As the workforce continues to evolve with some post-pandemic industries experiencing a labor shortfall, and others seeing an increase, creating a culture that employees value is critical to recruit and retain the right talent. Here we go. On episode 30 of REAL TIME, we are joined by Neil Thornton to help REALTORS® and brokers, regardless of your role on a team, strengthen your leadership, coaching, and engagement skills to build a strong team culture. Welcome to REAL TIME, Neil. It is such a pleasure to talk with you today.

Neil Thornton: Same here, Erin. Thanks. I’m so excited to do this.

Erin: You got to tell us a little bit about the Thornton Group. A lot of the people who are listening today are familiar with you. You did a talk recently for CREA in St. John’s, and of course, you’re well known for what you do, but why don’t you tell the few who don’t know just what the Thornton Group is?

Neil: It’s been a great ride, about 23 years. I often tell people it’s strategic doing that we do, and they look at me really odd. I’ll often say, “The strategic planning is easy, it’s the doing that’s the hard part.” Then, in part of that doing is leading change. I think that’s probably the most important business skill right now is our ability to lead change. I quote General Shinseki, “If you don’t like change, you’ll like irrelevancy even less.”

I think that’s our business reality because today, I honestly believe we are in the attention span economy where attention spans are shorter than ever before, so messaging, standing out in a crowded marketplace. Also, it’s dealing with change. We’re in exponentially changing times. I think what we’ve done before is not going to get the same results today or even beyond. I think that’s what organizations are looking for is the speed of change.

Erin: We will talk a little bit further on about this, but instead of looking in the rearview mirror, as you say, what used to work, be looking through the windshield because it’s much larger anyway. That’s going to be, I think the basis of a lot of what we talk about here today, which is why this forward-looking and being able to put behind the highs, and the lows, and the really unusual circumstances of the past few years and be able to try and see into the future just a little bit.

Neil: You remember the key word everybody used was pivot. Through the pandemic, it was pivot and pivot, but I really think the classic skills that we’ve learned to build our organizations to this point, there’s fundamental skills and then there’s some new skills. What the pandemic has done is it threw us into a virtual environment, but you still have the same personal cues, the speaking, the energy, the transferring the enthusiasm, which is so important in a virtual world if not even more.

In fairness, I teach at Niagara College here, and this will be the first year we’ve graduated students who have not stepped foot on campus, and most colleges, universities are saying that right now, but to that generation, they’re used to it. They get these changes. We can’t fight. We have to learn. It’s not what happens to us it matters, it’s how we react to it, really.

Erin: Of course, of course, Viktor Frankl said that the last human freedom is how we choose to react to whatever happens to us.

Neil: Man’s Search for Meaning.

Erin: What a great little book. Going back to the classroom a little bit, teaching via Zoom and the various different ways that you did that, how did that translate to how a businessperson conducts themselves? I understand that you were called upon by a very, very large company to help them to hold better meetings or to communicate better with their staff. I know that we are so far into this now that practically everybody has a pithy mug that says, “I’m on my Zoom call,” or whatever, but tell me if there’s any little nuggets that any of us has missed that we could put to use on Zoom or being more effective on our laptops or whatever camera happens to be in our house.

Neil: I wrote a report. It was very early in the pandemic. It was Elevate Your Virtual Meetings. I take it back to 2008 in the last recession, I was a managing partner of one of the largest training companies in the world. It was Dale Carnegie Business Group here in Canada. When the recession hit, it made us reinvent. What I did when the pandemic hit was go back to those lessons, but then I also started reading things like nonverbals, body language, improving my speaking ability, improving my vocabulary.

Executives who reached out to me during the pandemic, I took them back to not only the fundamentals, like don’t run a virtual meeting sitting down. Stand up, let them see your energy. Are you speaking to eyes or foreheads? Because if you’re speaking to foreheads, you’ve lost your audience. You have to change the delivery of your message.

Erin: What do you mean? One sec, Neil. Eyes or foreheads, are you talking about looking up into the lens on your laptop or what are you referring to there?

Neil: Right. You’re leading a group of people. Do you have people’s eyes looking into the camera because you have their attention or are you speaking to their foreheads? They’re busy on their phones or checking their emails.

Erin: Oh, oh, oh. Okay. All right. I get that.

Neil: That’s a concept I use when I teach public speakers is if you’re in a room full of people and people are checking their phones, you’ve lost the room. Stop the meeting. Go for a walk. Break it up. Get into a team exercise. It’s being spontaneous to lead and understand the influence you’re having on other people. I think that’s the greatest skill right now for any person in business, including REALTORS®, is learn to read a room.

Don’t forget, Erin, we’re working on the experience of any meeting or interaction. Even in this call for REALTORS®, it’s what people say about you when you leave the meeting, or are you having a meeting and then another meeting happens in the hallway after the meeting, then you have a culture problem.

Erin: What is the definition of leadership? Oh, this is good, but I’ll let Neil Thornton tell you, after all, he’s the expert. He’ll do that right after I remind you about CREA Café. You know it, right? It’s where you get the latest scoop on real estate news and industry developments, CREA Café. We hear a lot about workplace culture being a key driver for today’s workforce. How do you define workplace culture?

Neil: There’s a concept I use teaching marketing today is your brand now precedes you. That could be your personal brand or your organizational brand, but it’s what people say about you when you’re not in the room. I’ve been teaching leadership for 20 years; I finally came up with that definition. The definition of leadership is what people say about you when you’re not in the room.

That’s reputation, it’s testimonials, it’s videos. A previous colleague of mine always said, “When you say it, it’s bragging. When others say it, it’s proof.” I think we have to look at what we’re known as in our market, and that’s often a reflection of our culture, which includes people who not only work with us now but maybe people who have decided to leave, and they’ve gone on to other opportunities, what would they say about their experience working with you?

Erin, this is so important because an organization today needs to attract talent. We all know how hard it is right now to attract talent. It’s because of the retiring baby boomers, now moving into Gen X, you’re seeing this huge exodus due to the pandemic from the workforce. We’re now looking at these younger generations, the Millennials, the Gen Zs, their attention spans are different, but they can multitask, they can communicate, they’re wired differently than any other generation. Does your organization, is it going to attract that future generation? I think that’s the number one thing most organizations need to work on right now is attracting future talent and being cool, being seen as a company that’s cool.

Erin: That’s positive. To turn it negative for just a second, what are some of the common mistakes that leaders make in trying to create a positive culture? Can you think of any?

Neil: It’s sending some people off to a retreat, and you do some wordsmithing, and we have a new vision, mission, values, and strategic plan, and then you stand there, and you jump up on a mount, and you give a speech and people in the room are like, “I don’t have any relationship to this.” I’ve often used the term that every person in your company should have a fingerprint on where you’re going, their vision and values.

Then another thing I see a lot of people do is they spend far too much time trying to fix or convince people. Have you ever tried to send an angry person anger management? It usually peeves them off because they don’t have a relationship. For years, I did human relations training. I had people in a room who were voluntold to be there, or they were there to get fixed. You know they’re not going to put anything in that program, so we very graciously let them leave on their own terms. They had to go back to their bosses and tell them why, but I think we need to work on and focus on the people who are contributing to our business.

Have you ever noticed it’s not the bad people who leave a company? It’s usually the good people. When they leave, they give you a resignation, everybody’s surprised. That is a reflection of your culture is you need people to stay. If you’ve got a turnover or an attrition issue in your organization, you have to look in the mirror and say, “What is it about me that people are leaving this organization? What is it about us and our leadership team? Are we focused on the right things?

Erin: That’s where the problems that are the biggest obstacles come in. You’ve spoken of them. There’s ego and–

Neil: Ego and fear. It’s the only two things that’ll ever get in the way of anybody’s success. Fear, I’m going to be optimistic. I don’t see a lot of ego in business anymore. In the body language we call it splaying or taking up a lot of space, raised chins means I’m raising kill points, you’re not a threat to me. I like the book, The Power of Now and Eckhart Tolley said, “Ego and awareness cannot coexist.” I think if ego’s in check in an organization, then you go to fear. I know a lot of really great leaders who really want to succeed, but they can’t get themselves out of the way. They spend too much time in their own brain.

Erin: The same talent that got them to where they are, the overthinking, the taking care of details, and all that can also turn into an internal weapon.

Neil: Look at the definition of insanity. I’m doing the same thing over and over again, expecting different results. In 2022, that will not work. Maybe 10 years ago, you could maybe get away with that thinking, but today, it just changes so fast. I’ve got students graduating from college. What they learned in first year is almost irrelevant by the time they graduate. That’s the speed of change in technology and data. That generation, they understand that is I have to learn to change.

Now, I get this a lot in groups of people. I often ask people, “Hey, raise your hand. If you feel people resist change.” Everybody probably on this call, their hands would go up. It’s actually not true. In fact, people resist the uncertainty of the change, that’s perceived forced on them. A great book that I often turn to is Start with Why by Simon Sinek where if you’re leading change, you have to explain the why of the change, then the how, but a lot of people just go to the how and the tactics. Then, that’s why you get that meeting in the hallway after the meeting because people don’t know why they’re doing. Then, that creates apathy.

Apathy is a cancer that will kill your organization. There’s a word. You had mentioned to me earlier, Erin, about measuring culture. There’s a word that if you hear in your organization, just stop the bus. It’s the word they. When you hear that, that elicits and us versus them conversation, an underlying pattern of mistrust. As soon as you hear the word they, stop and say, “I thought it was we. I thought this company was we.” It’s amazing how vocabulary and linguistics tie into all elements of business right now.

Erin: We hope you’re enjoying REAL TIME. I loved this conversation because so much of what Neil says is fascinating, truly. Next up, we’ll look at what your potential client is saying without using words. There’s so much more to explore here with us on REAL TIME month after month. Subscribe wherever you enjoy the best podcasts for episodes with newsmakers, insiders, designers, and great minds who share their wisdom with you. You can also go to CREA.ca/podcast for more details.

Now, we’re back to our chat with Neil Thornton. Before we get on any further, I need to hear some of those body language things that about that you can impart to people who are conducting meetings. I got to hear this. We all do well.

Neil: The whole essence of body language for me is not if somebody’s lying. That’s out of integrity. For me, I use body language to be able to read a room and read the influence I have on that room so that if I’m doing a keynote and I notice that there’s some closed gestures, people are closing up. Remember the classic arms cross in front of the chest. For some people, that’s comfort. That could be a self hug. You watch for changes in body language.

If somebody has open gestures to you their hands are out. Remember shaking hands. Your hand is neutral, and people are open, and their body language is open, and they’re comfortable, and they’re tapping their feet. That’s comfort signs, or their legs are out front that’s comfort. People are comfortable, their head’s nodding. Then, when you say something, they lean back, they cross their arms, they fold their legs. They almost start to take up less space. You’ve just insulted them. You’ve said something that’s told their brain to close up due to comfort.

If you see someone rubbing or pacifying or tugging on a piece of clothing, that’s the brain pacifying. Adults don’t suck thumbs, but my eight-month-old grandson sucks his thumb because babies do that to pacify. Now, we say, “Adults don’t pacify.” Go to a University during exam week, you’ll see a lot of pacifying and people rubbing. That’s the brain trying to comfort itself.

That’s how I use body language. If people are opened, or closed, or comfortable, or uncomfortable, you read the cues, and it gives you a better ammunition when dealing with people especially, say for today if you’re a REALTOR® and you’re walking up to a home, and you see some nonverbal gestures. That couple is giving you the cues of their relationship with you and what you can and can’t do.

Erin: Excellent. Earlier on, you mentioned the idea of going away to some sort of an inspiration camp or whatever. You brought to my mind a vision board, the thing where you put your vision there. Part of your message, if I understand it, has been to make the messages on the board actually come down and be part of your lives instead of just making the vision, and then just letting it be, making the vision a reality. How does one go about doing that?

Neil: I go bananas here. Here we go. Far too many companies have these vague platitudes. They’re called wallpaper. They’re in the lobby wall or a banner in a website. They say something like, “We will exceed client’s expectations by offering the highest level of service and quality.” Right now, my finger’s in my throat because I’m going to throw up. That is nonsense you. How can you exceed client’s expectations when I just mentioned how quickly they’re changing? Real vision is a very clear picture of where we’re going.

