Henny Yeshanew, Founder at LION Marketing | Top 40 Under 40, Award Winning Leader

Welcome to the success story podcast, I'm your host, Scott Clary. On this podcast, I have candid interviews with execs, celebrities, politicians, and other notable figures, all who have achieved success through both wins and losses, to learn more about their life, their ideas, and their insights. I sit down with leaders and mentors and unpack their story to help pass those lessons onto others through both experiences and practical strategy for business professionals, entrepreneurs, and everyone in between. Without further ado, another episode of the success story podcast. Thanks again for joining me today. I am sitting down with Kenny Ishano, who is the founder of Lion Marketing Agency. They're a full service marketing agency dedicated to helping medium and large businesses achieve success and growth. His company has been awarded top marketing agency in Ontario in 2018 and 2019 by the Canadian or Canada Business Awards. Hennie has also received top 40 under 40 for his success with the marketing agency and his community work with youth development, another hometown hero, so he's in Toronto right now, maybe when everything's over, we can do like face to face, for the time being man, I appreciate you joining me on Zoom. It's really nice to have you. No problem, thank you so much for having me today. It's my pleasure. So, you have your 24, it's relatively young. You have some successes, some top 40 under 40, award winning marketing agency. What's your background? What's your story? Where did you come from? Did you mean to do this purposefully? Accidentally? What's going on? Well, so my background is quite funny. So basically I came into Canada when I was eight, so I was kind of an immigrant and having an immigrant parents was not the easiest job to have in Canada and being that, we only had two to three job choices, honestly, and it was either to be a doctor, engineer, or lawyer, as those were the most secure jobs we can get. So I was always going to school for those reasons and I went into university, thinking I'm going to be this hotshot lawyer, like, okay, I'm going to crutch law school and get to become a lawyer because I was just a pure job. And then about three years into university, while I was also applied for LSAT, I did my LSATs applied to law school. I was this close to going into law school, but what really happened was I was like, is this something I really want to do for the rest of my life? Is this something that's going to make me happy, honestly? And entrepreneurship was never in my view at all at this time. It was just there. I also had that business mindset that I always wanted to push, but I never went for it. So I said, my third year summer, I was like, hey, let me tap into this and see if there's something there for me. So my third year summer, I started just watching YouTube and Google searching what's popular in this industry. And I've always enjoyed sales or just being with people and interacting with those. So I started looking to that and then marketing was also something I was in that realm. So I went into it and social media marketing was popping in 1050, 2016. I was like, okay, let me get my hands in here. And I did and I had two friends who had business, businesses, so I said, hey, let me try my skills on your business. And within two to three months, they saw some great success. I was like, this is some route that I can continue forward. So hence, I did not tell my parents. So there's going to my fourth year. I launched my small business while I was like, you know what, at the end of the day, I still would get that certificate from my parents, even though I don't know where it is right now. I don't need to be my parents. No, it's a piece of paper is, but so yeah, I graduated, but in my fourth year, I started just working on it and only my skills. And I also had three or four jobs to make sure I come out of it with no tuition. So I did that. And then in my, after graduating, I went full force into this business, worked alone for over a year on this agency, working clients, doing the delivery all of it. And I knew that at that point, I'm going to need people around me to make sure that this business is scalable. So today, as you see, we have about nine staff members and we work with, I mean, I only started with small business owners and helping them become either medium-sized businesses or just honing on their, their service and their product and making sure that it's getting delivered to everyone else. And then basically now, we just help medium-sized businesses. So that's the story. It's an interesting story. Is it like you're very much a self-learner because you don't have any, you know, something I find interesting, a lot of successful entrepreneurs or the ones that have the highest rate of success are the ones that work in an industry for 10, 15, 20 years and then they build out a product in an industry where they know there's a problem. That is not your story at all. By any means, you didn't do that. So like, how do you, how do you self-motivate, how do you self-drive, how do you know what works, what doesn't, is it just, you understood social and you basically just understood there was a need, like is there, what, how do you build out a social media agency from nothing, I guess, is my question? Yeah, it's quite funny because I get that question a lot and I say, I think it was just through trial and error. I tell people that people get lucky and at the same time, you have to create your own luck. And what I do is I just started to talk to you, a lot of people in this industry. I think I know there's one that I look up to, a mentor that we've been pretty close which can be, he's very polarizing, Ty Lopez, I was one of his first few students again to his social media course, and for that reason we have that connection and he has really helped me craft my skills as a, as a son and we work personally and that really helped me own and what I really need to do to take my business to the next level. And that also crafted in a way where I knew what would work in this industry and what wouldn't and really avoid a lot of mistakes that I knew I would have made if I didn't have those mentors. And there was a bunch of them, Billie Jean is another one that really helped me understand my skills and use those skills to further help business owners. And so that makes sense, you align