Basam Murtaza Tahoor On Rebuilding A Business From Ground Zero In A New Country

Founder Basam Murtaza Tahoor shares how he rebuilt his marketing career from scratch in Halifax—ditching gimmicks, mastering Canadian business basics, and proving that trust is the only real currency. From landing his first client to crafting a blue-ocean pivot into original illustration and brand IP, Basam breaks down buyer personas, pricing strategy, networking that actually works, and how to use AI without losing your human edge. A practical roadmap for builders who believe creativity and community win long term. 

We unlocked a new location for this episode. Thank you Quinns Arm Pub for the Hospitality and Stellar Guinness. Their menu here is top notch we must recommend you check this place out. 

Your Dream Home Does Not Have to Be Just A Dream. Today's show is brought to you by Kimia Nejat of Exit Reality Metro. Kimia is the realtor who knows how to get things done. Buying or Selling? Go to afternoonpint.ca/kimia and we will set up an introduction

Does Your Business Need a Boost With Foot traffic? Hosts for An Event? Or Even Actors For A Production? Or the Production itself? Go to https://www.afternoonpint.ca/services and see some of the services that the Afternoon Pint team offers. 

Transcript

New Venue And Guest Intro

SPEAKER_02 0:14

Cheers. Cheers. Cheers. Welcome to the afternoon point. I'm Mike Tobin. I am Matt Conrad. And who do you have with us today?

SPEAKER_04 0:21

Uh Bassam, the founder of the Horse Creative Marketing.

SPEAKER_03 0:24

Welcome to the show, my friend. Bassam, alright. Thanks for coming. I know this was kind of last minute. Kind of, you know. But we had an opening. I had you kind of on my radar to come on the show and talk about your story. And I was just like, you know what? We had an opening, and I was like, I'm gonna take a shot and see if you were available. And you were! So thank you.

Halifax Vibes And Light Banter

SPEAKER_02 0:43

Yeah, and we're at a new we've unlocked a new location. I always like saying that when we're at a new spot.

SPEAKER_03 0:46

So where are we at today, Matt? So we're at the Quinn's Arms. So really cool spot. We're in their snug, which is awesome, and like has pretty good kind of sound, I feel. They claim to pour the best pint of Guinness in the city.

SPEAKER_02 0:59

There is a golden monkey holding a light bulb in this in this snug, which is pretty cool. And the ship. It looks pretty awesome in here. I don't know what's uh behind me. The golden monkey's behind you, my friend. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:08

There's nothing behind you, but they have a great whiskey bar over there, and I've actually I've eaten here, and they actually have some cool, interesting food here. Yes. For like an Irish type of pot.

SPEAKER_02 1:17

And you know, and I'm having a proper Guinness plint.

SPEAKER_03 1:20

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:20

And I like Guinness because I it shows the calories, right? I can know how much because I'm still trying to get smaller. And it's working.

SPEAKER_00 1:29

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:29

It's working. I'm getting smaller.

SPEAKER_03 1:30

And a cool fun fact is we found out that the chef here is flying out to the Olympics to cook for the joke.

SPEAKER_02 1:37

Jeez, Mike, you don't even acknowledge what I say. You're supposed to play along with you. Just keep going on about other stuff. Like, bring it back to the center. Come on. I don't talk about people's weight. Oh, okay. Yeah. Weird. It's not important. Wow. Well, you should say, well, what are you doing, Mike? What's your secret to losing a few pounds? Oh, okay. What's the secret, Mike? Eating less. Thank you. Wow. That's the secret, ladies and gentlemen.

From Kabul To Canada

SPEAKER_03 1:59

Alright, so back to the simp here. So, alright. We're gonna set up a quick little thing. So you have you've immigrated from Kabul, right?

SPEAKER_01 2:10

That's right.

SPEAKER_03 2:10

Yeah. When did you come over? Let's let's go like early stages. Like tell us a little bit about life back in Kabul.

SPEAKER_04 2:18

Yeah, so I had a marketing firm back in Kabul, Afghanistan, the capital of the country. And whenever the regime of Afghanistan changed, I immigrated to Canada on September 2023. I think that was the best decision of my life. Yeah. And I came to a lovely city called 2023, you came. That's right. Cool.

SPEAKER_02 2:39

So just shy of three years ago. That's correct. Yeah. Halifax by choice or Halifax because you were you know that was the place to go. If you were dart on a board, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 2:48

Well, I kinda had this kind of like idea to to go to in a place where I can grow and I can have some peace. So the best place was Halifax. And like this is the place where it has like a lot of potential in terms of business. Yeah. And it's really good spot to to grow a family, to be peaceful, and enjoy the the the ocean and the how did you learn all that stuff in Afghanistan though?

Why Halifax And First Impressions

SPEAKER_03 3:12

Like how did you learn about Halifax and all those metrics and stuff like that in Afghanistan? Because I would have thought that Halifax is not on Afghanistan's radar.

SPEAKER_04 3:21

Yeah, so that was a part of the application process that the government of Canada proposed us to come to Halifax, and that was like a part of the the PR process that I applied to.

SPEAKER_00 3:31

Okay.

SPEAKER_04 3:32

And whenever we our application was approved, and the Canadian government shared this spot for us for us, and they said that would you like to go to Halifax? And I did a kind of like research, I was like, yeah, that's that's the right spot, and that's the place where I want to to go and where I can belong, and I can start.

SPEAKER_02 3:50

Any regrets though? I mean Vancouver, Toronto, all these other awesome big, and now you're here. It's like cheapers. I really should have studied the map better.

SPEAKER_04 3:57

Do you are you happy here? Well, if you're coming from a background that you live in a in a very large city, you're probably gonna like like not miss a lot about the big cities because it's too much crowded, it's a past visit environment, you don't have time for yourself, for your life, but you just need to work and work and work.

SPEAKER_02 4:17

But and you like it here, you like the fact you can breathe and that's you know, there's a small city, but there's also a lot of beautiful country. A small city but big hearts. Nice. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 4:27

You know what? I was reading a post that you put up on LinkedIn, man, and uh this is one of the coolest things about one of I mean, one, just following people who have come here from other places in the world, and just talking to people, but like you know, people who are immigrants here, is you had a post up a few weeks ago about you know a near-death experience that you had driving in the back roads of you know Nova Scotia, New Brunswick. Okay, tell us that story. What's that about? Yeah, that's right. Honestly, it touched me, man. It really did. It was a really, really cool post. What was the story?

SPEAKER_04 4:57

Yeah, so let me share, and this is a kind of like a secret, so I wanted to share it in here. So I'm a bit of a like I'm a bit afraid from the highways. So that was the reason that I I was planning to go to Mountain in New Brunswick, and I was like, okay, so if I take the highway, it's gonna it's gonna take around two hours, but the thing is like I'm not gonna enjoy the beauty, and plus I'm a little bit afraid of the high speed, so I was like, it's it's winter time, it's snowing, so why not just go to the roads where you can just have some fun and also go in in a lowest speed? So I took those roads from the from the valley. I I I went to like places that I have never imagined to see, and and they were like like extraordinary for me. Like the beauty, the nature, the snow, the the the the mountain.

SPEAKER_02 5:48

So do you mean you took your car on a logging road? Or like yeah, like so you went off-roading?

SPEAKER_03 5:52

Yeah, off the main roads.

SPEAKER_02 5:54

Oh, yeah. Of the main roads. Yeah, non-highways. What kind of vehicle are you driving?

SPEAKER_03 5:57

Not not off-roading, off-roading.

SPEAKER_02 5:59

Not like when I was trying to go to your camp that time, I got like a lot of things. Oh my god. Tore the bottom out of my master trying to find his camp one time. Yeah, anyway, another story, sorry.

SPEAKER_03 6:09

But uh no, no, just taking the the long way. Okay, the scenic route.

SPEAKER_04 6:12

Yeah, the scenic route, yeah. And it took me like five or six hours to get there. But it it's something that I if if life gives me another chance to do that, although I'm not gonna like probably have that kind of like chance to do it again because my wife won't let me to do it. But I'm gonna do it again.

