No, my belief is 90% you should be working on 95.

On your strengths.

Delegate your weaknesses.

I'm not very when it comes to being like a whole calendar management person.

That's not how I am.

I love doing it, but important things, I'll put it, but there will be things which I have to get it done.

I'll get it done.

And you need to make decide what you need to do.

I'll take the important meetings.

I don't have to take every meeting.

I work.

Actually, right now, I'm working a lot in Canada, but once the teams are set, I don't have to.

My team always says in Pakistan, they're like, sir, you work, you will go into like 510 meetings back to back.

How the hell do you do it?

You don't eat sometime.

You don't do this.

How do you operate?

I'm like, I actually work more in Pakistan at that time.

That's because I, if you, if you're driven, if your fuel is passion, you'll be fine.

But many of us, unfortunately, we're doing just because it's a jobs.

And the entrepreneurs who are listening, my question to them is, ask yourself, why did you go in business for the first time?

And I can bet you if I go ask three more questions after that, 90%, people will say for financial freedom.

And my question to them is, after ten years, do you have more time with you or less time?

And chances are they will say less time.

They're working more, making similar, but they are more drained out.

And the question is, why did you spend half a million or $50,000 or whatever the number is to buy yourself a job?

A business is something which grows without you.

My philosophy became, I rather make a little bit less money rather than doing everything.

So I rather hire somebody for 20,000.

And I've allocated x amount of dollars in Pakistan where I can have the HR professional with a master degree in Pakistan who can run my whole HR for less than $600 to $500 less canadian.

Wow.

And they will be a very good.

English would be as good as you, way better than mine are as good as you because you have, it's your native language and they can pull the accent, Aussie accent, too, or british accent, some of those guys.

So they might, because that's what they trained.

So, look, our question always is, what do you want to leverage and give up?

Like yesterday, like earlier, we're talking, I went and played cricket.

I enjoy doing it.

I'll create a time for that.

Anything you enjoy doing, if you are passionate for that, you will create time.

Mm, interesting, interesting.

Because I, you know, I mean, I know I have struggled as an entrepreneur.

Cause there's a lot of things that I used to do a lot before I was an entrepreneur.

Once I became an entrepreneur, finding time to do them has felt hard, and I don't feel like I necessarily don't like doing those things, but I haven't felt the same passion to do them.

I do get a lot of passion in my work, especially with this podcast these days.

So I do find myself being drawn to, you know, how do we do this better?

How do I get better at this thing?

But, yeah, it is one of those things where I, you know, I know I'm not alone in this.

There's a lot of people who enjoyed things or had hobbies and, and things they liked to do before they were entrepreneurs, that once they became entrepreneurs, they have struggled to keep up with those hobbies or passions.

Passion, I say, evolves.

What we are passionate at the 19 year age or 20 is different.

When you hit 25, it will evolve.

I do a lot of actually workshops on this, and most of my audience, when I'm doing my public speaking is like 18 to 25 year olds, again, a lot of younger ones.

Then I do.

There's another segment which is more like 25 plus who are making some money entering the business.

So there's different talk.

People always are worried, oh, I don't know what I'm passionate about.

You don't have to discover your true passion today, like I said, if you ask me, my parents like, do I like selling?

Yes, I enjoy sales.

Is it, like, my number one passion?

It will be number two or three.

My number one would be, is the public speaking empowering youth?

That's what my number one, I would, because my question is, what would you do if you're not paid and you have to spend your money and you will still do it?

Right.

So again, let's say I want to, like, I shared earlier, like, it is a procrastination side a little bit.

I would say I'll agree to it, but I wouldn't be able to launch the podcast which we are supposed to do.

Then my question is, if I'm launching, I always ask myself, what is my end result I'm looking for?

Is it the fame?

Is it the personal branding?

Is it the monetization?

Is it this or is it that?

And if the answers are more towards money related, then they might not be the passion related.

But if we can find something we are passionate about and we can monetize that, that's when we win for the long term.

Yeah, there's a, there's a japanese term for that.

I believe it's called iki.

Ikigai.

Yeah, there's a, like, recently I was talking to somebody, they used that ikigai, and there was another thing they talked about at the concept, too.

But at the end, that's the whole thing.

Like, if you can find real, like, you don't know, what will you love if you're 20 year old or 25, try different things.

What do you enjoy?

What do you like doing it?

