Toronto Mike'd: The Official Toronto Mike Podcast - Toronto Mike Gets Coached: Toronto Mike'd Podcast Episode 1692

Episode Date: May 14, 2025

In this 1692nd episode of Toronto Mike'd, Mike receives professional business coaching from Nick Ainis, host of Building Success. Toronto Mike'd is proudly brought to you by Great Lakes Brewery, Palma Pasta, Ridley Funeral Home, Toronto Maple Leafs Baseball, Yes We Are Open, Nick Ainis and RecycleMyElectronics.ca. If you would like to support the show, we do have partner opportunities available. Please email Toronto Mike at [e-mail]

Welcome to episode 1692 of Toronto Miked, proudly brought to you by Great Lakes Brewery, a fiercely independent craft brewery who believes in supporting communities, good times, and brewing amazing beer. Order online for free local home delivery in the GTA. Palma pasta enjoy the taste of fresh homemade Italian pasta and entrees from Palma pasta in Mississauga and Oakville. Yes we are open an award-winning podcast from Monaris hosted by FOTML Greggo. Toronto Maple Leafs baseball. TMLX18 at Christie Pitts was awesome. Thanks for coming out. Let's do it again.

RecycleMyElectronics.ca, committing to our planet's future means properly recycling our electronics of the past. Building Toronto Skyline, a podcast and book from Nick Ienies, sponsored by Fusion Corp Construction Management Inc. and Ridley Funeral Home, pillars of the community since 1921. Nick Ienies is a proud supporter of Toronto Miked, and by helping to fuel the real talk, he's enabled me to have long-form conversations with people like Scott Thompson, Gord Miller, Snow. I produce a couple of podcasts for Nick Ienies, Building Toronto Skyline, as I

mentioned in the intro, and a new one we call Building Success. Nick wanted to coach me as a small business owner, and my business is as small as it gets with an employee count of one. Here's Nick coaching me on Building Success. For the longer version, subscribe to Building Success and listen to us there. I think this is interesting if you're curious about how the sausage gets made over here, how podcasts are monetized, or the inner workings of TMDS, my digital services company. Without further ado, here's Nick coaching me on how to generate more revenue from TMDS. But you do it because you love what you do.

So just to be able to wake up every day and create, I think that's the main goal. So quick question before you dive in and coach me on building successes, how do you define success? Waking up and loving what you're doing and you've got to be able. It's got to be someone profitable. I'm gonna say what if you don't have a you know, a pot to piss in as they used to say, well, it's not easy. So like like I said, it's you still can do it.

Even if you don't have any money, you just have to find something that you love to do and do it. Okay, take a small step if you have to I'll take a you just have to find something that you love to do and do it. Okay. Take a small step if you have to. I'll take a small step and I'm going to take a small step. You did that, didn't you? Well, that's it. So I'm taking a sip of my coffee.

I'm braced now. Well, take a sip if, put something in it if you need to. Because here we go. I got some screech here actually from Newfoundland. So I'm in your hands from now on. You are now coaching me. I am in your hands from now on. You are now coaching me. I am in your hands. So here we go. My guest today is Toronto's very own Mike Boone, better known as Toronto Mike.

He's the host of the long running Toronto Mike podcast where he's interviewed hundreds of the city's most influential voices and media, music, sports and business. Beyond his show, Mike also helps others bring their stories to life through broadcast production and consulting. Today we're flipping the script with Mike in the hot seat for a live business coaching session. There you go. Did you write that?

I did. You didn't get AI to spit that out. I know. Is that chat GPT? What are you using over there? Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's pretty good. You like that?

Yeah. I think that's exactly what I do. I sit down. I can't, and by the way, I'm going to also, last cross promotion. It's in my nature, but Nick Aynes is returning to my podcast, Toronto Miked. We're going to get to know Nick a little better. I know some areas I want to explore with Nick. We're going to do a, I'm going to bring my martial arts instructor too. Okay. What's his name? Anil. Anil. So, Oh, Aini's and Anil.

Yeah. Aini's and Anil. I like that. Okay. I don't. All right. And thank you for that intro. Let's go, Mike.

I'm ready. Now put your other hat on now. Okay. Okay. We're flipping. I'm guest now. We're flipping the switch. Okay.

Okay. So, uh, give me a quick background, Mike, and tell me about your media entrepreneur journey. Wow. So, what were you doing before this? And how'd you come up with the idea? So tell us. All right.

So here's the Reader's Digest version here, which is I get a honors BA from University of Toronto. Can't do nothing without. Well, you know, please do. Okay, I'm gonna say this, because I'm, you know, this is the 90s, okay, Nick? You remember the 90s. I feel like many jobs I got, corporate full-time jobs I got,

to get the interview, you required post-secondary education. Like you needed to have a piece of paper that said, I completed something after high school. Like a lot of jobs. Now I don't know like whether you could have faked that. And I don't know whether, I was always thinking, well, at least if they go through the U of T and see, I'm not lying, I have a diploma.

I should hang it on the wall in here. Maybe I'll hang it right there. You're my 98 honors BA there. But so I got an honors BA from the U of T and then literally the day after my last exam I started my first full-time job and I was in marketing and I spent I'll say from like 1998 to 2018. Oh that's actually a nice round number so what is that? Is do that math for me here. That is 20 years, right?