SPEAKER_02 6:31

So what happen was the death scary part?

Adapting To Weather And Roads

SPEAKER_04 6:34

So the scary part was that I I was driving a car, so it's like a not a CUV, so you know how it goes whenever it's winter time. So there was a point of way that our car slipped from from the road, and it was really hard to control it. So it was not just once, but twice. So it kind of scared us a bit of those kind of roads, especially in the winter. But we're gonna probably go to those roads again in the summer where the the where we can see like all this nature again and in a green color rather than white.

SPEAKER_03 7:05

Yeah, it was just how he painted the picture of like you know, taking the long road and uh the beauty that we have here in Atlantic Canada and kind of just doing it slow. And uh you just see I I think I just uh really resonated with the appreciation of someone who came to this time like to you know my home and was like and just saw it showed appreciation that sometimes people who are like born and raised here take for granted.

SPEAKER_02 7:31

Perception is everything, because I'd be pretty scared to go down a road in Afghanistan, but I've never been there. That's like I could just I would imagine it would be like a completely different challenge than the road experience I'm used to.

SPEAKER_04 7:43

Yeah, that's right. Sometimes life gives us that kind of like chances to to go and experience new things, but it kind of like depends on how you perceive things, how how how your perspective is. Yeah, well, it could be something like very simple very much simple, but yet it might be very extraordinary for somebody else who has that kind of like sight to see that kind of like beauty.

SPEAKER_02 8:05

Yeah, I have a new mission now is to take you off roading sometime in the summer, man. It should definitely do it. That would be fun, yeah.

No-Insurance Roads Back Home

SPEAKER_03 8:11

Yeah. So the the um speaking of that though, it's like obviously coming from where you were, like the city you're coming from, like you guys don't like how was adjusting the winter driving here. I've always wondered that. Like, was it a big adjustment?

SPEAKER_04 8:25

Well, in in terms of like winter driving, we kind of have the same kind of weather as Canada. But the only difference is that in here the the weather is much more humid, but then there's like more of a dry winter, yeah. Makes sense, yeah. But we have like a lot of snow, we have lots of mountains, like the roads are kind of like the same, so but it's it's it it's not that much hard to adapt in terms of like the weather, but it's it's good. I mean, like we always love and and appreciate what we have. So every season of the year has its own has its own beauty. So whether it's summer, whether it's spring, whether it's winter, you gotta you gotta see all the beauties.

SPEAKER_02 9:04

I got a question for you. What's the insurance differences from Canada to Afghanistan? What was it what was the difference in price?

SPEAKER_04 9:11

Yeah, so in there there is no insurance, so it's like all free roads, like wild west, just yeah, good luck. Wild West, yeah. Yeah, you could you can do whatever you want, but but there are certain rules that if you have a kind of like a crash or maybe an incident happening, yeah, you gotta pay. Like it would be like based on the judgment of the traffic. Like they are traffic officers that they would come and judge based on that.

SPEAKER_01 9:34

They would do that.

SPEAKER_04 9:35

Yeah, but that would be like right in that spot that you either gain some money or you gotta pay out of your pocket or monopoly.

SPEAKER_03 9:43

You just land on bad space. That seems scary. What if you like get like a you know you hit a car and it costs you 20 grand? You're like, I don't got 20 grand to just give somebody.

SPEAKER_04 9:52

Well, in that case, like they they kind of like have this kind of like uh process that you can put something as a like a like a what can we say, like a uh grantor or something? Something similar to something that you can put uh as uh kind of like collateral that you can come back and pay the money. So that that could be like an ID card, that could be like something very much precious to you.

Education Path And Pivot To Marketing

SPEAKER_02 10:17

So I total your car, but I can't pay, so then I would pay you like X amount of dollars a month, work out an agreement of some sort with the other driver?

SPEAKER_04 10:24

No, but but not so not like that, but that would be like if if you cannot pay, at least you have a friend who's a mechanic, that you just go to that that friend of yours and you would take that car, and that friend of yours would repair that car, and then you might you might have your own kind of like agreement with your friend and you can pay them back.

SPEAKER_02 10:44

So they're like kind of like doing the loans basically at the mechanic shop. Yeah, that's right. Cool, okay. That is very different, very different. Yeah, that could be very uh very slippery very quick. If you're a bad driver, you could really get screwed over. Yeah, you yeah, you can make a lot of money as a mechanic, too. Think of the money you can make off the loans, dude. You could just uh you can be a very rich man just or a person just by uh just by having some good high interest uh some good bad drivers.

SPEAKER_03 11:38

You know what? We can move to Afghanistan and just start the first insurance company, just rake it in.

SPEAKER_02 11:43

No, I think just start our first mechanic shop, fix the vehicles poorly and just rake in the dollars, right? Sure, yeah, yeah. The dollars are good. Yeah, yeah, beat the competition. There you go. There you go. Insurance, we'll invent our own insurance out there. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 11:59

There you go. So you went to university in Afghanistan. That's right. You took marketing.

Starting The First Agency And Rebranding

SPEAKER_04 12:05

Well, in university I studied language and literature. Oh, really? Yeah, so communication was very different from marketing. Yes, that's totally different. But marketing was one of the things that I was really passionate about. So if if I go back to my like education background, it's kind of like like, or maybe in my like work background, it's too much of like diverse things in the place, but it's it's kind of like a salad. So whenever I graduated from school, my my parents were like, you gotta become a doctor or an engineer. There's no other way for you. So I was like, okay, maybe I I can become an engineer. So I take a vocational degree in civil engineering, and and then that was not my passion. So I really love to study more about the history of people, how people like did the like in the past about their languages, about their culture. So that was why that I became interested in language and literature. So I did my bachelor's in language and literature. And afterwards, like I was very much interested in the communication part of it. So I took online courses in marketing and then became certified by Google, and then like took a lot of like other courses, like and and it kind of like started from that point that I understood that marketing is the thing that I want to do.

SPEAKER_02 13:18

So what do you think drew you into marketing? What's so appealing about it to you, you know, from a perspective of maybe when you initially became interested in it?

Family-Run Creative Team

SPEAKER_04 13:27

Yeah, so marketing really much connects to my background as a designer because once in my life, like I was a designer as well, and I was like designing social media posts for a company, like marketing, collaterals, these kind of stuff. Cool.

SPEAKER_03 13:43

Digital marketing in that sense.

SPEAKER_04 13:44

Yeah, yeah, digital marketing. And then that position that I had in that company, it kind of like pushed me toward learning more and making myself better in what I was doing. So in addition to designing those stuff, I started doing online advertisements, like doing social media ads. I started doing websites, and then it kind of like started from those little early stages, and then it evolved, and then there was a point that I was like, okay, this is the time that we need to start a business. And I and my business partner was also my colleague, similar to you guys. So we were working in the same company, and then we decided to start our marketing firm and we started it.

SPEAKER_03 14:24

Very cool. Yeah, so the it was he also from Afghanistan? That's right. And so you decided, did so. Did you actually start your marketing in Afghanistan? Yeah. And then moved it here. Yeah. Okay. So Because you actually you technically have two marketing companies.

On Returning To Afghanistan And Safety

SPEAKER_04 14:39

That's correct, yeah. So the first marketing firm that I have is called ICALEG Agency. I couldn't register it in Canada because the name was already taken. And now the province, so I was like, if this business is going to grow in the future, I'd have no room for the growth of it because it's gonna be like a kind of like conflict of interest with other companies. So we changed the name of the company to like to to my last name, so it can be a kind of like a legacy to our family and and keep it uh like that.

SPEAKER_02 15:06

That's that's awesome. Broad thinking. So you're you're obviously into this for the long haul. You're you're thinking, you know, legacy generations of uh of starting it here in Halifax. That's really cool.

SPEAKER_03 15:15

How how's your business partner feel about having the same your last name as the title?

