Shaun Newman Podcast - Ep. #167 - Kim McConnell

Episode Date: April 21, 2021

Kim is a wealth a knowledge. Just to give some frame of reference he has been named entrepreneur of the year, mentor of the year, inducted into the agriculture hall of fame & received the order of Canada (highest civilian award). He has some absolute great advice for entrepreneurs & just people in general when it comes to living life & pursuing what is meaningful.  Let me know what you think Text me 587-217-8500 

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make sure you let them know you heard about them from the podcast, right? Now let's get on to that T-Barr-1, tale of the tape. Originally from Hamioda, Manitoba. He graduated a degree in agricultural from the University of Manitoba. He founded Ad Farm, one of the largest agricultural marketing communication firms in North America. He was a mentor of the year for the Canadian Youth Business Foundation.

In 2011, he was the agri-marketer of the year. In 2012, he was inducted to the Canadian Agricultural Hall of Fame. In 2017, he received the Order of Canada, the highest civilian award in the country. I'm talking about Kim McConnell. So buckle up. Here we go. My name's Kim McConnell and welcome to the Sean Newman podcast. Welcome to the Sean Newman podcast today.

I'm joined by Kim McConnell. So first off, sir, thanks for hopping on with me. Yeah. Feel honored to be here. Thank you. Well, it's funny. You said to me, I don't know if I have enough to talk about. I started laughing because I listened to your one interview that I've,

that you've done in the podcast world, that I know of, I should say. And then I started reading article after article on you. And I went, well, that's an extremely humble thing to say when you're like, I don't know if I got really anything to talk about because your list of accolades, the things you've done in your career has been, well, nothing short of impressive. That's where I'll leave it. Well, thank you, Sean. I've been blessed.

I've been fortunate. and you know you're a hockey guy you know sometimes when you stand in front of the net you get fluky goals and I think maybe I was more in the right place at the right time than than anything else so but yeah it's been I've had a if I had a wonderful journey so that's great you you know sticking with the hockey analogy Kim you say standing in front of the net I got some fluky goals there are no fluky goals in front of the net because we know in hockey in front of the net is probably the toughest place to go

because that's where you're going to get well I'm a defenseman. Kim comes and stands in front of the net. I'm going to give them the business. And I know hockey's changed a little bit over the years, but in front of the net is a tough place to stand. And so although that's where you score the goals, it's also where you take the most wax

and have the big defensemen stand in front of you and chopping you and everything else. So I, I appreciate the humble of like, yeah, I just stood in front of the net, put it in. But any hockey player knows, you stand in front of the net, you're going to come out black and blue. Oh, yeah, well, that's true. But if you want to be in the game, you got to be in the game. And I guess that's what I'm trying to say.

And you need to position yourself in such a way so that you can make a difference or whatever that may be. And in the game of hockey, it's about scoring goals. It certainly is. In the community, it's about being there and being available. And in the business world, it's about having the right products and the right company and the right people around you in order to succeed in that regard. But it's all, you've got to be in the right place. Well, I want to go a little bit back into your younger days. You're originally from Hamio to Manitoba, which is a little farming community by the looks of it.

that is probably very similar to what a lot of us here in Saskatch when Alberta grew up in. I read an article that I thought was really, really good. It said your dad had given you, or maybe your parents had given you really good advice at a young age. They said, before you take up farming, you should go to university, get an education, and work for a few years off the farm. And I thought maybe we could start there. Because I think that's fantastic advice for whether you're on the farm or whether

your parents own a big giant business, right? You should go find yourself and find what you actually want to do and go experience somebody else other than your parents telling you what to do. Well, let's start with, first off, I grew up on a farm. And as a result of growing up on a farm, I think you get the opportunity to see many things. You get to see life. You get to see nature. You get to see the environment.

You learn the value of hard work, especially when you don't have any money. And those were the days when we were that. So, you know, I think I'm really, I was fortunate that I grew up in a farm. I was definitely fortunate that I had the parents that I had. They were leaders in the community. They were inspirational. They pushed you, but they guided you and supported me and my brother and I all the way through. I think I was really fortunate.

I grew up in a little town. You know, we didn't have a choice whether we played hockey or because we didn't play hockey. If I didn't play hockey, we probably wouldn't have a team. That's how it was. If we learned to, I play basketball, I played curling. We curled. Like we did all of those different things. I got on student council.

I got on all those things because it was small and you could. So the benefits of a small. small town, I think certainly provided me some characteristics and some skills that you probably don't get in some other areas. So I was fortunate there. And then I was also fortunate, I think, to be in 4-H. And 4-H to me, you know, I don't bleed red, I bleed green. And if you, the principles of 4H and the meeting management and the public speaking and the discipline of having a project and the whole works like that. That was wonderful.

So that gave me the grounding, I guess you would say, Sean, that I was pretty darn lucky. Not everybody gets that type of thing. And I was in the right place. I was in front of the net. Now, yeah, since I was a little guy, I wanted to farm. That was where our family farm goes back to 1884. And it was in our blood and I enjoyed that. But mom and dad said, great, come on, that's good.

But you got to do two things. As you mentioned, you need to get an education because we basically didn't. My dad, my mom was a teacher, but my dad, he was big and strong. and he had to stay home and help on the farm sort of thing. So he didn't get the opportunity to do that. And then the second thing is that they said, and you're going to do something off the farm for a couple of years because we didn't get that opportunity.

And then you can see and you can do some different things. And then if you want to come back home to farm, then, you know, that's wonderful. Let's come. But you're coming because you've had other options and you've chosen that career. Not necessarily that was what was expected of you in that regard. So I think that was very good advice.