Think about Bill Gates. When Bill Gates said every home will own a personal computer. At the time, a microprocessor was as large as an apartment, and Bill Gates said, “Let’s make it happen.” When JFK said by the end of the 1960s, we’ll put someone on the moon and bring them back alive. Martin Luther king, “I have a dream.” Steve jobs, “All of human knowledge on a handheld device.” Now, those are visions. A vision is a very clear picture of where we’re going. An organization creates that vision. Everyone’s involved. They believe in it.

Now, comes the hard part. How do we not just check this off a strategic plan and put it in a binder somewhere? What I often coach organizations to do is number one, agree on the vision, everybody agrees, and core values, vision, mission, core values are strategic goals, everybody, agree. Next week, please come prepared to have your name pulled from a hat. If you are pulled, you will be asked to stand and in front of your colleagues, give a specific example, including a date and a time, of when either you have lived the vision, mission, values or noticed somebody else doing it. Have a great week.

People now leave that meeting with the tension knowing that they could be called upon the next week to give real examples. You agree, then you assign, you come back, and you record successes, you publish it for the company, and then you celebrate successes. At the heart of every culture, the heart of everything is Maslow, the hierarchy of needs, the number one human need, self-actualization, the feeling of importance. In business, it’s recognition of a job well done, appreciation.

That vision is creating future-based action, future-based conversations, future-based commitments, which pulls that organization to innovate. Most companies are mired in the status quo at best, the current reality, problem-solving, firefighting. You know if all you do all day is problem solve, firefight, and babysit, all you produce are more problems, fires, and babies. It’s so true. Company leaders are frustrated because that’s where they find themselves. We need to focus on where we’re going. I say start with listening.

Erin: You’ve said that it’s strategic. Tell me about that.

Neil: As human beings. Here’s what we tend to do. When someone says something in a room, think about a meeting room you’ve been in, and someone says something, and what you tend to observe is people often say, “That’s just like, or remember when, or oh, let me tell you why that’s not going to work.” What happens is we tend to listen for what we already know.

When people feel judged in that environment, it’s like going home and let’s say you have a spouse or a partner at home, and you say, “Honey, would you mind sitting down? I like to talk about your performance over the last year.” “Neil, that’s ridiculous.” We do it with our employees. We do it in meetings. We judge people based on what they say, based on what we already know. Listening is often from the past. It’s based on what’s probable. That’s why innovation’s hard.

When you coach listening for what’s possible, instead of probable, you’ll hear what you’ve never heard, but you used the word earlier, Erin, which is really important. I get it from a book called the Art of Possibility by Ben Zander. He’s the conductor of the Boston Philharmonic. In the book, he ends one of his chapters, and it’s how I ended my book that I just wrote. It’s the two words, “How fascinating?”

It’s interesting, I just try it with groups. Guys, just say how fascinating. You listen from curiosity, not knowing. We tend to listen for what we already know from a right or wrong or should and shouldn’t be standpoint. Just admit we don’t know what we don’t know. That’s where innovation lies. I think that’s where every organization has to go now in 2022.

Erin: Listening from a place of I don’t know.

Neil: I don’t know. I admit I don’t know what I don’t know. I’m going to listen from curiosity, and I’m going to listen from innovation, not already knowing. That gets rid of the ego.

Erin: That’s coming back to Eckhart Tolle again.

Neil: How many meetings have we sat in where you just hear people justifying their opinions, they’re going around the room. They just justify themselves. Then, you leave the meeting going “That meeting was about as useless as an ashtray on a motorcycle. We didn’t advance anything. Far too many times, we do that.

Erin: When we return, building your team and what a strong team looks like. Are you a team player in your community as well, showing up and doing the work when volunteers and leaders alike are needed for great causes? Then why not share your story, using #realtorscare? REALTORS Care® is a national guiding principle, celebrating the great charitable work done by the Canadian REALTOR® community. Help raise awareness for those charities and causes you love. Again, use social media and the #realtorscare.

Let’s dig a bit deeper into specific team-building strategies and best practices. You’ve got so much wisdom and you’ve got great ideas. Let’s get the message through here. Some general characteristics of a strong team in your experience.

Neil: A lot of time, if not most of our time, is spent contributing to where we’re going, the vision. If you could picture a vision above your desk, and your desk is the current reality, the vision has an elastic. An elastic that anchors the vision to the current reality, and tension seeks resolution. What we put our attention to is what happens. If you hear language in your organization like, “I’m busy. I haven’t been able to do it.” Then, you hear weak words like, hope, try, maybe, I’d like to do it. Those are just weak languages.

Vision language is very strong. It’s, “I will. We are going to do this. Here’s what’s at risk if we don’t.” It’s amazing. One of the top things I get asked to do right now is how do I have robust and difficult conversations with people, the conversations we need to have that are honest. Again, there’s no conflict in reality. Check your premises. That was Ayn Rand that wrote that. Let’s get really honest with our dialogue. I’ve been going back to this a lot. It’s time to get human again, Erin.

Right behind me is a book from 1935. It’s an actual original copy of How to Win Friends & Influence People. It’s one of the most popular books in the world, and I’m seeing a lot of people picking that book up again. You’d mentioned earlier was Victor Frankel’s Man’s Search for Meaning. When I work with people who are so stressed today, and they don’t know what they’re going to do, and they’re so worrisome, I pull that book out and say, “Read this book, and then you’ll know what stress really is.”

Erin: Tell me how it is that a nearly 100-year-old book from Dale Carnegie is still resonating.

Neil: It tells amazing stories of how people have built rapport, trust, respect with other people, how to gain willing and enthusiastic cooperation, how to change people’s minds without creating resentment, how to lead and inspire a team. I think those human skills, they just transcend the generations. They really do.

In dealing with a younger generation at the college right now, in the university world, it’s what a lot of students are looking for. They’re smart. They’re really smart students, but they want to strengthen their leadership and human relations. They also want to strengthen a relationship with failure and adversity. It’s a generational thing we’re dealing with right now, an entire generation that needs to understand failure.

Erin: What do we need to learn about the Gen Z?

Neil: You got to be careful. Just diversity right now is so prevalent. We live in a divisive society. We all know that. I think we have to stop. I often do this with a room full of people. I often say, “Hey, are we all committed here today? Please understand that all people are committed. We’re all here today. You all have a different worldview. I’d like everyone to close their eyes, put their right hand in the air, and point north. Everybody, open your eyes. You will see an entire room of committed people pointing in a different direction.”

You say, “Here we are. We all have a different interpretation of reality.” If somebody has number one, the courage to go to HR and say, “This is how I feel,” they’re saying that because they feel they can’t share it elsewhere. It’s a result of a number of interactions that have been unconscious by a number of people. Unfortunately, it’s the visit to HR that’s the end of the line, like, “Okay, we now have a complaint.” That brings us back down to if all we’re doing all day is solving people’s problems, we’re never going to advance.

I often say, as a leader of any organization, get really good at connecting what people’s commitments are and align the expectations. What do we expect of each other? If you feel you can’t approach your boss or you call them a boss or whatever, those aren’t modern organizations. Those are hierarchical organizations. You need to have flat equal organizations. Most CEOs I work with today, they don’t even have an office. They come in, they’ve got a tablet, they’ve got coffee areas, meeting rooms. They sit with people, and they coach and mentor. Those are great skill sets.

Erin: What’s the balance between coaching and knowing, Neil, when a team member just isn’t going to work out?

Neil: Let’s start with coaching. Coaching is a science. You and I have talked about it. It’s a certified science, but each person if they’re a business leader on this call has three skill sets. You have management skills, leadership skills, and coaching skills. All three are completely different. Coaching is about identifying people’s strengths that they might not realize they have. You ask great questions. People leave a coaching session with a heightened level of awareness and capacity to do more. That’s what a coach does. Leaders inspire a group, and managers manage things.

The rule of coaching is you never coach unless someone asks you. If you’ve got a progressive culture, going back to one of your first questions, what’s a sign of a great culture? You have a coaching organization. People have created their own business plans. They have their own visions. They know where they’re going. They see the value of being coached by an impartial person who’s there to help them, not to manage them. That’s the sign of a great organization.

Now, on the flip side of that, if we’re trying to maybe send ducks to eagle school, or we’re trying to fix problem people, one of the greatest pieces of business advice I ever got was hire slow, fire fast. If someone is just not prepared to go where the organization’s going, it’s okay to part ways. Help them with their career, move them to somewhere where they’re going to be happy. I think we spend far too much time trying to solve people. It’s just a complete waste of time today.

Erin: Coming up, choosing innovation through focusing on the future and when busy is not a good word in business. We live in a huge country, but REALTOR.ca brings everybody together. It’s the meeting place for buyers, sellers, and everyone in between. Right now, there’s like a quarter million listings there from trusted realtors. Of course, that number’s probably changed since I started talking with Neil. Check it out, REALTOR.ca, reliable real estate resources, all under one roof. Neil, how can leaders keep up with the speed of business today while maintaining strong human relationships with their teams?

Neil: I would say, the new speed of business actually means being aware of the impact you’re having on other people. I just wrote a book called Presence, Impact, and Influence. What I’m finding now, what I’m being asked is I’m approached by leaders, managers, owners, C-suite executives. This is what they’re saying to me, “Neil, I pretty much know everything about my job. I know everything about the academia, the tactics, all the strategies. I know what I’m doing. I’ve been doing it for years. I now want to raise my awareness. I now want to know how memorable am I. How could I be a better speaker? How could I better understand the room? How could I better lead and inspire a team?”

I think that’s the conversation that’s happening with progressive companies right now is people are saying, “I don’t want to keep doing what I’ve always ever done. I want to innovate, and I want to grow.” If you want to attract future talent, you have to have that future focused in your organization.

The other thing I often say too is get really good at interrogating language. When someone comes in a room and they say, “I didn’t get to it. I was busy, or I just didn’t have time,” that’s a great opportunity. Just stop the meeting and say, “Just tell the truth.” Then, “What? “Just tell the truth. It wasn’t important to you. Just say it.” Now, in my business, I’ve lost my filter many, many years ago, but having someone in the room that just stops the room and interrogates the reality and says, “Just admit it. You had said you were going to do this, and you’ve come back and said that you didn’t do it, which means you’re out of integrity with your group. You have to build that integrity back up, but your language was I just got busy.”

Busy is not a good word in business anymore. There’s no room for busy. Instead of saying, “I made a commitment to do it, I didn’t know what to do, or I wasn’t aware how to do it.” Okay, no problem. That’s a coaching conversation, but we let too many conversations go across a room without someone interrogating them.

Erin: It sounds confrontational though, Neil. It would be very difficult to conduct without seeming like you’re picking at, or picking a fight, or picking on them. Wouldn’t you agree? How do you think people would perceive that? Why don’t you just tell the truth?

Neil: You’re talking to a classic Dale Carnegie person that builds that trust and rapport with the groups. Then, I often say things like, “I need to say something. Now, I’m saying this because I love you guys. I love my clients, and I care about them, but I need to say something that needs to be said, and I’m saying this so it advances us.”

You’d be amazed Erin, most people, I think, “Oh, I’m going to get punched in the parking lot.” I get a phone call, and it’s usually that person that says, “I want to thank you because no one in my company had the courage to tell me what you said and because you said that, it made me realize that yes, you know what, maybe I am using weak language. Maybe, I have fallen into a rut.” That’s the value of a great coach. A great coach isn’t loved. A great coach has respect and integrity, and they help people advance their language.

Erin: You prefaced it by saying, I’m going to say something that comes from a place of love or whatever else that it does. That totally makes sense. How do you balance equitable treatment for those who’ve been loyal to you with the need to attract new talent? This is another lane that a lot of people are finding themselves in.

Neil: We live in a time where seniority doesn’t mean what it used to. I worked with an organization once that was a government agency, and a gentleman walked in a room and said, “25 more years, and I’m out of here.” I’m like, “Okay.” That’s apathy kicking in. What I often find is the people who have more experience, they’re tenured. What I often do is let them be champions, let them mentor, let them create a legacy, let them work with some of the newer performers that are coming on board.