SPEAKER_04 15:19

Well, uh, he's not involved in this new business. Yeah, so this new business is totally like a family-run business. Okay, so I, my siblings, my cousins, it's like all like family like involved in it. And my my younger brothers who are like web designer, graphic designer, I have a younger sister, she's a digital illustrator. So I had I have cousins who are social media strategists, and we're like all kind of like family, and we're in the same industry. Nice. So they have been do you all live together as well? Uh no, like different part of the work, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 15:51

Oh, perfect. So they all it's all remote work, remote work.

SPEAKER_04 15:54

Yeah, that's that's the best part about digital marketing, because you can you can work from anywhere that you like.

SPEAKER_03 15:59

That's brilliant, yeah. Awesome. Have you have you gone back home since you've moved over to Canada?

SPEAKER_04 16:04

Uh no.

SPEAKER_03 16:05

No, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 16:06

And I I don't plan to go back. No.

SPEAKER_03 16:08

That's fair.

NATO Years, Gratitude, And Loss

SPEAKER_04 16:09

You mean period, no? No, you don't want to? No, period, no. Because the current regime of Afghanistan, it has been taken by a kind of like group that it's not safe to go to be there. And like, especially for people that they have this kind of like perspective who wants like uh like freedom for people, freedom of speech, like education, like right. So in terms of these kind of ideologies, like our ideals are uh are not going to be accepted there.

SPEAKER_02 16:35

So I see, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 16:37

Yeah, well, I mean the US had occupation there for 20 some odd years, and then the minute they left the Taliban moved right back into the yeah. So it uh yeah, kind of felt like two decades.

SPEAKER_02 16:47

In the years like when the US was there, you know, did you have a per si particular perception of how the US was or how their military was were, or how did you feel about that then?

SPEAKER_04 16:59

Yeah, so in terms of like politics, everyone everyone has their own kind of idea.

SPEAKER_02 17:03

Yeah, yeah, and I don't want to guess too much about your private politics, but just more perception as a as a young person of America or Canada for that matter. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 17:11

Yeah, because we were there too, yeah. Yeah.

Choosing Canada And Belonging

SPEAKER_04 17:13

Yeah. As a young person, it's it's it's very much appreciative. Like you gotta appreciate the people's help because not in terms of like their military, like not like not only use like Canada was there, Australia was there, like the NATO, like most of the countries who were a part of NATO was there. And in addition to their military, everybody supported financially, so to the government. And our military was being funded by the NATO, like our military was being trained by NATO, and and and we were being supported by them. So whenever somebody receives something from someone, they have to be grateful and they have to know the value of it. Yeah, maybe the result is not what we expected, but at least we need to we need to consider their valuable contributions. Yeah. Because last year, like I I I read it in a post of a friend of mine, and I noticed that there were like 180 soldiers of Canada, like Canada Canadian soldiers that they lost their souls in Afghanistan. So it really saddened me. It's really saddened me because these people like like in Canada you have a safe life. You have you have your family, you have everything you can you can wish for. And these are men and women that went to help another country and lost and you put the life and yet you put the lives of others more like like in more of importance, and you just go there to save and and to sell to to help others. I mean like that's a lot, like that that's a lot of like I mean like sometimes I I get emotional whenever I think about these things. No, I appreciate your saying. And I feel like very, very sad to hear that, and we should always remember them.

SPEAKER_02 19:12

I know I really appreciate you saying that. Um I guess uh uh just talking a little bit more about that. Now, when Canada pulls out and US pulls out, and and all this happened just a few years ago, how how did you feel about the countries making that decision, like when when you know the US left Afghanistan?

Rebuilding A Business In Halifax

SPEAKER_04 19:34

Yeah, so the the people doesn't have any kind of decision-making power. It's all like the parties, it's all the military parties that they were there. So the parties that we had, they for for a couple of months they were like fighting against the Taliban, but it couldn't without the support.

SPEAKER_02 19:51

Yeah, without the support, but it couldn't depend on any longer when they lost the battle. Is that what happened?

SPEAKER_04 19:56

Yeah, so they lost the battle, most of them fled to other countries.

SPEAKER_03 19:59

Yeah, yeah. It was I I mean I was following that pretty closely because it was it was you know a really sad situation because you know US pulls out and it's like almost like they were just ready for it, and they started to invade Kabul, right? They started making their way closer and closer and closer, and then eventually took the the capital city. But the yeah, I mean we I saw I remember seeing images of people hanging on wings of planes just to get out of there. Trying to get another country. Yeah, that's crazy. Really? I remember that too.

SPEAKER_02 20:29

That's something that I mean made me feel terrible, like just seeing the country in such major distress and so quickly, right?

SPEAKER_03 20:35

And uh it's it's one of those things that like it just always puts me back to a point where we can complain, and it's I I get it, we can complain here in Canada because we want to fix things, and there's things that are you know could be working better and things like that, but my god, like we have it so good, and sometimes it just takes people not perfect, but we got a lot of great stuff going. Yeah, like it just takes people with your experience to remind us, man, you got it pretty good, right?

The Trust Gap And Networking Strategy

SPEAKER_04 21:04

Yeah, right. I think Canada is the best place to live, and it reminds me of a movie. So let me share this story because it's really like fun. So there was a movie that there was like a spy, and it was a Hollywood movie, and this spy kind of like his identity was blew up and his enemies knew who he he was. So he called his friend and he said that hey man, like prepare my passports, I'm going to Canada. So there is something in that scene of the movie that you would understand that why Canada? Why not just other parts of the world? Why not just he's he he could have said that I I can go to another state, I can go to Mexico, I can go to like Europe, I can go to somewhere else, but why Canada? So there is a reason behind everybody chooses Canada, and that's the safety, the freedom. In here, you feel valued, you feel respected, you feel belonged.

SPEAKER_02 21:59

So do you think it's a little bit of isolation as well? Like they that people feel a little isolated from the rest of the world in Canada? Like, because that that that's the narrative or perspective in my mind in this is take me anywhere, take me to Canada. I just think they're trying to get away from from everywhere else in the world, and they think they won't they'll never be found in northern Canada. That's how that's how I feel like the Americ like the Hollywood perspective would be for me, but it's a totally different take.

SPEAKER_03 22:25

I mean, World War Z did end up in Nova Scotia to hide from the zombies.

SPEAKER_02 22:28

Yeah, right.

SPEAKER_03 22:29

Where would the zombies not go?

SPEAKER_02 22:30

They hate lighthouses. Yeah, yeah. They won't go near them. Sorry. But but no, that's a that's a cool perspective, right? I mean, well, I really love that too, man. Like, you know, you you you sounds like you you genuinely love Canada. We love having you here, man. So cheers to that. Cheers to that. Cheers to that. That's friggin' awesome. Yeah, we have so uh what else we got here?

First Clients And Referrals

SPEAKER_03 22:55

Uh so yeah, I I we covered Off a lot of the like the where, why, what, when, and everything, but I want to talk about your business. So you started a business, obviously, in Afghanistan, you brought it here, but it's not like you know what you're starting a new life here. So this is what's amazing about immigrants, especially entrepreneur immigrants. You guys come in, you have to start a brand new life in a whole new different culture, which is already scary enough. Like some people move provinces and they you're like, what am I doing? Right? You guys are moving, whole new different culture, and then you also bring like an entrepreneurial spirit, a money generator. It's really respectable, right? And I so what like take me through like what that's like because you shared something recently about uh networking recently. Like, talk about what it's like for you, like you land in Canada, nobody knows who you are, and you're like, listen, I'm like this awesome marketing guy. Everyone should know who I am, but nobody knows who I am. Like, walk us through it.

