#42 - Brent Barootes – President & CEO, Partnership Group

what the listeners don't know is how close we were to me removing you from the list because of the lunch debacle pre-holidays in Toronto you came I'm not gonna I'm not gonna elaborate Okay, I'm so you're not good. That's cool. I understand that you don't want to mention that you stood me up the first time and and therefore Okay, yeah, okay, so I needed I should have brought my lawyer to this said Hey Hey folks Gavin Roth here with another episode of the influencers of sponsorship marketing Sponsored by the program You're guided to finding and watching women's sports online and on television Subscribe to the weekly newsletter at the program dot substack dot com if you want to get Brent Perrude he's going ask his opinion on Toronto being the quote unquote center of the universe and ask him to talk sponsorship marketing Brent is an author a sought-after speaker and one of the top sponsorship thought leaders in the country We've been threatening to do an episode together for a while and the stars finally aligned We discuss his cross-country career journey including stints in the hospitality sector salmon farms nightclubs and radio stations Pretty shady if you ask me We focus on his time selling sponsorships on the Calgary Flames radio broadcasts where he helped charities and other groups promote their brands During that time Brent noticed a gap in the market and started the partnership group Brent mentions the people that inspired him along the way Including a cool story about one early adversary who became a mentor and a friend Insights into some of the partnerships Brent has been involved with With a focus on municipality naming rights success stories in small towns like Somerside PEI and Moranville, Alberta Brent shines a light on the new jumpstart partnership with Clearview Rec Center in Edmonton He then shares insights into sponsorship marketing trends including the rise of purpose-driven partnerships The way brands and properties band together in times of economic uncertainty And the intersection between technology and data And an example of how technology and data can be applied to help charities like Crohn's and Colitis and the MS Society Fundrays and target partners We wrap with awesome professional development advice and his answers started with a question a deep philosophical question You'll leave informed and inspired. I hope you enjoy And for more episodes of the influencers of sponsorship marketing Follow me on LinkedIn visit Apple Podcasts Spotify SoundCloud or check out RothRevenue.com Been looking forward to this chat. You've done so much in the space You're such an influential figure that it's it's been a natural to To target you for this so so yeah, listen. I'd love to just get you to start by talking about How do you got into sponsorship marketing how you got into doing what you do Tell us the journey So I was born at a very early age I was As born in a hospital because I wanted to be close to my mother at the time Do you want me to go that far back or not not quite okay not quite Okay So I came out a University and I chose that the last thing in the world I ever wanted to do was be a sales guy I went to Western Everybody interviewed with London life in those days because it was based in London Ontario and you interviewed with general mills and all the other companies And I decided that wasn't for me. I didn't want to be a sales guy And I ended up working for a chain of restaurants called chichis mexican restaurants American company Operating here in Canada and I got a full-time management job So all my peers were going into sales wrap and account manager jobs And I had a management jobs. I was the assistant kitchen manager To chichis mexican restaurants. I am smiling right now because you are the only person I've talked to that also work to chichis. I was a waiter at chichis in universe feels indifferent. Yes So what years were you there? Oh my god, so I would have been there When I was like 2018-19 so like 35 years ago. So are we talking like 83-84 84 to do the math Maybe a little bit after that. Yeah, okay. I was long gone by then. I was at Steels and Dufferin 83 84 and then opened up Scarborough the second one on Markham Road and then opened up the downtown ones and Queen's Way I remember is the training we had to go through to be a waiter was incredible because it's In the menu was so complex Yeah, it was a great experience. I got into the restaurant business. I was an assistant kitchen manager and then I ended up Leaving chichis to go work for this new company that was coming into Canada called Red Lobster So I moved to the thriving metropolis a Windsor And where we had one store in Canada at the time and when I left Red Lobster Three years later. So or four years later. We had 41 stores in Canada. We had opened or sorry 46 We had opened up 41 on in a period of eight months And it was a huge read bought-up ponderosa. So I had this hospitality industry background I had worked I was running kitchens. I was running bars. I was running, you know, within chichis or Red Lobster Opening opening these these multi-million dollar properties And having staffs of up to like you when you were at chichis you'd know there was like kitchen staff alone was a hundred and serving staff was You know on the on the roster was probably about 80. So there was a there was a ton of staff And so I then left the GTA and I had opened up restaurants in for Red Lobster and Ottawa as well But I ended up going to Atlantic Canada and I worked for a guy that owned night clubs radio stations salmon farms and all bunch of real estate and This was a night club in downtown Fredrickton called the club cosmopolitan. This would have been the late 80s And I moved there. I ran the night club in ultimately in Fredrickton and and Monkton for this guy and they acquired The the they didn't but the the Montreal Canadians moved their farm team from Sherbrook To Fredrickton. So the Fredrickton Canadians came into into Fredrickton and this guy Jim Ross Jim Ross's radio station cage J the country station became the Broadcaster or the had the rights the broadcast rights for the Fredrickton Canadians And just prior to that he had come to me and said these kids aren't drinking like We used to drink when we were in university. They're coming into my night club and they're drinking water and dancing We need to you know make more revenues So I looked at the building what can we do to make revenue other than cell booze And there were two things that we could do and one was we took the dance club Very enclosed it down Monday to Wednesday or Sunday to Wednesday and made a trade show space And then because this building held this city of 45,000 people this building held 1500 people It was you know The largest experience in basically in Atlanta, Canada and so We still had lots of space to serve people booze and play pool and all that type of stuff in the rest of the building We just closed this one part of the building down and made a trade show space the rest of the building we started So in sponsorships We started putting up naming hallways. We had Trojan sampling condoms in line on Thursday Friday Saturday that DJ was saying hey if you're going home tonight Make sure you call Joe's taxi service or whatever So I was I built this revenue channel within the night