So after university, I have a degree of an agriculture at the University of Manitoba. I went to work for in the crop inputs industry. And that was the very early days of the crop inputs industry in the herbicide and the pesticide business. And probably that was so wonderful. I saw the structure of business. I saw the great leadership, the whole works that came with that. And so then after two years, I asked to move. I was in sales in Edmonton, and I asked to move back to Brandon,

and I kept the sales territory. And I rented a bunch of land. And I farmed with my dad and my mom. And I got to do that for one. year. And in the land that I was renting, the individuals decided they wanted to farm or wanted to come back and get. So I basically lost my land base. Now, mom and dad said, you know, sure, they were going to help me. But you know what, Sean? They were finally making some money. And it had been a pretty hard go in this thing. And here I was going to be sort of noodling in on it. And I didn't think that was maybe the

most fairest thing. And by the same token, the company was adamant that I was going to move on and move on. And they wanted me to go to Toronto. And no disrespect to Toronto, wonderful spot. It was a long ways away from the farm. And that was before cheap flights and West Jet and the whole works. And I couldn't get back for seating and spraying and doing that. So I say, well, I can't go there. But I chose to go. I did agree to go to Calgary. And I, because at least I could drive home. I was only 10 and a half, 11 hour drive. I could get back and do some things in, in that regard and do some things. So I went to Calgary and I was in charge of the advertising and promotion. And I knew nothing about that. Like absolutely nothing. And, but we had a very good agency.

based in the U.S., and we started doing some things. And pretty soon I said, you know, I think I can do that. And, you know, I think many of the things that could be done here. I think I could maybe do some of that stuff. And so by this time, the company wanted me to go to Indianapolis, and there wasn't a hope and hell I was going to do that. And so by this time I was married, I have a wonderful wife and she was a pharmacist.

And she said, okay, McConnell, it's, you got one year. You got one year here. I can pay the mortgage and we won't starve to death for one year. But at the end of that year, we have to decide, are we going to continue this little business that we would maybe start up? Or are we going to go back home and farm? Or are we going to get a job? Or like, what are we going to do?

You got one year, McConnell. Now, now before you, so for that one year, you got one year, McConnell, you're married, do you have any kids? No. No kids. And how old are you? I am 40. No, I am 25 years old.

Okay. I'm just, I want to paint the picture for, for the listener, because that's, even back then, even now, to have a year, sounds like a long time. but to make something go, you're pushing hard and you got a little bit of pressure there. Yeah, and let's maybe put another thing is everybody I knew show, everybody, either worked for somebody else or they were back home as part of a fed, their family business, everybody. I knew nobody who was out on their own.

Okay. So that was a little intimidating. So that's where I, so secondly, what I was about to do, nobody had really done in the agricultural business before. And so I had no clients and nobody knew me. So this was, and I had $5,000. That was it, $5,000. That's how we started.

So, of course, no bank was going to bet on somebody like this. And our house was in negative, you know, by this time the NEP had come in. And, you know, we had negative net worse, really. So that's how we started. We only have one place to go and it was up. What are we talking? You were born in 56. So 84?

Yeah. And the 80s weren't exactly the greatest time, was it? No. No, no, it was, by the same token, it was, you know, you could look at, you know, you got to look at where it was, right? Then, you know, the 80s weren't the greatest in a lot of years, but people were interested in new ideas and some new things. And that gave me the opportunity to be able to pitch yourself or you pitch your ideas and that. And they were maybe more interested than if everything was going good, then you continue to do. do what you're already doing, right? So this allowed an opportunity to get started,

I think. Yeah. So when I, so go back just to sort of summarize that, Sean, I would say that the second best thing I ever did, well, at least at that time, was to be with this large Elanco was the name of the company. The best thing I ever did was to leave. And so, even start on my own. So they gave me, I learned so much from there that, that I, that helped me. That helped you transition into being on your own. Well, about budgets, like about business, I should say, like the business, the structure, the how you do things, how you go about doing, you know, a couple of young, young guys came to me a few, a couple of years, ago to and they saw a real opportunity in law they were they were just in their final years of law and they were going to set up their own agricultural law firm and uh and then they said Kim what advice would you have and I said you know I think I would go and work for one of the big guys I would go and do that for a couple of years and see what they're doing how do they get structured how is that all set up and then when you know when you come and and and set up

on your own, you'll know some things that worked really well there, but you'll also know some things, by God, we are not going to do that. So then you can have some learnings. But if you just go on your own, then you're plowing your own ground here right off the bat. And I think it's, I think it's a, it's an, it's an easy and a good place to learn from others. Well, and it kind of gives you, you already kind of said it. Like that experience gives you kind of the lay of the land, so to speak. So you know which way to start heading. I mean, no matter when you start out on your own, I assume, you know, it's a little bit of a journey into the unknown.

But at least by having the lay of the land, you kind of know what to expect at least at the beginning. When in the first year, when you're on your own, right? You made the decision. Your wife says, all right, McConnell, you got a year. Okay, here we go. But nobody knows you. Nobody's done this before. It's not like you got this huge budget of like I can just throw money everywhere. What did you, what did you, what was your plan of attack? You must have had like, okay, these are going to be my first couple of steps here. And let's see if I can get a few wins. Well, you know, first off, you needed to find, you needed to attach yourself or be able to align. with somebody who saw value and what you were going to offer, right? That's, you know, just got, if they're going to pay,

they're, you've got to be able to provide something that would be of value. So the approach that I took, Sean, was that I started reading the newspaper, in particular that, you know, my focus is agriculture, right? So the Western producer and the Manitoba cooperator, et cetera, like that. And I'd read, and this was the beginning, there was a whole bunch of new innovations starting to come up. The chemical industry was really just getting started. The amount of fertilizers, the new equipment, all of these things were,

they were just sort of coming out and really starting to get traction. So I would read the newspaper and I would see somebody that had a new product or something that I thought was an opportunity for that company. or there was a challenge that they were facing, and they weren't necessarily they were hitting. So I would then phone, I would learn about this company or a little bit, and I would phone up the highest person I thought I could reach in that organization. And my pitch was really simple. It was this.

This is exactly what I said. I said, my name's Kim McConnell. You don't know me. I have an idea for you. I'm wondering if I could take 10 minutes of your time and buy a cup of tea. Now, let's pause here. That was my pitch. I have an idea.