Core Marketing Advice: Know Your Buyer

Go Where Buyers Are, Not Competitors

SPEAKER_04 23:56

Yeah, so it's a very interesting story because whenever I landed in Canada, the first thing that came up to my mind was to find a job. And I was like applying here and there. I sent like 10 resumes or 10 applications per day, and it never ended to an interview, it never ended to to uh a success for me. So I was like, okay, so this is not the route that I need to go. So I need to just choose another path. And that was the time that I noticed that okay, so I have started a brand new firm back in like 2000, like 2020. So why not just say I cannot do it in here? So I started learning about how business works in here. And fortunately, I was very grateful to connect with the right people. So I reached out to business navigators. It's it's a very good division of the government of Nova Scotia. They're helping a lot of entrepreneurs, like a huge shout out to them. They have helped me a lot. I reached out to COA, I reached out to ISINS, I reached out to there was another organization based in Ontario, Minnonite. So I reached out to them. And I had several business counselors, business mentors. And during that time, they were telling me the right ways of like how to register a business, what were the structures of it, like how to start a business, what's the difference between doing business in Canada and the rest of the world. So during that time I learned a lot from my mentors, which I'm very grateful for. And after that, I started my business. And I registered my business, I learned about the taxes, I learned about the structures and everything. But then the hardest part of the business in here was like getting clients. Yes. Because it wasn't the same as we did back in there. And whenever we we wanted to have some clients, we just run some digital ads and clients were coming in. Yeah. But in here it wasn't like that. There was oh, interest.

SPEAKER_02 25:54

Yeah, so if you could run an ad back home, people would answer it, but here you threw an ad out, yeah. So okay.

SPEAKER_04 25:59

Yeah, so in here there was a barrier, and the barrier was the trust. There wasn't enough trust between me and my potential clients. So I reached out to my my business mentor and I asked him, okay, so what what is the solution? I am not getting any clients in here. And he was like, Go to some networking events. That's that that's that's the only thing that I can tell you right now to do.

SPEAKER_01 26:22

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 26:22

So I started from Central Library of Halifax. I met Deline Allen, she was also in your show. Shout out to her. She's a lovely lady. She she really helped me a lot to connect with the right people. I joined BNI and and then afterwards I joined the Halifax Chamber of Commerce. And things are things got started to load in, but it was burning me out because I was attending like here and there, all networking events, and from from that point of life until I get got at my first client, it was really hard. Because you have to meet people for several times until they trust you. Right. And afterwards, I learned that the point of networking is not to get clients, not to get customers. The point of networking is to make genuine relationships, build to make it network. Yeah, to make trust.

SPEAKER_02 27:10

We all have to do that. Like uh not just if you're coming from Afghanistan, but if you're living in Halifax your whole life. If nobody knows who the heck you are, just gotta show up somewhere a couple times. 100%. Yeah, especially you should show up in the rooms you want to be in, right? That's correct. Yeah, and no matter where you are, you've got to find a way into that room.

SPEAKER_03 27:28

Well, we had that conversation. The first time I met you, we had that conversation. Yeah. And talked about like just like it's not about being in every room, but it's about being in the right room.

SPEAKER_02 27:37

A lot of our us getting podcast guests, people will ask us sometimes, like, you know, how do you get all your guests? Right? It's like, well, you know, we we act like it's easy, but truly sometimes it isn't. I mean, Matt and I both we strategize and we're like, where's that person going to be? Yeah, how can we do this? How can we make that? Like, even like instances where we got the premier, Matt had me go into three or four different bloody places before we got the premiere, right? Like, and you know, he's dragging, he's almost dragging me along at that, right? Because I don't know where we're going or why we're going, but Matt knew the value of going to this networking event or that networking event. Yeah. Every time we we interacted, we get a little bit closer to getting that, securing that meeting, right? You know, uh securing that trust to have have him or her on this show, right?

SPEAKER_04 28:26

So yeah, that's that's totally correct. Like whenever it comes to trust, and you gotta you gotta also show your transparency and your true passion to people as well. It's not only about like you just meet them and then you set up a coffee meeting and then you just pitch your business. It's not like that.

SPEAKER_02 28:42

It's like the LinkedIn dudes that just link in with you, and then they're selling you something you don't even know who they are. Yeah, that's right.

SPEAKER_03 28:48

I got that today. It's just like someone adds you, and then as soon as you hit the accept, you get the message of like, I want to edit your podcast.

Pricing From Zero To Premium

SPEAKER_02 28:55

And it's like it's like I watched this show, great job, and it's such and such. I'm like, you copy pasted my summary episode. You didn't even listen, you know, and and you can tell it's so disingenuous.

SPEAKER_03 29:08

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. First thing I ask if someone's like, hey, I love your podcast, like when they when I get those LinkedIn messages, first thing I'm like, okay, what was your favorite part about this podcast?

SPEAKER_02 29:18

Well, you want to make sure it's oh no, I'm way darker than that. I'm like, who died in episode four? And then I just wait and see if they respond. And I'm like, if they're really serious, they'll respond. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 29:29

No, it's uh yeah, I just I'm just like, it's like, oh, I really like the episode with whatever, whoever. I'm like, oh great, what was your favorite episode about that? Yeah. What you know, what of the 10 questions, what was your favorite question of the 10 questions? Yeah, and there's uh and then you never hear from that. So I get it. You know, everyone wants to sell you and sell you something. And it's hard. And it's it's it you feel it in reverse, right? So now you're in rooms and you're trying to, you know, get your product out, but you have to overcome that same thing of like, man, is this just another guy trying to sell me something?

SPEAKER_02 30:03

I know you probably can't tell us exactly who to respect that, but like who was the first client you remember that kind of gave you a chance? What was their business style and what was the first kind of client that you know trusted you?

SPEAKER_04 30:14

My first client was Dylan Allen.

SPEAKER_01 30:16

Oh yeah, I designed some social media posts for her. So amazing. Yeah, that that was how shout out to Daleen again, yeah. Yeah, she's pretty awesome.

SPEAKER_02 30:24

She was on the show. Yeah, that's why she was on this show. She's helped connect a lot of people. Yeah. Yeah, large network. All right, so that's cool.

SPEAKER_03 30:29

So she was your first real kind of client, but like you're an international man. Like you have clients all over the world now, don't you? Like last I checked or last I saw or whatever, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 30:39

Yeah, so regarding those clients, well, it it all comes to that kind of like connection. So whenever you make genuine connections, whenever you have good friends, they will always remember you. Yeah. And the thing is that you should always keep pushing your content on social media so they can remember you. Not in a way that you're selling to them, but in a way that they can remember your brand and what you're doing.

SPEAKER_00 30:58

Right.

Differentiation: Illustration As A Niche

SPEAKER_04 30:58

So whenever opportunities come in, like I get some calls from my friends, like they're calling me, hey man, like we there's a project. Do you want to like bid on that? Or do you want to like talk to the owner of it? I know this friend of mine who's looking for a website, or this friend of mine is looking for a marketing guy. And that's how business happens. It's it's not based on selling stuff, but based on making sure that people remember one thing about you correctly, and like in addition to your name, they should know who you are and what you're doing, and that kind of gives them a kind of like clue. Okay, so if there's a project, this is the guy that I need to refer this uh client to. So nice, that that's how it works.

SPEAKER_03 31:38

With that, I kind of like you know, first off, if you were giving like really high-level advice to somebody who's just like, hey, I have a business, from a marketing standpoint. What's like what's the one best advice that you can give somebody?

SPEAKER_04 31:52

If I can give one best advice for someone who's looking to do marketing for their business, it's that you have to do a customer's persona. So you gotta understand your customer, who they are, what's their age group, what are their interests, and which rooms are they, like so you can you can go and connect with them. Yeah. What are they looking for? Uh I I made a post uh regarding the networking a few days ago, and that was one of the points that I mentioned in my post as well, that you should not go to the rooms where you think your clients are, but rather think it from a perspective of your client. Let's say I'm a service provider. Where are other service providers that similar to me are going to those events? So I should avoid going to those rooms.

SPEAKER_02 32:38

Instead, if my clients are so you should avoid going to the rooms your competitors are in, is that what you're saying? Yeah. Yeah?

SPEAKER_00 32:46

Why is that?

SPEAKER_04 32:47

So if you're going to a room where all of the people in that room are selling something, there is no buyer in that room. You end up meeting sellers.