club uh around sponsorship and advertising So when Jim's radio station acquired the rights the broadcast rights he came to me and said we need you to build a bunch of packages For our sales guys at the radio station to sell in the broadcast. So I that was my first for a truly into the sports marketing side And from there I got picked up by a company company called Ruralco Communications, based out of Calgary that owned stations in Calgary and Throxeskatchwood and Regina Saskatoon, Prince Albert, and ultimately those in your the center of the universe in Toronto would know them for the launch of KISS FM in the late '90s. I didn't know, actually I didn't know they had radio stations in Western Canada, that's that's great insight. - What was, I thought they were only in Toronto, but yeah. - Yeah, don't know, they did get it. - Learning so much, I'm learning so much. - But you know what, in Western Canada, they're getting the first showings to leave it to be for now. So, you know, we're pretty lucky out here. So. - Yeah, area, area. - Okay, so don't go there, you're saying. So the Ruralco radio ultimately, they also owned stations for your listeners in the Ottawa area, they owned Magic and what's now Teams 580 or whatever for the, it was OSR, Ottawa Sports Radio Station at one point and it was called the team. And so the end result was that these guys hired me to come to Calgary, they had the broadcast rights for the flames, they had just acquired them. And they offered me a job and I came out there and thought, never been to Calgary and this is kind of cool. And so I moved from Frederickton via Kitchener to I take the stint and doing some teaching in Kitchener and then I went out to Calgary to take this new role in the sports marketing opportunity and it was selling sponsorships inside the broadcast for the Calgary Flames radio broadcasts. We worked close in hand with the flames, it was a true partnership type scenario. We sold the Rinkboards, they brought their clients to us to sell radio broadcasts to, it was long before the days, this was the '90s, it was long before the TSNs and the sports nets, you know, the flames might have two NHL hockey games broadcast in hockey night in Canada back in those days because everything was Montreal and Toronto and Vancouver and, you know, regionally maybe three games. So there would only be like five televised games back in those days. So radio was pretty important. So we, so that was my, the start really on that side, I did that for about a decade. They shipped me to Ottawa when Rollcoe acquired the rights of the Senator's broadcast and, and then those, then that got bought up by what's now Bell Media and the stations in Calgary were bought by Rogers, your former employer. And I, I was hired back to come all the way back a guy named, that some of your listeners might remember Rogers, a guy named Gary Miles, who was basically two IC to Tony Viner and Ted Rogers on the, on the media side. And Gary hired me to come back to Calgary to help them with the radio broadcast 'cause when Rogers bought it, they weren't happy with the people that were selling the flames broadcast and that sort of stuff. So I was, I was lucky enough to be offered a good opportunity to come back to Calgary. And I did that for another couple of years. And then in 2001, I found that there was a niche in the marketplace that there, we were working selling pro sports programs, but a lot of what we were selling because we were in the oil and gas sector of Canada. Those big oil and gas companies with big budgets, they weren't looking for retail messaging. They weren't saying, hey, come and, come and buy an exploration package from us, right? Or a drilling package. They were looking for more community impact and sponsorship afforded. - So probably, you know, the back in those days, like the late '90s is selling maybe a million dollars a year, it was, it was most, probably 50% of it was that type of community investment type and sponsorships. And so I had a lot of experience at that time with the not-for-profits and the charities and marrying a Gulf Canada or a solid state geophysical or in Canada or these other companies to integrate them with charities, not-for-profits, tie it into the flames broadcast and such. And they were paying a couple hundred thousand dollars a year for these types of programs, just in radio and then their flames component. So I found that there was a niche in the marketplace that wasn't being served. And that was really helping those companies to understand how to get better ROI when they were buying. But also on the other side, truly, the larger portion of our business always has been and always will be those properties that are selling sponsorship. And in our case, it was amateur sport, not-for-profits, charities, members, associations, helping them to figure out what they had to sell 'cause they had no idea. Hey, we're gonna sell you a banner. It isn't gonna do anybody any good. We'll put a logo on the website. We won't do anybody any good. But we, so we went after that niche and to help those organizations that really had lots to sell, but just didn't know what they had or what it was worth. And that was-- - This is the start of the start of partnership group. What was it called when you started it? - When we launched it, it was just called the partnership group and there was a reason for that. We couldn't trademark and we couldn't incorporate the name partnership group. So the corporation that owns this is called the Barudy's Partnership Group Inc. But I didn't want my name in the company business. So our operating name was partnership group and it's interesting you asked because when we launched as a company in September 2001, we were a full service at agency. We weren't just a sponsorship 'cause I knew I couldn't make a living doing the sponsorship gig 'cause nobody really, the only other people in Canada, there wasn't anybody really in Canada doing it other than momentum and Y&R had a sponsorship division but they're the big agencies, right? They're really the only specialists in the country back in 2001 or in North America. The big guys were IEG out of Chicago. So we were like a mini IEG or that's where we wanted to get. - Would you say, would you say IMG was, was. - No, 'cause IMG back then was still really more of an athlete representation company before they bought up inventory and took over all the Wimbleton inventory and the, and the, and the, and that type of stuff. - Yeah, you were a tonership, yeah. - Yeah, they were just getting to there. I mean, I think you were at IMG, weren't you? - No, no. - Some of your guests have been so. - Yeah, correct. - So they were more of a full, so you were a full service agency. - So we could make a living and a little bit of advice for anybody if you're gonna start a company or a business, make sure you have clients first. We failed to do that. - Well, that's what I was gonna ask next, like who were your first, yeah, good little detail there to consider, who was, who were your first company kind of core clients? - So to start with, when partnership group was created, we, our clients were mostly full service at agency type clients. We were doing work for furniture company called Alberta Furniture. We were doing work for the group of franchisees in Calgary for the second cops. We were doing work for lazy