with mentors, you learn from people that have done it before, you fill the need, but how do you turn that into an award-winning company, right? Because when did you start this? You were like 2014, what, 2015? Yeah, 2015, yep. So three years later, you're winning Canada Business Awards, it's very impressive, what's a strategy to build out an agency so that it's an award-winning agency and not just an agency? Great question. So I think one of the great, the first things I did was I identified what my weaknesses were and I knew that I needed to either hire people or fill those roles in immediately to make sure that we're sustainable. So I knew that sales being around people and everything around that space was what I'd love to do. The backend, sitting on the computer and making sure everything gets done in the backend, that was something I lacked. I mean, I can do it by just not, I did not enjoy what I was doing in no spaces. So I need to make sure. And luckily, a year and a half after I created it, a great friend of mine was also in the same university, but also graduate and engineering didn't want to do anything with it. But he was great with the backend stuff. So I said, hey, let's team up and see what we can do with it. So we partnered up to this day, he is the anchor that holds this agency. I say that because he manages the people, he makes sure you can get done while I'm more of the visionary and get the doors open for us to meet new clients and make sure that we're progressing or progressing to grow bigger and he owns it down. So I think that was the first thing was to identify my weakness and make sure that I filled them and also being okay with having a partner. You're not alone in this and making sure that you're able to do that and finding the right partner. And we also got a business coach, but really helped us because during our first meeting key, literally made us do a personality test individually and shared the results with us and we were polar opposites. And that's what we do. We were in sync. I know, again, partnership is a hot topic of people. I go one side or the other, I'm a huge pro for partnership is helped ours, our business leverage it a lot much better than I could have done alone. So for that reason, creative partner, then at the same time, identified what roles we've really needed to make sure that we're able to scale it business. So maybe we need to add support people, we need to have copywriters, we need to have content creators, social media managers, and slowly, once we were able to understand what those roles are, we're able to create that within our agency and make sure that those roles are filled in and we're working with the clients, one on one. And I think that something else that you've, I don't know if you've done it consciously or subconsciously, is just focus on your own brand as an entrepreneur building out top 40 under 40, that's not something that everybody gets either, like I mentioned, the awards, not everybody wins those awards. So you're building out the brand of the agency. You're almost doing what you're doing for clients for your own company. So I think that it's funny because I see a lot of individuals that want to build up their brand, I see a lot of multi-million, bordering on billion dollar companies who can't market themselves, the way that people consume content. And I would love to know your thoughts on what problems companies have, it still blows my mind. So not to diminish an agency, but it blows my mind that a multi-million dollar company can't figure this shit out on their own. And like, why do they have to hire an agency to get their marketing right? But I see Fortune 1,000, Fortune 500 brands that just totally miss the market. And I don't understand why. And I'm curious if you have any ideas as to why people just can't get it right when you're at that level. I think we do. I think we see it every day is the marketing, I guess, world has changed where before it goes all those sales sales sales. And now it's about authenticity, at the end of the day, it's how a brand can get into those customers' doors and be authentic with them, be real, be honest. Because at the end of the day, people buy things off of how they make them feel, right? So if it's a product or service, at the end of the day, it's how you make them feel. And most of these brands are so used to that old corporate structure of marketing that they forget that their customers are the right. They are number one. And if you can't focus on them, then you're not going to scale and your brand is not going to grow. And that's why you see all these small businesses having a huge club today is because they're able to be more authentic with their customers because they can deal on that one-on-one relationship with them using their content, whether they're doing paid ads or on the content site, they're able to be authentic and be real with them and share that story with them. Where all these big corporations, they have forgotten the sense of their brand or what their story that they're trying to tell. And that confuses consumers because they can easily go to a small business that they understand and feel great with and purchase their products or service. I think that you mentioned something. They lose sight of what their story is, like what their origin story is. And over years, that's why you see like the celebrity CEO or the evangelist having more social clout and more social power than the brand itself. Because that's authentic. That's a person. You can build that relationship with the person, right? How do you, so how do you work with clients, like what, say I contact you, I want to build my business. I want to, well, first of all, like I want to even understand the value out of an agency. I'm saying, like listen, I can go hire people internally, why would I hire you? So what's your, what's your playbook for success for, you know, some of the people you work with? Yeah. So honestly, we have the six point sales technique that we use to, I guess, bring a prospective client to become a client. And one of those ways is where, again, we're super honest with them where we introduce ourselves, we'll do a discovery call or something, so we identify their problems, what they're having, right? So, oh, I need more sales. So, or I need more revenue, I need this and this, whatever their problems are, we identify it right away. And then what we do is we ask them, hey, give us a few