It’s not just you as the leader, you delegate some of that mentorship to other people. They feel valued. They’ll actually go home at night saying, “Hey, I know I’ve been in this organization for years, but I’m finally being asked for my opinion, and I’m finally being able to contribute my knowledge to younger people.” They get a bit of a kick in their step.

Erin: Then, it’s so important for younger or newer members to a team to know that they can go to someone, that they can be vulnerable, that they could say, “Look, I ran into this, and I don’t know what to do about it, or what would you have done?” or to be able to mine some of that wealth of information and wisdom that’s just there for the taking.

Neil: Then, in my work, I’m very digital. I’m very black and white. You have to be when you’re dealing with teams. When someone fails, it’s only because of two reasons. Number one, they don’t know what to do, they don’t have the knowledge, or number two, they know what they need to do, but they’re not willing to execute on that. As a manager, just ask them, which one is it? Have we not done a good enough job giving you the skills and the knowledge to do this, or you need to do it, but you’re not necessarily doing it? Let’s talk about what’s really getting in the way. Maybe, you’re fearful. Maybe, there’s some procrastination issues that we need to deal with.

That’s what really great managers do, is you get down to the facts, and you take the personalities out of conflicts, and personalities out of this. Like, “Oh, well, this person thinks this about you.” That’s not healthy at all. Just say, “Let’s hold a mirror up to you. Let’s look at who you’re being as a human being. Are you a human being or a human doing? Are you running around just being busy?” Because most people right now are just so focused on what’s in front of their face.

If you put your hand right in front of your nose, the focus doesn’t change until you pull your hand away and you start to have a different perspective. I often coach, really, it’s interesting, I coach executive leaders to walk around the building, start learning how to meditate, prayer. Just do something that pulls you away from this day-to-day, work on you, and not just be so buried in the business because you’re not building any integrity with your team if you’re not available for them.

Erin: We’ll be back to Neil Thornton with a phrase he’s used earlier that’s worth repeating and why it’s vital that it sinks in for each of us, but before we do let me remind you, don’t miss our next REAL TIME podcast as soon as it drops. Subscribe where you listen to your favorite podcasts or just go to CREA.ca/podcast for more. Your brand now precedes you is something that you have said. We will get the title of your book and where to find it coming up. I hope that this is a big part of the book but tell us what those words mean. Your brand now proceeds you, and why it’s so important today.

Neil: This is the world we live in where when I say your brand precedes you, it means that I know everything about you before I meet you. That’s digital feeds, social media. I’m a huge proponent of LinkedIn from a professional standpoint, I’ve got just over 6,200 connections. I’ve got 104 written recommendations. To me, people often call me because they see that. They see a website that has testimonial videos on the first page because of what I said earlier when you say it, it’s bragging, when others say it, it’s proof. I’m always collecting people’s impressions of what I do.

My goal is to walk in a room and people say, “I’ve heard about the great things that you do.” I think that’s what every businessperson wants. That now involves building content, being a thought leader, doing keynotes with your industries and your associations. I’m seeing REALTORS® doing that a lot now. They’re now doing real estate news and market updates, and they’re putting themselves out there by being seen as experts in their field. They’re the ones that are working on their brand and how they stand out. I think every organization needs to focus on that right now is brand of your own personal reputation, your team’s reputation, and your organization’s reputation.

Erin: Well, this is a great time to mention the book. Would you tell us about it, how it came to be, what it’s called, and where we can find it, Neil?

Neil: It was a pandemic project. I had planned it a couple of years ago, but it turned into this 390-page behemoth. It’s called Presence, Impact, and Influence. In the book, I talk about leading change, executive reinvention, speaking skills, body language. People love the body language stuff, but it was really meant to be a reference tool for executives, owners, and managers to really focus on themselves and the impact that they’re having, the influence they’re having on others, and then the presence when they walk into a room. That’s all the human stuff. That’s why I wrote it. I’m so proud. I have it on Amazon.ca. Amazon, woo. It’s your friend.

Erin: It is. The title again is PII.

Neil: Presence, Impact, and Influence by Neil Thornton.

Erin: Well done. Excellent. Okay, Neil, let’s end this on an actionable end note. When it comes to team building and workplace culture, what is your go-to piece of advice? First off, for leaders.

Neil: For leaders, understand that your culture will eat your strategy for breakfast. That’s from Peter Drucker. That is so true. We spend so much time on strategy and so little time on culture, and dialogue, and conversations.

Erin: For your employees.

Neil: In the absence of a vision, we’re each just driven by our own agendas. We’re inattentive to each other’s needs and we inadvertently pull the win from each other’s sales. That’s a quote from the Art of Possibility, but it’s so true that not only do I need to align to my organizational vision, but I need to have a vision of my own and where am I going, and it needs to be a very clear picture. Also, have a plan to deal with the critics and the cynics and the sidelines who want to tell you why you can’t succeed.

Erin: There, we go to Teddy Roosevelt and it is saying about it’s the ones who are in the arena getting dirty and bloody and not the ones who are sitting in the stands that matter. I think you and I read a lot of the same things.

Neil: Yes, we do.

Erin: I think so. I haven’t read your book yet though. Maybe, you’ll read mine and we’ll do a book club.

Neil: I’ve already ordered it.

Erin: Wonderful. Now, for those who get stuck in a holding pattern, not going forward, not going backward, who is coaching you to move, who is stretching you? Seems to be the question that needs to be asked, yes?

Neil: I’ve often said, the greatest athletes in the world use coaches. People are going to laugh, but let’s say the Toronto Maple Leafs, they win a game. Well, the next day, they’re being coached. They’re not celebrating. They’re in watching films. The greatest businesspeople realize that, “Hey, I’m a good person, and what I’ve done is got me to this point, but it might not necessarily get me to the next point. If I can find an outside, non-biased, professional advisor, a business coach, a real business coach who will be willing to listen and not just give me advice. That’s what consultants do. They come in and, “You’d be more successful if you’re more like me.” I just find that arrogant.

A real consultant, a real coach says, “Hey, you’d be more successful if you’re more like you. Let’s look at your patterns. Let’s look at your underlying patterns that maybe you’ve lost or become unaware of, like your language that’s getting you what you’re getting.” I often say to business leaders, “You’ve got great tools. My goal is to give you more tools. You can go back to the originals, but I’m going to give you more tools to get the job done quicker and faster. It’s going to be up to you if you want to use them.” Whenever you try something new, it takes a bit of practice at first, so a great coach gets people through that learning curve.

Erin: I really feel like you gave us a whole bunch of new tools, and some good advice, and good insight on perhaps how to start using them more effectively. Neil, we are so grateful for you joining us here today and sharing your wisdom, your humor, your insight. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

Neil: I’m honored. Thank you, Erin.

Erin: Neil Thornton is President of the Thornton Group. If you’re looking for that book of his on Amazon, once again, it’s called Presence, Impact, and Influence. If it’s as great as this chat was, I am sure it’s worth a read. Thanks to Rob Whitehead for putting this together for Real Family Productions, to Alphabet® Creative for producing REAL TIME. I’m your host, Erin Davis, and we will talk with you again soon on REAL TIME. Bye for now.

On episode 29 of REAL TIME, we are joined by Priyanka Goswami, executive vice president of 1:1 and customer experience at No Fixed Address. The award-winning creative agency, partnering with CREA to promote the value and services of REALTORS® to the public. With nearly two decades of experience in business developments and customer-focused, digital marketing. Priyanka joins REAL TIME to help REALTORS® better understand how to incorporate modern marketing, the trends, tactics, tools, success metrics, and more.

Welcome to REAL TIME, Priyanka. It is such a pleasure to have you with us today.

Priyanka Goswami: Nice to be here. Thank you for having me.

Erin: Wonderful. Now you have built an impressive career in marketing, working with a number of clients across all kinds of sectors. If you could, perhaps not the Twitter version but the Coles’ notes of what you do, could you fill us in?

Priyanka: Yes. If I had to sum it up in one word, I would say it’s focus. What I do is I take an organized lots and lots of large PowerPoint slides and research decks and documents, and obviously our own research and best practices into something that’s very digestible and in human language. Typically, that happens in a form of a customer journey. That really helps identify where brands are winning and where they’re losing, and really helps drive that focus.

Erin: When you talk about a customer journey, what are you talking about? Are you meaning finding that person and then taking them along or them contacting you? What are you sort of define as we focus on customer journey? What does that mean to you, Priyanka?

Priyanka: I think it’s everything. If you look at the life cycle of how a customer actually go and what stages they go through. It’s everything from how they’re finding out about a product or a service or a brand, to how are they narrowing down those consideration choices, then moving on to how they’re welcomed into that brand or onboarded onto that brand, to everything from community to advocacy and loyalty and all of those wonderful things. It’s, how do we progress a customer through every single one of those stages.

I think if you really focus on the meticulous details of how that customer is moving through that, so meticulously interrogating every single moment, every need, every barrier, every opportunity and channel that they’re present on, then we can really start to understand where to focus our efforts and our resources and our dollars, and how to successfully really create communications that progress that customer across the journey.

Erin: Perhaps, avoiding falling into the pitfall of trying to solve a problem that doesn’t need solving.

Priyanka: That’s exactly it. It’s interesting, I think in this business a common mistake is, we tend to interchange the words, marketing and advertising, and we use them in the same way, so like there’s so much work that ends up just being in brand and advertising work. We’re solving things that simply can’t be solved through that. Maybe someone doesn’t need awareness or maybe there’s a loyalty challenge that we’re trying to solve or re-engaging a customer base that we’re solving.

That’s the job is really helping marketers focus their energy. What stage are we focusing on? What audience base should we be zeroing in on? We like to call them high-value audiences, and what time and when should we be engaging with them and so on. Really narrowing into that focus.

Erin: Okay. I think you’ve already dipped your toes into this and in a really great way. Let me ask on a broader spectrum, what goes into a successful marketing strategy, Priyanka? What needs to be considered?

Priyanka: Great question. I think building on the theme of focus, I think it’s just that. I think so much has changed in the last 10 to 15 years in this business. Of course, while the fundamentals are similar, there has been a lot of change. I think the formula used to be fairly simple. You would spend money on brand and advertising and buy media and drive sales. Of course, I’m oversimplifying so I don’t mean any disrespect to my colleagues who work in this business. Of course, there’s definitely a lot more to it than that.

Now, I think the way customers are experiencing and interacting with brands is just so different. I can discover a brand on TikTok. I can shop directly through an Instagram story. Curbside pickup is a thing. Those words didn’t even exist two years ago.

Our expectations from brands are so high. We want brands to be super good. We want them to do good. We want them to provide great products and services and respect our privacy, but still be relevant and communicate with us at the right times and in the right places and the right messages. It’s really a lot to think about. I think, I almost feel really bad for marketers, because there’s so much more to do now. I’m not really sure if budgets have really increased. In fact, everyone’s working on a tighter string. I think focus is so, so, so important because you can’t do it all nor should you. Getting focus really requires getting into that detail.

Erin: The detail, it would seem, if I’m understanding you correctly, would be just looking carefully at who your customer is, because there are a plethora of digital channels to reach an audience. How do you go about discerning the best ones to support your particular business? They’re all out there and they could all help you, but it would take a superhuman to be able to use them all and use them all effectively.

Priyanka: I think it’s a really great question because I think there’s a couple of ways to tackle that. I think one, I think a lot of brands are actually sitting on a lot of data, you know your customers well, you know the type of audience base that you might actually typically service. If you’re a luxury brand, and you work with luxury cars or luxury houses or whatever, that is one segment. You know that you’re dealing with a certain type of audience base and what they typically like so that you can look at that and be like, “Okay, that’s our focus area.” Then you’re not going to waste marketing dollars on other groups of people and vice versa. If your market is simply like renters, then you’re going to focus on that. Then, that becomes your high-value audience. It’s just really about zeroing in and focusing on the right market that you tend to cater to.

Oftentimes brands are also sitting on a lot of data. We collect so much data as brands. We’re sitting on so much customer data so it’s really looking through that and segmenting your audiences appropriately to be like, “Okay, who’s really engaged? Who’s repeat customer? Who’s just not really engaged and who uses us once in a while, maybe these guys require a little bit of a pick-me-up.” It’s really about looking at the data and organizing it in meaningful ways to identify who your high-value audiences are.