Okay. So for 20 years, I worked for B2B software companies as a digital marketing manager. So I was literally there when this whole world was being invented as search engine optimization and pay per click and digital marketing became a thing. And I was very, very good at it so I could generate leads for sales to sell and I was very good at doing this and I would move from B2B software company to B2B software company to do this so my last job my last corporate job was for a German software company and I was managing leads globally they They sold automation software.

And in long story short is in 2018, I left my corporate job and I basically decided to go full time with what I call TMDS, which is my business, Toronto Mike Digital Services, but it's called TMDS. And now what I do is I help people like you podcast. I get

sponsors for my podcast. So basically my day-to-day right now is podcasting. I've been living and breathing podcasting since 2006, but I do it full-time for TMDS since 2018. That is seven years ago. Nick. Oh I see. So you were like working while you started doing this Yeah, oh, yeah, it was a side hustle. So this is an interesting pivot. I feel like back in the day Nick I don't know if you remember but side hustles were frowned upon like you had to keep it a secret from your it was I did I did side hustling too. And did you tell your employer? I did know there was people knew but Well, I I was good at it Well, the great fear I had was what because I was very my side hustle was kind of public and then once you know

People would would would say oh you're Toronto Mike and it was like, oh, yeah, but it was like that's a side hustle I don't want these streams to cross. This is my corporate job. This pays my mortgage This is sending my kids to university and I'm building this thing on the side And basically what I was doing was I'm building this thing on the side. And basically what I was doing was I was building this thing on the side until it could like you're raising a child until it could sustain itself and I could pay my mortgage and send my kids to university with that. Yeah, that's great. So that's uh yeah so that's uh so that's how you got into it. Now when you started off did you think think about that you're gonna do podcasting?

Or was it something completely different? So this is gonna come right back to you, Nick. This is always the thing about businesses. You start off with one idea and then it evolves into something else. So great question, Nick. So, because the other podcast, Beyond Toronto Mic, where you can hear the voice of Nick Ianez

is the Humble and Fred podcast. A couple of radio legends in this market. In 2006, I was a blogger, okay, Nick? So aside the side hustle, the TMU, the Toronto Mike universe, I had a blog, torontomike.com. And through this blog, by writing about radio and Humble and Friends and stuff, I became good friends with Hum humble and friends. So I became good friends with humble and Fred. And in 2006, they could not get a terrestrial radio job. They had been fired from mix 99.9.

They couldn't get a job. And I was having lunch with humble and Fred in 2006. And I said, guys, it's 2006. There's a burgeoning new format. It was just added to Apple's iTunes. It's called podcasts. You could broadcast without being on terrestrial radio. I had this combo. new format. It was just added to Apple's iTunes. I educated them. I said, listen, I've been in digital marketing. I was in digital marketing. so I understood the backend server side, I understand the scripting. I said, all a podcast is, is an XML file.

Like I had reverse engineered this thing from listening to a Ricky Gervais podcast in 2006. And I said, I can write the XML and I can submit it to iTunes and all you have to do is record a audio file, an MP3 and give me that MP3, We'll put it on a public web server. The xml will link to it and then people can subscribe and listen to your broadcast on demand at their leisure. This is happening guys. I remember this chat. We gave it a go. So in

December 2006, me, Humble, Fred, we went to Dan Duran's house in Bloor West Village before he moved up to Peterborough and we recorded audio, pretty good audio. Mike, you know, I was still learning that part, but we'll get to that in a minute. But basically we had a great broadcast and they handed over this MP3 file. I had it on a USB stick. That's the era we were in. Wow. And then I took it and I made it a podcast and we are still podcasting today.

But that was like my introduction to podcasting and I ran with it. And so when did you start Toronto Mic too? So great question. So Humble and Fred would do what I call one-off, sporadic, like I don't know, every few months they'd record an episode. And then in 2011, this is after Fred got fired from being a program director in, where was he? In Peterborough, Ontario for chorus. And Howard got fired from a new job he got at Boom, but it was Easy Rock and it became Boom. He got fired, he was doing a show of calling.

This guy's been fired a lot, eh? That's radio, man. Holy shit. They did get fired a lot. So they were all, and basically we decided, what if we made this, the Humble and Fred job, and they recorded, man. They did get fired a lot. So they were all that. And they basically, we decided, what if we made this, the Humble and Fred job, and they recorded, is this 2011? We should call it Fumble and Fred.

It was October, 2011, where we pledged, we will do it every morning like it's on the radio. We'll do it every morning, three, four, I think at the beginning, five days a week. And we were gonna make it a regular job, build an audience and then sell advertising. And we started their podcast in October, 2011. I'm telling you, Nick, by November, 2011,

having watched it from that perspective, I said, hey, I think I could leave my comfort zone and I could do that. I was the backend guy. I'm like, what if I bought gear, which you're talking into right now, and I set up a studio and I learned how to create high fidelity audio,

how to record, how to edit, how to do all that stuff in the back, the front end, if you will, speak into a mic, learn how to speak English, and then I could do the A to Z myself. So I started Toronto Mike, this is a long winded way of saying Toronto Mike's first episode dropped in August, 2012.

