Speaker 1: 0:56

Thank you.

Speaker 2: 1:01

Welcome to the Never Been Promoted podcast and YouTube channel. I'm on a mission to help you cut the tie to all the things that are holding you back so you can unleash your entrepreneur. Hey, welcome to Never Been Promoted. Hi, I'm Thomas Helfrich, your host, and I smell lovely. Not that you care, it's a podcast.

Speaker 2: 1:47

I recently just got back from Pond Fest 2025, and I was blown away by how many people had showered and shaved. I was really expecting to go there to see a bunch of conspiracy theorists that were podcasters and it was an actually incredible professional and I love podcasters more than ever. What a cool group. I don't say like-minded is the right word, but they're like-missioned to do things, to change the world, to become things. Our guest today is Cliff Toohr. It's T-O-O-H-E-R Toohr. I've never met a Toohr. It's kind of a fun name to say. He's all about candid conversations and no-nonsense leadership advice. We'll talk to him about his journey, some of the things he's going on as an entrepreneur struggles, what he figured out, what he hasn't.

Speaker 2: 2:34

I have one small call to action as we kind of help entrepreneurs get better at entrepreneurship. The idea is to cut ties to the stuff that's holding you back, the way you think, people in your life that are just anchors and just things that you maybe believe that you probably shouldn't, and ways you do things that you probably shouldn't. I learned and I'm going to confess I've actually never listened to a podcast, a full podcast of somebody else. I always check out. It's a true story, and so I also didn't know, because I'm not an Apple person, that you can follow a podcast on Spotify. I think I knew that. So that's my call to action If you, if you look up never been promoted, follow it, and we have lots of content that comes out and maybe listen to a show, but that's all. Just take a look, then follow, all right.

Speaker 1: 3:25

Nice, nice, shameless plugs. Mr Cliff, coming live to the stage, it's Cliff Tour. Hello, hello, how are you doing, cliff? Yeah, it's an interesting name, that's for sure.

Speaker 2: 3:32

No, Cliff is a very normal name. Cliff is normal. I know what you're talking about Cliff is normal.

Speaker 1: 3:38

Just don't call me Cleveland. No Cleveland, please. Actually, I had somebody once call me that when I was in radio and I said no, no, no, no, we don't do that. A long time ago, when I was studying and went into the into the radio business during my what what we call a work term, went to CJAD and CJFM in Montreal and did my work term there and one of the guys actually called me Cleveland and I said, no, don't do that. Clip is fine. Um to where? Yeah, a lot of people get a lot of um. You know, they go like that a little bit and they go, and then I just they get it out of your system and then we move on.

Speaker 2: 4:22

If someone calls you Cleveland, you're just not listening, you're just ignoring your name. At that point I mean like no, it's like hey, tammy. No, my name's Thomas. It's not even on the same planet, I get it. People go to me like is your name, do you go by Thomas or Tom? And I'm like I introduced myself as Thomas, everything says Thomas, and it's not that I don't expect it. I don't take it as rude, but I always answer with you know, I go by Thomas because I try to be as pretentious as possible to offset my charming personality. But I'm thinking when people present their name as Thomas or they've written it as Peter, I go with what you wrote.

Speaker 2: 4:58

I actually had somebody one time say I'm offended. You called me in an email, you know, david, because only my mom called me that and I have a customer named Dave I'm not talking about you, dave, another one in this. I had never met this person but I just replied like you know, hey, hello, david. And he was so offended I was like well, don't sign your signature email, david. Then the AI doesn't.

Speaker 1: 5:22

I never usually use my full name, which froze I never usually use my full name, which oh froze.

Speaker 2: 5:33

We have a frozen internet situation.

Speaker 1: 5:35

But no, I use short form clip all the time.

Speaker 2: 5:41

The internet is freezing. We have a little technical challenges here on this live stream there we go.

Speaker 1: 5:46

Sorry about that. We have a little technical challenges here on this live stream. There we go. Sorry about that, we are, you're back.

Speaker 2: 5:51

You know that Canadian internet is different. If you guys were states, if you were the 51st state, that wouldn't happen. The pause in the internet is going to make this joke even worse. Are you there, Cliff?

Speaker 1: 6:10

Hopefully that will stop.

Speaker 2: 6:12

If it doesn't, we'll have to just go reshoot it, and that's what happens sometimes. I was making the joke.

Speaker 1: 6:17

Okay, can you hear me yeah?

Speaker 2: 6:19

Are we? We're stable. It doesn't tell me if it's you or me. I'm just going to blame you because it's easier to blame you, still having little challenges. I'm not sure how to correct that. Hey, it's a live show. People, this is what happens. I'm not sure if it's me or our guest, but any good narcissist blames the guest. That's, that's what I'm going to go with. I'm not even sure if Cliff can hear me at this point. The whole goal is to get him to laugh, and when he comes back on and he's not frozen in the frame that he's in, oh, he's back. I was blaming you.

Speaker 1: 6:57

I am so sorry about this. I don't know why it's doing that.

Speaker 2: 7:01

I blame Canada. There's a song about that Blame Canada, that's right.