Explore yourself, right?

Yeah.

Well, you know, and just thinking about that, I couldn't have known how much I would love podcasting even two years ago.

Right?

Like, it was one of those things that when I started doing it and seeing, you know, the impact that we were making in the world, you know, just the people reaching out and saying that everything we're doing is helping them.

It was like, holy crap.

Like, this is actually awesome.

I couldn't have known at the time.

I remember feeling really kind of dumb, actually.

I was sitting in my basement at the time.

We were just recording in the spare room, literally talking to a wall, thinking, what the hell am I doing?

Why am I doing this?

Who's even going to listen?

And then a lot of people listened.

There you go.

And honestly, I was, to Kelly, I was actually, I put my couple of my guys, too, on your podcast to listen and to go over the structure, and I wouldn't just make, say, give compliment, just to make somebody praise anybody, just to make them feel good.

But actually your system is pretty good.

Like from your website page to the podcast page, to the email follow ups and things like that, and sending emails for reminders and things you have spent time in the tools and things.

That's what I next thing we are working is like marketing automation, which we work on a lot, is how do we automate most of our operations?

Same thing.

You're talking about entrepreneurs too.

Like they are drained out.

Like they don't understand with the power of AI how much things they can do.

Now.

All, everything.

Whenever we say AI, 90% business owners just think chat GPT and they just get locked there.

They don't even have an idea what you can do with those.

Not only the chat GPT, but everybody talks about it, even in the international country.

Oh, chat GPT, chat, blah, blah, blah.

I'm like, how much money have you made through it?

Yeah, most people don't have the answer, oh no, no, this.

And I can say if I'm not made, maybe I've saved at least, at least half a million dollars through it.

How?

I can't say all the things, but certain things.

Okay, let me show you something.

There was a document which needed to be created for one of my client, again, AI.

How powerful it could be if you are smart to use it.

I went to fiverr and upwork to find somebody in that field who can do it.

The cost was about 25,000, starting to $50,000 in the market rate, upwork and fiber.

And the wait period was almost one week to two weeks delivery time.

And when do I need the document?

Today.

And I'm like, shoot.

And the topic, I don't have no expertise in that topic.

I understand computers and stuff.

It was related to technology.

I'm like, time to roll up the sleeves of.

I put myself in lockdown mode.

I created 50 page document through the different AI's and I resolved that problem, saved 50,000 and got the client happy and got that job done.

And they approved everything, which would have taken two weeks, maybe potentially for rushing it for $50,000 USD.

What was done.

So how do we use this?

So my biggest thing I would say is, who are stuck entrepreneurs?

Even you're a dentist or something.

There's so many tools like from auto appointment booking to automatic, automatic reaching out to even right now we're working your voice call, Kelly.

It will be like you get a telemarketer probably calling.

It will sound like me, but it will be AI, you wouldn't even know.

And they will book an appointment for you.

I saw that we already been testing and piloting and it's been pretty damn good.

I think us have some restrictions on the policies they just added.

But who's going to go and track all these small little companies down?

Like if.

Yeah, if Telus or Roger start doing, then it's an issue.

It's small company like, which is less than $300,000 revenue.

They're going to use it and leverage it.

So when we complain about time, these things going to disrupt it.

Either you're going to be on top or you're going to get disrupted.

That's why I keep on investing on these tools investment and make sure that we are on top of all this.

And if there's somebody ever needs help into these things, sometimes it takes like quick conversation of ten minutes, ask few right questions and we can find what is the problem and what they might be using it.

Oh, man.

Man.

We could do a whole like another podcast on this.

We could do a whole nother podcast on and we should 100%.

I'm going to have you back and we're going to spend a lot of time on marketing because I think that that's a very critical spot.

But I do want to just chat with you because obviously AI has changed everything.

I would say 2023.

There's going to be the time before 2023 and the time after 2023.

It is a clear line in the sand at this point.

The world is going to be completely different.

Marketing is going to be different.

You know, one of the things I wanted to ask you because as, as such a leading marketer, the reality is you have a pulse on what the future looks like better than most.

You know, I mean, I would argue that AI is really capitalizing in marketing.

I would say that marketing will kind of get the, the best of the best because that's, it makes money.

At the end of the day, things that make money get lots of investment.

We're going to see AI take off on that front.

You know, you're already telling me some of the ways that you could frankly do this for free.