Oh, that's amazing. So it's a good story. You see everything starts with a, like a dream and, uh, sometimes it's a side hustle. So this is to all the listeners out there. So don't be afraid to live your dream. And it all starts with a single step. There's a saying in Zen

Buddhism, a journey of a thousand miles is accomplished in a single step. So you just have to make clear what your vision is and at the end of the day, work towards that slowly. And it can be slowly, it can be quickly, but you know, it's for those people who are really afraid to take that step. Can I add into that, which is so- You can't make me look bad. No, I would never make you look bad. Just kidding.

But to speak to that, so I definitely lacked confidence to make the side hustle the main thing, because I knew I needed to make X dollars a year to because living in Toronto, having a house and having four kids, you got to make X. And I didn't trust I could make X. But what gave me the confidence and the courage to try with TMDS six years ago, seven years ago, I got to correct that in post seven years ago, was the fact that my wife had a full-time job at a bank, one of the big banks. And I felt like, okay, if worst case scenario is I can only make, let's say worst case scenario is I can only pull in a couple of thousand

a month or something like that, we can still pay the mortgage and make ends meet and then we can build from there. Like, so I feel like if I were, for example, if I were a single dad or if my wife had a lower paying job, I don't know if I would have made the jump. I think that's a key part is if you have some support where you are allowed to fail. Yeah, yeah, I think that's a good point because a lot of people only work because they have no other option.

And that's the realities of life. So you have to put yourself in a position, so that's another good point, you have to put yourselves in a position where you are gonna financially make it too. So I did the same thing. So I did my side hustle and then I got a project in 2007, my first project. And basically I said, okay, I'm gonna do this project. I'm ready to go. It's gonna sustain me.

And so I did it. So very similar to what you went through. I went through the same thing. And it was pretty amazing. And I never looked back I couldn't imagine myself doing going back to ever ever going back to a job I probably kill myself. You know what I echo those sentiments I always say like one thing that really agrees with me is building my own calendar and having this

so I can build my calendar and if I need to, I don't know if my kids got a play or something, I can build the calendar so I'm available for the play. I can pick them up at different things but I really enjoy that flexibility. I can go for a bike ride at this time and things like that. I can't imagine going back to a corporate job in an office. Yeah, it would be suicidal. Suicidal. Hopefully those windows don't open. Yeah, exactly. So that's amazing, Mike. So that's a great story. And we really captured how you got

into your own business. And I think, you know, from people listening today, you're gonna, you know, get a lot from that. So the side hustle is a big thing. and a lot of people do it. So let's talk a little bit. I want to get a snapshot of your business. So we touched on it just a little while ago. So you're doing your own podcast and I guess you're getting some money. You got sponsors for that. Is that how you make your money on your podcast? Yeah, but not enough to only do my podcast. So yes. No, no, just one revenue stream. That's one revenue stream is sponsors of Toronto mic. Absolutely. So is that, uh,

that's the only thing where you make money on Toronto mic? The only other way, other revenue streams. Right now it's, uh, I work with, I call them partners and there's a, there's a great deal involved and entailed there but you're one of them. Absolutely. So just last night I went to an event, a media event for Toronto Maple Leafs baseball for example because I, they're a partner so I'm gonna have an event there at the home opener on Sunday, and I give out Toronto Maple Leafs history books to every guest who comes on Toronto

Mike. And I did put Snow, the rapper, who's famous for Informer, I did broker a deal where he became the official ambassador of Toronto Maple Leafs baseball. So that's one, so yes, of course, Nick Aynes and your wonderful podcasts and books, but I'm just shouting out Toronto May to just illustrate. So that's one partner I work with in a variety of ways and they will, uh, you know, cut me a

check every month. Well, they're a sponsor. They're a sponsor. They're a sponsor. Okay. So that's so the, so you have your own, do you have any other shows that you're doing? Or is it just Toronto May?

I know I only have one. Uh, I have one, I focus on one show. It's my, uh, my baby and then all my other podcasting endeavors are other people's shows. Yeah, so I do two because I've got two interests. I've got one where I'm very focused on the condo industry, Toronto construction industry and housing industry. And then the second one is that, what is that? Another what is that other building Toronto sky for the camera for the camera.

Wow. Excellent. Great visual effects. And, and the other one is, uh, building success series because I'm passionate about, uh, you know, making money and, uh, you know, building other people, building businesses and learning from people and, uh, you know businesses and learning from people and,

you know, getting ideas from people. And this is a fascinating way to do that. So talking about it all the time, maybe something's going to happen even bigger and greater and, and, and whatnot. Now, one thing on my end, I don't, I haven't focused, I haven't actually gone and pushed people to sponsor yet I've got a few people that I did reach out to and it's come, you know got a little bit of cash all of there and So it worked out. Okay, but you've got this ongoing. Do they pay you month month? Yeah right now every sponsor pays monthly

but just to speak to that point, which is I want to make sure it's clear that when I launched Toronto Mic in August 2012, I didn't have any sponsors when I launched. In fact, I was primarily for over a year, I focused on the content, building the audience. I believe in building the community, so I put a lot of effort into not just that, oh, I put out this piece of audio and people listen. That maybe, yes, whatever. But I'm really interested in building this community. I have these live events. There's a couple coming up. And it took, I don't know the exact number, but it took over a year before I added my first sponsor, which was a craft brewery who basically fell in love with the show and said,

hey, can we be a part of this? Well, that sounds, uh, sounds pretty amazing. Shout out to Great Lakes Brewery. So, so as far as I know, so you do your, your podcasts and then you're producing other people's podcasts, right? Yes, sir. That's those are your revenue streams. Those are the two biggies.