Well, what I learned is that there's a lot of people that are interested in what the hell is this idea for. Okay, that's number one. Number two, 10 minutes is not a long time. You can find 10 minutes. and a cup of tea could be coffee, tea, lunch, breakfast. I don't care. Just get in the door. So then I'd get in the door.

They somehow let me in. And I'd come in and I'd take my little newspaper and I'd say, well, this is how I'm reading this or did I capture this opportunity or challenge properly? Yeah. Well, I think I could maybe help you with this. Here is the nibble of the idea that I think would maybe be a value to you as you looked at doing this. Does that make any sense? Yeah, that makes real good sense.

And then I'd say, well, just second, I promised you 10 minutes, and I am not going to take over more than 10 minutes. But what I would love to do is come back and flesh that out in more detail and give it to you in a couple of weeks and talk it through. And usually they would say, you know, Kim, that's wonderful, but you're talking to the wrong guy. You need to talk to Mary or Pete or whatever else it is. And then they opened up the door and they took me in. And then I would maybe get this. So it's usually coming from top down, et cetera. And then I got somebody got their attention.

It was a little project and never wanted the whole of kind. I just wanted one little project. and then I would service the hell out of them, to be quite honest. And then I'd maybe get the chance or get a chance to do more. And then we grew and grew from that. And then so that's how it started. And then we started putting people around me who actually knew what they were doing. They were valuable people.

And then my job was to continue to do that and coach them in the sense and help them be able to move forward. And that's how we grew. And then we basically grew and grew and grew. that rate there is probably sales 101 coursework at some university, right? Like that, that, that's, uh, coming from a sales guy, right? Like, that's, that's what I do. I do sales. And, uh, hearing the way you talk about, uh, uh, just how the initiative to call people up, to have the, that ability to fight through some of the, the area to get to one person to sit down with them for 10 minutes, to pitch them an idea, but not really give them the full idea. Man, that's,

that's curiosity in itself on the other end, right? If you came in and did that to me, I got to meet with them one more time. But on top of that, then to get directed to the right person. Because as we know, you can have the greatest idea, but if you're telling me and I have nothing to do with any of it,

it's like, well, that's a great idea, but I literally can't help you. I mean, that in itself is a huge chunk of the battle. Like, that's brilliant,

actually, Kim. Yeah, a little, you know, Sean, be a little, be a little careful here. In those days, the companies, the agricultural companies were pretty small.

They would have had somebody at the top. They might have had a research department. They would have definitely had a sales group. They would have maybe had production, et cetera. They didn't have a marketing department. They didn't. So basically, what I come in with with some marketing thoughts, And I became their marketing department, right?

But you know what? Just go back on the sales thing at touch. You know, as we got, we grew and we started putting people out that would knock on doors and do stuff to expand the business. They used to say, Kimmo, we need better tools. We need videos or brochures or whatever else it is. And I resisted that as much as I could. And my reason for that was, is that when you're doing that, then you're going to walk in and you're going to say, hey, I want to tell you about what I'm doing. Quite honest, they don't give a rat's ass about what you're doing.

What they want you to do is to solve their problems and their opportunities. So by going in with a blank piece of paper or going in with the newspaper clip or whatever else I'm, was I was focused on talking to them, talking to you, talking to learning about what it is, and then I could respond and come back and show them the solution and then back that up with what I had done in the past that reinforced that I could do it for you and make that happen. That's how that's what it is. So we had a little struggle there in a little bit at times. Yeah, but you said right there you said what I

equate sales to is two words you said, which is problem solvers. You're just there to solve their problems. Everybody wants their problems to go away. And so if you can do that, you become extremely valuable immediately because who doesn't want their problem solves? Everybody on this planet wants a problem solved. Or they have their egos in such a way that they want to be able to go to the next level and that's the other thing. So it's one or two things. Do you have a problem or do you have a major opportunity that we could do that? And in both cases, I need to know the nugget of that so that I could help them put the tools in place, be able to put the strategies in place to be able to do that. Now, did you teach yourself that, Kim, or did you learn that at the big companies?

Well, I probably taught myself that mainly from learning and gut feel. But I learned how to make a good presentation. Don't get me wrong on that. I learned that from 4H and from the company that I was doing. We were good at that we learned that real well. Yeah. So it was a little bit of both, all of those. it's it's I just enjoy like when you talk about it I know you you you um what I understand about

you Kim or at least from listening is is you don't love talking about you're like be careful on how we say things and and you know I'm not that good and you know you're just like but what it what is really impressive for me is like to go it on your own and then to just kind of like develop that way of like no I'm here to solve your problem or create the opportunity for you but you have to like, that takes forethought and that really takes taking a step back to look at okay. This is going to take, you know, three or four meetings to get to where I need to be. But in three or four meetings, I'm going to be a thousand miles ahead of where I'd be. If I just walked in and said, here's your problem, then this is how we're going to fix it.

By getting them to enlist in the problem solving with you and tell them and then reaffirm it and then sell you to the next person, geez, that's, that's, I think that's brilliant. I think a lot of salespeople would love to hear that. Well, it worked pretty good for me. Got us a base and then once you got a base and then, you know, others would hear about what you were doing or whatever, you know, and clients would somewhat promote you. You know, that's how we started going into other geographies over the years is that we, clients took us there sort of thing. So, yeah, it's a team effort.