Erin: Next on REAL TIME, we’re going to talk about how to brand, not just what you provide, but who you are; branding your reputation. One of my favourite marketing gurus is the late Zig Ziglar. There’s a quote of his that resonates when it comes to REALTORS Care®, “It’s not what you’ve got, it’s what you use that makes a difference.” There are a lot of reasons to give where you live and we love to hear and share stories from our communities where REALTORS® make a difference. Share what you’re doing and amplify this great impact using your social media and the #REALTORSCare. Who knows, you might even inspire others to do the same.

Now back to CREA’s marketing partner, Priyanka Goswami on REAL TIME.

Okay, so how do you go about positioning your business when your business is your reputation? It’s not like a sandwich or something; your business is your reputation. It’s more than just a product or a service.

Priyanka: Yes. I think about yourself, I think about myself, to customers, every interaction with a brand represents the overall customer experience and the impression they have of you. Whether that’s someone’s experiencing a brand in media or in store or online or anywhere, every single interaction is a reflection of that brand. To us, it’s brand equals experience, experience equals brand.

It’s not just enough to have really super strong messaging in your mass advertising or say something in a TV spot. You got to make sure that you’re paying that positioning off and how people are experiencing your brand. If you’re marketing yourselves as really trustworthy and caring, then you got to pay that off in the experience. I think for REALTORS® especially, I think their digital tools and their channels and all of their own properties like their websites and email program and what they have in terms of their marketing collateral has such a huge potential on the impression that they leave their clients.

If someone sees a listing that they’re interested in, they’re going to – Let’s say, if they see it on the app and they contact a realtor, they’re going to expect that response from a REALTOR® in a pretty timely manner. If they don’t, that’s likely a negative experience. If you think about that, that’s such a tiny little thing, but it is a different experience and they’re hovering from any brand positioning that’s being communicated to them. People tend to paint the industry with that same brush. It’s really, you have to think about the entire experience and how you’re servicing and how every little interaction with your audience base or your customers is being served up.

It’s not even just the digital tools and you don’t have to be super sophisticated. I think it’s just making sure that you’re being there in the moments where customers need you, and setting up those right expectations so there is understanding around those things.

Erin: You’ve got a lot of expertise, Priyanka, in customer experience and one-to-one marketing. We’re talking here about reaching the masses and yet making it personal. What is one-to-one marketing to you, and why is personalization so important? I can give you a little example in terms of communication. We talked with James Duffy, in our last episode, and he talked about the personal connection.

I can tell you as a radio host, the one thing that you don’t do is say, “Hey, everybody out there, it’s going to be a great day.” You say, “Good morning. How are you doing? I hope you are having a good day, and here’s what you need,” because it’s the one-to-one. Even in the mass media of radio, where you’re talking to hundreds of thousands of people, it’s that one person who feels, “Hey, they’re talking to me.” You tell me why you think personalization is so important because I’ve told you my story.

Priyanka: Yes, I love that question. I love that example. I love that question because I think there’s so much buzzwords that get thrown around in this business, and one-to-one marketing is probably one of them. That really comes down to understanding the needs of your customers at an individual level. It’s really not anything new. You just gave an example around radio, and I always like to use this example of a deli shop.

Let’s say, the same person comes into this deli shop every Thursday, they order the same sandwich. It’s turkey on rye, lightly toasted, with mustard and pickle on the side. If I, as a waiter, start to pick up on that pattern, then I can actually create a better experience for that customer. Perhaps I already have their order all ready to go, or I can repeat it for them when they’re starting to place the order to be like, “Yes, I really know you, and I get you.” That’s a really positive experience and that is one-to-one.

Now, actually, we have more digital tools and tech that’s actually available to make that experience probably a little bit more complex and sophisticated, but the principles are still the same. Now that person can probably order that sandwich through an app and get points and all of that stuff. It’ll probably have you can favourite it and all that stuff. That same example is applicable to old school and even in the digital space.

Erin: I love that example, because I can imagine when that person comes in and sits down at the restaurant and sees out the window that, “Oh, there’s a new sandwich shop that’s just opened across the street,” but he feels a loyalty because the server knows his name, the place makes the sandwich the way he likes it, and they might miss him or notice him if he’s gone. Whereas, at the place across the street he’s just another guy ordering a sandwich. There’s that two-way loyalty that also is built through that. Isn’t there?

Priyanka: Absolutely. I think like brands that do a really good job at really understanding their customers tend to actually do better, obviously, financially as well. They get more profit, more revenue, more of the customer dollars, whether that’s in the short term or long term, and they also drive less churn. There’s a pretty big stat, where it’s 1/3 of customers, if you have a bad experience, then they leave. They’ll never come back. That’s a big, big number. It’s just the little, little things. It doesn’t even have to be big things.

That’s why I think personalization is just so important because everyone’s needs are just so different. We may all love and consume the same brands and products, to your point, there might be another exact same sandwich shop, very similar across the street, but our expectations and needs are going to be so different, so you’re going to obviously gravitate towards the one that’s going to provide that better experience.

Erin: Coming up with marketing expert, Priyanka Goswami. The keys to being really effective when you make that first connection. Our first connection here with you back in episode 1 of REAL TIME was with a solid gold star named Terry O’Reilly. You got to take the time to go back and listen to it. Terry is a Canadian broadcasting legend, host of Under The Influence on CBC, creator of international award-winning ads and campaigns, and just the best person to listen to when it comes to marketing yourself, your brand, your company. Listen to all of our REAL TIME episodes by subscribing wherever you enjoy podcasts. Go to CREA.ca/podcasts for more, and be sure to listen to Terry O’Reilly on episode 1.

Now, back to our guest here on episode 29, and she fits right in with Terry’s messages, Priyanka Goswami on REAL TIME. I’ve heard you say that something brands aren’t doing enough of is working out first-party branding, how often do you want communication and that sort of thing. Can you delve into that a little bit please, Priyanka?

Priyanka: Absolutely. First-party data is really the data that’s about you. Erin, it might be, it’s like your name, your email, how often maybe you come into the store, or anything that I want to know. I think what brands aren’t really doing that well is figuring out what data do they actually need from somebody to be really effective. You’ve probably gone through this where you’ll go on a website and they’ll ask you for information, and then all of a sudden you’re like, “Why am I giving you so much information about myself? What am I going to get in return?”

Erin: Yes. Or am I going to be inundated with stuff I just don’t want?

Priyanka: Exactly. Defining that consent and value exchange between both brand and customer is just so important. What that really means when you break that down, it’s like, what information am I asking for? Why am I asking for it? What am I going to give this customer in return for that information? If you can really be transparent about that, as a brand, you can win.

If you really think that through– It does two things, it forces you to really think about what the heck you’re asking for. Why are you asking for this information? People want more privacy, but they still want relevant communication, so that’s really important. Then it also allows you to create the right experience. When you look at real estate, for example, the more you can understand about your customers and your clientele, perhaps it’s, what circumstances did these people– why are they moving? Why are they selling? Is it a positive thing? Is it a negative thing?

You don’t need to know their whole life history, but understanding these little nuances are really helpful because then you can cater the experience. For a first-time home buyer, for instance, the home buying and selling journey is going to be very different than somebody, let’s say, who’s moving here from a different country. It’s really, really important to know those different nuances because then you can cater that experience.

I’ll give you a little bit of an example. A first-time home buyer, they might be really, really savvy with apps and they probably can like find their own listings and all that, but really they haven’t done all the research. They might need some more help around really figuring out what they need from a financial readiness perspective or what happens in the overall process because it’s pretty complex. Really understanding that, “Okay, first-time home buyers, they’re on a budget.” That then helps the REALTOR® really understand, “This is the information that I could probably share with these people. Perhaps they can benefit from this tax credit information,” or whatnot.

Whereas, let’s say, a new immigrant who’s moving here, their needs are completely different. They’re trying to find a neighbourhood perhaps that feels really like home or has certain stores that they can have access to certain things that make them feel like they’re at home. Understanding those little nuances is just going to be a complete game changer in terms of how you can service those clients.

Erin: That is such a great point. I’m imagining right now a REALTOR® driving to her next appointment or out on a power walk or whatever and listening to this and going, “Yes, that’s fine. I can’t drive three blocks without seeing my own advertising. I am successful.” Can REALTORS® be victims of their own success in terms of the one-to-one? Yes, you’re mass marketing, but is it worth reminding them about that one-to-one and how important the very basic building block is?

Priyanka: Absolutely. I think it’s just such an important thing to just keep on top of. We purchased a cottage last year, and to end up with a REALTOR® who was just very catered to our needs, Abby, if you’re listening, shout out to you. She was great and she knew that we weren’t in that market. It’s two hours away so we didn’t know the area very much, so she really educated us on the actual details. She knew that we didn’t know the bylaws of like, you’re really close to the water and these are the things that you actually need to know around what you can actually build and what you can’t and all that stuff.

That was really, really helpful to us and I think sometimes we forget. She knew and she was able to serve up all those information to us because she knew we weren’t out of town. She knew that we needed all this help. She also went out of her way and connected us to a bunch of tradespeople, and contractors, and painters, and all of this stuff, which was just such a huge help to us.

It was actually a huge driver of why we actually even put in an offer, because had we not had that, we were like, “No, we’re out of our depth here. We won’t be able to manage any of this.” It’s like being able to personalize the experience and almost go above and beyond.

I think like REALTORS® to me, they provide so much value because it’s not just about the realtor, they’re playing more of a partnership and a collaborator role and that is now changing. That’s changed and evolved over the last few years where it was like, it’s not just about the paperwork and getting you showings and open houses, it’s really about this partnership where they’re on this journey with you. Some of them are actually really good at showing you a vision of what you can do to a place, or some of them are really good at understanding like, local neighbourhoods and knowledge and where schools and all of this stuff are.

I think it’s really, really important that we pay attention to those things and really think about all of the different value that you can provide and all of the different hats that you wear, and the expertise you have because people are craving that.

Erin: You do wear a lot of hats, so maybe take one of them off for a bit and kick back, enjoy some time in the CREA Café. CREACafe.ca is a cozy place for REALTORS® to connect, share thoughts, and stay up to date on the latest industry happenings over a virtual venti for your own literal latte. That’s @CREACafe.ca.

Now back to VP at No Fixed Address, CREA’s award-winning marketing partner, Priyanka Goswami on REAL TIME.

Well, as you well know, real estate is unique in that, the customer journey can take years from when a client considers buying or selling a home to when they actually seal a deal. Priyanka, what are some common strategies that a business can use to stay top of mind that whole time with prospects when there’s such a long lead life cycle?

Priyanka: We were just talking about this, but I think it really comes down to relationships. It’s every business is really built on the foundation of relationships. We talked about the role of REALTORS® really evolving to more of that partner and collaborator and wearing so many different hats. I think it goes back to those moments in the journey and being present in the right ones.

In addition to just– like I said, sending out listings, it’s about like, what are all the different ways that you can provide value? Here’s a little exercise, you take out a piece of paper, you map out all of the different moments that home buyers and sellers may need you right from beginning to end, maybe it’s initial listing, open house, follow-ups, all of those different moments. Everything from beginning to loyalty, where you’ve already closed and all that.

Think about yourself, if you’re buying a house, are you addressing those needs? How are you addressing them? Where are you addressing them? What channels are you using? At what points are you addressing them? Are you doing them in a timely manner? I think it’s really important to think about those very particular details and whether those actually match up with your customer needs.

Some people want to be communicated with over email. Some people are like, “No, I want an in-person chat,” or, “I want a phone call every single time we go to a house. I want to have a one-hour follow-up chat with you about it.” Everyone’s going to be different, and I think understanding and setting those expectations out at the very outset of any client relationship is going to be really important.

Again, that is first-party data, whether you’re actually not collecting it in more casual way and just sits in your head or whether it’s in like a big database where you can access that information, that first-party data is just so important in strengthening that relationship. It really comes back to being there in those right moments and micro-moments of needs.

Erin: Well, how important is it to tailor your marketing or message to the various phases of a customer journey? We have talked about this long lead life cycle, so I guess there are different messages for different stages along the way.

Priyanka: Absolutely. I think it’s extremely important. Otherwise, you end up with just matching luggage. Otherwise, you’re not really progressing that customer through every single stage. Every single stage has a different role to play, so naturally the messaging has to be different and reflective of that. I think by tailoring your message to address what stage that customer is, you’re helping them.