Yeah. I do a few, like there is some lingering stuff from my old job where I still maintain some people's web presence. I'll be like literally like they're, I guess we used to call it webmaster. I don't know if that's an okay term in 2025 and there's still a few where I manage their PPC accounts with Google and there's still a few lingering smaller clients that I manage their social media accounts. But the core of what I do day to day is either Toronto mic'd my podcast or One of the great podcasts I produce like this very podcast we're listening to right now. So how many so so So that's a good point. So One thing that I can already see is there's a great opportunity for you to not only produce, but build communities.

You should be charging for that. You should be charging me for that. Explain further, Nick. Well, you said you're, you promoted your, your Toronto Mike podcast show, right? How did you do that? You helped build that community, right? You did it through probably social media, other ways. And that should be an added service that you offered

to all your podcast producing gigs, right? No, I like what I'm hearing. Yeah, because I need that actually. Because right now I'm not really posting to them. Actually, I haven't even posted this stuff, which is a disgrace, but. So you're focusing on building the content, and then at some point you need to amplify the message beyond simply Humble and Fred in Toronto Mike. You got it.

Because you do that for Humble and Fred, I'm pretty sure, right? I do, yeah. They wouldn't know where, yeah. I do that for Humble and. I'm pretty sure I do. Yeah, they wouldn't know we're yeah, I do that from one friend I Get it with those fumble of red but humble and Fred in let's let's not bury the lead these two guys They've been around for a while. I've been around they've been a team since 1989 and they've they've achieved great success and they were the

1989 and they've they've achieved great success and they were the Morning show and they were very popular with their key demographic which was young adults. Yeah yeah, there's no question about it and it was a great opportunity for you to build your brand and You know gain credibility because you you produce a pretty amazing show. Thank you. So how let me ask you a question so so Toronto Mike, obviously, where is there an opportunity in Toronto Mike? You got sponsors, what's a way to take it to the next level? This is what, it depends how you define next level because- Well, making more money for yourself.

So, okay, I'm glad you're here because there's something going on right now, which is that Humble and Fred decided at the end of 2024, they decided that they wanted to make more money from Humble and Friend. And they thought the best way to do that is to have programmatic ads, which is insert automatically inserted advertisements. So if you listen to Humble and Fred today, it opens with a couple of pre-recordeded ads And there's a couple of times during the episode where they basically they interrupt the program to bring you a couple of pre-recorded ads And at the end of the podcast, there's a couple more. So what is that two four six eight? So there's eight pre-recorded 30-second ads Inserted into the podcast dynamically. So that's a great opportunity. Yes. Okay. So here's my problem.

You're doing it. Here's my, so I know based on like my listenership versus theirs and stuff that I am leaving a good chunk of money on the table right now, right? But Nick, here's my problem. And maybe you can slap me silly here. I'm ready.

You're going to do that anyway. I'm getting up. I don't want my pod, my baby Toronto Mike. I don't want it to have eight inserted ads for companies. I don't know. Like the thing about right now is- Well, you should, well, you know what? Don't do it for companies you know,

target things that are related to your show. But the way it works is you're on a platform. I'm gonna use the specific podcast platform. We moved Humble and Fred to. So right now my podcast, Toronto Mic'd, is hosted on a server co-located by a small company in Guelph. Okay? Shout out to Ian Service, who I work with very closely on this.

So he's like the guy in charge of the server. And I put, as you can imagine, hundreds of hours of MP3, a lot of... Listen, I'm at episode 1,690. Okay MP3, a lot of, listen, I'm at episode 1690, okay? There's a lot of data there. So what we did for Humble and Fred is because I used to have Humble and Fred in the same system, but because if I wanted the, if they wanted the ads inserted dynamically, we had to move them to a system called Acast. So now there's a big tech company called Acast.

It's their server. We moved everything there. That was quite a job. We did that during the Christmas break. I did it, it was a lot of work. Okay, so you have Humble and Fred on Acast. Acast is now selling the ads that get inserted. So Humble and Fred don't have any say in what ads being inserted.

If it's, I don't know. Wait a minute, Acast is selling these? Right, so Acast has a bunch of podcasts on their server They go to they sell the ads they I don't let's say it's I don't know RBC Okay, I'm thinking of a big bank RBC ad gets inserted because they sold it and then they pay humble and Fred a CPM I don't know the specifics on this but it might be something like let's say $35 CPM that means for every one thousand listeners humble and Fred will get $35 CPM. That means for every 1000 listeners, humbling Fred will get $35 for that. I don't know about that. Well, so, so it adds up, but you have a, why wouldn't you want to control all your advertising? Well,

this is why we're having this conversation. And this is why I'm not there right now. So we have a little fork in the road of humble and Fred where I'm still producing and doing everything. I just put there. Now I put the humble and Fred podcasts on the ACAST server so they can have the eight ads inserted. Toronto Mike's remains on the Guelph server which is like an independent. I uh there's no inserted ads. I can the only ads you hear on Toronto Mike's are ads I read live. Like I'll do a live read. I'll talk about your podcast, I'll talk about Palma Pasta, I'll talk about Ridley Funeral Home, you know, I talk about Yes

We Are Open from Minaris, I talk about you know Recycle My Electronics.ca, I do it all live. So those are for your sponsors though. Right. But I don't have, I do not have dynamically inserted pre-recorded ads like Humble and Fred. So there is a revenue stream that Humble and Fred have that I have opted to not have because I don't want that on, I don't like how, when I listen to podcasts, I hate it when I have to listen to eight pre-recorded ads.