SPEAKER_03 32:58

Okay.

SPEAKER_04 32:59

But the real customers are not going to those rooms. The customers are somewhere else. Let me give you an example.

SPEAKER_03 33:05

Okay.

SPEAKER_04 33:05

So there's a company who like there's a company that they export like lobster or they export fish from Nova Scotia. Okay. So those companies are not coming to specific events in here and there to network. Where are they going? They are going to those events to meet the officials that they can help them to export. Right. Because they have something in their mind. They're looking for something they need. So you gotta think it from their perspective, not from yours. Okay. So you gotta show up in those rooms. For instance, one of my business clients are entrepreneurs, people who are immigrants and they are just starting a business. So who I do work with? I work with ISINS, I work with BWIE. These organizations they help entrepreneurs to start and launch their businesses. And these people don't have anything. Like they do not have a logo, they don't have a website. So who do they remember whenever they they need something? Obviously, our business. But if I go to a networking event where most of my competitors are, where most of the people are having the same kind of business as me, we end up just pitching our businesses to each other and just learning about each other's business, but rather not targeting our main clients.

Children’s Books And Creative Process

SPEAKER_03 34:15

And and you know what, that's one thing that I know is that we talked about this a little bit with when we had Teon and like the newcomers, like the those entrepreneurial awards with iSands, that's one thing I really realize is that there's a lot of entrepreneurs that come out and they have a really, really great product. No one knows who they are. Right? There's they they you'd never know. Their marketing isn't great, and that's not a shot on them. It's literally like you can be the best cook in the world. But a best the best cook in the world who wants to start a business doesn't know HR, doesn't know marketing, doesn't know payroll, and things like that, right? They're just a great cook. They need help along the way, right? And that's where you kind of come in, right? With that, right?

SPEAKER_04 34:58

That's right, that's right. So running a business has a lot of aspects. Like, in addition to being like, let's say, a good cook, you gotta know how to find clients, how to do sales, how to do handle marketing calls, how to how to do quote calls, how to write an email, or this and that. But the thing is, as an entrepreneur, you you should have that kind of spirit to always learn about new stuff, and you have to push yourself to the limits. I've been in the room in some rooms that entrepreneurs are asking that we are not finding clients, and whenever you ask them, like, okay, so how many hours do you put effort to find a client? And they're like, like, we have a job and this business is like a side thing, and we're like working two or three hours a day. I mean, like, that's not enough.

SPEAKER_00 35:41

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 35:43

Whenever we started our business, I used to work from 6 a.m. to 12 and like 12 midnight. Wow. Like that that's how 6 a.m. to 12 midnight. Yeah, so you gotta work very hard.

SPEAKER_02 35:52

15 hour days, right? Coffee breaks? Thanks, thanks. Squats, what do you do? How do you get through that day? You must take a few breaks.

AI’s Role: Tool, Not Replacement

SPEAKER_04 36:00

I I used to drink a lot of caffeine and like a lot of energy, like drinks. Midday workout, what did you kind of keep moving, or do you just kind of go? Yeah, just full into the business. Full into it. Yeah, full into the business. Two years, like I we did the same thing. Me and my business partner, we literally never left the office. We were sleeping in the office, we were working from office, and the only time that we went to home was only one day a week, and we were like taking shifts. Like, if he goes to their his house, like I would stay at the office, and if I go, he would stay at the office. That's a sacrifice.

SPEAKER_03 36:31

What are those just for those who like who are sitting there thinking, like, because there's pr there's a lot of people out there who don't have an entrepreneur entrepreneurial mindset, uh, and some that do that don't know how to get started. But what do it what an 18-hour day? What are you doing for 18 hours that you need like some people might ask you like what are you possibly doing for 18 hours a day that you know you couldn't do in eight hours?

SPEAKER_04 36:56

Yeah, so there were three things that we were doing: business development, cold callings, and working on projects. Okay, so business development was the face first part where you have to put an effort to make your business successful, like you gotta find out what are the gaps in your business. Am I missing something in the safe pipeline? Am I missing something in in my processes? And the second part is how to get clients. So you have to do a lot of like messages, you have to meet a lot of people.

SPEAKER_02 37:21

So stay on the first part for a minute, right? So we'll explore that a little bit if you don't mind. Like so, business development. You so let's talk. Like, how did you did you work on sharpening your vision of how you wanted the business to operate, or were you learning on how to navigate it in Canada uh versus another country? What were your kind of starting points if you look back into the business development side? What were the big challenges here that that took you so much work to figure out?

Rapid-Fire: Life, Food, And Identity

SPEAKER_04 37:48

Yeah, so comparing the first business and the second business that I started, the second business in Canada was much more effortless. Like that was much more easier for me. Because I already had the plan, I already had the business model in my mind, and and we knew what we were doing. Right. So we had this the the steps, we were just following the steps. But for the first time, it was like very hard because you come from a background you you haven't learned anything about the business yet, and you have to study what the business plan is. How to do a customer's persona, how to how uh how to put your offers somewhere, how to write a proposal. Like because back then there wasn't like Chat GPT, these kind of stuff. You gotta you gotta learn.

SPEAKER_02 38:27

Gosh, kids are gonna be saying that one day, man. Back then we didn't have Chat GTV to work our business model out in three minutes.

SPEAKER_03 38:34

I think that's a struggle that like yeah is that under entrepreneurs like really don't really grasp is like outside of like the trades, but it's like how to know what to charge for something. Like, how do you know what to charge for something?

Service, Community, And Looking Ahead

SPEAKER_04 38:50

It it comes from the like everyone has their own kind of like pricing strategy, but my pricing strategy is like first you gotta have an understanding of the market. So, what I did in in my business in Canada was that I sent a lot of emails to many companies. I requested codes for different kind of like websites for different kinds of projects, and I did review their websites. Most of the businesses had their pricing tables in their websites. So I did a compare of all of them. So, what is the the the lowest point? What is the highest point? What is the average? And most of the time, if you start from the average, you're not gonna go anywhere because there are all of the people that they are selling very cheap and affordable in affordable prices, and there are people that they are selling premium products, and you end up not getting any clients. So what I did was you you either start you you should start either start from the top or maybe from the bottom. So I started from the bottom. I started offering services in a very affordable price, in a prices that they weren't like making us any kind of like profit at all. They were just loss. But we were just showing our genuine passion to our customers that you were building a portfolio. Yeah, we were just building a portfolio. We want to have something to showcase, like something tangible, like like a website, like we need to have something to showcase it. Yeah, so that's how we started for two or three projects like I even done for free. Yeah, why? Because you gotta have something uh in your portfolio. Yeah, and afterwards, I started charging from$200 to$300 to$500 to$1,000 to$3,000 to$5,000, and it just goes up and up. And the more you go uh further, because the time will be limited, because we're a service provider, yeah, and what we are selling is our time. Yes. Then whenever the plate is full, there's no way we're going to accept any clients right now. There are sometimes that it is.

SPEAKER_03 40:41

I would actually even argue that you're not even selling your time because you're actually selling the result. Because if you were selling your time, if something took you like longer, you could just delay it. You could just work on a project very long, right? You're not charging by the hour, quote unquote, right? You're charging by the result. So you can sit there and charge, you know, whatever. If it takes you two minutes to do something, but the the person you're selling it to is gonna make a hundred grand from that two minutes of work, you deserve your fair share of that, right? If you charge 10 grand for one hour of work and that ten grand produced a million dollars in revenue, you deserve that. Right? You deserve that. You you you know it, right? So it's it's not even a top. I I would argue you're not selling your time, you're selling your result. Right?

SPEAKER_04 41:33

That's correct. From a marketing perspective, you're totally right. Yeah. Uh you you have to sell the results to the people or to the businesses, but uh like like from my perspective, like what I just mentioned was that you have to have a product or a service. Uh the product is you just build it once and then you just replicate it and you just sell the same product again and again. Whereas in service, like each time the thing is like different. Like, like there are sometimes that even in the websites like that we design and we build, they're not exactly the same thing. One website might be a business directory, one might be a block, one might be an e-commerce. So the process is like totally different. Right. Okay.