At the awareness stage, perhaps the job to be done is around brand positioning, and you’re saying, “Okay, here’s we’re trustworthy and we’re caring.” Or you’re all of those wonderful things that you want to say about yourself and your brand, but in consideration, the job might be to be like “Are you financially ready?” It’s reviewing listings, it’s booking viewing, so naturally the messaging has to be very different and very focused on those driving that consideration and moving that customer forward.

Again, if you really nail that down of where you’re winning and where you’re losing, well, then that really helps. If you’re a REALTOR® in a town and everyone knows you, and to your point, you can’t drive three blocks without seeing your billboard, then maybe you don’t have an awareness problem. Maybe it’s a loyalty problem where people are not really coming back. I always like to look at the numbers.

If you look at awareness and you look at consideration and you look at loyalty, it’s like how are you– if you look at the math on that, how many leads are you actually getting? How many of those leads are actually progressing and you’re actually helping? How many deals are you actually closing, and then how many people are like returning back? If the math is somewhere not adding up there, then you know where you’re winning and losing.

Erin: It’s a pretty clear message.

Priyanka: Numbers don’t really lie, so it’s always good to check the math out.

Erin: Aside from converting new customers, how do you measure the success of your marketing, the return on investment of your newsletters, digital ad campaigns, YouTube videos, and so on, Priyanka?

Priyanka: I love this question because I think these days it’s so easy to get lost in measurement, because there’s so many different things that you can actually measure, and soon enough, you’re basically drowning in data and so much of it and you don’t even know what you’re looking at anymore. I think it’s really important that you start with your higher order objectives, and then you can break them down so that you are specifically measuring and reporting on from there.

Let’s say, if awareness is your goal, then you should be looking at impressions, views, eyeballs, et cetera. Or if it’s like more like, hey, you’re more worried about leads and referrals, then a lot of that comes back to that successful first-party data capture. If you have that, it makes it way easier to track engagement and makes it way more meaningful as well, so you can attribute it to a source.

I would almost compartmentalize it in two buckets. It’s not to say that you can’t track all the little tiny things, but it’s about compartmentalizing it so that it’s, here’s the metrics you need to report on to move the needle, so these are the big business driving objectives like perhaps those are the eyeballs, perhaps those are like the leads, but then there’s also metrics that you need to optimize like an experience, and these really matter.

Sometimes even moving a little button on a website by five pixels can have a massive impact on sales. I used to work on a massive tech account, and literally, it was that. Moving a buy now button, literally a centimeter over on a page could have so much impact on sales, like millions of dollars.

I think taking a look at, even some of those deeper UX, which is user experience metrics, like just how your site is organized and what pages are people actually looking on or looking to for information or what content isn’t working or where people are engaging, those things are obviously really, really important too. Compartmentalizing the two buckets so you know the differences between those two. It’s like moving the needle and then optimizing and making things better.

Erin: I love the tech button example, real life and you’ve seen it yourself. Test and learn sounds like a pretty good motto to put on a t-shirt. In this case, test and learn when it comes to knowing if you’re effectively building awareness or nurturing a lead.

Priyanka: Absolutely. I don’t think enough brands take advantage of this, but we’re living in a pretty open society now where you can be open about not having it all together. You could say, “Hey, we’re still building and we’re still figuring out how to make our site better. We would love your feedback.” Have an open way to get feedback from people. Be open about it say like, “We’re always trying to get better.” That should be always the goal. Always making things better. I think it’s okay to try things and if they don’t work, you can try something else.

That’s the beauty. Especially in the digital space, you have a lot of flexibility to do that. I don’t think shying away from that is definitely not necessary. Be open and try new things.

Erin: Remember that not everything has to be digital. There is such a human component and that’s part of what you have to remember first and foremost if I’m hearing your message correctly.

Priyanka: Absolutely. I think none of this should be interpreted as like, you need super sophisticated everything. I think you can get to know your customers, just one-on-one, and have that information. That’s why I keep saying, you can have that information on your brain, you can have that information in a big database, however, you want to organize and whatever works for you, but it is really, really important to have those details. This business is built on human connection first and foremost, so it’s super important to keep that in mind.

Erin: At the most vulnerable, and the most emotional, and the most exciting in a lot of situations, and most expensive purchase time of your life. There’s a lot all converging here in this one moment, isn’t there? No wonder there’s such a long lead-up.

Priyanka: Absolutely. It is the biggest and most emotional purchase of your life and sometimes, especially in a hot market, you’re making that decision and seeing a place for five minutes, or sometimes not even seeing it. I know people who bought places without even seeing them. It’s pretty intense. Those having empathy and that personal touch is just so important because literally is the biggest purchase decision of life.

Erin: In a moment using that emotion that comes with a home purchase so you are a client’s first choice again and again when the next moves come. Priyanka mentioned having to wear so many hats. Knowing the latest design and marketing trends, DIY hacks and design inspiration may well be among those chapeau you share. Find all of that in one place, REALTOR.ca, your source for everything you and your clients need all in one place.

Now back to our guest and we’re getting emotional. Now to some extent, this may sound like preaching to the choir because REALTORS® really do know the value of long-term relationships, but what can you tell us Priyanka, about customer retention strategies?

Priyanka: If you just think back to exactly what we were just talking about, it’s like, this is the biggest purchase of someone’s life. It’s so emotional and REALTORS® are such a huge part of that. We got to use that emotion and stay in touch, and check in and celebrate.

Even if it’s six months down the road and obviously that person’s not going to perhaps be in a position to move again or maybe they are, but it’s just really valuable to check in and see how things are going, get feedback on the place, perhaps even how the process went for them, perhaps offering up tips of what else they can do to make maybe the property appreciate in value. Then it’s just little, little things and I think checking in, you forget something just like that.

Again, it doesn’t have to be this big elaborate thing. It could literally be just a text. Everyone’s busy these days, but it’s just, “Hey, checking in, hope everything is good,” or whatever, keep it simple and keep it light. It is that stuff goes a really long way. I’m still on email lists and I get listings daily and I am not in the real estate market at all right now, buying or selling, but truth be told it’s one of my most favourite things.

I still get those email lists and I know from my realtor, Abby for listening, and I know it’s 6:00 PM, I’m going to get that listing and that ends up being like dinner conversation with my husband and we’re always like, “Did you see that place? I can’t believe that price. That was awesome or maybe one day we can upgrade,” or whatever.

I think it just really helps give that validation and lets us dream a little. Even when you’ve closed and even when you’re past that journey, you’re still in that journey and that REALTOR® relationship is so important because people will refer you based on that. You could be like, “Oh, we had a really positive experience. That person even checked in after we closed, and let me introduce you to them.”

Erin: It is the little things, it’s feeling that one-to-one that we talked about the connection, and I’ll tell you briefly that my husband and I moved five provinces away from where we were and the person who handled our transaction back in Ontario, every occasion like St Patrick’s day or Easter, or whenever they have fun lottery tickets would just send us out a lottery ticket like a scratcher and sure, we’ll sit down and do that, but we think, “Oh my gosh, that was so sweet of her.”

Then when we had another transaction to do long distance, who did we call? We called the person who spent the $3 on a ticket or $2, I don’t even know and the postage and thought of us, and that means more to me than anything.

Priyanka: What a nice way to just surprise and delight and keep the relationship going.

Erin: Right, and it doesn’t have to be a million dollars unless I want a million dollars, which would even be better, but to leave our listeners with some new ideas, Priyanka, what are some innovative marketing or advertising trends that you’re seeing right now? What are you seeing?

Priyanka: I think everyone’s super busy. That’s the understatement, I think, and very obvious, but there’s these huge expectations, for like, instant gratification. It’s just like, we all want answers now. Now, now, now, now.

This is going to sound so unsexy, but really take the time and I know we’ve talked about this already, but really taking the time to get to understand your clients, whether you’re literally making notes on a notepad or if you’re actually capturing all of this information in some organized database, that really, really helps define your first-party data strategy. Look at every opportunity where you can capture that information and make a list and be transparent around why you want it and what somebody else can expect in return.

Even if they’re a warm lead, a hot lead, a cold lead, being even able to identify that is just really helpful because this is, you never know where a lead can come from or you never know, to your point, you already closed and you’re now referring this REALTOR® to so many other people. I do that too, where it’s like, I’m on the app and I’m like, “Oh, here you got to check out this listing and call Abby.” It’s like, even when you’re not in the journey, you’re in the journey and who have such a huge potential to actually refer other people. It’s just so important.

The point is that even when there’s a lead, really take the time to get to know them and what circumstances have actually brought them to buy and sell. Like I said, it’s not always positive experiences why people are moving. Be aware and be empathetic to what people’s circumstances are and what they’re looking for, and what they’re not, do they have kids, schools, and neighbourhoods, and communities that going to matter to them.

Use that information to your advantage, and use– There’s so many different like CRM tools and tech now available. That’s pretty accessible and a lot of it is fairly simple. I try and get your hands on those and get educated on their potential, because if they’re used in the right way, they can be really, really valuable.

Erin: You are a big fan of focus and you mentioned that off the top and we will as we’re wrapping up here too. Priyanka, if you could focus just a laser focus on one tactic that you think could apply to help REALTORS® elevate their marketing, what would that one thing be?

Priyanka: I would say email.

Erin: Email? Okay.

Priyanka: Email or even text. I think that you can do a lot with that. Like I said, people are busy. Sometimes they don’t have time for a phone call, but you can always send follow-up and here’s listings or here’s inspiration, or maybe you can even have packages for people, where they’re pre-organized and baked. Let’s say, it’s a first-time home-buyer package, it’s like, here lead, here’s everything you need to know about being a first-time home buyer. Here’s some important articles. Here’s inspiration on what you need to know or here’s stuff you need to know about the process.

Or maybe there’s an immigrant package if you’re dealing with somebody who’s moving here from a different country, or maybe there’s a reseller package where somebody’s already gone through the process, but they need more help with the staging and the selling side of things and what are all the things that they need to know about staging and all of that stuff. I think all of that stuff can be great little mechanisms that can get deployed by email.

Erin: Wonderful. Priyanka, it’s been such a pleasure talking with you here today. Thank you for your openness and for the enlightening information, the one-to-one that we had with you was an absolute pleasure. Thank you again.

Priyanka: Thank you so much for having me. It’s such a pleasure.

Erin: That’s a wrap on our latest episode, 28 others await you. We invite you to share great conversation and insights by subscribing and be sure to visit CREA.ca for more amazing info and perspective.

REAL TIME is produced by Alphabet® Creative and Real Family Productions. I’m Erin Davis, inviting you to subscribe here and to our social media, and we’ll talk to you next time on REAL TIME.

Succeeding as a REALTOR® requires a strong knack for connection, the ability to build trust, a commitment to immersing yourself in a client’s vision so you can help them achieve it. In short, you need to communicate.

We have one of Canada’s best communicators, long-time TSN anchor, and sports journalist, James Duthie, to share some valuable insight to help us all. On this episode of REAL TIME, we’ll explore a fundamentally human experience, conversation.

How can REALTORS® better connect with clients and prospective clients on a personal level? How can you find common ground to instill trust? What questions should be asked and not asked and how can you become a better listener? Pairing knowledge and expertise with the right conversation skills can give REALTORS® a professional edge and that’s what we are here to talk about.

Thanks so much for joining us, James. We’re so happy to be talking with you here, and not about sports for a change. How does that feel?

James Duthie: It is somewhat of a thrill, Erin. I love my job. I love the people that watch me on TV, but you do get a lot in my world of, “So the Leafs power play, what do you think?”

Erin: I bet. I do have to ask you. If you could only work with one sport, you’re going to be totally focused on one sport the rest of your career, which is it, James?

James: That answer would’ve changed over the years. I would probably say now golf because that’s become my obsession. I’ve always loved golf, but I think as I get older, it’s my favourite thing to play. It’s the only thing I really still play because my body’s gotten too old for hockey and football and I get too beat up for that. It would probably be golf.

I was at the Canadian Open back in June. I got to do the Masters back in April. There’s just something wonderful about being at a golf course. It just doesn’t feel as much like work even though it is. The days are very long there. I probably go with golf, but I still love my hockey and my football and everything else.