You know, Sean, and, you know, surround yourself with the people that are, that were good. Like, they, you know, I used to, used to say, you know, I'm the most unqualified person in the agency. Like all the others were writers or designers or artists and, and accountants or whatever. Like, I, shit, I'm just a farm kid. right that with the degree in agriculture but so you needed to surround yourself with these others and

and allow them to to challenge them i wouldn't like i wasn't i would challenge them there's no doubt about that and and but you know i think they learned and and i certainly learned and we grew it you know so i would say success is a team sport um you know you don't this isn't the golf course this isn't a golf course is where you're only out there by yourself. And even that's pretty much a team thing these days. But no, there's success that team sport. You know, success is a, I like how you put that. I look at you, I guess, and I hear, and maybe I'm just judging from what I hear, obviously, that like, you surround yourself with very good people. But you had the level head to be in the middle of that very good people. And probably I don't need to be the smartest person in the room, which is a very good quality. You can listen to everybody, but at the same time, you can push them to do the best. And that's like a, it's a nice little balance there. You don't always get it right either and be humble enough to recognize that you screwed up and let's get it back and go after it again.

So, yeah. Yeah, but by not getting it right, you learn, oh, we can't go that way, right? Like, I'd rather get it wide. I mean, you want to get it right. But if you get it wrong and in the first two feet down that road, you go, ooh, that, okay, guys, we're not. going to go down there. Now you've just eliminated a path. Once you eliminate a path, at least you don't know you don't have to worry about it anymore. It's never a question of maybe we should have went down that path. So that, in that regard, though, how do you, how do you learn lessons

without losing money? Right? That's losing time and money. So to me, and there's a couple of things that I learned there, Sean. You know, as I mentioned at the beginning, I, I didn't know anything about what I was doing, right? Really, I was starting this out. So I went to two individuals that I had a lot of respect for and said, hey, I'll make you a deal. I'll provide you marketing and communication support if you'll provide me business support. And one of them in particular is just phenomenal. And he's not a well-educated man, but a very successful entrepreneur.

business guy. So we would meet a couple of times a year and we'd have breakfast and I'd go through my whole things and the whole works like that. And he would ask me questions. And so for example, I remember him saying one day. So what's your relationship with your bank, Kim? I'd say as well, it's pretty good. And how well do you get along with your banker? Well, pretty good, I think. And how about your banker's boss? And I went, well, I never met with my banker's boss.

Well, Kim, bankers change too often. You need to get up and learn as far up the bank organization as you possibly can. When's the best time to meet with them, Kim? when times are good, not when you need the money. So where the hell do you learn stuff like that, Sean? You learn that by experience. They don't teach that, at least when I was going to school, they didn't teach that and entrepreneurial businesses and stuff like that.

So for 10 years, this individual provided nothing but support and guidance and that kind of mentoring advice. and I gave him nothing in return. I got to admit it was, but then it turned around. A number of years later, after that, he was starting to have a few issues that I was able to help him, probably the last while I've done more to help him than he's done to help me. But that was, that was, so that's where I started out on mentorship.

So I'm big on mandor. And then if you, you know, I'm also big. I don't know whether you want to stop there, but I'm also big on a board of directors. Let's pause here. It's 1989, I think it is, yeah, 88, 89. And we were, we were given, or we were had, we were secured the business for the Royal Bank. So the Royal Bank had four agencies and we were the one for agriculture in the rural markets. Now that was a big, Sean, that was a turning point.

That was, you know, before you were working for some little company or whatever, when all of a sudden you said, well, you're the agency for the Royal Bank. They were, whoa, wow, that's neat, right? So that was kind of a launching pad client that we'd do it. So I'm reading their annual report, and I'm going through, and I'm reading, you know, here's the Royal Bank. This is the largest market cap company in Canada at the time. They're the most respected company that won all these awards. They were the most profitable company, da-da-di-da.

And they just paid their chairman and CEO a million and a half dollars. And, you know, that was an unbelievable amount of money, right? And I'm thinking, you know, today that's probably what they're making a day. I don't know. But in those days, that was a lot of money. So then I turn the page. And here is the board of directors. And the board of directors was basically the who's who of Canadian business.

From the various industries and that, it was the senior players. And I'm saying to myself, why does the Royal Bank have a board of directors? Well, they have it for fiduciary reasons, all that other things. Okay, that makes sense. But they also are using these for insights. They're looking. They're getting on top of the energy industry, the agriculture industry, the consumer industry, all of these different things.

They have somebody that is a leading force doing that. And I'm saying to myself, if the Royal Bank needs that, and they're paying a guy a million and a half bucks and they still need that, why don't I need that? So, 1989, I think it was, we developed a board of directors and we put two people from the outside on my board. Now, I was an advisory board. They didn't want the risk associated with my business, to be honest, and to be quite honest, they'll go the other way. It was my business. And I was, I wasn't going to make the decision. I wasn't, but they were advised.

But we ran it like a big business. Oh, that was one of the best things I ever did, was to put these outside people on that provided insights and guidance and the whole works like that. And you know, Sean, it doesn't cost anything. You know, the one guy, I had to pay $100 an hour, minimum four hours a quarter. So $400 four times a year. Okay, that was the other guy had to take fish. Okay. Now that probably costs more than the other. Don't get me wrong on that. But that's what's the

insights, the challenge. And you know what? When I came and said, we're going to do this, I did not want to be embarrassed in front of my board. Okay. So that just elevated things. So I am a big believer in mentors. I am a big believer in boards of directors that can do that. And I believe today that many family owned businesses, farms or whatever else it is, would be so much better off if they put two outside advisors that they really respect it, both generations respected, okay, that would be able to understand, provide, ask questions, provide some sober second thought of advice, et cetera, like that.

And then they still make the same decision. I think they would be so much better. Our employee base loved it when we went to do that when we did that in 1989 or 90, whenever it was that we did that. So that was a very good thing to do. I feel like my brain just like put that in storage because I'm going to I'm sure a bunch of people who just listen to that are going to be like, wow, that was really good advice. I got to ask, I got to bring you back to the mentor thing for a little bit because I love the mentor side. It makes complete sense to me. I'm curious, how did you choose your mentors? Like did you have your eye on two guys? You mentioned two, one, in particular, were they leaders in the industry? Were they just people who you admired their approach to business?