boy furniture galleries in Alberta. So that was media buying creative, but also moving them into sponsorship. We were also, I, when I left Rogers to start the company, I also knew that a large portion of our business would be not for profits and charities, and I had never been in that business before. So I ran partnership group off the side of my desk and I worked full time for the Canadian, what was, this now part of Canadian Cancer Society, but at the time was the Canadian Breast Cancer Foundation. I went in as a development officer and then within a few months moved up to director of development. And then we secured really partnership group security our first real sponsorship client of substance in 2003. So that was two years in. And that was the host society for the 2005 Canada Games in Regina. And we were engaged to do a few things. Number one was to build out the sponsorship program, do all the inventory asset identification, all the valuations, do training, do help them do the sales, all that type of stuff. It was in conjunction with the University of Regina and their capital campaign. So we had a good intermingling. So at that point on taking on that contract, I left my full time job at Canadian Breast Cancer Foundation. They then became a client and we serviced them from dots. side. And that was really the stepping stone to the growth that we had after that. By 2006 and 2007, we had, you know, probably about 2005 to 2007, we probably had four, five key clients and operating, and then it's grown from there by 2006, we started taking on additional staff by 2008, we had a team of 10 or so operating from there. Good stuff. And do you speaking of that, like, you know, you say core group of five or six, have you ever found there's a sweet spot of number of active clients, you know, I think about that a lot with my business, but I don't, you know, I purposely kept it, you know, to know full time staff just working with my network of associates to scale up. So for me, you know, six or seven at any given point is probably my sweet spot. How do you look at that? So when it's interesting, I'm going to backtrack a little, when I started the company, I mean, I had worked in radio, I had worked in the restaurant business, two industries that nobody's going to help you with a, with a retirement plan. And so my retirement plan was to start this company, and ultimately to sell it off, and that was, and I, I designed the company into several components, so that I could sell off it as a whole or, you know, our conference sector or I could sell off our training component or our sponsorship inventory and valuation component on the brand side or on the, on the other side on the product. On the other side on the property side, so it was segmented, it could be sold in whole or in parts, the whole concept, lots of great thought and planning that went into that to which we, we then grew and when I grew, I mean, my objective was to make the company big enough to be able to make it somebody want to buy it. We did the same as you up until about 2008, probably everybody was contractors. So we'd scale up, we'd scale down those sorts of things, we had reached a threshold and hired some financial consultants come in and look at the business and help us with understanding how to make margins better that sort of stuff. You know, we were paying some great consultants, good dollars, and it actually turned out that for the, you know, eight consultants or six consultants that we had that we're doing consulting work for us. They accounted to basically 1.5 full time employees and those, the payroll on that was about almost a half a million dollars. And so we're kind of going, we could hire two full time employees for probably 175,000 dollars that are really qualified and good. We were talking, you know, 2008, 2010 here, somewhere in there. And so, you know, you could pay one of them 100,000 and one of them 75,000 and you'd have more capacity than you need. And then you hit the 2008 recession and boom, we had just shifted into that it was so we, we then downsized from there to go back to the system that we originally had, which you presently use and we can still, we do that to this day. So we're able to scale up, but I can tell you that pre COVID, there probably was a number, how many people and how many clients you want. COVID through a wrench and not a good wrench for us. The core of our business has always been doing inventory some valuations and that's project work. You hire us, we come in, we identify all the assets, we tell you what they're worth, we build your strategy, we do some training and we push you out and let you go do it on your own. The core of our businesses that you hire us so you never have to hire consultants again is our philosophy. People tell us that that's probably not a great, probably not a great business plan. The fact that there's 85,000 not for profits and charities in Canada. I don't think I'm going to run out, I'm not going to run out of business. So you know what, and you do a great job and there's always something else that they'll turn to you to do. Yeah, so that philosophy put them out the door, which means that, you know, they're going to be successful on their own, and we're constantly looking for new business. So what I wanted to do with though was that those inventory asset valuations came pretty much to a halt. I think in March 2020, we had six of them on slate to start between April and September. Well, they're all big contracts are all, you know, $100,000 or whatever. So you start to look at that stuff all of a sudden that they were all gone and our consulting business grew immensely. All we were doing was providing advice. And in that business has been retained and as COVID is going away, our inventory asset valuation business has grown right back to where it was. It's exceeded the 2019 numbers this year will exceed the 2019 numbers. We put consulting on top of that. So we have a lot of active clients that we wouldn't have had before. So, you know, where somebody's paying us, you know, our hourly rate or on a retainer for a couple thousand dollars a month for five thousand dollars a month. And we might have 10 or 12 of those plus our other work, right? Yeah, good. So that that world has changed dramatically our number of clients that where we have that I would call active is probably triple what it would have been in 2019, even though that the revenues aren't necessarily triple. I see that like there's what what happened is properties, you know, unless they're the, you know, the 15, 20 kind of top tier properties that have big teams, everybody else, many of them lost staff had to eliminate staff, staff went and said, I'm going to do something different with my life. And that's as they're coming out of it, they're turning to people like you, me to help them figure out what to do, how to grow, how to get back to sustainable levels of revenue. I think it is a good time to be doing what you're doing. And so, you know, talk about will we'll touch on some of the work you do shortly, but, but just along that journey, who, who are some of the people that inspired or continue to inspire or just helped you kind of, you know, be get to levels you are. That's a great question. And I am, I always like listening to your podcasts and listening to your guests, tell those mentors along