And I don't want people to listen to Toronto Mike and have to endure that just so I can have more money. So I have made a decision to leave money on the table to preserve the integrity of the fiercely independent podcast I produce. So is there another way you can do it? Well, I can continue to do it. Because you're right now, right now, yeah. Well, right now you've got all your sponsors. So you can either build your, continue to build your sponsorship or you can, you know, sell something to them as well in addition to. I'm all ears to this. I personally would rather, I literally, I can go up to, I don't know,

the owner of Great Lakes Brewery, have a beer with him, talk to him, and then have an event at his venue. Like where it's a true partnership. There's a lot more than just talking about them on the air and giving beer to guests. Okay. But with the other model, the programmatic ads that are dynamically inserted, you might get an ad for, let's say, Esso gas. I'm just making this up, but Esso gas, there is no partnership with Esso gas. Humble and Fred don't even know the Esso gas ad is in there. It's like it's all dynamically inserted depending on like where you are and all these other factors. So they don't have a relationship with Esso. They're never going to have a vent at Esso or have the guy from Esso on the show. Like this is just simply

not the spirit I'm interested in. But I am leaving money on the table and Humble and Fred also not so much. So you know what you you should control your advertising. That's a good thing. I think that's a good thing what you're doing. That's where I'm at. And then, but find ways to get more revenue out of your existing sponsors or run short-term ads for other people. Okay. There's people that maybe don't want to do the monthly sponsorship. Oh, so like a per episode?

I ran into that. So a couple of guys, I asked for some sponsorship. They just gave me a bit of cash instead. So, you know, it could be a call out could be like, uh, you know, you guys together create the ad together, something you're going to do, uh, something creative as well. And, uh, do it old school style and, but you control your own advertising.

So you can get money from your sponsors, additional revenue from that, or you can just get like a one-off sponsorship too. I have a question on that note. You just sparked an idea I've been thinking about on bike rides, which is what if I... So I'm gonna continue to do what I'm doing. So we'll have whatever. The guy from Sloan will come over, I don't know, Steve Paikin will come over, Ron McLean,, like I'm going to continue to do that. But what if I had episodes that were pay to play episodes? Like what if I offered it and I'll make up numbers so they're nice and round because I'm not as smart as you, but like let's say anyone can spend a thousand dollars to have an episode of Toronto Mikes where like you could be the CEO of a mining company or something for a thousand bucks, you sit

here, we have a great hour chat about yours and it goes into the Toronto Mike feed, but you, that episode was paid for. Like that's another great, that's great. I've had this idea in a bike ride and I just don't know how to like market that without sounding cheesy. Like how do you even tell the world? You're a nice guy. You like to, you're focusing on content, but now you've got to focus on, you

know, raising some revenue, revenue for yourself right and you deserve it so you've got sponsors you've got advertising and then there's paid paid guests for an episode I like this idea there you go done so you've already increased the revenue of TMDS and we've only been talking for 35 minutes, 40 minutes. Yeah, that's right. Okay. But now you have to implement that action. How do you go about doing that? And how do you market? I thought maybe a good place for that kind of messaging is LinkedIn. What do you think?

Yeah, I mean, it could be LinkedIn, it could be social media, but you also have to sort of network a little bit too. It's a lot of networking. So there's another idea. But I do a lot of networking. Go ahead. There's another idea. So Toronto Mike, you know, another way you can do it is events. So you already do your events, but you got to make money on those events.

I'm still listening because this is another spiritual problem I have. So you have this problem. Well, this is another spiritual problem. Well, there's no spiritual problem. Are you going to suggest I charge to attend? Tickets. Yeah, I sell tickets. I've been told this. You sell tickets, but they got to get a good thing. You know, not that half pint that I got when I came over to see your last show.

Okay, but you didn't pay for that. Nick! I would't pay for that. I would have paid for it. I would have got a free pint. You should have gave me a free pint. They sell beer there. You could have bought yourself a second pint. How many of your fans would pay to come to your event? I think a number of fans would pay to come to a TMLX event. So let me ask you, are there any podcasts that that are paid for subscription Okay, this is this is just okay

the Yeah, yes, there are some podcasts you can only access through patreon, right? So you if you become like a $10 a month patreon or something you can access that but a true podcast Which means available on Spotify and Apple. There's no, yeah, they're all free. I'm just asking. Yeah. Yeah. They're all free. Cause I'm like, you know, can I follow up on that? So I like, so I, I do have, I'm going to have the 18th TML X event on Sunday actually. And then on June 26 from six to nine PM at great lakes brewery,

we have the 19th TML X event. And I know I'm going to see you there because I want to introduce you to snow cause snow is going to be there. No snow. You're going to love it. He's, he's no inform because I wanna introduce you to Snow because Snow's gonna be there. Snow. Snow. Snow, you're gonna love it. He's no informer and neither are you, okay? But here's my thing. I'm an informant. Oh, he's not gonna like that.