Like back then, how did you go, that's a guy I want to follow. And was he in the same industry or was he in, I don't know, was he in entertainment? Well, in that case, well, first off, all I know, all I'm in my industry is agriculture, right? So they were in agriculture. This was an individual. It was entrepreneur. They're both entrepreneurs. So they had started with nothing.

They had grown. They'd done the whole thing. They had walked the path that I thought I was going to want to walk. It was a different, it was, you know, they took a different trail, but it was still, they were on a different path. I highly, I didn't know them overly way. but I knew them enough that that that that I had tremendous respect for them. Okay. So and I think that was also, to me, my mentor would not be my accountant or my lawyer or

whatever because you can hire that and you should be using those. Those ones are, so I wouldn't hire the family friend because I can still go and Dr. Damn, right? those are, I went for somebody that I thought could really help me in this period of time. And I didn't, like, there was no time limit on it. There was, it was just, hey, this is what I'm doing. I'm wondering if you would be willing to spend a little bit of time and, and sort of guide me and tell me what to do. I'll be as open as I can to you in that regard. I don't even think I called it a because I'm not sure we knew that was a term that we even called it in those days.

But then and and and and and and they loved it. They loved it because I got to they got to in a sense relive their journey through me. You know what I mean? And I got to learn the experience of different things in that regard, right? So so that was one. I still have a mentor, Sean. My matter is 86 years old. He is a leader of leaders.

And I met him many years ago. Well, if you want a long story, I'll tell you the long story because it was kind of neat. But it was a period of time when corporate social responsibility was kind of thing. Like, what are you doing to give back to your community? And I was struggling with what should we be doing to give back? So I contacted four people in Calgary. I didn't know them at all. Just read about them like really high profile individuals.

And I contacted each of them and asked them if they would spend the have a cup of tea with me. All four of them did. They were phenomenal on different things on how do you give back? What areas, you know, different things that you would learn. from that. But one of the guys, this chap said to me, where's your heart? And I said, well, I think it's in the country. That's good, he said. I have a question for you. Where does a battered farm wife go for help? And I went, I don't know. I suspect she either stays home or she goes to the city. And he said, yeah, I think you're right, Kim.

Focus your attention in the country. It's guys like me that got responsibility for the city. The country needs. So what his guidance there was, that's why we started doing things with more with 4-H, more with leadership, more with the Canada Food Greens Bank, do things like that. That's how we gave back because we were really focused. But that gentleman taught me some really good things. So over the years, I have kept in touch with him.

And it's a very informal relationship. But when I get into issues that I think I need the wisdom of this seasoned leader, and that's what he is, is a leader. Then I go to him. And when he gets into things, then he calls and says, says, Kim, I need your help. And by golly, we go after it. So that's wonderful.

So now I get to mentor a number of, you know, number of businesses. I have four formal mentorship programs with things. And then a bunch of others that just call and I would help every once in a while. But I really quite love this. It's, that's a real fun, fun component on that. no that's it's really good advice you know i i go back to my initial comment i laughed when you said i don't know if i got anything to talk about because i go like what you're talking just i don't know resonates with me a lot i really enjoy um whether we're talking the sales all the way through

the mentorship the board of directors all that is extremely good advice um one other thing you know i want to slowly wind this down because i don't want to keep you all day um you you had figure out your greatness. And I thought that was, you know, greatness, I assume you can equate to passion or anything else, other words there. But it said, figure out your greatness. And I wondered, did you figure that out early on and how, how did you stumble across it? Or was it always there because you wanted to be a farmer so you knew it was going to be around the agricultural industry? Well, yeah, I'm looking at you and you got hockey in the background. You're always going to be around hockey.

It's a passion. It's something that you enjoy. Agriculture is something I just, I just, I love the people. I love the land. I love the fact that we're feeding. Like, I like all aspects. So I knew that that was the arena in which I was going to play, right? So that would be, that would be where,

it was in that. What I, you know, where did I, I don't know whether I figured out my greatness. I will tell you, though, it was 1982. And I'm, I'm in, I'm still working with this, with the company. And I went on a large trip with my university roommate. And we went to South Africa. And, and so we're, we're, we're in Kruger National Park, which is the largest part wildlife park in the world and we're in this compound which is you know huge fences and that around to keep the wildlife out and there's and and and we were in this mud hot that's what we stayed in this mud hut and and and and but there was lots of families and they were camping and that and there was a big bonfire and and and the big uh and so we go over there and when i get talking to this guy

and i said to him so what do you do and he said well i'm a farmer And I'm an engineer at the local gold mine, and I own the Mercedes band dealership. And I went, wow, how do you get all the work done? And he looked at me and he said, oh, I don't do the work. He said, I hire people to do the work. I'm paid to think, this very offer cons way. So I go back to my hut that night and looking up at the thatch roof. And I can't think.

And I'm thinking, what the heck do I do? What am I good at? And I realized then that while I loved my job, what I was really probably the best at was being a catalyst to getting things started and getting things going. And I also realized then that I really needed to control my own destiny, that I needed to do that. I was, so I better be on my own. So that was the beginning, Sean, of, took me two years to figure out what was that I was going to do. But that was when it took me two years before we started into set up the business. But that would have been the start of what it was.

And I think it was that South African Afrikaans, aggressive man that sort of made me think about what I did. And that's really what I am. I am a catalyst to, to, I see, you know, I'll go back to our hockey analogy. I could put the puck in the net because I got in the right area. But I was a catalyst to be able to start some things and then get them. And, you know, it's been 14 years since I ran the company. And so I really don't have much to do with that. But I do now initiatives that I think are important.

They may not be important to you, but they're important to me and the industry in which I think we're involved in. And so I kind of get them up and get started and put some people around them. And then I can go back and do other things. Well, I could talk to you probably all day. So we're going to slide into the Crude Master Final Five. Just the final five questions go as long or short as you want, Kim. I really do appreciate you carving out some time on a Saturday for me.