SPEAKER_03 42:15

Yeah, yeah, yeah. And though though, obviously, in that situation, obviously there's time that takes longer to build these sites and things like that that would go into it. But yeah, so that makes sense charging like different prices for something that's a layout. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 42:28

So after so we get through the business development. Now, what what was the next the next obstacle?

SPEAKER_00 42:33

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 42:34

Yeah. So the the next obstacle after building the networking in here, like you and we touched on that pretty well.

SPEAKER_02 42:41

Yeah, yeah. And it sounds like you've done a great job with that. Cheers to you. And and I mean to and now just we'll watch and we'll move on to the next step.

SPEAKER_04 42:48

Yeah, so the next step is that you there are sometimes in business that you have to make some tough decisions. Either you stick with the same direction that you're going, or you have to change the direction sometimes. So what happened to us recently is that we noticed that in in the same industry that we are right now, there are a lot of like competition. Like in Halifax, they are uh around 120 marketing firms. So that's I mean, like that's a lot of companies that we're competing against. Although that many? So I I got the list from a COA and they were like 100 marketing just marketing firms in Halifax. And that's that's that much, yeah. So but the spirit in in Halifax is like totally different because people are not competing, people are having their own niche, and they're they have their own kind of like customers.

SPEAKER_00 43:36

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 43:37

So in in our business, the the next step was that we we had to find an a different a different niche for for our business. So I I just quote one of my friends uh uh statements, Mark. You guys like pretty pretty much know Mark, Mark Zirka. So he said that yeah, he said that there are two kind of oceans, the blue ocean and the red ocean. The red ocean is where most of the people are going out for the customers, and it's like a lot of competition in there. Whereas the blue ocean is where that there are niche clients, very niche clients, and you can find them very easily, and there is no competition in there. So we had to find our niche in there.

SPEAKER_00 44:17

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 44:18

And then I understood that uh out of all these firms that we have in Halifax, there isn't uh any company that does illustration. So illustration is different than graphics.

SPEAKER_00 44:30

Oh really?

SPEAKER_04 44:30

So yeah, so graphics is similar similar to doing some posts, doing like flyers, one pages, brochures, these kind of stuff. Like the we call them graphic design, yeah, and we have illustration. Illustration is like making custom characters, like illustrating something, like a cartoon. Right. Something custom. Yeah, yeah, similar to that. So So we don't have that here to as of my understanding that I searched online, like there w there weren't any company in here.

SPEAKER_02 44:57

I think I know a competitor or two, but uh we'll we'll we'll talk about it later. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 45:00

Yeah, yeah, yeah. There might be, but yeah, maybe I might have not doesn't consider them competition.

SPEAKER_02 45:10

He's like So so so no, that's awesome. Yeah, but yeah, no, so you that's that's something really cool because I recently saw, and this is just to speak to like the power of illustrations, like a design that was done that I wasn't super fond of, just personally, right? And this was some no this was a marketing thing I saw with another company someplace else. And because I was curious, I went online and I found that like I could buy the stock image for ten dollars on a website, and I'm just like I was really kind of like that's the marketing that this company is paying for. And uh, you know what I mean? And to me, I was just kind of disenchanted. I'm like, it wasn't a small organization either, right? Um, but but I like you know, if they could go and they could get their own unique illustrations, then they could copyright them, then they could patent them. Then I couldn't get the exact same ten dollar image as your big business, right? Or even your small business, right? That's correct. If you want to scale and you got your your taco guy and mascot, and you you you just found him online, then anybody else could use that taco mascot, right? Or image in your restaurant.

SPEAKER_04 46:23

Yeah, that's totally correct. In the marketing world, it's it's always about the brand, it's always about attention to detail. Like let's say we have a lot of like watches. Like watches are pretty much they have the same functionality, they tell us what the time is. Yeah, and they have kind of like the same design, the fake ones and the original ones. So why we buy something very much unique and prestige and that why? Because that has been made by hand and they have put a lot of effort in it, they have used maybe some precious metals in it. There are a lot of attention to detail in that product, and that's what it makes it precious. Right now, in a marketing world, like you can purchase a subscription in Canva and you can have unlimited designs for your social media posts. There are subscriptions like with AI software that you can just say it say a word and it can generate a plan for your six months, it would design it, it will post it, it will schedule it for you. Yes, but you are just going with the crowd, with the flow, but there isn't anything unique about you. You cannot stand out in a crowd. If you want to stand out in a crowd, you you have to do things differently, you have to go different routes. So, although like these designs are pretty much easy to do online, pretty much easy to do it with AI, but if there's a company that it's doing it customized and you have it in a way that there's no way you got you can find it on the internet, you stand out.

SPEAKER_02 47:45

Yeah, and then do you help like so? If I if I went to you for work, would it would I be able to then still copyright it so I could use it exclusively, or would you definitely yeah, so behind the key.

SPEAKER_04 47:55

Yeah, so our process is different because whenever we're designing something, whenever we're doing an illustration, it's it's like it starts with the sketching process, and then it goes to like if it's like a like a big thing, it it has like a storyboard, and after that we do the illustration, and then we do the defining part, and then we have the final product. And every stage is recorded. Every stage like we take pictures of it, we take videos of it, every stage is recorded. And that's how you know that it's something unique. And after the product is done, we do a double check on Google. Like with Google Lens, you can upload an image and you can see if if there's something like exactly similarities, and you make sure that there's nothing online, like there might be like billions of stocks out there, but if if that design is unique enough that you don't have something on the internet, out of all those billions, you're doing something differently. So recently we started these kind of illustrations. We did some illustration books for like children's book, we did some illustrations. Oh, cool. Can you tell me the book or no? There's a book that we had done in Bermuda. Okay. So it's called The Little Colorful Cricketers. Okay. So that's one book that's currently we're working on the storyboard, it's finished, and we're currently in a phase of doing the illustration part of it. There was another book that we have done it in Halifax, and it's going to be published very soon as well. The name of the book is the Splatter Family. So it's gonna be in who is the author from Halifax? So the author is called Charme Beals. Okay, she's a wonderful writer and an author. Awesome. We we did that at illustration and now it's in the process of being published. Nice. So I have a partner in that business as well. Uh-huh. You might have heard the name of Keonte. So yeah, Keontae, yeah, yeah, yeah. So he has a publishing company, in addition to that, he does a lot of like books and stuff.

SPEAKER_02 49:43

So we we got So is Keonti only still doing children's books, or is he doing more than children's books?

SPEAKER_04 49:48

Oh, he has uh a lot of businesses, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 49:50

I know he's got a lot on the go. He was on this show too, actually. Yeah, back when first season, actually. Yeah, yeah. Really nice guy. Early on, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 49:56

Yes, really, really nice person. And he's just like my brother, so we're like always like talking with each other. So we build this kind of partnership that he has this publishing company and we have this illustration company, and we kind of like help authors in Nova Scotia and in Atlantic provinces to bring their vision into life.

SPEAKER_00 50:13

Nice.

SPEAKER_04 50:14

And we do children's book, and we're going to start like some some new projects and some very fun projects. So it's gonna be an amazing uh starting point for us.

SPEAKER_03 50:25

That's awesome, man. So before we go on to 10 questions, I'm gonna ask the the the question that you know everyone would ask or maybe think of is AI. Are you worried? You know, in terms of like does it does it pose any threat to what you do? I feel like this is a theme every single week now. It feels like it, but you know, it's a big thing. But I mean, in this particular case, I think it's really related because like some people think that AI can replace what you do. Why do you think it won't?