I'm just kidding. I'm gonna tell him that, okay. He's not gonna like that, you know? The guy served time, you don't wanna get on his bad side. Yeah, he was in jail when Informer hit, but okay. Oh wow. Go listen to him on Toronto Mic. But I don't, spiritually, and again, you're gonna like might get over it, you're just a business go listen to him on Toronto Mike. But I don't spiritually, and again,

you're going to like my get over it. You're just a business and that I can already answer for myself, but I don't like the idea of charging my listeners to come to my event because I like to give this back to them. I like, this is a free event. You're going to get free Palm a pasta. Like they're going to, you get free food, you get a free drink. It may not be a big enough glass, but at the breweryy you get a bigger glass. It's the smaller glasses at the GLB Brew Pub. And if you want more beer after the free one, you can buy it because you're at a GLB. You can buy more Great Lakes beer. But I don't want to charge for that. I would rather make less money than charge for that. Well, charge your sponsors. Now, now we're talking. Charge your sponsors for the event. Promoting the event. So right now for example. So you know what I did a

An event for Prince Margaret cancer to raise funds for Princess Margaret. Very good. And I got $5,000 sponsorship. I sold sponsorships Throughout the night five grand twenty five hundred. That's for a charity. that's not for the the TMDS fund. Okay so you gotta milk your sponsors. I do the Terry Fox run and I'm like everyone who pledges today will have it matched by this company and then literally that day I had like five thousand dollars in pledges and none of that money goes to me but I think I got that money not because they wanted to give me five thousand, they wanted to support the Terry Fox family. You gotta make some money on your event somehow. I don't know.

I like the spirit of like holding the event for your audience, that makes sense. But you know, maybe there's a spin on it. So you can still do that though. Maybe there's a spin, but don't forget, you're hosting everything Toronto, right? Yes. So you can have Toronto themed

events where you can charge for it so you have so many guests you have a huge network imagine you're able to leverage that network do an event with like some famous people yeah and and hold the Toronto party and charge and charge and charge money for it so you're saying I can continue to make TMLX a free event. TMLX is a free event. I just have a new event stream that's paid for. But except you can get your sponsors to sponsor that. Good idea, Nick.

Yeah, that I'm into. That I'm into. Because when I do have an event at Palma's Kitchen, for example, I do bring like 100 people to this venue and most of them leave with a full shopping cart of goods and will be back because they can't believe how good it is. Yeah. Okay.

And at Toronto, another Toronto event could be something related to Toronto. It's a great idea, some theme, and that's what you're charging for. Like a bike tour of all the hidden historical spots that are discussed. I think I just threw up. You could get an e-bike. No, do something really cool. You have so many

like take your TMLS guests and you can have like a sports fan day. Okay. Okay. You charge for it. Yeah. And you get these guys to attend for free and then you know what? Or if they will, I don't know, maybe they don't like you so much. Well then, well how did I get to 18? And then you know what? if they will I don't know maybe they don't like you so much. Well then how did I get to 18? And then you know what you charge $500 and give some of it away to charity too. Okay yeah Nick this is another good so already here. Amazing. We aren't even wrapped up yet we have another ten minutes to go and already you've given me a couple of very good ideas. And that's just Toronto Mike. So now I'm

gonna move, let's move on because you got some opportunities in Toronto Mike and then the next thing is how many shows are you producing right now? Like you've got your gig, that takes time. I'm sure you've got Humble and Fred is a lot of work too. Humble and Fred luckily they record their own audio and then they send the mp3 to me. So I because I'm you know they record their own audio and then they send the MP3 to me. So I cause cause I'm you know they record at seven thirty in the morning and I'm getting kids to school and stuff. But so I bought every client I do something different for. But I don't know. Let's say 10. I mean I can't cause some some podcasts are regular. Some

are weekly. Some are every two weeks. Some are monthly. So by the way when I give you this advice and additional revenue streams, they can't be on me obviously, okay? You're the first guy I'm gonna test them on. I get freebies, I get freebies. No. So, no. I want a T-shirt, I want a building success T-shirt.

So there's, so here's some things that you can do with your other clients. So, number one, you can increase your revenue based on increasing your, how many shows you're producing. Okay. So that's one, that's one way. That's true. Your existing clients. So, you know, we talked about a few revenue streams in terms of, you, you know, charging for episode, obviously, but having that additional service where you promote their podcasts on

social media, you do everything for them. Cause I'm not doing that right now. Yeah. I should be doing that. You know what? I'm so busy, but I, the problem with me is I've got like a specific branding that I, I got to have, and if it's not perfect, I get upset.