But a shout out to Heath and Tracy McDonald, who have been supporters of the podcast since the very beginning. The first one is always for a first time around the podcast. If you could do this with somebody, sit down across them. and pick their brain, who would you take? Today being, I think I would choose Mark Carney. Now, Mark Carney, as you know, was the head of the Bank of Canada. He went over and became the head of the Bank of England. He's now back in Canada.

He's all over. finance. He's all over the environment and climate change, and he is connected from the Pope to the President of the United States. And he has some very different approaches on where he thinks the nation should go. And I'm not sure I agree with him, and I'm not sure I understand that. But I think he's thought about these kinds of issues that are big issues that are, that I think would be, make for an extremely interesting discussion. A challenging discussion. Very much so.

Very much so. Well, then I got to go to, it was going to be question five. I was going to leave with this, but this one follows, follows it up quite nicely. Vance Crowe, the man who put me in touch with you, said in his email, you have a the ability to get uncommon groups of people to come together to work for things larger than themselves. And I was curious, how do you facilitate that? How do you make uncommon people that don't have the same goal come together? Oh, I'm not sure I know the answer to that part. But let me, let me look at it, take that somewhat on a different strain, Sean. Let's look at, let's look at a

challenge that that might need to be attacked that probably lots of people have maybe would consider but there's no path forward. Okay. So let's maybe look at it that one. Sure. Example. I am a believer today that the consumer wants to know more about agriculture and food than ever before.

and that there is so many others that are anti, many of the things that we're doing. And we need to, one of the biggest challenges, I would say the biggest challenge agriculture faces, one of the biggest anyway, is building public trust, trust within our food system to the consumer. So how did I, how did I get that started? So what I did is I first off, lesson number one, start small, start small. I put three of us around the table and we come up with, this is the best idea as we came. And then we expanded that and we put 25 people around the table. And we described the challenge that was that.

Do you buy into that? Here is a potential way of going about it. We did not make it look pretty. it was just we fleshed, we just sort of fleshed it up, does this many, this make sense? Then they would add to it and make it better. But they did something else. They're now hooked, right? They're now part of them.

So then we expanded to the next level. So we went from three to 25 to 150 to then the industry that goes forward with that. So I think my initiative would be, and my answer to that is start small, start with some strategic, some good thinking in there, broaden it and get other people to add to it, beat it up, make it better, and then just sort of flesh it and move it forward. But keep moving it forward, keep communicating, keep going like that. That's probably how we do. What's maybe the favorite book you've read in the last year or if you want to go a little further back, you may? I read a really neat one the other day that I quite enjoyed and it was called The Ride of a Lifetime with Bob Eager, the presidency of Walt Disney.

I thought that was an excellent book. I really quite enjoyed that. another one that if you're in the customer service business at all, I think you should read Excellence, which was the, that's what's called his Excellence. And it's written by the guy who was the founder of the Ritz Carlton Hotel Chain and what they did in that, the highest ratings of the, now if you're in sales and in customer service,

that is, those are two, that's a, that's a book I found a lot of value in. I probably from, as an entrepreneur, as an entrepreneur, the book that has helped me the most is really a guy. It's a guy by the name of Vern Harnish. And Vern is about my age, and we started our businesses more or less at the same time. He was a little bit ahead of my. He set up the initiative.

called Young Entrepreneurs, which is Young President, same thing like that. But you had to be, you had to be an entrepreneur. You had to have done this before age 30. You had to have so many sales and so many employees, et cetera, before age 30. And you had to own it. And then they kicked you out at age 40, right? So you had that period. And we worked together.

And that was an initiative. He set up. But he also, his book that he did was mastering the Rockefeller habits. And I have insisted that many of the people I mentor in small business read that book. His newest one is called scaling up. And it's how to take your small, medium-sized business and scale it to the next level. I find his, his, those are hand. Those two things are how to, how to write a business plan, how to get, how to hold a meeting with your staff.

Like those are hands on books. You know what I mean? Yeah, absolutely. No, I appreciate it. The first one, the right of a lifetime. I like, I like biographies and stories like that, the highs and lows. So, you know, Disney's been, you know, Disney's my favorite place in the world. I've been to Disney land, I wouldn't guess, Disney World Disneyland, 25 times, probably 30 times.

I just love going, you know, so whatever you do, Disney model, whatever you do, Disney models, whatever you do so well, people want to come back again and bring their friends with them. And I just think that was wonderful. What is it about Disney World that just got you hooked? First off, it's fun, it's happy, it's clean. You know, it's like you could eat off the streets. Everybody's having fun. You go in, you see you're inspired, you see new ideas.

It's continually changing, but never changes. You know, it's a small, small world has been there since when he opened in his first one, right? But yet the new shows and the new things. I just love going to Disney. Brings the kid out in me. There's a lot of people who love going to Disney. You're not alone there. That is for darn sure.

What's one piece of advice you give to entrepreneurs? If you have one piece that, you know, in mentoring across the board when you first start out, what's one of the things you've learned in your career, Kim, that you try and pass along? And you've probably already said three or four of them. So if it's a rehashing the same one, that's fine. I'll probably be curious. Be curious. Ask questions.

I hope you're going to edit all this stuff because, you know, I'll tell a story. But just, this is a long time ago, too. And I talked to said a minute ago, I was in this young entrepreneur thing. And we have a forum. So there's, there's eight in our forum. And we still get together. Our forum still gets together. And we all started out basically with nothing.

And we've all done pretty darn well, actually. But we get together and we enjoy it. Anyway, so we had this, we decided for this year that we were going to bring an outside guest in for for to our meetings when we met okay so this is what we'd say we'd say Sean we would like you to come to our meeting okay we'd like you to come and tell your story you have 20 minutes please don't come prepared okay now what we wanted was just come just tell your story and what we're doing. And they've went as short as 45 minutes and as long as five hours. Okay. And it is amazing who you can get in to see if you just ask. I'm sure you find that right now. It's amazing who you can interview

if you just ask, right? Right. Most people are scared to ask. So we've had, we've, it's amazing who we've had in to be able to chat with us. Anyway, this one time we had this guy come in, nobody would have known them. Actually, I brought him in as somebody I kind of thought. And he came and he said, four lessons in life. A look in the mirror, a black tie dinner, a guy Lombardo and the Royal Canadian. Canadians and Imelible Marco's shoes.