SPEAKER_04 50:57

AI could replace us. Not now, maybe in in five years or maybe in ten years. We are a bit scared, but we are making sure that we are adapting AI in a way that it it wouldn't replace us at all. So whenever it comes to AI, AI takes all of its data from its data sets. So whatever is out there, it just copies and pastes things and it just combines things. There's there's something missing in AI, and that's called creativity. Yeah, it can do a lot of perfect stuff for you, like a lot of perfect jobs, but it's not something new. Somebody in another part of the world, if it if if he or she or they asked AI to do the same thing, it would do the same thing for them. Right. So that's the thing. That's a problem. Yeah, that's a problem. Big time, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 51:41

Yeah, that's the thing, is like I think the biggest thing why AI is not a threat is like anything AI has never like invoked a emotional response from me. But commercials or advertising or campaigns of people who have felt a certain way, people who feel do. Right? They go out and they can relate. People can relate. And it's like they can pull at your heartstrings, they know how to make you relate. And a computer just can't.

SPEAKER_04 52:19

That's right, that's right. Yeah. And the other thing about AI is that whenever you fully rely on AI, it's it's gonna give you a product that it's not like sellable, it's not something that you can just like go out there and it take to for AI to create a product, it takes a ton of interaction and a tremendous amount of hand holding and guiding and and prompting and knowing how to use it.

SPEAKER_02 52:44

And it's uh and to use AI well, I I I just saw this recently. It's very condamal using an instrument. You gotta learn how to play it, right? I'm sure you can do the sure everybody can play uh hot cross buns on a piano, but to really get an orchestra out of it, you're gonna have to work for a little while and and really understand its intricacies. So and every one of them play a little bit differently.

SPEAKER_03 53:06

I I also heard recently what was it? I read an article like a week or two ago that like some animators are actually going back to like hand drawing.

SPEAKER_02 53:14

Well, they are making a I think it's a Disney movie, Matt, like the first one in ages that they're gonna go back to hand drawing a Disney film, which they haven't done since Lion King.

SPEAKER_03 53:24

Yeah, right? Yeah, probably something like that since yeah.

SPEAKER_02 53:27

Old Timon and Pumba.

SPEAKER_03 53:29

It's fantastic. You know that's all right.

SPEAKER_02 53:33

Yeah, so that's great.

SPEAKER_03 53:35

That's our AI. We had to have that.

SPEAKER_02 53:37

I'm sick of it. I want to retire AI and I talk over the rest of the year. Maybe either that or just replace me with AI, and then I can just, you know, drink at home over. Yeah, I'm already working on that.

SPEAKER_03 53:47

Yeah. So let's let's move into 10 questions. Okay. Our fun 10 questions, kind of like semi-speed round. You can take some time to think about it, whatever. But all right. Do you want me to start or do you want to start? Go ahead, buddy. All right. So we'll start question number one. So, what is your guilty pleasure TV show?

SPEAKER_04 54:06

Guilty pleasure TV show. Yeah. I mean, that that could be like a very hard question, because I rarely watch TV. It's been like seven years that I haven't watched TV. Are you kidding me? Yes.

SPEAKER_03 54:19

You're missing a lot of good TV. That's the part I'm missing.

SPEAKER_02 54:25

I highly recommend you watch White Lotus. Dude, it's 12 to 6 a day. Like, he's putting in hours. No, I know I know for television. My gosh.

SPEAKER_04 54:34

Yeah. So it's been like seven or six years that I haven't watched it. Like, since the day that I started my business, I left TV.

SPEAKER_02 54:40

Let's scrap that question. We'll stay on the theme, though. Give us uh any kind of leisurely activity that's your favorite thing to do.

SPEAKER_04 54:48

Yeah, so the leisurely activity that I'm really addicted to is playing chess. Okay.

SPEAKER_02 54:54

I'm starting to think you're AI, bro. I like chess. Chess is great. Yeah, no, chess is fun, you know, challenging, but fun. All right, over to you to question number two. All right. What restaurant tastes like home food to you? What restaurant, if there is one in Halifax, that can bring you some sort of reminiscence of home, or is there one yet?

SPEAKER_04 55:16

In terms of Halifax, there are a couple of them. One is Tempo, located in Barrington Street. Yeah, really great food. Yep. There's another restaurant in a Spryfield. Okay. It has been like opened recently. It's uh kind of like a rap Arabic Arabic restaurant. Not a restaurant, but they're just like selling foods, and but they're like really good. It's called Al Helal restaurant. They're the best. Oh, yeah. Yeah, they have like really, really great wraps. Yeah, have you ever been there?

SPEAKER_02 55:43

That's the one that was Terex, right? That got flipped over. Terix, yeah, that's the first one.

SPEAKER_03 55:48

I mean, they always existed. They were a butcher shop behind Tarix, yeah, yeah. But they actually have a storefront now. I haven't been in there since they moved up front. I've been there before. Fantastic prices on food, yeah, and it's delicious. And the market and everything, like they have a small little market. It's fantastic, fantastic. Give me my review on Friday, buddy. There you go. Question number three. So, what's your favorite hidden gem that you've discovered in Atlanta, Canada?

SPEAKER_04 56:13

In Atlantic, Canada? I would say. Because I felt home really in here. Like I felt that people have the same kind of perspective as mine. Like I I really get along very well in here. So that's like that's the love and good answer, dude. For this country. That's a great answer.

SPEAKER_02 56:37

Alright. Give us a convert controversial marketing opinion. Something that goes against the gr grain in marketing that you think.

SPEAKER_04 56:45

Yeah, a controversial marketing point that I could share could be something related to AI. And that is that most of the uh people that they are in our industry, they think that AI is going to replace them. However, we think that if you blend your own art, if you blend your own creativity with AI, that could be a perfect thing. Because like from time to time, we like whenever we're doing websites, like whenever we're designing something, we do the designing, but the development, the coding, I mean like that's the part that you can like leverage AI a lot. So that's the part that some people are missing because either they totally rely on AI and tells AI to like generate everything for them, or either they just do it by themselves and never go to AI. But a little bit like in in in balance, like that could be like a like a sweet spot that every business can use and average it.

SPEAKER_03 57:40

Cool answer. So, question number five if you if like all social media sites were deleted in the world, except for one, you can only save one, which one would it be? LinkedIn. I had a funny feeling.

SPEAKER_02 57:55

How about you?

SPEAKER_03 57:56

For me?

SPEAKER_02 57:57

Yeah. I'm curious what you'd say. You're you're the biggest social media person I know.

SPEAKER_03 58:02

I mean, if I'm sh uh if I'm going by bias, I'd probably pick Facebook. But I mean, I get it, like you know, I'm also 40, so I mean I'm not 13. Yeah. And it's what I have the biggest following on. Yeah. So I I I just yeah.

SPEAKER_02 58:17

Nobody follows me on there. I don't think anyone does, but Reddit be my new one pick.

SPEAKER_03 58:21

Yeah, you're insane. Because I just I hate Reddit.

SPEAKER_02 58:25

It's just such a shit show, and I just think it's very amusing. So I can read it and laugh. And I just read it and I laugh and I say very little. Right? You know.

SPEAKER_03 58:35

See, I'm not even on Reddit. I find it too negative.

SPEAKER_02 58:37

I find it, I find it incredibly interesting. Well, no, I mean, there's there's plenty, plenty of places that aren't negative in Reddit. I I don't have a very negative Reddit experience at all, except for the Halifax one. That can get pretty that can get pretty gross.

SPEAKER_03 58:50

You can hide your identity, and I don't think you should be able to hide your identity.

SPEAKER_02 58:53

Yeah, I I I I I can't I don't really have my name out there though. I have like an acronym. And I but I'm not really posting, I'm not saying any comments. I'm not I have nothing to say. I just enjoy reading. I just enjoy reading and laughing.

SPEAKER_03 59:05

I know, but that's I think that's a problem. I think there should be accountability on what you say. Oh, okay. And I think you should be traceable. Yeah? Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 59:14

Does somebody hurt you on there or what happened? No, no, no.

SPEAKER_03 59:16

I I I know I've never been on like outside of I only go on Reddit when you send me things.