But one of the things that I wanted to chat with you about is what do you see?

What does the future look like for marketing with the advent of AI?

And how do people know that they're picking a winning product?

A few things I will share.

The more technology we get, marketing doesn't get easier.

There was a time you go 20 years back, it would take probably less than 13 impressions.

For somebody to buy 13 impressions could be different point of contacts like billboard and the radio ad or something, they will buy it.

And now it is, we are bombarded with so much marketing.

Like even our phone is listening, everything is listening for a while and it will show us, show us, show us.

So marketing is harder but simpler.

So if people get, if people know what they are doing, so few things.

And I think it happened to be a miracle for me too.

So remember, I keep on saying I work with youth a lot.

I say the best investment we can do is let's start investing into 20 to 30 year olds.

Let's enter 30.

The reason is these kids, I will use the word kids still.

They're better at AI, better at technology, better on computers than we would be.

Yes, we have the wisdom, we have the funds, we have capital, we have leadership and all that.

But do I want to sit and create the whole thing?

I'd rather have this 20 year old cool guy come to me and say, hey, boss, we can do this.

This is, hey, sir, we can do this, this.

I'm like, you know what, that's a great idea.

How about you try it?

And one of the things which I believe Google started doing, and Facebook now does it and all the tech companies does it, they give 20% of their time to employees for skunk work.

I think Slack was result of skunk work where they'll say, you create something and it becomes, it will be property of Google, but you will have some kind of a share or something into a leadership role.

Right?

So that's what we started doing, keep on investing in youth.

Now if, let's say I'm on a stage and if I have million people can reach out, they're going to create something and I can lead them because what they are lacking is usually capital and access to markets.

So we take their knowledge, their expertise, because they can sit 10 hours, learn about this because they are more passionate about it.

Us as the leaders in marketing, our goal is how do we leverage them?

We reward them good.

We let them do it.

I don't have to go create everything.

I rather come up with the idea and get somebody.

The lower cost to execute that and how it's going to disrupt would be, is it's going to be instant.

It's already half people think they can just continue doing the same old thing.

You will be gone.

You'll be gone very fast because there's going to be so many businesses which can come and disrupt.

I'm already invested very heavily into SaaS side of the businesses.

So people who doesn't know, like software, which we use, like even your Gmail you're using Google Suite is a SaaS product.

Even if you're using anything like Spotify or Apple, any subscriptions, they all are.

Netflix is the biggest example, right?

So I've already invested into those things for marketing automation.

But also keep in mind, if you're not going to update yourself to these things, you're going to be gone or find somebody who can.

If you think it's too expensive, you may be wrong.

Don't always go for the lower price.

Sometime you might be able trying to save those 50 or $500, that's going to cost you more in form of time because I made that mistakes million times.

And sometimes we just try to shoot ourselves again.

So spend time into it, learn about it, what is happening.

And if you don't know, reach out to somebody.

I think you will have a lot of information.

And if people want to reach out, if I can guide, sure, I will do that.

Somebody from my team will guide them.

Again, my team always says, like, sir, you meet so many people, how come you don't do business with them?

I'm like, I don't have to be at every meeting.

Doesn't have to be a transactional.

That's my philosophy.

Again, they're like, what do you mean?

There's nothing else?

Free lunch.

I'm like, you know, what if the guy was nice?

Everything we methemenous, maybe today or tomorrow we will cross our path.

And I met some great business deals just because maybe a year after, two years after, because they remember me and I didn't have to target the wallet all the time.

So keep, let's keep ourselves updated to it.

And there's a lot of research people need to do.

And one thing, I'll suggest them if they're on a TikTok, honestly, just search AI tools and start swiping.

Eventually, like going and going, eventually the algorithm will know that you want to watch AI videos.

It will show you so many things.

You're like, holy shit, you can do this, you can do this, you can do this.

You might not be able to execute all of them, but that's a simple thing, because I would see your business from a different lens and you would see your business from a different lens.

So you went, oh, my God, this thing exists.

I should apply this.

Yeah, well, I love that you touched on it.

And I know we were talking before this show that we are using an AI to help us with our clips.

And like, the reality is I couldn't get the, you know, mean, I don't have the time.

I couldn't get the quality of clips from these shows that I can get by using an AI to do it.

And it saves me stupid amounts of time and allows me to compete with some much bigger shows.

Like, that's what AI is.