Erin: Well, you mentioned football, so let’s start out with that. Going back to early in your career and before your career, tell us how it took shape? Here you are now, one of Canada’s favourite sportscasters. James, where did it begin?

James: I think, Erin, like most sportscasters, you’d find our failed athletes and I was one of those. I was a delusional high school football player who truly believed that I was going to play for the San Francisco 49ers. I was going to go to Clemson University because I think I fell in love with a cheerleader who had a paw on her face when I was in about grade 11.

I was determined to go to Clemson after I saw that one cheerleader. I really thought, I mean, I was a decent high school football player, but I think it was somewhere along the way in grade 13, remember when that existed, that I realized I was barely 5’10” and 145 pounds with mediocre speed and talents, and the Niners probably weren’t looking for that. I remember going into my guidance counsellor’s office and saying, “I don’t think I can make it as an athlete, so I’d love to do something in sport.”

She plunked it into her computer. Sports marketing and sports administration came up a bunch of different programs and journalism came up. I guess I’d probably had it in my mind. I was probably one of those kids who did, turn down the TV and do play-by-play a little in high school, I suppose. That’s where I went and that’s how I ended up here.

Erin: How did you get noticed by TSN because somebody doesn’t just start at a major sports network, or did it even exist then?

James: Well, not when I started, no. Most sports jobs were the local guys at your local CTV or CBC station who had been there forever. I actually couldn’t get a job in sports. I was lucky enough to get a job at the CTV station in Ottawa right out of school but as a news reporter. I spent seven years covering politics and murderers and fires and boring city council meetings and all those things all the while still dreaming about doing sports. I got to do a little bit of sports in Ottawa. I guess that’s where, by luck, a TSN executive was watching me one night and gave me a phone call.

I sent them a tape and I had an audition. They actually didn’t hire me the first time. I took a job out in Vancouver and actually went back to news reporting. Then I remember I really wanted to live in BC and I told the guy when he said, “I can’t hire you now, but I’d love to hire you someday.” I said, “Well, I’m moving out to BC to take a job there. Don’t call me for a couple of years because I want to live the BC life.” He called me in six months and offered me what really was my dream job. Much to my wife’s chagrin, we moved back east.

Erin: Somebody, and I believe it was Oprah, who said that luck is when preparation meets opportunity. You got that opportunity, but you had the preparation. You put in those Malcolm Gladwell 10,000 hours probably with all those interviews and the boring city council and all that kind of stuff, would you say?

James: I think so. Actually, I really think that I don’t think I would have gotten the opportunity at TSN and all the opportunities I’ve had since without those years in news. Being a news reporter is a really fascinating thing. You basically go into work every day and get assigned a topic and your job is to learn as much about that topic in one day as possible. It’s a fascinating way to meet so many different people in different lines. It makes you a better interviewer, I think. It makes you a better writer for the job. I think that the skills I developed in news ended up being critical in sports and probably were the key to any success that I’ve had.

Erin: Not only do you have to be a good dancer and, of course, you’re tap dancing there in front of a live audience through all kinds of different circumstances and challenges, but you need to be a choreographer, the dance captain who, in the case of a panel, for example, people probably think as they do with anything that is done well, talent makes it look easy, but it’s not, James. What about coordinating panels and the different talents, “Go ahead, don’t be humble,” that are required to do what you do and make it look so easy?

James: I think it’s like being a traffic cop. You’re somewhat the conductor of this little four-minute orchestra in the intermission of a hockey game or after a golf round or a football game or whatever it may be. You’re so right. You get all these different personalities. Some guys want to talk the whole time. You get some ex-hockey players in there that it’s hard to get a couple of sentences out of. Your job is to balance those to maybe shut up the guy who wants to talk all the time and get more out of the guy who doesn’t talk as much and make it hopefully flow like a seamless, casual conversation.

In the end, that’s what you are, is basically a professional conversationalist, is to hopefully make some hockey topic or football or whatever it may be and just have a good conversation. Hopefully, a lively conversation, sometimes a debate, sometimes not, and that is hopefully appealing to the viewers at home. That’s essentially what I do. It’s hardly rocket science. I think sometimes it’s just basically trying to have good conversations.

Erin: Well, it’s almost like a dinner party too. If you are hosting a dinner party, I definitely either want to be at the table or to be listening in on the conversation because you’re bringing the best out of everybody who’s there at the table. Who’s the talker in your household, James?

James: Oh, unfortunately, my biggest problem, my wife often reminds me, is that I talk in my broadcast voice in dinner. You know what I mean? You’re not supposed to bring your work home, but I’ll be telling the story. I’ll be like, “Yes, so in the third period, you won’t believe what happened.” She’s like, “Honey, you’re not on TV anymore, all right? It’s just me and the kids and the dogs. You don’t have to yell like that.” I think in our family, it’s mixed around. I have some pretty bubbly personalities. I guess I do talk loud when I talk, but I’m actually fairly quiet, I think, away from things. I always feel like sometimes you have to play in these charity golf events when you are the “celebrity.”

Erin: Those used to be awful.

James: Oh, I know. I’m sure.

Erin: I used to get stuck in that fourth spot and I’m a terrible golfer, James, and they’re all looking to see, “Oh, is Doug Gilmour in our– Oh, no, it’s Doug.” James said, “Oh, we got this woman?”

James: I’m the same way you’re in where– First of all, they expect you to be a great golfer. I’ll say this right away that being a professional sportscaster does not mean you’re a great athlete.

Erin: More in a moment with TSN host James Duthie, exploring the art of conversation. You know what? It was at a charity event at which I first met James years ago. He was telling a very personal story while also helping to raise money for a cause that was important to our community. Of course, as a REALTOR®, you know what I’m talking about. If you’re ever looking for ideas on how you can light a spark of inspiration, follow Realtors Care on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter. Be sure to share your own stories using #RealtorsCare.

Back now to TSN’s James Duthie and the joy of having a virtual map, but also going off-road when you’re conducting a conversation.

Talking about someone who is talented as you are when you see someone who’s not, it tends to stick out now like a sore thumb. I think one of the things that we noticed and probably were guilty of early in our careers, and I’ll ask if you were, is having a set of questions and sticking to them. This translates to conversation of all kinds because we are talking about the art of conversation today, which means that this is where I’m quiet and let you answer and I will, but it’s that list of questions that some don’t deviate from. Tell us about those as road maps or guidelines or do you just chuck them out the window, James?

James: I think I learned that lesson in my first year of doing television at Carleton University and I was operating the camera. My colleague, my fellow student, was doing the interview and she had this wonderful long list of questions. She was very thorough, and I was just listening to what the guy was saying. She was so focused on getting every single question she’d written down out that she wasn’t listening to the answer.

It wasn’t like I was some brilliant interviewer then, but I remember clicking into saying, “Wow, she’s missing all these opportunities here to ask some good questions.” I guess that’s stuck with me. I think that’s probably the most critical thing, not only in interviews but in any sort of conversation is listening. When we do that and a lot of journalists, I think, do that is they write down their questions. They’re so focused on getting to that next question that they don’t really listen to the answers, which usually lead to the best questions.

I’ve developed in the habit over the years of doing interviews, I will write down questions and I still handwrite my questions because I always feel like there’s a better connection between the hand and the brain than if I’m writing them in my phone or on my computer or my iPad or whatever. I’m really old-school that way. Almost everything I do in television, I write down. We don’t use a teleprompter in our studio or anything.

I will just write down handwritten notes of some of the things I’d like to say. Hopefully, it comes out decently on TV, but I find I remember it better that way. I’ll write a list of questions for an interview and I’ll go over them a couple of times, but then I’ll never pull out that piece of paper. I’ll keep it in my pocket. Maybe I have some sort of safety mechanism that I know it’s in my pocket if I need it and if I freeze.

For the most part, I will just try to listen and ask the questions based on that. It served me well over the years. I think the great interviewers that you see on television, whether it’s somebody like Oprah or whatever, is the same thing, right? They’re just listening, and all their follow-up questions are the ones that get the best answers. I think that’s a crucial tool, whether it’s in journalism or broadcasting or anywhere else in life, is to just listen to the person you’re talking to.

Erin: I am listening and we’re going to keep talking about conversation, but I have to go back to something you just said. Are you a rarity or unique in that you don’t have a teleprompter in the studio, James?

James: I think it’s fairly common now with sports studio shows. I don’t think it’s very common in news. I argue from my industry that I think sports broadcasters are some of the best broadcasters out there because there’s such a live element to everything we do in sports. From the beginning, my first day when I got to TSN, I’d done some anchoring for sports and news at the station. There was always a teleprompter. I remember getting to TSN and my first job was hosting CFL football games.

They quickly told me there was going to be no prompter. I probably was scared at first, but quickly realized that that’s the best way to have conversations. That’s been that way for my whole career. If you’re watching the show SportsCentre, the highlight show, they have a teleprompter. Any of the other shows we do, do not. I much prefer it that way. Going back to what we were talking about, about having normal conversations, I think it’s really difficult to have those when they’re all on a teleprompter, right?

Erin: Absolutely.

James: “How are you doing today? What did you think about that first half of football?”

Erin: Dot, dot, dot.

James: Yes, and the other thing is I think it keeps your brain sharper because you are a little bit naked to the world. If you do forget what you’re going to say, there’s no backup there to help you. You’re just on your own. I’ve had the odd embarrassing moment in my career where I’ve completely forgotten where I was going. You teach yourself these tricks where you keep talking even though you’re not saying it. There’s one more thing I wanted to ask you just before we go. It pertains, of course, to the last subject you were– Kick in now. Kick in now anytime, brain, right?

Erin: That’s right.

James: We’ve all done that.

Erin: Just keep swimming.

James: That’s right. Usually, it eventually comes around. I think there’s been one or two times in my career where I’ve just said out loud on the air, “I’m sorry. I have no idea what I was going to ask you.”

Erin: That’s so relatable.

James: It’s okay, right? It’s human.

Erin: Yes, it does. It takes down that wall. What’s the foundation, James, for the way that you conduct a conversation in front of the camera? Then we’ll talk about off-camera in real life for the rest of it.

James: I don’t know that I’ve ever sat down, Erin, and come up with a set of rules or one way of doing things. Because I think when you do that, it also limits the scope of what you do. I prefer to not have that and to just– Look, it might be different if you’re doing an interview, which is the subject might be a little bit tough. You’re going to have to do more follow-ups or you’re going to have to challenge the person a little bit more.

I’m obviously prepared for that, but I don’t think I have any other sort of template either than to do it the way I do it in real life, which is if you’re sitting down talking to a friend on the couch or something, you’re not thinking about how the conversation’s going to go for the most part. Maybe I’ve had a few of my kids where I’ve had to think about the way it’s going to go. I don’t really follow any sort of set of rules. Hopefully, it comes to me naturally. If it doesn’t, well, then I fail a little bit.

One thing I do is you go off the person that you are interviewing, right? If they’re someone who you know talks a lot or tends to give you two or three-minute answers, you sit back obviously. Maybe there’s some body language you can give to let them know that maybe they want to wrap this one up to get to the next question. For the most part, if it’s the opposite, if it’s someone who doesn’t speak a lot, then I try to ask maybe more open-ended questions instead of pointed questions.

Maybe I’ll ask pointed questions to someone who tends to speak a lot. I’ll ask more open-ended questions to the person who doesn’t speak a lot. If it’s one of those hockey players who just speaks in little five-second answers and doesn’t give you much, that’s when maybe you use a little more of the: “Tell me about this,” that kind of question, which allows them to go in different directions.

Erin: REAL TIME returns with our conversation about conversation and TV sports host James Duthie about reading the room.

When it comes to feeling at home, there’s no place like REALTOR.ca Living Room. It’s the source for free engaging content for your social feeds. From key 2022 housing trends to design tutorials, Living Room is here to bring you entertaining and inspiring articles. We’ll continue our chat now with TSN’s James Duthie on REAL TIME.

I would imagine that the REALTORS® who are listening today have had experience with a couple where even one partner is ready to tell you about their history and what they want in a house and what they had and what they hoped for while the other one will be sitting there quietly contemplating or nodding or maybe not giving off any signals at all. Comfort is a big deal.