SPEAKER_02 59:21

So I honestly just you can say horrible, horrible things, and then you're just you're my social media experiences are vastly different than him. He sends me a bunch of like weird political stuff, and I sent him like a dog from the 80s that was in there was like back, there was this movie that was made in the 80s, right? And back they did this was back before CGI, so every once in a while they had to put a man in the dog costume to carry out the dog's act, and the dog was like a detective. And he it was the funniest video I've ever seen. I kept watching it. Yeah, I know. But but I guess again, I'm a very different social media audience. I I I don't think the right social media for me is a different taste. What you have a really different taste, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:00:01

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Taste is fine. It's just I think if like if you give a uh a space that people can be completely anonymous, which we can with Reddit, yeah, then you're allowing people to be able to say horrible things about people and say horrible things in general. And I just don't think we should condone that. And so uh I think that you know freedom of speech is a thing, but also you're not free to free of consequences. And I think if you're gonna say horrible things, you should be accountable for them. And Reddit allows people to not be accountable for them.

SPEAKER_02 1:00:34

Yeah, yeah. I mean, yeah, and then but maybe also people on Reddit, some of them might just want to leave a little bit of an alternate version of themselves that's equally harmless. That would be fine, but the unfortunate. I mean, I don't know, yeah. I don't know. So I don't I don't agree with you on that. There are uh Mr. IDs on everyone. But but uh, you know, you know, each their own, I guess. I I mean I freedom of speech sucks sometimes, but it's why it's free. Right? So I don't think we always need to govern it, right? So even if I absolutely hate it. So yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:01:06

Alright, question number six. I think that's you. Yeah, it is you.

SPEAKER_02 1:01:10

What's something you believed before moving to Canada that you don't believe anymore?

SPEAKER_03 1:01:16

Uh let me think about that, because having and it doesn't have to be anything like you know, it can just be like gained experience. It has nothing to do with like you know being in a different place.

SPEAKER_02 1:01:25

Or like that we all like hung around moose or something. Like, you know, that we live in the eat blues. You might have had some crazy misconception of it.

SPEAKER_04 1:01:34

So let me tell something something that's very much common to newcomers. I used to think Toronto was the capital of Canada. Okay, yeah. There you go. That's probably a pretty common one.

SPEAKER_03 1:01:43

You know what? Toronto thinks they are the capital of Canada. Awesome. All right, question number seven. All right, I'm gonna put you. This is a serious question. Okay, putting you on the hot spot. Okay. Alright. Okay. You ready for it? Question number seven is what do you prefer? Doner or Poutine? Putin. There you go.

SPEAKER_00 1:02:06

Okay.

SPEAKER_04 1:02:07

I absolutely love it. Yeah, it's it's it has a different taste. I love that, isn't it? Like the crispiness and also like juice juiciness, like combined in it's like I'm not I'm not eating that stuff this morning, man.

SPEAKER_02 1:02:17

Be careful.

SPEAKER_03 1:02:18

Uh you know what's a hot topic here in Halifax.

SPEAKER_02 1:02:21

You know, I love Poutine. What about you guys?

SPEAKER_03 1:02:23

Don't air Putin.

SPEAKER_02 1:02:25

Don't air poutine is pretty awesome, actually.

SPEAKER_03 1:02:28

If if I'm gonna go full on record, I mean like when here in Halifax, I'm gonna eat Don Air because it's it's the best. And I don't really feel that Halifax makes a good poutine. I mean, my wife's from Quebec, so I go to Quebec often, and then I get really good ones, and they just don't compare here.

SPEAKER_01 1:02:46

Okay.

SPEAKER_03 1:02:46

Yeah. That's good to know.

SPEAKER_02 1:02:48

Yeah, I'd say I'd probably go on the poutine side. Okay. Just yeah. It's more like a but but I love Donair as well. So I do love them both. Yeah, but yeah. It could change by the time or you know. Yeah, time of the day, maybe calories, how many. Yeah. I guess it doesn't really matter between those two, but question number eight over you, Toba. Okay. What's your go-to, or do you have a go-to motivational song or artist or music that you listen to? Someone that really kind of uh helps center you.

SPEAKER_04 1:03:15

Yeah, so I have a motivational song and it's in Persian language. It's actually an Iranian song that I usually listen to, and it's it's about selflessness. So it's about sometimes we we have to do good things in a way that our benefit is not involved in it. We have to do things for the sake of others, for the sake of community, for the sake of people. That that could be anything, that could be like a small thing, that could be like a big thing, but if we have that kind of I think perspective, we're we're going to like go to a lot of like high places like that you you never imagined.

SPEAKER_00 1:03:56

Like it.

SPEAKER_03 1:03:56

Great answer. Question number nine. So, what is the best compliment that you have ever received?

SPEAKER_04 1:04:03

The best compliment? There was a networking event, and there was a lady that she she told me that are you from Canada? And I was like, Wow, that's that's the best thing that I've ever heard. So that that was a it wasn't a question for me, it was a compliment for me, and I and I really loved it. And that day I was like telling my wife that hey that there was somebody that she really said that are you from Canada? And I was like, that was like the best moment that I well and I've ever received that.

SPEAKER_03 1:04:33

That kind of goes back to like I remember you you there was a quote that you said about like your Nova Scotian by heart. Yes. Which give a little because I love that. So I mean, before we get to our tenth question, give a little explan like explanation about why you use that that expression.

SPEAKER_04 1:04:49

That that kind of it reminds me of my first days in Nova Scotia. So I was mostly walking, like I usually walked uh in downtown Halifax because I was new to the city and I was like exploring different places. And whenever I heard people like talking, like who were like at the sidewalk, in Nova Scotia, people don't usually argue with each other. It's like more of considering and acknowledging each other's opinions, and then they're going to share their opinions. Rather than just say like saying it like, no, I don't argue with you, they say that, yeah, I do believe that you might be right in this way. There might also be this kind of like other perspective. So I think that could really resonate with me because sometimes that I I personally, whenever I talk with someone, whenever somebody shares a shares that idea with me, I never argue with them and I never say that you're wrong because I'm not in their position and I'm I'm not in their shoes. So maybe from their perspective, from their experiences, that could be the right thing. So we never know what the right thing is unless we are in their position. So in Nova Scotia, I think that's the thing that it really resonates with me, and I feel like very connected. Cool. And I think that I'm in Nova Scotian by heart. We'll take it.

SPEAKER_03 1:06:08

Uh question number 10, over to you. We already said that. We just did dude. Question number 10? No, question number 10. Oh, okay.

SPEAKER_02 1:06:18

What's one place you've been that you want to go again?

SPEAKER_04 1:06:22

I would love to go to Chester again. I I love that. Chester? Chester, yeah. I didn't know.

SPEAKER_03 1:06:26

Oh no, no, sorry. One place that you would you have been that you would never go to Afghanistan.

SPEAKER_04 1:06:30

Oh, never. Yeah. Okay. I would never go to Afghanistan. There you go. Okay, yeah. Yeah, we've heard that earlier.

SPEAKER_03 1:06:37

I had a funny feeling you were gonna say that after our conversation, but you know, I wrote these questions before that. Okay, so we're gonna do last call. And are we gonna stick with the question that we've kind of been asking, or do you want to what do you think? Sure.

SPEAKER_02 1:06:50

Well, so for now, yeah, because it's in front of us. So yeah, exactly. What's one thing you're gonna do to help others in 2026?

SPEAKER_04 1:06:58

In 2026, I would love to be a good consultant. I would love to consult with people. I would love to show them the ways that I have found like how to do business, how to do marketing, and could share some of those things with them so they can do it on their business. Because sometimes it's not it's not about our services that we get benefit from, but it's about uplifting our our business community in a way that they they can feel empowered and they could feel lifted because we are in such an era and such a time that like the tariffs, like so many different things happening. We have to have the back of each other.

SPEAKER_02 1:07:37

Awesome. You know what, dude? Lots of solid answers today, my friend. Thank you for having a drink with us. Thank you very much. Here's Canadian as it comes, brother. Yes, we will invite you back for a round two sometime soon. Thank you very much.

SPEAKER_04 1:07:49

It was a pleasure being here. Thank you.