AI is like a, an exponential power.

What do you want to call it?

You know, like upgrade.

At the end of the day, it takes what you could do, times it by ten, and allows you to compete on a much bigger stage than you could without it.

Like, I think we have to remember what it is.

It's not, it's not out there to take your job, it's out there to give you superpowers.

And even if people think it's going to take a job, if you're going to be scared, then be scared or do something about it.

Complaining is not a solution.

Somebody else will.

Like, one of my mentors always said, hey, fine, remember, there's better looking guy than you are, there's smarter person than you are out there.

There's a much wealthier person than who you are, there's a harder working person out there.

So everybody's replaceable.

So the only key is you keep on fighting every day.

And I always use the mindset we say, like I talk about in my workshops about identity creation, usually this is more like a CEO or a business mindset person.

We say, okay, there's a mindset called gladiator mindset.

I'm sure everybody has seen the movie gladiator.

What happens in a gladiator?

There's a fighter.

One or two or 15, they're fighting and one or two will walk away alive.

Next day they fight again.

And the mindset is, hell no, I'm not dying today.

Somebody else is.

So you have to survive for your survival.

And business is the same game.

The longer you play, the more game you play.

Chances of being out is faster.

Some of the stats are from the US and Canada combined, or I believe just on the US 80% businesses fail in first five years.

Only in ten years, less than, less than 4% businesses ever hit a million dollar and I think the number was only 0.004% ever.

Businesses ever hit ten years and make a $5 million revenue a year.

Revenue, not profit.

Yeah, and the day we hit that, we hit that 5 million a while ago, but we were waiting for the ten year five years ago and we celebrated that.

So thing is somebody going to come and wipe you out.

It could be a competitor, it could be technology, it could be just.

The market might die, it could be another Covid can happen.

What are you going to do?

You can sit, complain, cry about it, but nobody cares, bro.

Yeah.

And I would say any long term business that you look at, any one of them that's made it 25, 5100 years, they are doing things and selling things completely different than the products and service they started with.

Evolution is what creates success over time.

Every company has to evolve.

And always I say business, whoever is the business people is going to be always two things.

You can argue with this, you can fight about this.

There's going to be two things.

One is innovation.

Innovation doesn't mean it has to be the best AI technology.

For me, when I say innovation is how can you do more and less or how can you do more and same?

If somebody costs something, is costing you $10 today, how can you make it for $9?

That's innovation.

If it's taking you one day to create it, how can you make it in 22 hours?

So that's innovation.

Do more and less.

And for us, the biggest, one of the major innovation was when we moved most of our HR to Pakistan and we built our own teams and that saved us money, time and effectiveness.

Second thing is marketing everything.

Every business gonna fall on rise on the marketing.

Even if you have a bad product with great marketing, you will do fine.

If you have a good product with bad marketing, you'll survive.

If you have a great product with great marketing, you will hit a jackpot.

Yeah, yeah.

And, well, let's just lead right into it.

You know, we're a full hour into this show.

I'm not even kidding.

I'd love to have you back and literally just nail it on marketing because I think there's so much here.

But I do want to spend some time with you.

I know that, you know, you are an expert business coach yourself, life coach.

You've mentored with some of the greatest mentors on this planet at this point in time.

And, you know, you also have an incredibly successful marketing company.

Can we talk about some of the services that you provide?

Okay, so there are two types of clienteles we work with.

One are the giants.

Like, we work for Chalice.

We work for another telecom coach, eco.

We work for Rogers now.

And I.

I think we might be the only company who have done these kind of telecoms as a marketing company in Canada.

So with these guys, we are more focused towards direct sales, event planning strategies and things like that.

So that's more because these big giants have their own internal marketing company, marketing house with 5500 people depending on what they need.

So they have theirs, so they outsource certain aspect of the business.

So that's one segment of business.

So the second segment of businesses, mid sized and small businesses, you could be like a couple of dentist clinics you have or you may be like running a small business where they are looking to scale their sales, they are looking to add more visibility, they are looking to either have a coaching like where marketing coaching and business coaching are two different things.

Usually if I am doing business coaching, marketing coaching is like a gift from my side on top.

Because as a marketer we always find the flaws in that side too.

So the other side segment which most people would be falling into because they are not the fortune to Forbes 2000 companies like help them through their digital presence.

Personal branding is one of the things.