the way and, and so many of them had official mentorships, but a lot of them didn't have official mentorships and I fit in that category. And that's why I try to put so much back into the mentoring, the official mentoring programs like the SMCC program, the active eight program and others, but when I look back, we talked about chichis and this guy may have still been there when you were there. General manager of chichis that I worked for and hired me was a guy named Hans Bosman. And he was, he was a bit of a tyrant, but he was a, he ran a tight ship and I remember saying to him one day that, hey, you know what, I talked to the other stores, I talked to the other, you know, assistant managers, they say that you're pretty lucky you've got the best story you never have any problems. Whereas the other stores are always I always hear the chaos going on in the other stores, he just looked at me and said, you're an idiot. The reason this store does so well and looks that way is because I manage it. And I kind of looked at and said, yeah, what does that mean? And he said to, and this I've never forgotten this. He said, the art of management is to figure out what could possibly go wrong and fix it before it happens. I don't wait until I have no staff to start hiring. I don't wait to place an order for more food when we run out. I anticipate those problems. It's an accident before they happen and every other general manager in the system says that I got the easiest store in the world to run. It's not that it's just that they don't actually manage for the future. They manage panic manage and try to put out fires. Yeah, so I've kept that philosophy that management is anticipating what can go wrong and fixing it before it happens so that nobody ever knows that there was a problem or could have been a problem. And I tried to integrate that obviously through my years in the hospitality industry. industry, but also in our industry, in the sponsorship industry as well. So, so probably he'd be one there'd be, when I work for Raulco, of course, the owner of Raulco radio, a gourd Rollinson would have been a mentor, just watching his success and he would always spend time with me and my direct bosses, a guy named Don Armstrong and another guy named Mark Olson, who really at Calgary Flames radio took me under the wing and especially another guy took me under the wing, a guy named Steve Hinds and here's kind of an interesting story, he's retired now, but he had worked for Raulco, then he worked for Rogers when they acquired it, then he went over to Corus and then he came back to Rogers and then he went back to Corus and he retired from Corus about a year ago. But when I was hired, I was hired by Don Armstrong and Mark Olson and my dad did no gourd Rollinson and my dad had known gourd's dad and that type of stuff. So, I arrived May 20 or 1991 or 92, something like that. And this guy Steve Hinds is the sales manager for the Raulco. And Steve Hinds is the sales manager for the radio station 66 CFR and he's like, I can just tell, it doesn't like me from day one, right? And finally it's a Friday afternoon. I'm seeing a theme, Hans, you're an idiot. Steve doesn't like this, this is interesting. So Steve pulls me into his office on on a Friday afternoon about four o'clock and he says, listen, I've had just about enough, I need you to know, I don't like you. The only reason you have a damn job here is because your dad knows gourd Rollinson and you know nothing about goddamn radio, you've never been in the industry. You don't know what you're doing, I'll give you all the support you need, but I expect you to be gone within four or five months, you won't last. And I just started looking at it. Thank you very much, great, good to know. Yeah, thank you for the challenge and, and then I went out of the room and I was there for a decade, right? And he was there for much longer and he became a very close friend and a mentor for me. And at one point, when he was with chorus, not him, but one of his bosses hired us to come in and train the chorus staff and Edmonton and Calgary because they had broadcast rights for pro sports teams, tempeters and, and oilers and, and what's now the elks. And we did the trainings program on how to manage your time, what's the difference between selling radio versus selling radio sports broadcasts, all that stuff. And of course, these in that training, but as a senior manager type thing, and I start out with that story and you can see his face dropping, right? And he's going, not telling that effing story and I said, oh, yeah, I am. And it was great though. It was, but he would, he would have been a great mentor to me, and probably two other people that I really think of that were strong mentors specifically in the activation side and the client side are a guy named Keith McIntyre. Yeah, he ran Keith McIntyre. Yeah, he ran Kay Mc. I was working for Flane's broadcast. We had brought pure later in lady named Carol Solomon was running pure later is marketing at the time, then went on over to AT&T Canada. But, you know, we, this was the start of this, you know, the pure later is involvement in pro sports. And this was myself and John Videlin from the flames, who's now, you know, the chief chief revenue officer for the Miami heat. He had done the naming rights back a few years ago for the 49ers with the Levi Stadium. And so it was John Videlin myself representing the flames and the flames broadcast. We did this deal with pure later with Carol Solomon. She brought in Keith McIntyre because we were driving an event, a massive event that was going to be it was all promoting pure later's retail locations because it was just the launch of these locations. Keith was amazing to work with and I learned so much from him and that on that account to setting up these activations and everything else and the other person who ultimately went on to, you know, she she worked, she worked out of an office. But the Mark Harrison was in the shared office space at what would have been probably 28 blue or blue or street east, which is now a subway station. But picture, I could picture across across. Yeah, yeah, exactly. So her name was Ingrid Rubin, an amazing, an amazing lady in our sector and God bless her soul. She's passed away, but she, you know, she worked closely with Carol and with Keith and and then myself and we stay in touch. I would say Ingrid and Keith were two other people that and she ended up working for T1 in her in her final years and was a great Ingrid was she was a great asset to this community. But those would be the other two that really at that start were able to get me really understanding this this sector. And then later on, probably the biggest influence for me was a guy who was with Scotia bank. He first met him sitting on the adjudicating committee for the SMC award. So the SMAs. And it was interesting. His name was Jim Tobin. So he was the architect, basically a my mind, Scotia bank pro sports involvement. He did the deals with, you know, the naming rights and Calgary and stuff like that and set up the architecture for where they needed to go. For others to come in and take it to that next level and the success it has become. And but Jim, I'll never forget meeting him at those SMCC awards those days, we would meet at the ACA's offices in the boardroom and sit down around a table. He had