Speaker 1: 7:09

What is it there? We're not the first state.

Speaker 2: 7:12

Not yet.

Speaker 1: 7:13

Not yet.

Speaker 2: 7:14

Well, what will happen is right. The what is it? The Quebec region is out. They're like they're not going to join.

Speaker 1: 7:22

Everybody else will, Right? No?

Speaker 2: 7:24

British Columbia is in, for sure, ottawa region. What is that? Oh my God, I was just there.

Speaker 1: 7:31

Well, I think the regions that might consider it are Alberta and BC, like mostly the Western, but Quebec for sure no, because of the culture and the indigenous will not. Because the indigenous the way they work with treaties and such it not. Because the indigenous the way they work with treaties and such it's with the crown. So all the treaties are with the crown. They're not with the government of Canada.

Speaker 2: 7:55

Well, if anything, if anything, the US does a great job dealing with natives.

Speaker 1: 8:01

Yeah, yeah. This is so off topic of what we're going now you're in, uh, you're in montreal no, I'm actually in hamilton ontario, just a little past toronto okay, toronto.

Speaker 2: 8:17

Um, I think toronto would would cave in in a second. By the way, quebec city is definitely out there. They are no, they're not even speaking English here. Yeah they're totally francophone there. Yes, I went to Montreal this summer Very pretty city. I've been to Toronto. Toronto's a cool city. Anybody who's not gone to Toronto or Montreal two cities you might want to go check out. They're very actually. Go in July, August is recommended.

Speaker 1: 8:40

Don't go around this type of area Freeze.

Speaker 2: 8:43

Freeze, absolutely. Don't go around this area and freeze, freeze, absolutely freeze. Unless you're from the Upper Peninsula of Michigan or parts of Fargo, you'll knock it down. Do you want to take a minute? Now that we've gotten through the technical challenges a little bit, do you want to introduce yourself? Just take a few minutes to talk about you.

Speaker 1: 8:57

Yeah, sure, no problem. So, as Tom noted or Thomas, I should say my name is Cliff and Tuer is the last name. Basically, I am a professional call center representative by day and content creator by night, if you will, and what I do is I have three different things that I do. I'm a blogger, so I have a blog called Candid Conversations. It's at oneononecandidconversationsblogspotcom. It's actually one and then the word on and then one, so numbers Candidconversationsblogspotcom.

Speaker 1: 9:36

I also run a video channel on YouTube which is called Candid Conversations, zoomed in the Comments video channel, which features interviews like the one we're doing today, and commentary, which basically has been switched over recently to something called Jats to Pack Jack, which is basically going to be a little bit of interesting facts for people, small short videos and finally my podcast, which is called Tales from the Cube. It's found on Spotify, iheartradio, wherever you get your podcasts, and that's about call centers and what we do in call centers and how it works. So if you've never been in the call center industry and you want to find out a little bit more, check out those episodes that I have on the podcast at Spotify and I think you'll find them very interesting and very informative, and that's what I do and right now, still really in the stages of development and hopefully soon there's going to be engagement with a party to basically go into the next level for the YouTube channel especially, which is going to be monetization. That's where we're headed. So we've been doing, or I've been doing, this for a while.

Speaker 1: 10:56

The blog started way back in 2009, and the YouTube channel about a year or so ago, and the YouTube channel about a year or so ago, and the podcast same amount of time about six months ago, and all of them are doing well. And, as Thomas and I will discuss, it's going to be basically where we got to and why we're going there and so on, and I'll happily share some insights as to what to do if you're going to do any of these things, because it is interesting to do, particularly interview blogs or interview YouTube channels. There's definitely a lot to think about before you start in on this, and, particularly if you want to do a niche podcast like mine, you really got to know your staff. So, um, my, my advice is, first and foremost, do the research. That's the most important part or live it right.

Speaker 2: 11:53

Because, uh like, I just got back from podfest. One of the most niche podcasts I heard about was about raising goats and it does really well like tens of thousands of downloads a month and I'm like, are there that many people who were like who? That's amazing to me. I was blown away by that number and the lady who runs it, she's very funny. She's like you know, we have goats and names and you're right.

Speaker 2: 12:18

But I actually think doing the research isn't enough and I mean that we can argue the point or discuss it enough. You'll, uh, you're, you're, and I mean that big from. I mean we can argue the point or discuss it. I don't think it's enough to do a podcast on cause. You have to have what I would call a fusion reactor, not even a nuclear reactor but a fusion like a sun that never runs out of content, ideas. And if you have to do the research to be an expert in it, you're, you're.

Speaker 2: 12:41

You could outpace your content to add add value, because at some point you might repeat yourself. It might come out flat vanilla if you've lived it, so you could do one on call center all day long. You live it like, you could be like oh my God, here's a story, here's another thing. Now, this is a very small thing. When this specific example happens and they have this kind of tone or you could get into the weeds endlessly with that because you've lived that life, that's right. If into the weeds endlessly with that because you've you live that life, that's right. If you're doing it because it's just a passion project, you got to consider that as part of your strategy. So maybe talk about that, because I, I have. I I coach people on when they want to do a podcast. You have to have this fusion reactor, you have to oh yeah, you're right about that.