days to come back with a solution. And what we do is we'll basically do a fall off of their whole marketing or their online space, what they're doing, what they're missing out and try to align their problems that they're having with problems that they're doing or mistakes that they're doing on their online space. That is affecting them. And we give them this free resource with recommendations of how they can do better. And we give it to them right away, it doesn't cost them that thing at all. So, we give them so much value in the beginning so that we can gain a little bit of trust with them. And what makes that different is we'll take them up to six months to train someone in house, a marketing person, bring them in, teach them all of this, and then try to push us out where we tell them, hey, this is, this can get started on day one. This how simple it is, we've given them all that value and then we will do a basic proposal of what they have identified, where we tell them exactly what they should expect from us. And within our proposal, we include KPIs of what the metrics they should be looking for when we start their campaigns. And then at the same time, we also tell them that there's no contract with us. We work month to month with you. We believe that this is a partnership, not something we're trying to use or use your money for. And we try to also tell them that this is an education platform for you guys. So every week, we actually create 10 to 15 minute videos where we record our, one of our staff reports, everything that has happened a week before, we tell them the whole process of what we did. So they're always in tune and we're also trying to teach them how much value that we're bringing into them. So at the end of every month, they know that they're not just getting in one piece reports that shows numbers that they can't understand and expect us to continue to get results. So that has helped us really get into doors with all these big clients is because we've been able to give them trust and keep them in the loop. At the same time, not feel like they're trapped into a contract that they can't get out. I think that's a very smart way of doing it. I like that. And I've never heard of an agency doing that, even the video piece is like, it seems like common sense that it's something you should be doing. But because you think if you were an employee and an organization and you had to do a project, what you'd be expected to present, like the results of what you've accomplished, right? So why would it be any different? But I think that the issue with a lot of agencies is that it seems like everybody with a computer says they're a social media expert. So that's the issue, right? It sort of diluted the whole industry. So when it's hard to sort of weave through, and I guess that's where you bring in the value piece right up front to do the audit, you show them what's going on, what's not working, and then that's when they start to build that trust. And what creates like, what is the, I don't know, it's up to you how deep you want to go into your process, but I would love to understand what it, like you must have some sort of boilerplate for like, these are the KPIs that, you know, you should be hitting as an organization. And 2020, what are those marketing KPIs that an organization should care about? Yeah. So right now, if you were to ask me this in January, what have been completely different to what we have today? Right now, if it depends, if they're, if it's a client that wants to spend money on ads, the KPIs are going to be much different for someone who wants to have a content strategy of just putting organic content and pushing out and see what they are. But then the day it's about sharing the value, whether you're doing ads or you're doing organic content, it's how much your content can be shared. Because when it's getting shared, all you're doing is knowing that your, your story of whatever content you've created is leaving an impact on one individual and making them share with their network. That is the most powerful thing that you wouldn't have today. What, even if it was in January, I would say more KPIs are more of your ROI in every dollar you spend right now, even if you don't have that budget to spend on ads, you can also take that time today and create content that is shareable and make sure that people are clicking through and understand what you really are and what you really are there for. Whether it's a product or service, and even for service people who can't administer any of their services out, then because of the quarantine, tell your story, share DIYs of how, how that person or your customer can do that home themselves. That puts so much effort and so much value in your service because they see how much work you put in that once the quarantine is over, yes, well, they're going to be coming back to you and say, hey, I really need your service. I see how much value you put into your service, right? So those are the things that really keep you as a unit to look for, whether you're doing any side of marketing today. Do you find that there's one, because you mentioned like, you know, we work on social, we work on content, the gamut of marketing activities is broad to put it lightly. So is there, do you find there's something that is the specific value add that you bring or maybe like any, any really good agency would bring to the table where companies are totally dropping the ball, like do, do people just not get social, but they really understand content marketing, like what is the thing that you see is like where there is the most room for people to grow and for people to sort of dominate in 2020. Yeah, it's interesting because there's so many platforms are being undervalued and we try to educate our clients with that too, like new platforms like TikTok, there, it's a powerful tool, especially for the organic content site where you don't have the way to have 10,000 followers to put out content and make a go viral, where you can literally create an account and make one video and if it's more, if it's shareable, you are going to go viral and you have a seed right there where you can talk about your brand, whether it's a personal brand or a business, you can talk about it and create content around that which can take you up to two hours a day and that's if you're really editing and going all out, we're on it or you can just pick up your phone and record something