Those are my four lessons in life. So then he explained. He said, you know, I looked in the mirror one day. And I said, you know, I look a lot like my mother. And I look a lot like my father. What did I get from my mother? And what did I get from my father? And he said, from my mother, I got a sense of curiosity.

always ask another question. Ask another question because you will know then a little piece more than the next person does that. And from my father, I got a sense of adventure. Go and do things. Just try them. Go and do them. So that was my first. He said, a black tie dinner.

I went to this black tie dinner and here was this fairly famous person sitting at the table. And I said to him, so how was business? And he answered. And then he said, but the night is much too short for this. Tell me, what have you done recently that is meaningful and it has value? And I went, more specifically, what did you do two years ago today? And the guy said, Al said, I wouldn't have a clue.

He said, do things that are meaningful and have purpose. The third thing, he said, was I went to a funeral. and the funeral, very good friend. And the eulogy said the day she was born was the day that Guy Lombardo and the Royal Canadians opened up the Waldorf Astoria in New York. And he played this song and it went something like yesterday's upon us. It's later than you think. Do it while you're pink. Okay.

So in other words, live, live. And then his final one was Amelda Marcos's shoes. Now, she was the head of the Philippines or her wife with the Philippines. And, you know, she, when they were going through, and they had 18, she had 1,800 pairs of shoes. And he said, why does any woman need 1,800 pairs of shoes?

So then he said, well, how many pairs of shoes do I have? So he went and he counted them. And he said, I had 12 pairs of shoes. Why does any man need 12 pairs of shoes? So he decided he needed three. But then he started thinking, well, how much of a lot of things do I need? How much money do I need? And he figured out how his lifestyle and what it cost and how long he thought he'd live and et cetera.

And he added it up. And he went, I got it. Why am I doing this? What am I doing for it? So then he left us, Sean, and he gave us. us each arose and the question he asked was how much is enough and we spent the rest of the day talking about really how much is enough and i i'm reminded on that story so when i turned 50 and decided that i was i was going to step down that story resonated because i was i was in a very

comfortable spot i was a rich man not a wealthy man a rich man. I had good health, good energy, great family, great connections, great, enough money that I'm going to be able to live. Like, that wasn't really an issue. And I said, so how much is enough? I've got it. So why do I need to carry on and doing that? So that's when I, on my 50th birthday, the day after I went into our board of directors and I said, you got nine months because in nine months I'm gone. So you better have somebody taken over. So to me,

that was a long story to a short question. And I'd start with curiosity and asking questions and thinking. That's a hell of a story, Kim. That's really good. That's obviously very inspiring to yourself. And having a group that does that is fantastic. That's... Oh, the YOR forum.

That's, let me assure you that we still get together. We don't get together. We used to, we used to get, the issue was you got together. We met the second Wednesday of every month from three to six, missed two meetings, you're kicked out. For every minute you're late, it's a buck a minute. Okay. So that's how it was.

So now we still meet. We just don't be very often anymore. But I will guarantee you, I know those seven other people, better than their spouses do and better than their business partners do, et cetera, like that, because we have walked the roads together. The meeting is always the same. And this is how it's structured. You go around the room and you have five-minute updates.

So you have five minutes to give an update on what is the best and worst thing that's happened in the last month than your business, personal and family life. So we go around the table and that. And then there will be something that comes out that, you know, Sean, you got an issue on this. We need to discuss that. So we park that over to the side and we will get to that. Then there is a topic that somebody has. So it could be your meeting.

You bring the topic. And I want to talk today about I've got growing. I've got some people issues. I don't know how to do my performance reviews the way. I would like to do, et cetera. What are your thoughts? Now, so we go around. And what you can't say, Sean,

what you can't say is, I think you should do this. That's deemed out of order. What you can say is, when I face that, this is how I handle it. Or I know this guy and Pete, and Pete had a similar type thing.

I think this is how Pete handled it. I need to take you, Sean, to meet with Pete. That's how we handle it. And then we would go back and we would address that whatever topic issue that we had. And we met every month for, well, 30 years, I guess we have. Well, we don't do it every month. Now we do three, four times a year. So it's fun.

Now it's fun because we're all old. It's funny. I'm not a part of a book club. So every month we get together and it's five of us. And we challenge each other to be, well, it started, came to be better husbands and better fathers. That's, that was the kind of mantra at the beginning. And that's where the podcast spawns out of them. That's, that's what this came about.

And the other four individuals in it have all had, we were talking about this like a month ago, how much progress we've all had in our lives just by being a part of a group that pushes you to have a safe place to say what you want to say. and talk about your struggles and everything else. But then to give positive ways to continue to push up what you're passionate. That's what you're talking about. Totally, totally agree. So, and in our group, we were all about the same age. We all had our own business.

We all, but none of them were competitive businesses. So I was the only one in agriculture and communications. There was a guy in IT. There was a guy in a couple of classic on. entrepreneurs, I'll tell you, just what it is, a guy in the oil patch. The best of the, the best entrepreneur by far was a lady who started with $200. She's like, what a story that one. Well, your final one then is if you could go back in history and sit in on one

one conversation between a group of people, a president, and somebody else, it don't matter. What conversation would you want to go back in here? That I was involved in or that anybody would have been involved in? That anyone. It could be one of yours. It could be anyone. Well, I think, you know, I think the one I would love to have sat on the sidelines and watched would have probably, been when Churchill and Roosevelt and then sad and more or less divided up the world, right, after

Second World War. Like those were leaders and visionaries, and I think I would have, wow, you know, those, they were tackling big futuristic issues in that. regard and really meaningful meaningful stuff in that regard. As far as the meaning that I would like to relive, there's lots I'd like to have redone, okay, made the mistakes on. You know, my, this guy taught me how to raise money for organized organizations. I really took great notes on that.