Speaker 1: 13:18

The fusion reactor, as you pointed out, is the thing, and you're right, it's the experience. I've got 20 years in in the call center industry, so I know how this works. I even one time I was in a bit of a battle with one of my managers and he and I were talking about stats and stuff, and he said, well, you know, I could let you go because of this and this. And I said, yes, I know how this works. Believe it or or not, I've got 20 years in. Sir, I could even, technically speaking, do my boss's job, if not my, my OM's job. He was not happy when he heard that, but the truth is, yeah, I could possibly be an OM. I could definitely be a TM, which is a team manager or team lead, but that's because I I've been frontline for 20 years. I've seen how it works and I know how it works, so a lot of what I do does actually come from my experiences in it.

Speaker 1: 14:16

The research part, though, is making sure I've got the information truly correct, or to find other things that maybe I didn't realize correct, or to find other things that maybe I didn't realize, like recently doing a podcast on the call center analyst.

Speaker 1: 14:31

Now, I don't really know that job very well so I had to do a bit of research on it, but I know they exist. I know those are people that look at the stats and how the technology is working and they come to us or they should be coming to us to talk about that and I talked about that in this podcast. But I also take a lot of personal experience, like what should you do on a phone call with somebody being racist with you or that sort of thing. I've done that. How to avoid awkward situations. In one podcast I talked about dating in a call center and it's not a good idea to actually do that Because you could get into some serious trouble. But these are all things that I have experienced and done and I now bring that to the podcast and a lot of it is personal knowledge, but there is some also backing up with information from different sources to make sure it's right.

Speaker 2: 15:33

And you see, if three things are going on and a lot of entrepreneurs have multiple, I call it the entrepreneurial ADD. It's not ADD, it's even worse. It's like money goes behind it. So ADD, it's not ADD, it's even worse, it's like money goes behind it. So, add, you can lose your focus. Entrepreneurial ADD costs you money. It gets you buying in a direction. You have three things at least going on that you mentioned. Maybe talk about, first of all, do they work together? And if they do or don't, just talk about the three and how they either work together or don't work together, what purposes they serve for you or business?

Speaker 1: 16:09

So basically, the three different channels are the two are basically brother and sister, if you will, or brother and brother Candid Conversations the blog and the YouTube channel are really basically a split. So what happened was when the podcast, not the podcast when the blog was created in 2009,. It was strictly just interviews with people. I would send an email out to persons after reading a what do they call those Press releases Thank you Press release and what I would do is send a request, get it back, reach out to the person by email, confirm they want to do it, send out my questions, get them back, edit them, make sure they're okay and then I would post them up. Eventually, I started adding in other little things to see whether or not it would suit the blog and whether the numbers would go up or down or what. Some things worked, some things didn't. So eventually, what I started to do is add in comments. What has happened as the blog has emerged and grown is that I've realized that you know what people really want to hear the voice and see the face of the person. So I separated out into the YouTube channel to do interviews like the one we're doing today, because there's more color and nuance. In seeing the face and hearing the voice, you get the tone, Whereas in writing it's a little hard sometimes to see what's going on, to read between the lines, to understand tone. So, that said, I separated it and now the blog is just going to be a commentary, more or less is just going to be a commentary, more or less, While the YouTube will be. The main emphasis will be interviews, and doing an interview blog is really challenging because one you have to find people who will basically engage with you and that's not always easy.

Speaker 1: 18:21

When I send out stuff, I don't always get a response. I mean two or three times or four times I I send out stuff, I don't always get a response. I mean two or three times or four times. I'll send out. Nothing comes back. I hear crickets and I don't usually go three or four times against a PR. I don't keep submitting the request because they're not writing back.

Speaker 1: 18:41

There's a couple things that might be going on. They might have somebody looking at it and saying, no, there might be an algorithm that's that's weeds out stuff and so on and so forth. So when I do get something, I do the research, do the backstory, look up as to who they are and what they're about. And then I call on them and basically say I'm interested in what you're, what you're talking about here, let's go forward and see if we can't do an interview. And then we get together and we do that interview. I try to keep it within 15, 20 minutes and it's usually never edited because I want the full conversation. Well, and we, we do the same. So that's what we're doing live, because it's purely well. You don't edit it like we haven't in 360 some three, because I want the full conversation.

Speaker 2: 19:24

Well, and we do the same. So that's why we do them live, because it's purely well, you don't edit. I'm like we haven't in 360 some three shootings. We've not edited any of it, and it's a style of interview too right. It's not that we couldn't, it's just they're too long, honestly, to edit and no one says anything. So stupid that I'd be like, so stupid that I'd be like we need to cut that. I've probably said something, just you know, early days.

Speaker 2: 19:46

Hopefully no one heard it, but it sounds like your three things work together in content. I know, when we do an interview, there's an we do an an interview article, digital magazine cover thing, and it's we have a really good AI that takes I mean, it's a long prompt, that takes keywords of what you're doing, what we said, and it writes a whole article. It inserts the YouTube link and inserts the podcast link. In the future, it's going to start relating other interviews that were similar and say, hey, we also talked about this in this interview. So you're doing what I think you're kind of like where we're going with it, which is you use that content multipurposed. Yes, at the end of the day, though you're creating content, what's the business goal for it, or is there one?