and tell your story about your business or your service. There's platforms like Pinterest that have powerful back end where if you're a creative, if you're a business or a service that's all around the creative space where everything is about the artworks and the visuals, you can learn a lot on Pinterest and they're back end where they even have trainings for the ad accounts or how to launch your own ad campaigns and you can create campaigns that are so cheap because no one's using it. And there's platforms like YouTube also, I mean, they've been around for a whole while, but their ad space is so, it's so cheap right now because all these big corporations have left ever since last year and their big scandal there that it's pennies on the dollar that you can be doing on brand awareness or our content awareness about your brand or your service. So, those are things that we, even our clients today or any EU incoming that we tell them, it's like we will help you use these platforms that are underutilized and make sure that you're getting every dollar that's spent properly, not just throwing a Facebook and hoping it works. And is there, is there a formula for that, that viral, that charitable content that, you know, you're saying create stuff that's, it's charitable, it seems to be like easier said than done. Yeah. So, with that, with the content, if you're, we can break it down. So if you are a product, it's explaining their features and how it solves a problem. So most people have problems. So when they watch a video, they watch content, whether it's a picture or not, they identify problems right away. That, fortunately, that's how people are, they identify that problem, but if you don't present the solution in that content or video, they'll leave because they identify, but they won't make any connections. So if you're, if you're a product, identify the problems and future all your solutions in it, and then put that content out there. If you're a service, quite similar, but what you're doing is you're showing them that service and how it solves a problem for them, right? So once you identify that and create that, and you can do microcontents there and there, and again, each platform is going to be different where it's going to be vertical videos. That's going to do that where we can do horizontal, but similar content that goes around. And people are going to share that because you've solved, you've helped us solve a problem that they had with your product, for your service, even if they don't buy, they just, they helped you share it to a network that might buy it there, right? So that's important. And that's if you're not spending any money, but if you're doing it on that side, it's so much easier because you know that that content is going straight to potential customers like you know are going to more likely purchase your product or your service in the near future. And so that makes a ton of sense to me. And I've actually heard this from several, like copyrighted for SEO, like if you want to create a good, if you want to create really good SEO, you're just answering your customer's questions in your blog, right? And that's something that I think I've heard a few times, but to be that subject matter expert to answer the questions on social, it seems so straightforward, but I feel like so much of social is just blasting out your thoughts without any like, you know, consideration for what the person receiving it, if you look at Twitter, it's just like it's like a like a megaphone of people yelling at each other and no one's being considered, not, not no one. But I mean, like the average piece of social content is very like me, like individual centric. So and even for, even for companies, I think, you know, if I pull up somebody's LinkedIn posts, I don't think they're solving a ton of problems. Maybe they put up like a PDF or like a white paper or something like that, but at the end of the day, it's still a lot of like, this is what we're doing. This is what we've done. This is why we're awesome. This is why we're so great. But that's, so it's just like really, you're taking the stuff that people are going to the websites for and you're just finding a way to put it on social. And it seems so, again, it seems very simple. But then another thing that I think, and also, like you're opinion on this would be good, but the, if you put out the content that is answering questions, and I see that, now I want to be, I want to be the person that everyone looks to as that knowledge broker, the person who is incredibly smart and found that answer to the question that, so I'm going to be resharing that. So this is psychological drive for kind of like when I find something funny, like memes are highly shareable, right? You find something funny and you want to share it because you want all your friends to think you're funny too. So I think it's the same, I love your thoughts on that. It is great because I think what especially these micro communities are doing is they're trying to create micro communities within them. And I think all these big corporations are following, like if you were to look at Burger King or Wendy's on Twitter, they're hilarious because they know that if they don't bring some spice or community vibe into their branding, then people are just going to be bored of their organic brands. So they would go with random people, put questions and tag them, they'll answer very funly or just be creative with it. So that creates that whole, oh, we're open, we're open to communication. I think that's a huge thing too, it's not just offering value too much, but also opening up dialogue within these brands. So make sure that they are easily approachable, whether you're a small business or a large corporation, right? So if someone customer is talking to you, I think a lot of bigger brands are catching on and they're doing great job as whether it's a support issue or they just want to know about your product or you're trying to create that influence or community vibe is you just have to be open with your communication with them, right? So it's not just offering your problem a solution, but making sure that it opens up a dialogue where people can talk about those problems and also talk about how the solution helped them change their lives or change their day or made them happy for the day, right? So I think it's great that people are doing that, but it needs to happen a lot more where it's not just