all had the copies of the submissions. And I ride my flight ride the little late and I got in and I ended up sitting next to this guy and know who he was. Because I wasn't in the Toronto network. I was from out west, right. So I sat next to this guy and arguing over stuff like I don't agree with you on that and finally found out Jim Jim and an opinion. Yeah, actually, so me having an opinion, right. And so, and we became great friends out of that. And I learned so much from Jim over those last years that he was working. But I still continue to do I had lunch with him last or breakfast with him and Dana actually when I was last in last in Toronto before before our ill faded lunch. I think I did buy their breakfast. Don't worry. It's funny, you know, with with that, it would have been 2005-ish. I was at the CFL, getting a partnerships sales and and and developed that partnership with Scotiabank around the CFL. It was with Jim's boss at the time, Rick White. And but then Jim took over and really helped grow that partnership and and a big part of it was working with the regional VPs at Scoti in the west. They were influential in in pushing that deal across the line. So George and those guys, right. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I'd have to pull up some names, but George there was a George that was definitely a lady involved in the regional VPs just saw the value of the CFL in their communities. And Jim Jim and I had many trips out to west finals and great cups and and became such a driving force of that partnership. So good to hear his name come up. Yeah. So, so I would probably be when I look back and I know that's a long list, but I'm thinking about it. I've been in this friggin industry for almost 35 years. Probably longer than some of the listeners that of your podcast that have even been alive, but. No, no, that's great and I love shining a light on as you say just just paying it back right and talking about we don't it takes a village right we don't all get to where we are without inspiration and support so great, great stories. Talk about let's shift to partnerships that your particular you've been involved in that that stand out, you know, that you're proud of. Well, I go back to that one with pure later and I think about that that was really, you know, probably my first real true sponsorship from that perspective. I mean, you know, we had sold other stuff, but this was, this is where, you know, this was the big leagues. This was pure later investing a lot of money. And activations, we, we brought them, we brought them in. We had a morning skate whereby that, you know, they could bring in key clients. Then from there, we, you know, we had a game night, we created something called the pure later power play and penalty killer. We had Al McKinnis and Gary Roberts, who were on the power play to be their spokespeople. Ultimately, we got done, I know this probably isn't the right person to mention anymore, but we brought Don Cherry in and he became pure later spokesperson for several years. And then they took that program that we that, you know, between Keith and Ingrid and Carol and myself and John Videlin, they took that and they, they duplicated it in Toronto and Ottawa and took it to market. And then they, you know, they left the NHL for the most part other than, than, than board space and came over to be with you. I mean, that was, you know, I mean, we're talking on 93 94 almost a decade before or over a decade before, you know, they, they came into the CFL or pretty close to it, and that was. Probably really important in my mind for, you know, my start some of the other ones that I kind of think about. We had a great opportunity was a learning experience to learning experiences one was we also did a big program with Harvey's restaurants for Calgary with the flames broadcast. And it was interesting because it was, you know, the Grizzlies were in Vancouver, the Raptors were in, were in Toronto, Harvey's sort of started down this channel of we'll get into basketball. And the franchise is in Calgary said we need to do something different. So we did this massive program for Harvey's on a one year trial. And it was highly successful with tied in it was it was a good tie because the mascot for the flames is a guy named Harvey the Hound. And those days we're talking the 90s, you know, I mean, you couldn't give away flames tickets with $5 bills attached to them. I mean, they weren't a team that anybody really wanted to go see, but Harvey the Hound actually. They can create McTavish right now, but. Yeah, you are. The tongue incident, right? So Harvey was extremely prominent. And in fact, for a period of about four years, Harvey did more public appearances than all the flames players combined in any given year. So Harvey, and you had to pay to have. And so we tied hard, it was Harvey the Hound was the spokesperson or spokesperson dog for Harvey's restaurants don't go to the meat and the dog and all that type of stuff, but. It worked great. Well, the rest of the country in that year for Harvey's had a growth of same time same time, same time previous year of about one and a half to 2% all the Calgary stores had double digits some of them as high as 18 to 20%. It's a huge growth. New VP comes in and says hockey doesn't make sense to our plan. We're going to tie doesn't like talks and the end result was they can the program. So it was try filling that gaping hole for, you know, as you try to make budget the next year, right? It's interesting. You say that like it that that's such a common issue for properties is it's complacency almost right like your your programs going well. But it's a big piece of your budget. It's one of those, you know, lessons right about we better keep an eye on who else in case something. One of these partners leaves right and we're not left scrambling. But yeah, you have a carry on when I think about that that being cautious side it was interesting when I was with Canadian breast cancer foundation. They shoppers drug mark this was long before the western family and and lobloz on them. They were looking at doing a it was back in the days when they used to have I think they originally they had a tree and you could buy leaves and you put the leaves on the tree for a dollar or whatever. And that money went to organizations and then I think they did it with I think it ended up being with juvenile diabetes, but they came to us they came to us at Canadian breast cancer foundation. And shoppers was operating basically out of Calgary at that time. And so I was working with the shoppers people and on this national program. As I did before it went national it was just going to be Alberta and so I was working on the Alberta program and this would have been like six figures. And I did all the due diligence and I came back to our board of directors and said we're going to have to turn down this opportunity with shoppers. And they said what do you mean this is you know this is the perfect one it's it's you know there are good community company and everything else and I said well it has to do with cigarettes and I said well they're getting out of the cigarette business. They're not even selling cigarettes within the next year and and I'm going yeah but it's bigger than that if you do the due diligence. You'll see that the majority shareholder or the controlling