Yeah, but I'm perfect every time. Did you fix that thing, by the way? Literally, by the way, here's a question for you on this note, so, because you're a valued client, but at 10 p.m. yesterday, you phoned me and said you wanted an edit made to the title of the podcast, right? You did it right away? But you were gonna be in my basement the next morning

at eight, eight something, so literally. I could've told you in the morning. In 10 hours, you were gonna be down here in person where you could have told me. So was it so, and I'm curious, was it so time sensitive, it couldn't wait till, and I was happy, I did it right away. I like calling you at night, what can I say?

Well, I just got back from this Toronto Made Beliefs event, so I was feeling like, I was like feeling good here. And then I called you and I slapped you in the face. And then I did the edit right away, but I was thinking, oh, he's gonna be here in 10 hours. Why the fuck did he call me at night? Why did you? Well, because you know what?

I'm working on getting organized for the show. I was top of mind. And then I see this and I said, what the fuck, this fucking mic. No, I didn't say that. I said, Mike, can you fix this for me Mike no I didn't say that I said Mike can you fix this for me so I see things like that it's a branding personal branding thing right get her down so so here just joking around but hope I didn't make you

feel bad no I actually but right away did it but here's here's here's here's here here like let's not get off of topic here so the revenue stream is promotion so you're producing but you're promoting right additional service Here's a here, here, like, let's not get off of topic here. So the revenue stream is promotion. So you're producing, but you're promoting additional service. Right. Now I just thought about a couple of other ones. So you have, what is the store? What is my stuff go to?

Where's my information? Does it get stored off into your Guelph? Nope. You're on a server hosted by Spotify. No, it's hosted by Spotify. You ever heard of them? No, I don't remember. No, you're not in Guelph.

I'm the- Why are you in Guelph? I'm in Guelph because I'm so fiercely independent. I don't want to be beholden to any tech giant. Okay. So here's the thing. Storage. Yeah. Could you charge for storage for people?

Well, that's no cause Spotify store. Yeah. I could do it if they were on the Guelph server. So what about that other thing with humble and Fred advertising? What is that? What's it called? Uh, programmatic, uh, dynamic ad insertion. I had insertion. Yeah. Dynamic ad insertion. Ad insertion.

Yeah. Dynamic ad insertion, which just means that can anyone do it? Can I do it? Um, yeah. So you're, I can do it, but I won't make any money. I believe, right. Well, it's CPM.

So it's, uh, if you have multiple thousands, you can make a few, uh, shekels. But yeah, so, so there's a, you know, there's a possible other revenue stream for your shows. So those are for each client. Didn't we cover this Nick? I told you. No, that's you. That's you. For other shows, if you're producing a show. Yeah, for popular shows. Yeah, let's say you're producing a show. I don't even know if I'd want that. But you know that's a potential added revenue stream or maybe it's you've got the advertisers and you're putting them on other people's shows and you get a cut of it. Like a commission.

You're selling, yeah, you're selling advertising for all the shows you're producing. Yeah, that's a good idea too. Yeah, a really good idea. Yeah, that's a good idea too. Now some shows are literally built to make, like this is existing to make money and I'm gonna squeeze every ounce of juice out of this. Like you have to squeeze out of it. But other shows, and I feel like yours is in this category,

it's a branding exercise where it's almost, uh, almost more important it be representative of the brand and indicative of this brand than it is that you squeeze every juice of lemon, uh, every ounce of juice out of that lemon. Yeah. So for example, like you can get me home builder advertisements. Yeah.

Like my, my tribute. But now I feel like I'm in sales. Okay. So. My tribute. That would go great for building Toronto skyline, right? Absolutely.

Yes. There you go. Or mad at me homes or something like that. Yeah. If you, if you want to reach the, uh, people interested in development. Yeah. So there's, there's more, there's more

revenue streams. So let's talk about producing as well. So here we are. And I love the basement because this is where the garage is, where it all happens. It's like punk man. No, no, it's cool? It's very cool. It's kind of very authentic. So I have multiple models, right? There are clients I have where I bring the studio to them, right? There's particularly popular with corporate Well, why don't you do this instead of bringing the studio to them? Why don't you find get a location?

Where you can rent the studio out to anyone? Okay, so can I actually have a new client, we're kicking things off next week, where part of the deal is I can record in very nice space at One Yorkville. One Yorkville, yeah. Yeah, One Yorkville. And that's part of the deal because there are some guests and some clients that don't want to go to South Etobicoke, depending where they're located, but can make their way to one of the-

Is that your space now? Is that what you're saying? Well, I now have access to it. It's sort of a barter, a barter, part of the bartering system. But can you bring anyone anytime? Yeah, I suppose if it's available. Well, I suppose it's like you-

Well, I don't own this space. I can use this space, I'm I did. I'm not like, I don't own this space. I can access use this space. I'm sure with a, with a courtesy heads up, I can use this space. Absolutely. And not, is it all set up? Uh, well, I would bring my, I would, I'm very keen on like bringing my gear here. Here's the thing you want to, okay.

So there's a company called and I don't want to plug them, but go ahead. Start well. Have you ever to start well? So I, I want, I was originally going to go there before I met you because I didn't know anything about podcasting and thank God I didn't do that because you know what I, you know, I entered the world, the universe of TMDS.

Well, you're in the TMU, the Toronto Mic'd universe. The TMU. And you're an FOTM, friend of Toronto Mic. F, yeah, okay. And you do attend TMLX events, which are Toronto Mic listener experiences. Yeah, you see? So I hit the jockpot, in my opinion.