you pushing out problems and solutions, but also talking about it and making sure your customers are also talking about it. Yeah, it's a very smart attitude, I think, towards social and you do see some companies like I was talking a lot of shit about these Fortune 500 companies, but some of them do quite well, but not enough. Before the amount of brains and degrees from these Ivy League schools that are behind their marketing teams, they're definitely not doing enough. So I think that that's a lesson you can learn from some of these smaller companies that are just killing it and you see like some of these startups, even before they're ventured back to still bootstrapped, they can blow up on social because they have that access. One thing you mentioned that I thought would be interesting was marketing during a pandemic and marketing during COVID-19. So what's changed from your point of view, from your customers, what you're doing for your customer is messaging, what's going on? I mean, it has made a huge change because before this pandemic was all about how our clients can get into the doors of their customers and get a sale. What if that's due to just organic content or paid ads? Now it's more about how can we all together as a community help each other with your branding, your content, your ads, right? So our messaging and everything has changed to how our clients' product or service can help someone ease their burden from the COVID and how they're stuck at home or lost their job or something, right? So all our copywriting, everything has basically changed in where we make sure that we're also understanding what people are going through so that we're not trying to come off at just still selling a product or selling a service when people probably won't even have the money for and they're probably in debt or stuff like that. So we're trying to educate our clients to make sure that they're aligned with either organizations are helping out and giving back and making sure that we're also being smart and lowering their budget because we know that they're not going to get the same results that they were going to get before and making sure that they're allocating their budgets to different sections of market. So we're encouraging a lot of them now to do focus on content, right? Because this is where this is a time where either your business shut down or you're not even getting any services done. So this is a smart time for you to home down all the content you want to be pushing out whether it's COVID-related or just ran related and making sure that aligns and you're pushing out content because most people now if they're not working or they're just staying at home, guess what? They're plugged to their phones so they're going to be swiping up a timeline and if your content's constantly showing up, you're just pulling that behind their back of their head where when service are open up again and we're able to go back to normal, you're always going to be, they're always going to remember you and probably purchase your product for service. And do you think that there's an extra need to be sensitive right now because of like not just not just changing where the content's going but like the whole messaging, I think I think you actually did touch on this but what have you seen any adverse reactions to people or marketing that's not sensitive? What are your thoughts on what is that going to be something that's going to stick with people long-term or are they going to forget about companies that don't sort of alter their marketing strategy? You think it's going to be like long-term repercussions for people that don't sort of wise up during COVID-19 and whatnot? I can probably say it's a yes and no question because yes, if I mean it depends on how much they're spending or how much attention they're getting, if we're talking about a small business, I don't think it will affect them that much because they're able to switch up and make changes that can go forward where it's a big corporation or a large company then yes, people are going to remember that and they're going to attach the feelings like you made them feel with that whatever campaign it was in the future. Like I know Volkswagen had that one racist video that they had like two months ago and I'm like, first of all, how did I go through how many up and get accepted to be published? At the same time, you're leaving another pain point from all the other stuff that you've done before. Instead of encouraging people to be as a community and come together, you've decided to harm your reputation or your brand, so that is going to take you how many years. I don't even want to think about how many years is going to take them to bounce back and make it so that that video has never appeared. Yeah, well, also Volkswagen has not had a, like, Volkswagen has had a tough time to say the least meant 100% do you think that the landscape of marketing and the way that people consume and buy products is going to change permanently? Yes, and we're seeing it today where all these brick and mortar stores are forced to open up an e-commerce platform. And there's great organizations even here in Toronto that are doing shop here, where they're giving you free resources to go create an e-commerce platform. I think that is a future we've already seen the trend even before COVID and COVID is just helping put more of an awareness that we're always moving to the online space. So businesses now are being forced to do it, but it's also helping them because now they have less amount of costs and expenditures when all your products are waiting for product or service to be booked online, where you can just create a website that's going to cost you free for an app, but even in the future it's going to be super cheap and you can bring your audience, your customers all in one place where you can purchase, learn about you, and endorse your product. That makes a lot of sense. Now before I want to just go back to a couple of questions just about you and what you've sort of done over your career and what you plan to do. In terms of marketing in general, is there anything that you would like is a really hot topic item or just industry thing that you're noticing that we didn't talk about or do we cover a lot of things you're dealing with right now? I mean, yes, we did. I think we covered a lot of things that are happening now, especially with we're telling all our clients even today is just