shareholder is a company called a Moscow and that is the parent company of players filter cigarettes. And I said if I can dig that up I can pretty sure that some journalist investigative journalist is going to dig that up as well and you're going to take six figures from shoppers. And then somebody's going to say but they're owned by a by a cigarette company and you have a policy you don't take money from cigarette companies right. So we had to walk on that deal and it was it was pretty interesting because I almost got fired for it because I wouldn't take the deal right. But when I look at the other side I mean those are years ago a couple of the more recent ones that I'm really proud of and it's not the work that we as a company did. But the clients did and we just we were along for the ride providing advice or building the inventory or whatever but one of them probably is is the city of Somerside and PEI. We came in we built out their inventory we did the valuation we did some training and everything else which helped them to renew their naming rights on the credit union center in in Somerside. And then they've been able to increase their their sponsorship revenues almost 10 fold over the last three or four years between naming rights and other. So important for those smaller communities. Yeah good. You know and there's a town of Mornville up in just north of Edmonton that we did work for the town of Mornville and help them to go out and sell some sponsorships around their new recreation center. This is you know a town of 16,000 people we're not talking you know orangeville we're not talking Richmond Hill we're not talking city of Toronto we're talking 16,000 people in rural Alberta north of Edmonton. And you know they were able to their they're generating a quarter of a million dollars a year in in in sponsorship dollars and naming rights dollars inside that building and they haven't even they've yet to sell the outside of the building you know so it's those little ones that make a big difference and hopefully proud of those and the other one more recently in a larger marketplace and we had nothing to do with the negotiations we were truly just consultants to the city of Edmonton through it but an iconic iconic naming rights opportunity that's come into place between jumpstart and city of Edmonton and the renaming a clear view recreation center into jumpstart recreation and community center. I haven't seen many where it's not Canadian tire center. Specifically it is jumpstart it was Marco that was the initiator of it reached out and expressed interest and they went from there it was you know two years from the making and it's been fantastic they went through a lot of stumbling blocks like you know elected officials that you know we're looking to grandstand rather than do what's in the best interest of the people so there were some hurdles from that perspective but it came through and and we'll watch next the city of Edmonton you know announced probably in the next few months a couple more naming rights not not with a charity like jumpstart they're actually businesses but and just watching those types of things and happen you know that that make a difference. I think those are the driven partnerships right that that's that's been the trend and and and we'll talk about trend. friends next, but pausing on this topic, it makes me think of climate pledge arena, and you watch the Seattle Kraken where they play in Seattle. Amazon is footing the bill, but the name of the arena is climate pledge, and if you look at the Kraken's helmets, it says climate pledge. It doesn't say AWS, it doesn't say Amazon, and just brands using these massive platforms for to shine a light on important social responsibility initiatives. I think that's only going to continue. I'm failing to remember, but there's some examples if listeners go in Google where European soccer team will be sponsored by a brand, but they'll instead of putting their brand, they'll put the charity they're supporting on the signage, right? And it's just brands with the monetary resources using that for really good reasons. The uniqueness of the climate pledge arena is that when they built the arena and they're bringing the Kraken to the city, they made the commitment that they would not, and this was in conjunction with the city of Seattle, was that they would not have corporate name signage or anything front-facing out of the arena. So even Amazon, if they had wanted to put their name on the building, they couldn't. There was no way they could have their name on the exterior of the building. So climate pledge arena worked way better, but also if you look, and that building has a lot of glass in it, a lot of windows, you won't see any corporate signage. There is no visibility line, there is no sight line that you would see an Amazon logo or a Laskin Airlines logo by looking into the building. Inside the building you may see it, but there's no line of sight to be able to see it from the outside. And that's, we're seeing some of that trend, especially with large properties that, you know, they want to make the feel that it's not as corporate as it is, that they care. Yeah, yeah. That's interesting, because for the amount of money they're ponying up, right, you would think that outward-facing brand visibility component is really critical, but I think it's about to me what that makes me feel is if you find the right brands, right, that buy into that philosophy, that hitting people over the head is not necessarily the way to win their hearts and minds. It's, we can do it in other strategic ways through this partnership with venue X or whatever the case may be. So speaking of, that's a good pivot. What else are you seeing? You know, your guy who works with so many different properties and by extension brands and you study a lot of stuff you're talking, what other trends in sponsorship marketing are you paying attention to? I think post-COVID, people have got to know their partners better and they've had to and they've had to understand that. And I watched that the trend that's within this is that every time there's a reset in the economy. So 2008, 2014, 15 again in 2021, 2022 post-COVID, each of those resets has caused us to go deeper into our partners and understand their business, their goals or objectives and how can we help? So I think that trend is coming back and I'm seeing more and more organizations both on the property and the brand side having those meaningful discussions before proposals even looked at or even ideation is done because you can't ideate concepts and and and activations and so forth and so on until you've reached that point of understanding what the goals and objectives are. So I think that that's one of the trends I'm seeing and I'm not sure if you're recognizing it or seeing it as well. No, it's a great rip off there for a sec is, you know, you're right, you would your instinct is to hear that and say, well, of course, that's how things should get done. But I love the way you linked it to these kind of seminal moments and these these, you know, moments of economic uncertainty which make both sides almost reflect and dig deeper and really care more about helping each other and and properties I think realizing, wait a second, if I'm going to get money from partner X in this climate, I better be really smart and