Speaker 1: 20:30

Well, obviously we want to monetize eventually. That's the goal. But the goal is basically to encompass a wide variety of interests and tell the stories of people and entrepreneurs, book writers, movie stars and even producers. I mean, one time I even reached out and had a really cool conversation with a guy who does interesting work with tattoos. He's an excellent tattooist. One of my favorites, though, was an interview with a documentary creator who did the Last House Standing Excellent video about what's going on with regard to weather and how it affects the construction industry, particularly in the southern US, when hurricanes and such come in and it wrecks houses and all that. So these are interesting information points.

Speaker 1: 21:32

I stay away from things like dealing with, if I could say it, Donald Trump, no, you're not going to see stuff like that. I'm not going to touch that. That's already being handled by somebody else. Like that, I'm not going to touch that. That's already being handled by somebody else. I try to stay in a different lane because the mainstream stuff is already covered by traditional media or other podcasters or creators that I don't really need to go there. I don't want to compete against them. I'm not interested in competing against them.

Speaker 2: 22:04

Yeah.

Speaker 1: 22:05

I want to be different.

Speaker 2: 22:07

We try to stay away from polarizing topics, unless we're talking about magnets, and that's an attractive subject.

Speaker 1: 22:14

Totally.

Speaker 2: 22:15

I mean, I yeah, watch the viewer count, just fall off now Like, oh my God.

Speaker 1: 22:22

Did he just that's a dad joke, yeah.

Speaker 2: 22:23

You know what a dad joke becomes a dad joke. I know what a dad joke is.

Speaker 1: 22:27

Yes.

Speaker 2: 22:28

But it becomes a dad joke when it becomes apparent.

Speaker 1: 22:32

Yeah or yeah.

Speaker 2: 22:35

All right, I'm going to stop. All right. So you said you want to monetize it and you have a full-time day job right to do stuff. Uh, what's kind of holding you back? What's the tie you need to cut to get there?

Speaker 1: 22:49

well, at this point there's no real tie to cut. What I think I need to do is find the right source to get that monetization monetization going right. Thankfully, I do have somebody who's presented an interest in doing that with me through VFly, which is an organization that does video promotion. They're quite good. The one good thing about them is that anytime you submit, you do get hits, and they're real hits, they're not fake. You've got to be careful with the YouTube algorithm because if you mess that up, you could get kicked off and you don't want that to happen to yourself. So I've teamed up with eBeepline.

Speaker 1: 23:35

Right now I'm looking to see about starting a plan to mobilize into the monetization phase, but I still need to make sure that I do it slow enough so that it doesn't look odd to the algorithm, and that's the thing. It's a process. So once I'm sure and I'm ready and I have a bit of money behind me, I will go forward and access that particular feature with my account manager and basically we'll go forward and start to do that and hopefully see some things. That's a key thing. With any of these three things, you've got to have some sort of advertising to keep you going. Word of mouth is the absolute first one, but you still need to track in with some advertising. That's very important, yeah, so you need to find good partners to work with, and I found some really good people to do that with yeah, that's great.

Speaker 2: 24:32

You should, uh, you should, share me a link. I'll put it out there for them.

Speaker 1: 24:35

Um the yeah, so vflycom, v-e-e-f-l-ycom, vlycom, v-e-e-f-l-ycom, vflycom. They're very, very well known and they are legit. You'll see, they're actually all over the place.

Speaker 2: 24:52

They've got a lot of social media out there. Just from something, we did advertising via YouTube for our channel and we got to a million subscribers through advertising Not through buying followers, don't ever do that shit but like if you advertise you can get subscribers, you can get people viewing your content. I don't believe YouTube's advertising promotion puts it in front of the right people. It'll put it in front of people who will click it, but not specifically maybe the ones you want to click it. And we learned that, um, we cut that engine off off, like after you know about as we were growing it and we refactored it to be like, hey, let's really focus more us this, this or this. So hearing things like V fly and hearing somebody endorse for it or something else is good to hear, because it is kind of hard to find a legit advertising partner to get the right, the right banner ads or whatever else in front of the right people in the right moment and on podcast as well.

Speaker 2: 25:42

There, I mean, I'd say 99% of the ad pieces are garbage. I would buy ads directly maybe from like Lisbon, one of the people who were hosting, and they can actually put you on a. They can get someone to read in your show and be like hey, you got to check out the you know candid conversations podcast. That's a real ad, probably cost more, but it's legitimately going to go in front of thousands of people who are going to probably check out your show and say, hey, that's actually pretty good, or whatever. And so I do caution I think you're saying this as well. When you have money, you can't just put it anywhere. You got to put it to a real client that knows it, maybe for you. How do you know, though, vfly, it's a real view like how do you, how did you quantify that?