push out content right now. This is the best research you're going to have and you don't have to spend a lot of money on. You already have a base, utilized platforms are nobody's using right now, business are not using right now because it's much cheaper for you to get into today and make sure that you're always pushing for brand awareness and teaching people about your product or service and how it can help their lives because yes, they might not buy it today even if you're running an ad campaign. Most people don't buy after seven times they see your ad, right? So, same thing with content, they're going to see it, they're going to see it, but when they need your service, guess what, you've always been at the top of their mind so they're going to purchase your product or service when they need it. So make sure that you're always pushing out content in those eyes and whether you don't even have those eyes yet, guess what, make sure it's shareable and at that point you're going to get new eyes regardless. And then I actually did have one more marketing question, I just thought of it as you're answering that. How does a company who considers themselves to be very traditional, take advantage of a new and emerging platform like TikTok? Great question. So, basically, all these traditional companies, they already have content, right? So it's not like you're going to have to go out there and create new content. All you have to do is break up the content you already have into a platform that works. So like TikTok, it's all about vertical videos. So if you had videos, long form videos that you had, you can chop it up and push that content out into TikTok. And what I even recommend is, depending on what niche, go search up the hashtags that are going viral in your industry, then make content around that. So even if you're traditional, all you have to do is let's say you're a hair salon or something like that, right? So all you want to do is, you've always had that brick and mortar, you never did anything outside of that, just go on to TikTok, search up a hashtag around hair style and see what's trending. Someone might be curling a hair or something like that and they won't bother all of that or they're teaching a new style. So all you do is create a created content around that hashtag with your type of styling and push out that content, right? So even for traditional, as long as you have a camera, most business owners have a camera, whether you're traditional or not, push out content where you record yourself, create that style, push that and put that hashtag and just let it go. And then see. And then I think that I think half of it is just just starting. That's another thing to be able to have a hard time doing for some reason. Exactly. Because it's changed. And especially for business owners, they're state of change because they're used to how this is operate, right? So and I think this COVID is such a big wake up call because they have no choice. They have to change or their business is going to die. That's a good insight. Now, back to you, back to what you would like to do or how you want to scale your business. Where do you want to take? I don't even think I was so bad. I didn't mention the name of your agency at the beginning. So it's Lyon. So did I, okay, I apologize. I couldn't remember, but I just wanted to say, where are you going to take the Lyon agency? Where do you want to go with it? How are you going to get there? What's your 5, 10, 15 year plan? Not to sound like I'm a teacher. I'm trying to map out your future. But I'm curious where you take an agency after it was kind of created. And it wasn't when you were in university, it wasn't really your game plan. And it's been massively successful to this point. So where do you go now? Good question. So even going into this agency, I knew this was not a long-term thing for me. It was just a space where I can hold on my skills and make sure that I'm able to deliver things that I promise. But I think in probably in a few years, two to three years, I would want to be in a place where this agency can run without me. So trying to find my replacement in this space of my agency so that I can carry out things I really love to do, which is basically that whole youth aspect is, I want to be in a place where I'm able to invest in different youth startups or young people that have amazing ideas. I mean, I'm doing that now in just as a side project, but this is something I'd love to do is because they're burling minds out there. I've been privileged to do pitch pitch competition judges. And I sit in and I'm like, man, at your age, I was probably playing video games and doing stupid things. And you're out here trying to change the world. So those are the things I really want to push forward in the next couple of years. And my 15 year goal, which is something absurd, something I had a dream of being a child was to bring these top level medical clinics in each hemisphere of Africa. And make sure it's a border free resource where anyone around those areas are able to utilize those health clinics and make sure that they're well taken care of. So that's a goal I've been working on since last year trying to get into the doors of investors and try to get into doors of doctors and government officials to see how this can happen, this idea of mine. It's not when I speak to it's not surprising why you're successful because even though you're living a successful business right now, you still have like your goals mapped out, like you still know where you want to head. And that's that's very difficult. Again, it seems so basic if you if you're living it, but if you're doing it, but it's so hard for people to do that. But you like even your 15 year plan, which is incredibly ambitious and obviously an incredible initiative. You're taking steps, you're taking micro steps towards that while running an agency while investing in or I'm not sure if you're investing if you actually have equity in several startups, but at least you're, you know, you're providing guidance and mentorship for some of these startups with the hopes that eventually like, you know, this will be something that you can do more permanently after somebody takes the reins online. So it's like it's like setting up that path for success. So you know where you want to be and I think that that's like if people don't figure that out if they don't even have some like idea of like what their north star