strategic and how I go about doing it and then in other times maybe they get they take their foot off the gas and get a bit complacent. So it is, as you say, it's a moment to reset and rethink how you go about crafting a partnership. So no, I love the point. And you said it in way less words in time than I get perfect. See when you go number two, isn't it? It's like it's like how many second pots have you missed in your life? You know, when when when you blow the first one past the hole and then you'd angrily put the ball down and you hit it in the second time, it always works. So that's that's what just happened there. But carry on, please. So the second half of all those trends, I would see people are going to go what? Let's talk about it. So I've been doing that for years with you Gavin. But so the second group, I think the trends and nobody can can say anything against this. I mean, I mean, it's technology. And part of that technology is what you just described and you nailed it is the and we talked about earlier is the is the social investment. So as an organization, what are what are my and my partner doing, whether on the brand or the property to make a difference in the lives of others? And those have become extremely impactful. But the step that's gone beyond is the technology side. And how can we do that? How can we raise more money? And if you take a look, I mean, today we're talking today and it's, you know, Bell, let's talk today and the technology that goes by behind that to be able to raise $15 million to give away, right? So those types of things. But when I look at technology, I'm seeing that trend go with things like augmented reality and the AI side, but probably the biggest comeback that I have seen and I think we'll all agree is the QR code, you know, like I mean, if you were code in 2000 and network was dead, it was it died. Yeah, what happened? It is not dead. Turns out it is back. It's back. And the vengeance with a huge vengeance and and a purpose. And I mean, I go back to think I think it was 2007 or 2008. We had, we promoted the QR code at the Western sponsorship Congress. It was a feature, it was something that I spoke about and how you can use it and the inexpensiveness of it and blah, blah, blah. And then you're right, it died. It fell off the face of the earth, but come COVID and look at post COVID. There isn't a restaurant in the country that's really printing frigging menus anymore. They're forcing you to go, you know, to go to their QR codes on their tables. And but more importantly, it's, how can that sponsor generate data? First hand, how can they control the data instead of going through you the property? And they can do that through QR codes through AR through AI and those methods. And the amount of data and information that's available is absolutely incredible. And when we look at what some of the work that we're doing, if you would ask me this five, well, I'm not five years ago because we were doing it five years ago, but 10 years ago, ask me about big data and how I can use that to help you determine who you should be calling on as a property. I mean, we've done some incredible work over the last few years with the MS Society to help them to target groups. They never would have thought of targeting. And even as brilliant consultants, we could never have identified those groups. But when we start digging into the big data like we're doing right now with Crohn's and Colitis Canada, it's, it's incredible that the information that we can come up with and say, here's why you should be talking to casinos or here's why you should be talking to maple leaf foods or here's why you should be because every single postal code has 22,000 pieces of information attached to it. I know where you're having most, you know, most of your fast food enchantments, is it Harleys? Is it, is it A&W? Is it MS? That's quite a way to put it fast food enchantments. That's makes it seem very romantic and fantasy like. No, it's an interesting point. And so when you, it's why I just read an article today, about, you know, when we give our email to register and what really that's allowing the holder of that email to track, it gives them access to way more data and information on your habits than you think because you use that email as a piece of ID in so many other places in your digital experience, right? So just about, are you aware of that and are you okay with that? And, uh, but it does allow marketers to get way more targeted in, in, if it's put in the right hands. And frankly, I don't know if you're this way, I'm, I'm, you know, I'm fine with people serving the relevant content based on the information I give. It's just, you hope that's as far as it goes. And these days, there's concerns that privacy data privacy, you know, is that risk, right? Oh, I could say Calvin has, you'd better move beyond hope because you know, very well that they're taking way more than just that, that, of course, flickable data to help you make purchasing decisions. But the postal code, like literally the postal code is the thing that has all that data and we use enveronics to be able to take that data and then we have our own logarithms and our own systems to be able to then take that next data and be able to show somebody why they should be calling on somebody. And when they get there, the, the, the brand is going, why are you talking to us? Well, these, this is our audience and, and this is your audience, we think, and they kind of go on a holy crap. Never would have put those two and two together, right? So I would have thought, I would have thought for Crohn's and Colitis as an example, and I know Lori from a former life. The, the, I would have thought that data would have informed their donor individual donor outreach strategy, but you're saying you can use it to what I'm hearing and correct me if I'm wrong, gather information on their donors to be able to go to corporate brands and say, we've got a lot more knowledge on the, on the, the, the supporters of Crohn's and Colitis. And that would allow partner X brand X prospect X to make a decision on, yeah, this is the audience I want to connect with. Yeah. And you're right. They, they can use that same data for their donor donor side and their direct mail and their, and targeting and all that sort of stuff, but it works the other way too. So for example, this is with MS, we took all the data, we broke it down and we created out of their 100,000 person database that they gave us. We were able to, to identify that we could reach between two target groups that we built using profiles, two to three profiles each of the Enveronix profiles and personas. Out of that, we were able to access 80% or 80,000 of that 100,000 database. And in that, one was called, and I'm sharing this because MS has shared it at a conference. So I'm not, I'm not giving away information, but one of those groups we called the coveted group and they were very much a coveted group. They had disposable income coming out the yin yang, they, that type of stuff. But what was interesting is when you took that audience, that 20,000 people and you measured it and I'll give you an example specifically, this group against that same demographic across all of Ontario, this group was almost eight times more likely to spend in excess of $15,000 a year in casinos. So I can tell you as