What you’re talking about, reading the room, reading the signs, who are you going to talk to, but having both parties comfortable, both you and the subject of your interview or the person you’re having your conversation within the case of a REALTOR®, that’s really important from the jump too, isn’t it? Sometimes it’s just rolling into it softly with whether it’s about the weather or anything like that. Tell us about that little bit of the art that you’ve used.

James: You’re so right. I think it’s probably the most important thing, particularly in television where people might not feel comfortable in front of the camera. Obviously, some of the athletes are so used to it, but some others are not necessarily. I think you always want someone to be comfortable. What I would do is maybe before the cameras are rolling or even after the cameras are rolling is try to talk about something other than the subject that we are about to talk about.

I try to avoid the weather, which is obvious, but maybe it’s a different sport. Maybe it’s something that happened the night before. Maybe it’s, “Did you see Top Gun yet?” that kind of thing. “Did you check out the new Netflix series?” whatever. Athletes, in particular, I think they get so bored with talking about their own stuff that they would love to talk about anything else but that. You have to be genuine, right? It can’t just be, “Okay, he’s just killing time before he gets to the subject.”

I think REALTORS® would have to be aware of that too, right? You can’t just go in there and say, “Oh, what a nice day. All right, let’s get down to the crux of the issue here,” right? You have to genuinely be interested in something else that they’re talking about. You have to humanize yourself away from the job, whether it’s talking about kids or dogs. I think my dogs probably come up a lot in conversation because I have crazy dogs.

Animals, kids, all those things, I think, are common bonds that we all have as humans. People always love to talk about their kids or their dogs or their cats or whatever that may be. I will, before an interview, try to talk about anything else, except the interview. The one other thing I will do, I think, for comfort though is be very upfront about what we are going to talk about. I don’t believe necessarily in the got-you interview that I don’t really have to do much anyway. It’s not like I’m 60 Minutes or something.

If I’m going to do an interview on a subject that is tough, I will tell the subject beforehand, “Hey, we’re going to get into all of this and I’m going to ask you about this, this, and this,” because I think, that way, they’re much more comfortable knowing what’s coming than if you suddenly throw something at them that they weren’t expecting right in the middle of the interview. Those are some of the ways that, hopefully, I make somebody feel comfortable.

Erin: Have you ever had anyone just take off their live mic and leave it on the chair and say, “No, I’m not talking about that”?

James: I don’t think I’ve ever had anybody walk out on me per se. That’s a great question. I don’t think I have. I’ve definitely had people very angry with me. The most awkward interview I ever had was with the legend, Steve Yzerman, who I’m a big fan of, who was, at that point, general manager of Canada’s Olympic team. It was the day they announced the Olympic team for the Sochi Olympics 2014.

Steve was also the general manager of the Tampa Bay Lightning at the time and Marty St. Louis was the star for the Lightning. There was a big question going in about whether Marty would make the team. He was right on the line. The fact that Steve was his general manager, would that help him make the team? That was kind of the big story leading into that day. He ended up not being on the team.

Steve announced the team at this big gala event and then came right to us to do an interview with me. I asked him one question about the team. Then I said, “It must have been very difficult for you to leave Marty St. Louis off the team?” For whatever reason, Steve was not expecting that question and, I could tell right away, was extremely uncomfortable and said, “Well, I really rather talk about the players that are on the team.”

I came back and said, “Well, I realize that, Steve, and we will, but this is something that everybody was wondering about, so I need to get into it.” He deflected again and it got increasingly uncomfortable. I think if you asked my colleagues, they would say that was probably the most uncomfortable interview I was ever involved in.

I think Steve was mad at me for a while. In fact, it wasn’t until a couple of years later, I flew down to Tampa to do another story that I saw him and we hashed it out for 10 minutes. Hopefully, we have a better relationship today. He’s definitely very professional with me, but I don’t know if I’m his favourite interviewer. Hockey guys have long memories as you know, hold grudges for a long time, but I still think I did my job well there. I don’t think I did anything wrong. I’ve thought about it a lot. Should I have waited maybe two or three more questions to ask that?

Would that have helped? I don’t know. I’ll guess I’ll never know. For the most part, I haven’t had moments like that. Sports is fairly lighthearted. Most of the people you talk to don’t mind talking to you. I’ve had some awkward ones on NHL trade deadline, which is a 10-hour live show we do. Guys are getting traded, and their lives are being upended. There was one time where it all happens very quickly. A producer gets in your ear and says, “Hey, we’ve got so-and-so on the line. He’s just been traded.”

In this case, it was, I believe, Chris Stewart was the player and he’d just been traded from Buffalo to Minnesota. He comes on the line, and I said, “Chris, welcome to the show. What do you think about the trade?” He said, “I don’t know. Your guy just called me. I don’t know where I’ve been traded to.” This was live television. I said, “Oh, do you want me to tell you?” He said, “Sure.” I said, “You’ve been traded to Minnesota.” He said, “Oh, okay.”

He took it very well, but it was a few awkward seconds there where I was like, “Oh, how do I handle this?” Because even though it’s just a hockey show to us, lives getting upended, and children being pulled out of school and moved to another city in the middle of the year. Those things happened. In that case, it ended up being more of a chuckle than anything else because he took it very well, but lots of crazy things happen in live TV. For the most part, I haven’t had anybody slug me or walk out on me yet.

Erin: Is there a way to deflect or to avoid being shot as the messenger when someone has something that they have to impart like if you’d been telling Chris that he was going to some team absolutely nobody wanted to go to? I’m not even going to name one right now because it’s somebody’s favourite team, but is there a way for someone who has to deliver news, “The offer wasn’t enough,” or “You didn’t get the house”? Do you have any advice there, James? Obviously, you had to think on your feet there.

James: Yes, obviously, I think that would come up probably with REALTORS® probably a lot more than me where they have to say, “Hey, you didn’t get the house,” or “You’re going to have to come up $50,000,” or whatever that may be. I don’t deal with as many of those situations. Maybe it’s more so that you have to do an interview right after something devastating has happened to someone. I have to pick up the pieces with this person, right? They’ve just lost Game 7 of the Stanley Cup Final after working their entire life to get there. Now, I’m throwing a microphone in their face and saying, “What went wrong?”

Erin: Right.

James: That is a challenging part of my job. Most people accept it, but it’s not easy by any means to do that. I do feel it’s always a little bit awkward. I think you have to combine normal human decency and pathos and sympathy. At the same time, still being a professional about it, right? You’re not going to let them cry on your shoulder. Perhaps in realty, but I don’t think I can do that on live TV. You have to find a way to be understanding of their pain and still do your job and ask the pertinent questions.

I think that only comes with experience really more than anything else where you just say, “Look, I know that this is a terrible loss for you guys, but we appreciate you coming out and talking to us. Tell us what happened on that game-winning goal, basket shot, touchdown,” whatever the sport may be. For the most part, I think people understand that you have a job to do. I don’t think that would be any different in realty. It’s not your fault that the offer didn’t get accepted. You’re just having to be the messenger. I think if you just communicate it in that professional way with a little bit of sympathy, then that’s the best you can do.

Erin: In a moment, finding that comfort zone when you’re having a conversation.

You can always feel at home connecting with local leads, growing your network, or finding valuable content for your audience at REALTOR.ca. Visit REALTOR.ca today, reliable real estate resources, all under one roof. Now, back to James Duthie on REAL TIME.

You’re so good at drawing parallels for our listeners here today, James. Thank you. When we’re talking about buying or selling a home, for example, it can be a nerve-racking experience. For a REALTOR® then, first impressions are just so important. Let’s draw some parallels for our listeners. What other techniques do you use to keep people comfortable during an interview? Do you lay the groundwork that, “Look, you’re safe with me. When the camera rolls, I’m not going to be sabotaging you”? I guess that might be your integrity and your reputation that precedes you, yes?

James: Right. I think you’re right on that, Erin. I think that you can only develop that over time, a trust that this guy is okay. Word gets around when you’ve been doing this for a long time that if you have a bad reputation or as someone that does the got-you type interviews or is looking to find some sort of clip that they’ll make it out to be more salacious than it really is and tabloid it a little bit, that sticks with you.

I think you have to earn that over time by doing good interviews and being trustworthy and I guess being likable to these people. That helps, but I think it does take time to establish that. Sometimes when I go to new sports, my job now is different than it used to be when I just used to be a hockey guy and I cover football and golf and soccer. I’m going to the World Cup in November.

Sometimes I do get into places where the athletes don’t know me as well as some of the others. It’s like you’re starting from scratch in developing these reputations. I have to go back to square one and try to establish trust with someone. Sometimes that’s hard to do in a very limited time window. If you only have 10 minutes with someone, 7 minutes through the interview and 3 minutes to get to know them, that’s a little bit of a challenge.

All you can try to do is do some of the same things I said before. Let people know that you’re not out to get them, that you’re a decent person, and that you’re just going to be doing your job here. I think, for the most part, people appreciate that, but it’s easier in the places that I’ve been longer where I know people or where word maybe have gotten around that maybe I’m an okay guy to have interview you or people that you’ve interviewed multiple times before, right?

That’s obviously the easiest part of it when, “Okay, I’ve had experiences with this guy before and he’s a decent guy. He’s going to do me all right.” There’s nothing more, I think, complementary than when someone requests you for an interview or says, “This is the one guy I want to do an interview with.” I had a really good relationship with Roberto Luongo, the former goaltender. He was involved in a major story once where he wanted to be traded by the Canucks, and then they ended up trading the other goalie and it was a massive controversy.

His agent called me and said, “Roberto wants you to come down and interview him in Florida.” He hasn’t done an interview since then. That’s because I had done stuff with him before. Some actually really ridiculous shtick-type stuff. Through that, we established a relationship. I think that’s part of it too, is I’m a bit of an idiot. I say that somewhat lovingly, hopefully towards me. We do a lot of silly comedy stuff on TSN. Hopefully, from that, people realize that I’m not the guy that’s going to nail you with– I hope I get taken seriously still, but at the same time that there’s a softer, lighter side to me.

Erin: A sense of humor on the side of it. Again, it comes down to that human connection, to not being afraid to let a tear well in your eye or to have some quiet in the conversation as well, and just let the talk breathe and not feel like you have to fill every second of the conversation.

James: Right, and that is massive. Something that I was probably not very good at in the beginning is a person would stop talking for a second and I’d be right down in there with the next question. I think sometimes the best answers you get are the second part of answers that come after a one or two-second pause where the person’s regaining their thoughts and then they want to say more.

I think that’s important on a TV interview or in life is to just let it breathe a little bit more. Sometimes that’s awkward with a person you don’t know that those seconds of silence, you feel that desperate need to fill them right away. If you can control yourself or we can control ourselves and not do that, I think sometimes that can lead to the best conversations that we have.

Erin: Certainly, our guest today goes into that column under one of our best. Back with James Duthie in a moment. Follow him on Twitter @tsnjamesduthie, D-U-T-H-I-E. So, you don’t miss our next REAL TIME, be sure and follow us. Subscribe or visit crea.ca/podcast to enjoy past episodes of REAL TIME.

Now, we wrap up our conversation with some great insight and tips on REAL TIME. It almost sounds like an oxymoron to say an active listener because listening to so many seems passive, but how important is it to be an active listener as part of being a good conversationalist, James?

James: I think it’s everything. It certainly is in my business is to– and it goes back to what we were talking about at the beginning with the whole list of questions, is you need to hear everything that they are saying. The conversation has to flow from that, right? That doesn’t mean that sometimes in the middle of a conversation, it can’t take a complete left turn. If you’re tired of talking about one particular subject, that’s okay.

Active listening to me is engaged listening as much as anything else. The biggest sign of engagement is eye contact. If you’re having a conversation with someone and they’re on their phone, I can get away with that with my wife or my kids maybe or my best buddies when I’m on the golf course. If you’re with a client or if I’m doing an interview subject, it doesn’t fly and it doesn’t do you any good either.

I think my dad told me when I was going to my first job interview when I was 17 was firm handshake and look them in the eye. I don’t think that’s any different. All these years later is to show that you care about what the person is saying. Eye contact is as important as what you’re doing with your ears.

Erin: Watching the body language too. Whenever I see someone with their arms folded and their legs crossed, it’s like, “Oh, you are closing off. You don’t want to have this discussion,” but the reverse of that is leaning in and giving them all of you, which you’re very good at doing.