Speaker 1: 26:25

uh, the quantification of that was basically the fact that the subscriptions I'm getting through them, which is through um youtube, because they are actually on I'm sorry google ads. They actually use google Ads to do their work. So you know you're getting good subscriptions, you're getting good followers through that and that's their main bread and butter is getting new followers. So that's important. And also likes and other things like that, even comments. But you are generating real people coming in and they're pretty steady, I mean, they're sticking around, they're coming back for more stuff.

Speaker 1: 27:16

But the other thing too once you do that, you've got to start also making sure you continually put up good content, so you don't want it to sort of just fade in the background. Like you know, do one video a month. You want to try and do two or three a month if it's, you know, within your previews, although this month's been a bit slow. For me, the idea is just basically put more really good content up and use that mechanism to do that. But also, if you can, every now and then just put up a video without any advertising and see where it goes, because if you have people coming in and looking, they're going to click on that and what will happen is the algorithm will generate more and more impressions and you'll get some other you know ticks on your other content in there.

Speaker 1: 28:09

For the podcast itself, I don't actually have an agency or anything like that. Usually what I'll do is I'll go on to Upwork and I'll hire somebody to basically post an ad for me and they'll run that, and that's how I get more uh downloads and listeners onto the tales from the cube are you uh tell me about some metrics you have for your youtube channel in your podcast?

Speaker 1: 28:36

then what's that?

Speaker 2: 28:37

some of the metrics like so how's it grown? What's the current downloads, if you want to share that kind of stuff, At this point. Yeah, the user can gauge kind of how effective that is.

Speaker 1: 28:46

Right now we're over 30,000. For the channel itself it's done really well About 30,000 views or more, which is really really fantastic. The biggest one was a video that I had a special ad done for it. That kept rolling over and it was for a woman who rents out chickens and it generated a lot. She's got on her video alone over three or close to 4,000 or 5,000 views, something in that range. I'd have to look it in to see what it is, but it is remarkable how well that video has done. But generally speaking I range within anywhere from 400 to 1,000 views per video, depending on what I put up and whether or not I'm using a VFly or just leaving it alone. Usually I find the lower numbers are, when I don't put any advertising up, the higher numbers, of course, because of the advertising.

Speaker 1: 29:53

So, I mean it works, but yeah, you want the word of mouth stuff too.

Speaker 2: 29:58

Right, you have to get it in front of people. I think one of the lessons, even like alex from mosey says listen, no one knows who you are and you got to market more. That's what they say, and so the advertising is part of that content. You know in, since you're doing blogs, you're doing some youtube, you're doing some podcasting. That's a trifecta written video, audio, right, yeah, you just got to keep, you just got to keep pushing forward, right, yeah, what's, uh, what's, what's the future for you? So, like, what's next, what's going on, what's your kind of goals, what you know? You fast forward a year and you look back. What are you proud of?

Speaker 1: 30:30

retiring. That's the goal I want. I, like I've been in the call center industry 20 years, as I mentioned. I'm done. I mean, uh, my brain is cooked mean, and I'm noticing that in our industry particularly and I'm sure Thomas can speak to this as well there's been a real uptick in negative behavior from customers on the phone. In fact, the client I work for has actually had to put on a message saying hey, you've got to be kind to the advisors because they're trying to help you. So when you have to start doing that, there's a problem. And we have a real problem in customer service right now with aggressive, angry customers who just are saying things that are just absolutely horrific.

Speaker 1: 31:16

So I'm at the point where it's like you know what? I just turned 62. Today actually is my birthday, thank you. And I'm coming to the point where it's like I'm done with that. So my goal actually is to become a professional content creator and maybe also I might go into social media in the of being a a person who would guide people on how to use it. I'm considering taking a college course on how to do that, how to be a social media promoter and use the different tools of social media to bring businesses uh, more, more customers and level up. That's the goal, you know. That's what I'd like to do.

Speaker 2: 32:05

That'd be great. I mean, like, what kind of traffic are you getting on your blog right now?

Speaker 1: 32:11

Blog's really done well. I mean, it is exponentially growing by the year. I mean we started out with a couple of hundred in the first year and now we're up to usually about 19,000, 20,000 views in a year. So we are really, really, really excited about it. It's just growing. And you know here's the funny part, thomas Sometimes I don't even put an article up and I still get four or five or 600 views on nothing, really, it's just on previous articles.

Speaker 1: 32:47

Once I put an article up, it goes to Blog Pros, which is another group I use, and they send it out. They're like my social media managers, if you will, and what they do is they send out the information to get likes and responses on LinkedIn and Facebook. So they do that for me. So they basically manage the social media side and that's how I get the hits. But it's great. I mean that's a good thing. Of course, these are all paid subscriptions and such.

Speaker 1: 33:27

So again, it's putting your money in a safe bet. That you know, because there's a lot of as you pointed out a lot of trash out there. You can buy something and before you know it, you've got yourself in a bit of a bind, particularly with YouTube, because you get a strike or two, your channel's pretty much going to get ripped off the platform. You don't want that to happen. So I would say to anybody out there if you're going to do anything like that, any kind of advertising choose wisely, because you're really going to be in a pickle if you make the wrong choice. You can spend money and you could get negative return if you do it wrong.