Alphabet soup. So, because I'm learning a lot, and you're a great producer, and don't let anyone else tell you otherwise. Tell that to Humblin' Fred. So there's an opportunity for you to get people who want to rent the studio. Right.

You mean and have someone else produce it? You have it set up, well, you know, it's all your equipment and everything. Because I do rent the studio, but I gotta produce. So this is like, I literally, this is a one of what you can have it. You can have it so that you have this extra space somewhere that you can rent out and people can go do their own thing whenever they want. Okay. I'm listening. I'm learning a lot today. This has been good.

Yeah. And, uh, yeah, I think that would be a cool thing. And, uh, and then you can increase your capacity too. You can do your thing from here, because I would come here obviously. And then you can increase your capacity. So, you know, try to get, you can get more clients like me, and then you'll have to hire an assistant at some point. You just touched on something here.

So in maybe in the last few minutes here, um, I do struggle with how do I scale this thing because right now it's me, myself, and I, and I, it's fun. Like you said, the whole goal is to have fun and do what you enjoy. So I've achieved that. But if I wanted to make more money at some point, uh, you more money, at some point you need to bring on help. You need to bring on help. Yeah. But then you have that, I literally go on a bike ride and think, oh, I could scale this thing and

really kick it into the next level. But then I wouldn't be, it would be, you would have other people working for you, you'd outsource things. And I wonder if, like I struggle with this, Nick. Yes, I understand. That's why you're here doing, helping me. You've been helpful, so I've learned a lot. Like I feel like I was worried going into this thing, but as we're coming out in a couple of minutes here, I gotta say, I'm glad we did this.

Like it wasn't scary, it wasn't painful, it was very educational. Yeah, and then on another side, there's other things you can do is, uh, we talked about, uh, you're, you know, on the event side, we talked about, here's another thing you can write a book about podcasting, what it takes, like, uh, an

informational thing. And, uh, and you can do some courses on podcasting. You can teach people how to do a podcast by going to you obviously. But you can talk about, you know, rather than focus on how to do a podcast, you can focus on what makes a good podcast.

You wanna be a podcaster, focus on like the content scope. And you should write about your journey. And you can do courses, they can be online. They can be at events where you're teaching people about podcasting and how to be an authentic podcaster. That's another way to make some money there.

And I could leverage the fact that I'm the, the official Canadian correspondent for CNN. What can I say? Did you know that Nick? So how did you get that in my bio? How did you get that gig? A producer of CNN This Morning with Audie Cornish, I believe she's the current host, I've talked to her twice now, is a big fan of Toronto Miked, listens to Toronto Miked and wrote me an email and said would you be Audie's guest tomorrow? And I said, yes. So I did one and I guess I passed the audition because then on election day, they said, we need to talk to a Canadian.

They said, would you come back? They said on a Friday, would you come back Monday morning, election day and talk to Audi? And I said, okay. So that they just kept asking. Yeah. So there you go. So that was 12, 13 years.

It was 13 years of blood, sweat and tears to get those emails from the producer at CNN. So you should, you can easily write a book these days. Okay. Very easy to do. You write about your experience and you can have courses and events and workshops on how to be an authentic podcast. So I love that we should tag tag team that like it'll be like building building success for your podcast and you could be the business

guy. I can be the creative. We'll charge a thousand bucks a ticket. Oh too low. Five thousand. Now you've got my attention. So we get a hundred people five thousand dollars. How's that math work in there? That's a lot. Is that a lot? Okay. Let's, uh, this is goals. You need to have goals, right? Yeah. So there, uh, there you go, Mike.

I mean, uh, what is that it? You cut me off. And I go, well, you can talk over this. It's nice and low. So you know what we, we definitely. So how was the coaching? I loved it. Honestly, I was worried going in and I go, Nick's

going to beat me up. It's going to be intrusive. I don't know. I'm uncomfortable. I didn't find it uncomfortable. I learned a great deal. And now I have these ideas like, Oh, I'm going to go for a bike ride later today. It's a beautiful day out there. I'm sure I'll see you on the trail, Nick. I'm going to be thinking about these things. And I'm sure one or two of these things is going to happen because I'm a man of action. Yeah, there you go, buddy. So you're only gonna get this in Building Success series, start a business, grow a business.

Here's a way to help get subscribers to building success. I take this episode and I put this episode as is in the Toronto Mike feed. Oh man, now you're talking. Let's do it, buddy. You're gonna do it? Dare me to do it. I dare going to do it. Dare me to do it. I dare you to do it. I'm going to do it. All right. Thank you for listening to building success

series with Nick Aini's FOTM Nick Aini's a podcast breaking down real estate, investing, business growth, and making money. Proudly brought to you by Nick Iini's Enterprises. Please share, like, and subscribe. See you again, I say see you again in two weeks, but we're going back to back, baby, like the Blue Jays in 92, 93. Right, Nick? Wow. Yeah, doubleheader, man.

So we'll see you. Hopefully we won't get drunk. Episode there. Yeah, doubleheader, man. So we'll see ya. Hopefully we won't get drunk. Episode two. See you in a bit.