metric is in 15 years now what they want their life to look like. It's very difficult for you to get there because you're not taking all those small little steps along the way. Yeah, I mean, it's great because I think what it's it's through a lot of I mean, I read a lot and I think that's where I picked up those pillars like some habits of being a successful person like that's such a great book because it's helping identify that I knew that this agency wasn't my lifetime thing I want to do. So I was like, okay, I'm working back and I always had that dream, but I've always put it aside because I was like, it's too ambitious like I know it scares me and I think I read that code if your dreams hear you then you're on the right path. I was like, you know what, I'm going to see how much I can get achieved starting from today. So I've been privileged to talk to the African Commission's like director see how free passports border or borderless passports can even be viable in that industry there. And then even the borders of doctors are borders talking to the directors there and seeing okay, how can we bring the best of the best to work in these facilities and make sure that they're able to administer their professions there. So putting those things in place, I'm able to map out okay, how many years is that going to take me, who do I have to contact and getting to those networks so that I'm able to open more doors into that space right. So I think networking is a huge thing that I mean, we probably didn't talk about, but I think it's such a huge thing it's not just saying, hey, how are you. Let's connect, but more like okay, how can I help you and how can you help me achieve these things we have and it's again it's being about authentic and I tell them my plan. This is why I want to get done and I really want you to be in the space where we can change Africa for the future and just time on my story it really helps open doors because I feel like they they see the value in that and how much we can change the world if we just come together. Can you, if you don't mind, I would love to know more about what that what what is it you're speaking about planning this out, but what is what is this, what is the project, what, how does this actually play out, I'm really curious in this totally nothing to do with marketing, but I'm just an interesting topic, so what, what is this that you're trying to achieve exactly for Africa. I think for Africa I just I just want every resident every person in Africa to have the best healthcare ever I feel like we've as as a continent itself we've been so diminished because of our health status there. So even there because I live the eight years of my life in there since I was born until the age of eight I've seen it I still remember the times we have not been in the best service there luckily I mean I've been fortunate enough to have a family there that is wealthy enough to have the best care which is private care and going out to countries in the in the Asia space to get their health care not even in the country right so. So that's when that idea came in and then when I come to Canada and see how amazing their health cares I mean it's not the best but seeing their health care here and i'm like oh my god we're missing out like imagine what African Africa can be if everyone was provided the best healthcare possible so what that really looks like is basically having every country come together I know it seems impossible because there's so much tensions between every single country in that continent is making sure that they all come together in a way. In a way where they open their borders to people because not like I can open up a massive health clinic in each country which is nearly impossible but if we're able to have four pillars in those different hematreas where people from different countries can access them with a simple or a free. Or perhaps what I don't know what that would look like to just get that health care they need and they can return to their country that is basically my angle there and to make sure that the governments and investors pay for that service instead of the people that are actually using that service. And and how do you actually and this is obviously you know a loaded question but how do you actually get that done because there are so many personalities and governments and ideologies in different parts of Africa well the world but not exclusively Africa but like how do you get that alignment is there there's only a thought through that's I just find it a very interesting concept i've never heard of anything like that and it's almost like a like a global global health care at a. Global like cross cross border health care system exactly so how do you get that is also there's pillars like Africa commission which is basically there are United Nations basically replica of Africa so every nation comes together have those meetings talk about what they need to get done so that's one pillar there going into the those commissions there and addressing this issue and seeing what people are. They're afraid of or what they don't want to happen and getting those resources together and making sure that we're able to build a plan around their. They're nice and saying okay we need to do this or we can't have this because this border doesn't work for stuff like that so how we can make a work identify their problems and try to find solution to them so I think they has a marketing we identify what problems that they have with the idea and try to address it with them then getting involved with WHO World Health Organization see how we can tap into their networks and help get funding so whether it's from these first world countries. Or anyone that private investors are not trying to get that in there and see how we can develop that kind of plan where each country agrees to having that so I mean most of it will come down to the country's hosting those those clinics I mean they have to take on the burden because again it's an open border where they come in that service. And then they have to be back so how we coordinate that is the biggest issue there I think that they're going to have problems with so we're addressing that saying okay how can you have a delivery system where they can just cross the border go straight to clinic and go straight back into their country without being able to do anything else so that is that all I know issue that a lot of people have