Speaker 1: 34:13

So again, it's about the research as far as that goes, but also making sure that you know your stuff. You, whatever you're going to bring in, any kind of content creation, should be from you. It should not be from magazines or stuff like it's. It's your personal experience that you want to bring to the table and that that's why, for example, I do Tales from the Cube, which is the podcast, because it's my personal experience. The interview blog is more interest in different people and my radio broadcasting career. I loved doing interviews. I used to be a DJ spinning music, but I really enjoyed doing interviews. I had a show about disabilities and I did interviews with people. I found that more interesting than spinning tunes. So that's where that comes from, and the same thing with the blog it comes from a broadcasting side.

Speaker 2: 35:17

I still think you could DJ when you come on. You turn around from your turntable and you're like all right, let's do this, it's a cliff.

Speaker 1: 35:26

I think DJ Blind Mice or something like that might work, I don't know. Dj Four Eyes.

Speaker 2: 35:33

DJ Nine Eyes.

Speaker 1: 35:35

DJ Nine Eyes. Dj Nine Eyes. Oh yeah, yeah, there you go.

Speaker 2: 35:38

Why Nine Eyes? Because no one else took it yeah yeah, absolutely.

Speaker 1: 35:42

It was a fun career. But here's something for anybody who wants to do any kind of broadcasting, which is technically what I'm doing Traditional radio is not the place, particularly in Canada. It's only about, yeah, anywhere, really, radio is really struggling. And going to school and I know my friends they're going to say, how dare you say this? You're just wasting money going to these colleges and doing this. That's one side I think of, but the other side I realize wait a minute, you could take that learning about how broadcasting works and do what I'm doing right now and actually create your own content niche just by doing that. But if you think you're going to be working here say, for example, in toronto on 2107, no, because most of the people sitting in the chair they're not leaving, they're not going anywhere because they know once they leave, that's it game over, you know it is and, um, I think radio is dead.

Speaker 2: 36:55

I mean, this is my take on radio. Even on some talk radio, that's just, you know, 35 out of the 60 minutes is ads to some level. It's either read in or it's played. And the music channels it's the same. Dozen, dozen, 18 songs over a two-hour, three-hour period. It's just like, why don't I even need that? I have spotify, I have I could play all the music I want. I don't need the radio in my car, I can connect it. I mean, it's anyway, it's it.

Speaker 2: 37:27

I think radio is in real trouble in the current format they're in yeah, because they're still thinking that back in the 1950s I don't know what they're thinking, but like I don't know who pays for radio ads, because it's all lawyers- pretty much lawyers, lawyers and pharma um the other thing too, with radio, if I may uh expound on course, yeah, go ahead

Speaker 1: 37:49

yeah, when you, when you're on the air, basically, uh, all you're doing is something like this well, there's another 20 minutes of nonstop rock. We're going to come back with another 20 minutes of nonstop rock. It's 9.05, and you're listening to XYZ radio station. That's it. You're not getting much else, maybe the weather, maybe a funny little bit. And then when you're playing the music, if you've noticed, after maybe two songs, they're telling you what the call letters of the station are, like Rock 97 or whatever. I'm not stupid, I know what station I'm listening to. I don't need to hear it after two or three songs. You can wait four or five, maybe six songs to do that, but they don't and it's insulting to me.

Speaker 2: 38:30

It's reprehensible.

Speaker 1: 38:34

That's why.

Speaker 2: 38:34

I tuned out of radio for a long time. Now. If you put me in home depot on a sunday when they're stocking shit and all I hear is beep, beep, I'm just gonna run out of there, right. I'm like just why do you? Why? Why do I have to hear this beeping noise endlessly? This is what radio sounds like to me. When they do that, it's just like it's an. It's a constant, repetitive beeping noise. That's irritating. That makes me want to leave.

Speaker 2: 38:52

Yeah, and when you apply that to your business, if you're doing this with your content, if you're being too repetitive, if you're being you've got too much of a beep in your content, meaning like people are going to run from that and that that works. Audio If I keep seeing the same shit over in visual, I get where. And if you read the same kind of nonsense over and over, you stop reading. Yeah, so I think that metaphor may work, but anyway, I hope you can go full-time. So what's the plan 2025? How do you go full-time content creator? Do you do it for other people? Is that one way to take a?

Speaker 1: 39:23

step. I'd love to do it for other people. Anybody who wants to reach out to me can email me.

Speaker 1: 39:29

Let's do this yeah, you can email me at candidconversations at hotmailcom and I'll be happy to do your content to write for you like an ad, to write your blog, maybe to interview you on the channel, get you out there and you know. If you want to sponsor some of the commentaries that I'm going to be doing on the blog, we'd love to do that. Even if you want to do a sponsorship on one of the interviews, if you want to sponsor one of those, we could certainly set something up. I would be so happy to have businesses reach out and say, hey, can you do an interview with me? Sure, no problem, and set something up and maybe we can do some collaborations and see, maybe also there's possibilities to some business partnerships down the road. My hope is that within another year or two I will be retired and fully up and running working my business. That's what I want to do.