We raised, with his guidance, raised $765,000 for 4-H from CN Rail, who had never had an involvement with 4-H. But he taught me how to go about to, how to raise money. That was, I often refer, Because that's the kind of thing that I get asked these days quite a bit, you know, where they're good causes, but there's, we just don't have the funding in order to do that. So how do you, how do you go about raising money?

So I reflect on that one quite a lot. Well, I think Vance said it in his email. I'm about to embark on a bike trip in the middle of start of June to an ag guy, Mr. Quick Dick, McDick in Tuffington, and go there and back. and raise money for breakfast program. So what, what, what, that's funny. You bring that up. What, what suggestions do you have for raising money, Kim? And it doesn't have to be a long thing.

It can just be short or whatever you'd like. Well, Jim taught me three lessons on how to raise money from the thing. So, so for, first off, he, I came to this by saying, And if you want to raise significant money, significant money for a cause, there's one of two tracks to take. Okay. The first track is, you know, if your, if your mom had just died of cancer and you have a lot of money, et cetera, and I approach you on doing something for cancer,

I'm probably got a soft spot. There is a need then you're going. So I need to align with that. So that's one way. The second way is that who has a major need? So if you look back, where did the public relations movement start? It started with Rockefeller and Carnegie. These were grumpy old man that basically everybody hated.

And they were in trouble. and they needed to gain the public's respect. So Carnegie started giving money to libraries and Rockefeller Foundation to give money away. They had a problem, right? That they needed, and they saw doing some of this other, was an avenue to fix their problem and help libraries or wherever else it was, right?

So I'm looking and saying, who are the real operational? opportunities that I might be able to get some. And in 4-H, that was what it was after. They'd already tapped and got most of the agricultural people. So I was saying, who has a problem? And I said, well, the railroads have a problem. They were not, you know, they had. So, so I went to my friend Jim Gray, who was director of emeritus, director of emeritus for CN Rail. Now, what's that mean? Well, that means when you're so well respected and you age out and they still want you on the board to give you a special title, right?

So I went to him and I said, hey, this is what I want to do. And I think CN should be involved. And he bought in and said, yeah, that makes sense. So then that's a long set up to the story, to the question. The question is, he said, the first question he said, so has 4H contacted C. in rail. Because if they have, I won't be involved. And I said, well, why? And he said, well, they would have dealt at this level, the middle management. I'm going right to the top. And he said, I will probably cause more problem if they come down than for a test. You know, lesson number one,

Kim, always start at the top. Good lesson. Question number two, how much money do you need? Well, I kind of like $150,000. Oh, we will ask for a million, he said. He said, we've got to grab their attention. You always ask hi, Kim. You can always come down. It's hard to go up. Always ask high.

Now, you better have a good plan. You better be able to deliver some value here, but always ask high. Point number three, who is the board champion? And I said, well, what does that mean? And he said, well, listen, they're going to give you a million dollars. Let's pretend. They do not want a seat on the board, but they want to know that somebody's going to look after them. I said, well, I'm the board champion.

Okay. Okay, well, let's get after. So we put together, the 4H and us, put together a really good program, really good need, went to Jim, got him on, he wrote a two-page letter, two-page letter, to the top guys at CN, requesting a million dollars and a meeting. Without a meeting, we got $765,000. And he said, that's not good enough. I asked for a million, but I also asked for a meeting. Now, we will have, we will take the money, but we still need to have a meeting. You need to understand what Kim was going to talk to you about on building a relationship with the agricultural

community. So those are my three lessons. Start at the top. Ask for a big amount because you can always come down. And what's the value and who's going to look after those major contributors? I tell you what, this has been just a lot of fun. This is a great way to spend a Saturday in my shoes. I still laugh. I'll say it a third time. I can't believe you wrote in an email to me. I don't really have much to talk about because this has been extremely enjoyable. I told Vance after I listened to your first interview that I'd heard, I'm like, man, you just had like very good advice that I could just extract and pull a right over to my life immediately. And that doesn't happen all the time. And I'm going to have to re-listen to this just so I can write down some of the things you've just said,

because it's been, this has been a really fun hour, Kim. Well, you make me blush on that, but I think I was a little long-winded, you know. I disagree. As Mark Twain used to say, I apologize for writing a long letter, but I didn't have time to write a short one. So I do hope you go back and edit it quite thoroughly. You mixed a great story with some very good advice. And that is a talent in itself. I didn't tell you this at the start. I'll tell you it at the end. I don't edit.

Like, people are going to get to hear the hour and my audience wants to hear the hour. They don't want to hear me at it. They want to hear you talk. That's why they tune in. And if they don't want to tune in, they won't. And that's fine. I've thoroughly enjoyed this hour. And I appreciate you giving me an hour of your time and, you know, appeasing my curiosity on some of the questions I've asked. All right. Well, I think you're deep. a little kind. So all the best and keep in touch. Thanks, Kim. Hey folks, thanks for joining us today. If you just stumbled on the show, please click subscribe, then scroll to the bottom and rate and leave a review. I promise it helps.

Remember, every Monday and Wednesday, we will have a new guest sitting down to share their story. The Sean Newman podcast available for free on Apple, Spotify, YouTube, and wherever else you get your podcast fix. Until next time. Thanks for hopping back on and I hope you enjoyed that. There was a, I don't care of what Kim says, there was a lot of wisdom in that chat. And I really, really, really enjoyed that. So I hope you got out of it as much as I did. And wherever you're at on this Wednesday, if you're the champ, you're probably, well,

the champ ain't swinging any clubs, folks. Funny story. but if you're the champ he's probably got his feet up and so be it now the rest of you it is wednesday hump day i hope you have a great rest of your week i hope uh we'll catch you monday and um until then all right and if you're the champ yeah you've probably earned your feet up all right have a good one guys