brought up is like okay the security issue is that biggest problem so how we can create that transportation system is going to be the biggest issue there. Very interesting very very interesting initiative I wish you a lot a ton of luck with that is that sort of is that sort of progresses because I always find like you know like it's so nice to see when when somebody who has some measure of success can then obviously improve outside of their own life and and really on a global scale because of course there's so many initiatives like in Canada that people need support with but also I think that. It takes a little bit of extra effort to go a overseas to go into a region and not just not just poor money not poor poor is a wrong word give money give money into something that is a worthy cause but you're like almost like building infrastructure from the ground up in a place it doesn't have the infrastructure there's no there's no you know cross border medicine group in Africa that you're just going to give them 50 million dollars and say that's that's it you know that's it it's like you're building this from the ground up so it's it. It's an entrepreneurial venture while being also like very altruistic and and yeah it's a very nice thing very well good luck that's going to be difficult I can see how they're going to some issues but yeah very interesting stuff again if it's not worth having then it's not worth fighting for right so yeah ready for it so we'll see where it takes me exactly yeah no that's all listen you have the you have the plan that's all the matters and you're and you're ambitious and that's that's the second half if you if you're ambitious about something it's in. Incredible with you know what you can actually do that's that is a that is a life lesson like you know you never you never thought that you could build out a marketing agency when you hadn't started it yet but if you if you literally just put everything you have into it like you said if it doesn't scare you right then it's it's not worth the it's the going after I like to ask I like to ask two questions it started like T up just like your experience one of them being and you've kind of already given a ton of these so you know it's a little bit more. We're done but you're smart eyes so you'll think of something else just like one life lesson that you would tell your younger self that can be you know agnostic of industry that would help you get to where you are a little bit quicker. Great question I think I would talk about finding the right mentors and just shutting up and listening I feel like in the world where today we all like to talk and we don't like to listen and when I say listen listen to understand because these people have been through it and I can honestly say that even in my younger age I just listen to listen do not understand what they meant by it and I made the same the things that they told me to avoid right so that is that is such a great aspect that I still tell everyone I still listen do that to myself where I will sit down with someone I don't care where they're from or if they're below me or above me I'll be like I'll shut up and listen to your story values and what you're able to take out of it and see how I can use that right so I think I find the right mentors and listening to understands a huge thing I would have told my younger self for sure very good very good lessons resources like a book a podcast an audible something that you that you enjoy that would be good for other people to pick up. Great great question would be start start with why I think especially if you're an entrepreneur even just someone that's lost in a career path or just in the industry I think such a great book because it helps you identify your pillars of what you really want to accomplish in your life and that really helped me hone in my my lifetime plan what I really want to get done today and what I want to be doing for a rest of my life so that's such a great book that I enjoy any podcasts such as yourself that is pushing out content that that has value from people is amazing I mean every car ride I know we can do now but every car ride I would be like the last thing podcast from everyone right so because I think on the day it's everyone has something to teach I don't care if you have one one listener or a million listeners you have something of value and I'd rather listen to that then listen to music where I mean again music is also another I've used to learn from but at the same time podcasts are huge resources for that so any podcast honestly that are pushing out business knowledge or self-knowledge a huge huge proponent of that what else I love documentaries so I think that's a great way to also learn so I mean Netflix is a power storm of documents you can start watching I know most people don't like it but it's if you really listen and understand what those documents are trying to teach you they can they can be a lot of value there too very good and and 100% agree I actually love watching documentaries I don't like watching like like just like TV for watching TV but I do like watching I nerd out at some of the stuff too and and last but certainly not least most important where do people find you get in touch with you if they want to contact you they want to go check it out line they want to go check out anything you're working on what's the best place I'm I'm pretty social so you can find me on LinkedIn just searching my name if you put in any I'll probably show up there not a lot of people have that name I'm out there I know my actual name is Hanok but I haven't heard that ever it's just yeah I just go with the heady same with Instagram if it's heady and power so if you like to DM me there I will perfectly respond to that that's all for today thanks again for joining me on another episode of the success story podcast you can download or stream this podcast wherever podcasts are available including iTunes Spotify Google Stitcher iHeartRadio and many others you can also watch this podcast on YouTube if you haven't already please subscribe and share this podcast with your friends family co-workers and peers please leave us a rating on iTunes it takes about 30 seconds As it allows other people to find our podcast and let's our amazing guests reach even more people with their message And remember any rating is fine as long as it contains five stars. I'm Scott Clary from the success story podcast signing off oh