Speaker 2: 40:34

Well, not retired. It sounds like work optional.

Speaker 1: 40:38

Work optional. You got it Work optional.

Speaker 2: 40:41

And most people who are entrepreneurs in spirit don't actually want to retire because they know they would just be bored out of their freaking mind, like they would be. Like you know, golf is fun, but even even much as I like golf or fishing, I couldn't do this shit every day. I'd be like this. I need something else. I would need another angle in life. So I think the idea is to have your own income source. No asshole bosses.

Speaker 1: 41:04

I've had a few in my life.

Speaker 2: 41:06

Number one motivator most entrepreneurs initially is I'm sick of working for people.

Speaker 1: 41:14

Yes, yeah, and I think the essence of all of this is basically, if you're going to do anything and start particularly working in the broadcast medium, which is really what this is you got to know what you're doing but also what niche you want to fit in. Example, I looked at in the podcast realm. Are there other stuff, other pieces out there, other podcasts about call centers? There are Not many of them, but there are, so there is some competition there, so I had to make myself unique. But most of these other ones, they're basically talking about customer service and more driven into that, whereas mine is a little more broader. I focus on all the parts of it, um, and mainly the call center point, and one of the things to try to do, also even in the podcast, is speak to managers. Hey, guys, you might want to listen to your front line, and here's why, uh, and different subjects matter for them to consider.

Speaker 2: 42:13

You have an expertise in a call center. I mean, there's lots of companies in the space and the best way to get a job is walk-to-walk right. So you know, when we meet people on LinkedIn and I get a meeting with them through, they're like you know, what do you do. I'm like, well, how'd you get here? And they're like, oh, it's like that's what we do. And you do. I'm like, well, how'd you get here? And they're like, oh, it's like that's what we do.

Speaker 2: 42:39

And so for you, you could write an article that does something and you maybe you mentioned a few companies you want to work for. And then you share as a hey listen, this wrote this article recently about you guys. This is when I featured you. If you'd like to share it on your, in your you know. And then you get the American person like, oh, great, know, you write it and you show them as the example. Then you write another and you show another company as the example and you share with their marketing. I'm pretty sure they'll reshare it. And you're like, hey, listen, this is what I do. I write content in the podcast. Do you guys ever? You know, would you be interested in working together so I could write some content for you, because I know the space, I live it and I blog and write about it. But I actually work for companies to help them improve there. That's all you would need to do and you'll. You'll find companies to say yes to that yeah absolutely.

Speaker 2: 43:20

That's how I would monetize day one Cause then, then you're, you're, you have it because you have the expertise, you already have the channels and you, you win them over by giving them an article. You were, you did.

Speaker 1: 43:30

Yeah you. Well, you show them what you can do, and then you say, okay, here, this is what I've got for you. I'll give you a test article. You like it? Great, let's see if we can do some more.

Speaker 2: 43:43

And they say no, which is okay, you just make it. This is the worst fucking company on the planet. I wish this changed the tone.

Speaker 1: 43:49

You move on.

Speaker 2: 43:51

No, I'm kidding, don't do that. Don't do that. You know, get to like. You know, never split the difference.

Speaker 2: 43:55

Right, chris Voss, you can get him to a no too, you know, would you not? Would you not? Do you not want to have your, you know a company in great light? Like, of course, we might maybe reshare this? Then, right, and so, using your techniques to get it, I see, quickly, really quick, because then you can talk about cool things people are doing on their podcast, on your podcast, in the space, in the commercial area where you work, and why that's important, why that was good, I think, with the PodFest, right, and I told you I don't know if I told you this, I've been on a few shows today so I can't remember if I've already said this or not. I have repeated this, sorry, but I think it interesting the goats, the podcast around goats did I tell you about this? I have. I said this in the show. I'm pretty sure I did that.

Speaker 2: 44:44

If that person can niche content, you know, your content creation around call centers is a no-brainer because there's huge companies doing this. There are people like you you could talk to about. Oh, my god. Let me tell you a story the stories of content centers. You know it could be. Am I the asshole type of a story, like you know, like you have, like I see that as like fun. Am I the asshole and you can just bring on other other call center managers and people who run frontline and like, okay, here's a scenario and then you talk through okay, you were kind of the asshole there a little bit.

Speaker 1: 45:20

Yeah, I, I, I'm also willing to do that. If there's a manager out there in the call center industry who wants to talk, uh, and do an interview on the podcast, you know, help me, you know, hook in, you know, send me an email, uh, we'll definitely hook up and we'll see if we can get you on the show, because I think it would be beneficial to hear from them too, because after a while, yeah, I have a nice sexy voice, but let's face it it would be nice to hear other people too, because having confirmation of what you're saying is also good, and by connecting with other people, doing a collaboration, that basically uplifts you and gives you that credibility and that's another thing too you want people to recognize you and to give you credibility. That's important. That's really, really critical.

Speaker 2: 46:13

Yeah, I agree, that's right, that's right. Agree, that's right, that's right, that's right. All right to get a hold of you. I think I misspelled the email the first time because I like to do tie ups.