a consultant, I never would have said to MS, have you, are you talking to casinos? You should be talking to casinos, right? This is eight plus times greater than that same person, not associated to MS, spending 15 grand a year more in casinos. That, that's how pinpointed it can get. We could look at the fact that, you know, A&W spiked for MS, this, this database in both, both of the two cohort groups in, in August every year. Why? Because they run an MS, A&W program, right? The team burger program. Sure. So all that data shows, and that's, that's that technology and that insights that you have to take. And I think that that's where we're trending now is that there's so much data and so much technology and the brands want more and more of that through their partners. So can we do that? Can they do it through a QR code? Can they do it through gamification? Can they do it through what? Right? Yeah, and what it makes me think is I believe sophisticated brands have been all over data for well over 10 years, right? I agree. You know, probably a little bit longer, well over 10 years. The, it's the properties that I'm noticing are catching up finally. And it's something certainly I've been advocating for with any property I work with. And you do a lot of the same work. And they're doing the same is, is, you know, you have to just be smarter and provide richer data if you want to unlock maximum investment in your property. And, and there's a saying that that brands will buy emotionally, but they will rationalize intellectually. So you need to give them that data, arm them with that data to help them rationalize it. And in this climate and back to your earlier trend about, you know, these, these moments where the, there's uncertainty in the market brands have a greater need to rationalize intellectually those, those finite dollars, right? So I think marrying the, the, the need for data and that uncertainty or two groups of trends, I could see them really neatly coming together. Yeah, I think that those, for me, Gavin, those are really the two, those are the two trends that I've seen across the board. And it is, you've just described it, it, it has tentacles that go out to touch different areas. So yeah, makes me think of my latest binge, the last of us of you, have you started on that yet? Yeah, it's got very much a virus that has tentacles and spreads out, but that's another day. There's a Western Canada. We're just going to show you. You don't get TV out there, right? Got it. Got it. Okay. Well, I just happy days the other day. It's a great series. I'm, I'm looking forward to the next week's episode. Yeah, must see TV. Yeah, that's exactly. We've got these things called PVRs here. One, you know, I'll send you, I'll send you a pigeon with a, with a, with a, with a scroll. I'll look for it. I've got a landing dock for them. Yeah. Oh boy. So listen, great, great chat. Let's, let's wrap up on one of my favorite topics, whether it's on this podcast or just talking to people in general, but anybody who's had success in what they've done and they're, they're chosen field and craft and, you know, had a great sustained run. They're doing something right. And I'd love to just get your take on, you know, what, what are those keys to building a successful and sustained career in something that you're really passionate about? I, um, I thought about this, Gavin, and I think the biggest thing I just, my Tuesday morning commentary last week was based on a, a question that somebody asked me on LinkedIn before Christmas. And that question was, if you could ask any question of somebody to find out an insight within them, what would that question be? And I, um, I responded, and I said, I think that question would be, tell me what your purpose is here on earth. Why were you put here? And, uh, you know, it clearly opens the door. And so of course, he, he responded quite quickly to say, so how would you answer that and opened up that, that mass, right? So I responded in my Tuesday morning commentary with it. And it, you know, I believe I was put here to help others, whether that is to, you know, provide value and service to my family, my clients, my community, uh, everything I do, I'm trying to do to make it a better place. Whether that was when I was in the restaurant business and, you know, making people happy at the table or giving that server the weekend off that they needed or whatever it was. And when I look at the sponsorship industry and that's any industry at all, really, you have to have as you describe that passion. What's the reason behind it? And so once you get that passion, I think the best thing that the best advice I can offer is, and a lot of your guests have already said most of this, but, you know, uh, be there 100% all the time. Um, I was just listening into an interview the other day and it was really interesting because she She said that this lady said that I went down and it just say, for example, you want to be in the arts and you want to be in sponsorship in the arts, you want to be in sports. Find a way to get into an arts organization not to just be there and volunteer or intern or anything like that, but when you have spare time, go and sit in the backstage and watch the production, if they'll let you, or to go and sit outside the broadcast studio for sports net or whatever it is. Because if you're recognized and you're there all the time, when you apply, people say, I know that person. I know that this is showing up, right, showing up being present. But even when you're not working there, just and bring your homework and do your homework there or whatever. So I think that that was a great piece of advice that I took away and I wish I had done that. But I think the real elements are whether you get a mentor by a formal process or whether it's just somebody you know and it's not a formal process. But I can tell you that right now between AFPS MCC and I think we talked about this earlier that I have six or seven mentees on the go. And I gain a lot from them, but also they gain a lot from me whether it's an introduction to somebody or whether it's helping them through a process. Those are the types of things that I think are really important in professional development. We need to provide a better program of training and professional development for our industry. If we look at the association of fundraisers and professionals, the marketing industry, the lawyers industry, the chartered accountants industry, they all have professional development. We really don't across the sponsorship industry. We have bits and pieces through colleges, universities, Laurentian, George Brown, but nothing holistic for the industry and no industry standards and I think that those are two of the things and possible certification are what's needed in this industry. I think those are the next steps is certification and industry-wide standards and acceptances. Well, I think that's a great cry for and call out for a very important kind of elevation of the work that started and I think you're the type of guy who a lot of people would listen to such great insight from you throughout this chat and I really appreciate you taking the time. Thanks very much. Congratulations on the success of the show. It's fantastic. I've listened to every episode and it's a great addition to our sector. Thanks a lot, Kevin. [Music]