So anybody even calling you do a great job on that.

Anybody who's out there who is want to be really, really super successful, personal branding, do not compromise on it.

People will invest because of the leader behind it.

And I can assure you some of my Forbes 2000 clients or Fortune 500 companies, they don't just look at Canada prime marketing to give them a contract.

They see who's the person behind it, what has he done, what is his vision, what is he doing?

And I can vouch for it.

That was some of the reasons.

So that's the biggest tip I'll give to somebody will help them.

And the next would be is from SEO.

SEO is people don't understand like digital marketing, it's very important too.

It's just like how visible you are from paid ads to those.

These are just some everybody else can do.

But what I give them is also like a platform, like a tool.

In one stop shop you can have everything, let's say CRM your, where are your leads, where your customers sitting, then how can we automate that?

So after you call them, automatic text message goes, hey, you know what, it's for her.

We were talking earlier and I kind of like missed you.

Is it possible to give me a quick call back?

Because a lot of people see texts, they will respond back WhatsApp messaging.

And then if they didn't responded, maybe after three days we put a timer, automatic message goes, hey, you know, we must, hey Kelly, you might have got really busy but I was hoping if you can reach back, it is pretty cool.

Something I want to share those kind of strategies we can put in then other thing biggest will be is so digital products if somebody's selling courses or things like that, everything we can give in one platform.

There's so many tools.

So we put everything together, from your email marketing, to your text message marketing, your automatic callback, from your Google business manager, to your Facebook marketing, to social media, any social media, everything in one, rather than you having 20 dash was trying to see as a CEO or a small business owner.

Holy shit, where should I go?

If I can do that one login, I think your life will be easier.

That's where you get the time back.

And those are the things we can implement in mid sized businesses.

And the best part is, it doesn't cost you a fortune.

It doesn't cost you a fortune.

You don't have to invest $50,000 or anything like that.

I'll vouch.

Because you're right, you can do all of these things yourself.

But there's something to be said about knowing how to do it effectively because you can also burn a ton of money on useless stuff with digital marketing.

Absolutely.

And I think you were talking about this in one of your podcasts.

Like, usually I think it was more of one of the podcasts.

I think it was 117 or something.

I remember the number because I listen random things on the way, and time to time I listen to you or Tony or this.

Sometimes you get an insight on the other side.

People need to be very careful.

There's two types of models.

Do it yourself.

We say DIY models or let it do it for you.

So do it yourself model would be, you want to go explore yourself?

Sure, go ahead.

Or you can have team, which will be like dedicated account manager or somebody will help you say, hey, you know what?

We'll sit together once a week or initially do three times.

You have to sit together to get your goals in line so we can put things together and take the business to the next level.

And I'll share just an example in one of my team member in Pakistan.

Like I said, it's not like I'm creating competition, but we empowered this individual.

He's 20 now, probably 21.

He's running his own VA company, virtual assistant.

He's doing very similar things.

What I can do.

And he's doing his own clients and he's making pretty good money.

Like a kid who can sit in Pakistan, make $15 to $20,000 on a monthly basis regular with a team of 1520 people.

That's what he can clear.

It's not bad.

So the reason I'm sharing that is because his VA's can do a great job.

If somebody comes to me and I need a Va, I have two options.

Should I start my own VA company or I call one of my students and say, hey bro brother, this is what we have.

Can you handle this?

Because I have trust him because I know he worked with me and it's working together and resolve the like synergy there's more about and collaboration rather than again.

Last thing I need is honestly like I've invested into five other startups recently.

Last title I need is another CEO.

I don't know if you have the time for another CEO.

No.

Nice and fancy, but okay.

Did you ever get the car?

That's the question, yeah, I made a better investment.

So the car I drive is I'll share a picture with you if you are, take you, it's okay.

There's two things always in marketing, this is a lesson, marketing and car.

So $250,000 for, let's say 300,000 would have cost if you were McLaren.

I end up getting another car, which is a sports car.

It's an Alfa Romeo, actually.

It costs a fraction of it.

Then I put a wrap around it.

The real value is a lot less compared to the real value, but the perceived value is, some people say, is it 300,000, is it 400,000 is the half a million.

And the best response is I'm like, something like that.

I don't pay for it.

How much do you pay?

I'm like, I don't pay for it.

Like, how come?

I'm like, company pays it.

It's like, you must have a great job.