Speaker 1: 46:21

That's typos so I'll spell it out. It's a candid conversations, that's c-a-n d-i-d conversations of plural c-o-n-d-e-r-S-A-T-I-O-N-S. At hotmailcom. Send me an email. I'll be very happy to engage with you. We can do some collaborations and other things too. We can talk about what you would like to do.

Speaker 1: 46:46

And here's another funny thing that I used to do believe it or not, and I have done a few of them is obituaries. I've actually written those too. Very, very complicated work, because you're trying to tell the story of somebody who has died. That's also something I do do, and it's interesting because you have to make sure that you get it right there too, especially when somebody has died. It's not something you fool with. So I've done that, and I actually one time got somebody to send me a request. I thought they were jerking me around, so I said, okay, I'll run it. I just handed it back to them and I checked the person and my eye is just bulged out of my head A prominent doctor in the Arab world in.

Speaker 1: 47:39

I think he was in Dubai. That's who that obit was for. And the person wrote back thank you, you did a great job. So it's those kinds of things I really am into content and stuff like that Even doing that it's really interesting and challenging. But again, as Thomas pointed out earlier, got to have that furnace, that fuel, you know, to rocket into this and all the other things that we've talked about today. These are key things you want to do Awesome.

Speaker 2: 48:11

I appreciate coming on today, Cliff.

Speaker 1: 48:13

Yeah, it was great.

Speaker 2: 48:16

You're bringing it together. You're in the earlier stages of it, but there's definitely a path to make money there with your expertise and call centers and the passion to create content, which a lot of people don't have. Some people do it because it's a necessary evil and they flame out. They're evil and they flame out, but if you like doing it and you have a professional expertise you've lived a, you know, you've been on the front lines those two things can be transposed into benefiting others in the industry that don't want or don't do it well and like that's a LinkedIn search tomorrow and a couple of emails of For sure, yeah, I write here's my blog 's some examples.

Speaker 2: 48:58

Do you guys, would you guys like some professional, very focused writing on this? That's like, that's like, that's overnight, that's easy. You're introduced. Bmi the asshole. I'm telling you. Customer call center, contact center. Oh man, call center is internal, typically, right. Call center is more for like I call my it department is usually how that's set up. Is that more accurate than a customer?

Speaker 1: 49:20

so there's two types of call centers um, generally speaking, the internal, that is a company call center like um, for example. We'll say, apple, apple has internal call centers, I'm sure. And then there are externals, and these are third-party companies, like S&P Data here in Hamilton. They're a third party, so they are contractors and basically companies like Rogers or Bell will go to them and say, hey, we want you to run a campaign. Now it can be an inbound campaign or an outbound. Outbound is basically they're calling in hey, do you want to buy something or a survey? And then the inbound, of course, is just that. It's inbound. It can be sales, it can be customer service, tech support and so on. So there are two main categories inbound and outbound, as far as that goes in call centers. But there's internal and external call centers too. So you really got four things going on inbound, outbound and external, internal. And the internals are there's many of them, Internals are there's many of them, but there's a lot of contracting out too.

Speaker 1: 50:37

So you might be calling a company and you're thinking you're getting the company. In reality, no, you might call I don't know IKEA, for example, and what you'll get is a person who's representing IKEA. They won't tell you they are, but what they'll say is hi, welcome to IKEA. And it could be somebody in an internal call center, but it could also be the external call center. So that's what I talk about. Is the internal and external call centers out there, without naming names, particularly my company I can't really name them or who I work for at the client I work on behalf of, because it's co-branding and we're not allowed to do that.

Speaker 2: 51:21

Yeah, I mean you're, you're working as like almost a white label to them or something. Yeah, awesome, all right, candid conversations at hotmail, and that's H O H O T M A I L. Okay, not M L A L E. Hotmail, hotmail. They didn't really think that one through when they did that. I probably talked about that one too. It's like hotmailcom. Actually, don't go there. I don't know what that is. You're going to get flagged.

Speaker 1: 51:52

Hotmail is a long and old story, goes back to the days when it was just literally hotmail. Now it's live really, that's all it is.

Speaker 2: 52:02

Thanks for joining me today, cliff. I'm going to put you in the periwinkle room here for a second. I'll be right back with you. Thanks so much.

Speaker 2: 52:08

Hey, for anyone who got it this far today and has listened, thank you. We are on a mission to help entrepreneurs like cliff uh, like, just like. I want you to learn something from where he's doing, he's putting it together, he's got an expertise. He's still figuring it out, but he has a passion, he knows it and and he has a goal he wants to be able to be work optional already called retired but truly just work for himself, not have a day-to-day boss, and be able to live life and enjoy it and like that's. It's a lifestyle type he's trying to build and grow through and and I and I believe he'll get there because he's got the talent and he's got the the passion of the mechanics to have to go do it.

Speaker 2: 52:41

Simple action If you're listening, even if you're watching, just follow us on Apple or Spotify. If you feel cheeky, leave a review. That's positive, but at the very least, follow, listen to some of the content and and I really appreciate you for being here so until we meet again and listen again, thanks for listening, get out there, go unleash your entrepreneur.