I'm like, well, there are some perks of being CEO of certain companies, so, because the thing is, if they think it's $200,000 worth, it looks like Lotus almost.

So most people don't even know the brand.

Problem is, and, but it looks pretty cool and sexy.

So at the end of the day, the question was, okay, now this is what I learned in Tony Robbins too.

Why when we need something, why are we buying it?

There's some human need we're going to meet.

Because it was significance.

And I would get like, yeah, I did it, I feel good.

It's the ego boost.

But if on the same thing I got it on a fraction of a cost, one third of a cost of the same car, and I get the same significance out of it, why should I get go spend that much money and I'm only capturing 5000 km on top.

Yeah, I put like 80, 90,000 only drive like hardly three months.

Well, and I would argue too, that a supercar is a supercar is a supercar.

And hear me out on this.

Because to an average person, they just see a supercar.

They don't know if it was 500,000, 200,000, a million.

Most people see that.

And either way, they.

They have a hard time perceiving.

Like, what they perceive is that you have a supercar.

That's it.

Like, that's the perception.

At the end of the day, the.

Next one I will get is for sure it will be Lotus.

The reason I get, okay.

Another reason when I take, okay, if I.

Again, not putting anybody down.

If I'm driving on a road, if there's a Honda next to me, he says, nice, bro, nice car.

Sure.

Cool.

I appreciate that.

But when the guy is next to you, I was right at Strathco, and I was.

We were driving from on a gateway boulevard right next to Whitehall.

And last year, two brand new lamborghinis.

Husband and wife, they both had lamborghinis.

They both are driving their own lambos.

They pulled next to it.

They look at me, give me thumbs up when they say it.

That's a different league you're playing.

And I parked on the White House sometime.

I remember there was a guy, he pulled.

Pull over his, like, Porsche, something very unique one.

He pulled it right over there.

He comes out, I'm sitting at.

What is that, the Mexican Julio, where you.

I think so.

Right opposite where the remedy is.

My car is parked and goes, take a video, run around.

I'm like, you know what makes you feel good?

That's it.

And I always, again, perceived value of work on.

And I would go buy that car, which is rare in the market.

And actually, the one I have, there's only two in Edmonton.

Wow.

So all these Corvettes, which are great, they might have paid good money, but every other person, you will see a lot of them.

It's not, again, it's not a neck puller anymore, because you've seen.

Everybody recognized Lamborghini.

Everybody learns the great cars.

Not saying, but the one I drive, it has a super engine.

It is a supercar.

It's the lightest car.

It's all carbon fiber.

And when people go into specs, they're, holy shit.

It sounds good.

It makes you feel good.

At the end of the day, if I can meet my needs by spending one third the money, I can take the other two third and work on, put it in my passion.

And you know what my argument would be?

I'm not sure that you would get more val, more feeling value right.

Maybe for two days more.

For maybe two days more that you.

But the point is, every time you get in your car and you go for a drive, it doesn't matter that it's not a McLaren, because you still feel amazing when you do it.

And Tony asked me that question at the end, why did you bought it?

I'm like, since I spent like this like 13th event with you, we have learned about it for only for significance.

And thank God I didn't.

So even if I do have a chance, it doesn't matter.

Like if I have the money sitting in my pocket, if I would need to do it, I wouldn't invest that into a.

Personally, I wouldn't go buy the Lamborghini or Ferrari, any of those with that price tag.

The reason is depreciation and it's not worth it for me.

I would do that in Pakistan if I need to because the value goes up.

But my next will be definitely lotus because it's unique less.

And I like to be unique.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And I love a lotus.

And most people, it's a very nice one.

The new ones they share, they, I think used to Emera, they changed their name.

Now it's.

It's pretty damn good.

I think two years ago they changed it looks really good.

And the best part is it costs you less than 150.

Amazing.

Amazing.

Fahad, that takes us to the end of our show today.

Thank you so much for joining us.

We've been graced today by Fahad Khan, CEO of Canada Prime Marketing.

Until next time, we'll catch you on the flip side.

This has been the business development podcast with Kelly Kennedy.

Kelly has 15 years in sales and business development experience within the Alberta oil and gas industry and founded his own business development firm in 2020.

His passion and his specialization is in customer relationship generation and business development.

The show is brought to you by Capital Business development, your business development specialists.

For more, we invite you to the website at see you next time on the Business Development podcast.