James: Steve Yzerman definitely had the arms crossed that day. You’re right. I would say if I have one technique, I don’t really think about this stuff much. I suppose in interviewing, the one technique I would have with body language would be to lean in. I think that just says to someone that you care and that you’re really interested in what they say.

I probably do it naturally. I don’t really think about it anymore. It’s not like I sit down to do an interview with Erin Davis and I make sure I’m angled at 45 degrees towards her. I think just naturally when you care and when you’re engaged that you do that a little bit. I think it works. Again, I don’t think people should necessarily practice this at home. I think, hopefully, it’ll come quite naturally.

Erin: I’d like, James, if we could tie things up on an actionable endnote here. What is one thing that you suggest our listeners do to work on their conversation skills? Give us one for the road, would you?

James: Two things. I would say going back to earlier in our conversation, that listening is the number one thing, that becoming a good listener will make you a good conversationalist. They come together. Also, I would say, and this is about as simple as possible, is that I remember one of my bosses telling me early in my career that you have to be yourself. I think that I was being too serious. There was a point in my career where I was trying to become Walter Cronkite or something.

That wasn’t me and he had to pull me aside and said, “Look, you’re a funny guy. You’re a lighthearted guy. You’re a nice guy. Just go back to being that guy on TV.” I think it’s the same in all walks of life, is that you have to be yourself, that most people are pretty astute and can see a phony a mile away. I think the most important part of any conversation is to be yourself. That brings together everything we were talking about.

The casual conversation beforehand where, hopefully, you’re yourself and you’re talking about something in your life that maybe relates to something in their life. That part is absolutely critical. If you’re funny, then be that way. Don’t necessarily try to be Mr. Serious. If you’re serious, don’t try to be funny. That’s probably a bigger thing. Listen and be yourself. I know those sound pretty simple, but I think we forget about them sometimes.

Erin: You also have suggested that being self-deprecating has really helped in terms of your likability. You wouldn’t have put it that way, but I will. Your likability, your relatability, and not coming in and saying, “Look, I’m the person for the job. I know more about this than anybody, so you’re going to listen to me.” It’s just a matter of parking the ego and then just the humour that you say is so important. That’s the great note to remember too.

James: Yes, it’s probably my fallback, that self-deprecation and there’s probably some deep– If I got in front of a psychologist, they’d probably say there is some sort of insecurity or lack of confidence that leads to these things, but it’s always been my way of going about things, but I think it can disarm people, right? If you put your flaws right up in front of them instead of trying to be the Mr. or Mrs. Perfect, Mr. Confidence, then I think sometimes that can break down walls pretty quickly and help to better conversations and better relationships.

Erin: Well, I can’t think of how this could have gone better, James. I know I will when I’m trying to get to sleep tonight. I’ll think, “Oh, I should have asked him this or this or this.” No, you were a tremendous guest. We’re just so thrilled that you could find time in what is always your busy season because that’s the life of sports, right?

James: They do never end. I do get a little bit of break in the summer here, so it’s not too bad. With COVID, hockey goes later now. We have a World Junior tournament in August, which makes no sense because it’s supposed to be a Christmas time. You’re right.

My schedule doesn’t make any sense anymore, but I love it. I’ve been doing this now for, I don’t know, 30 years, Erin. My dad once told me, “Just find something that when you’re driving to work every day that you’re not going to be like, ‘I don’t want to be here.'” I’ve been so lucky to find something that I really love going into every day. I’m incredibly blessed that way.

Erin: It shows and that’s a wonderful thing to see too. You are the distraction, you’re the enjoyment, you’re the entertainment and the information. Thanks for providing all of those things for us today, James. We’re so grateful.

James: Oh, well, thank you. Thank you so much for having me. I greatly appreciate it. I hope I’ve given something to all the REALTORS® out there. I’ve certainly used them many a time. I’m hopefully stuck in this house forever because I told my wife after the cost of the rental, we did a few years ago that they’d have to carry me out of here.

Erin: Yes, toes out. Thanks, James.

James: Thank you for having me.

Erin: REAL TIME is a production of Real Family and Rob Whitehead and Alphabet Creative®, brought to you by the Canadian Real Estate Association. I’m Erin Davis and thank you again for your time. We’ll talk to you soon on REAL TIME.

On episode 27 of REAL TIME, we are joined by Newfoundland-born, Norway-based architect, Todd Saunders best known for his iconic design of the Fogo Island Inn and Studios in Newfoundland and Labrador. A Canadian architect with a global presence, Todd joins REAL TIME to share his unique perspective on Canadian architecture and his approach to evolving it. We’ll look at the influences that have shaped Canada’s built environment and how a base understanding of these influences can help REALTORS® add value. Todd, thank you so much for joining us.

I wonder if we can go back a little bit if you would tell us about your professional journey from Newfoundland and Labrador to Norway which is where we’re joining you today. How has your career unfolded?

Todd Saunders: The journey from Newfoundland and Norway was from – It started when I was about 15. I left Newfoundland. My dad worked with Air Canada, and we moved to Halifax in my last two years of high school there. Then I studied environmental planning at the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design. Then I wanted to be a landscape architect and I went to Rhode Island School of Design and as an exchange student. I touched in architecture when I was there. Then I was working in Vienna, in Berlin for a while when I was 21, 22. Then I did my master’s degree at McGill University and I studied ecological architecture and town planning, Master’s green architecture.

The weird thing was it was for my Master’s thesis, I hitch-hiked from Paris to China unexpectedly. I got a bunch of scholarships to look at Northern ecological communities. One of the communities is actually in Norway and on my way there, I hitch-hiked through Bergen and I fell in love with the place and a year after I was finished my Master’s degree, I came back. I didn’t go to my graduation at McGill. I put my thesis in the mailbox at the airport and I was gone before school was finished. I was quite eager. Then in Norway, I started off, I was 25, 26 years old. No contacts, just learning the language.

Basically, I started working really hard and it was on the sidelines of architecture while I was building playgrounds for children and their parents at different schools. I did a wastewater treatment system with a bunch of architecture students. Then I actually got a teaching position at the Bergen architecture school and me and another guy teaching together started a company. We started building our own projects. There was a little cabin we built and bought the land and built it ourselves. That’s actually how we first started our first experience for real estate agents where we project got published in the local newspaper.

Then we got 15 or 16 calls, people wanted to buy it and we intended on keeping it, but we sold it after a couple of weeks. We owned it and did really well economically on it and then started winning competitions. It was a hard start because it took about three or four years before we got any really interesting projects. It was like my early 30s before we started getting stuff built.

Erin: It seems like Norway, did have some familiarity within you to Newfoundland. It’s almost like the title of the award-winning documentary Strange and Familiar. Did Norway feel at all like home because of course it is now? You’ve been there for almost 20 years meeting your wife around 1995 or ’96. Now there you are in Norway planted like John Lennon’s Norwegian would. How is it that Norway resonated with you in terms of maybe comparison or familiarity to Canada?

Todd: Visually it was the same but economically, Norway is one of the richest countries in the world. But at the same time, their country from farmers and fishermen, and I experienced that upwards richness, wealth when I came here. First, when I got here, it was still a lot like Newfoundland down to earth. The architecture was very low-key, very practical. The landscape was the same, the food was the same, it was basically salt, pepper, dill and fish and then root vegetables. The food was very similar. Culture, it’s a bit different though. Newfoundlanders are extremely sociable whereas Norwegian in the countryside are quite private.

The city I live in Bergen, they’re more like Newfoundlanders, very hospitable and talkative. I actually really like the city I live in Bergen. I feel very at home. That’s actually why I came here. I was actually supposed to live and work in Oslo, but it wasn’t that interesting or different compared to Newfoundland and Bergen was, but there’s a lot of similarities, but there are two different worlds if you start looking at it in detail. Architecturally, they’re very complimentary and that really helped my career.

Erin: You have said that you can’t plan your life, but that you’ve carried your Newfoundland roots everywhere and a few things that you learned there that stick with you. What have you brought from Newfoundland to your life in Norway? I don’t know if you’ve held any kitchen parties there in Bergen but what have you carried with you from Newfoundland as you’ve expanded your influences throughout the world? We’ll talk more about that coming up.

Todd: Newfoundland has a very good rap now. People are looking at it in a positive way. We have actually negative traits as well, but there’s an openness in Newfoundland and a hospitality and Newfoundlander would give you their shirt off their back. There’s an honesty and directness in Newfoundland. It was funny. You couldn’t lie in Newfoundland because it was your integrity is your currency. If you lied, it’s such a small place within half an hour, everyone knows you lying, and then you lost your integrity and you’re worthless.

That’s been brought with me, like hard work as well. Then growing up on these little small islands, you become very independent because nobody’s there to save you.

Somebody wrote a letter recommendation for me for a professorship one time and he described it as a, I was like a person they could drop in the middle of Siberia and then come back nine months later and then I’ve started my own business and doing really well. It was like, that’s a Newfoundlander. There’s a survival instinct. It’s a tough life down there.

It’s not leaning back and enjoying the flowers and orchids blowing in the air. It’s a tough climate and then there’s humour. That’s another thing is hard to come across in a podcast here but Newfoundlanders, that was the source of survival there, humour. I think that’s got me a long way over here. I hope that God, I haven’t lost that. I was like – 

Erin: I’m sure you haven’t. When we return with Norway-based Gander Newfoundland-born Todd, we’ll talk about what he already knew long before the musical Come from Away. 

Whether you’re listening in Goose Bay, North Bay, Hilliard’s Bay, or near the Bay of Fundy, you can tap into the knowledge of REALTORS® across the country and share your own lessons and insights by visiting REALTORS® Corner on CREA Cafe. It’s a hub of content created by REALTORS® for REALTORS®. Now back to Todd Saunders.

You left Newfoundland before 911 and of course, that was such a seminal time in Gander when the world’s attention turned to the hospitality of Newfoundlanders, which can’t have been a surprise to you. Now that is the touchstone that I’m sure people around the world if you say, I’m from Gander, Newfoundland, they go, “Oh right, Come from Away.” This has been something else that’s been added to your calling card inadvertently, hasn’t it?

Todd: Yes. That was quite unexpected, but it was not a surprise at all. I think the numbers were, it was 9,000 people landed and 7,000 people living in the place and everyone got a place to sleep, but that’s again hospitality and organizing things on the fly. That’s what Newfoundland is really good at because the weather changes 15 times a day and you got to adapt. I wouldn’t say malleable, but adaptable and optimistic and not really afraid of change. I think that’s what Newfoundland is there. It’s always there with them. I think that’s an asset to roll with the punches.

Erin: How much has that been integrated into your design philosophy, Todd? What is most important to you when approaching a project? You’ve already mentioned integrity is your currency? That is a great foundation onto which you can build. Let’s get into that a little bit, your design philosophy.

Todd: It’s becoming more and more about wants and needs trying make architecture that’s not overly – I wouldn’t say it’s very well-built, very well-crafted. What I like about Newfoundland architecture, it’s all handmade. You can feel it, wants and needs. I’m very, very focused on needs first. When those are covered in architecture and you can explore the wants, if there’s the economy there or then the need for it but we question it as well.

It’s like, “Do you really need that?” It ends up with really, really good discussions. Then another part of me is, I’m extremely curious person and that’s integrated into our process. We work with clients that are really eccentric and they got their economy in place. They’re stable, but they’re always teaching us something. We’re learning from them. They’re learning from us. It’s not all about attaining happiness in our architecture. It’s more about learning, I think, and growth.

Erin: It goes back to what you talked about, being the people from Newfoundland, they are flexible, malleable, the changing weather, the changing needs all the time. You come in with your skillset and then you get somebody who says, “Oh, I want a soft ice cream machine in the bedroom.” Something like that. You have to park your ego a little bit too, don’t you? In terms of saying, okay, I wouldn’t have done that, but it’s what you want. Right?

Todd: Yes. It goes both ways. Clients that come to us, they’re a bit like us. It is the beauty of actually now getting 52 years old and then podcast like this, and then we’ve done our third book now. People can read about our values and we’re attracting more and more people that want to help.

Erin: You’ve also been doing some philanthropy I understand, an information center in Maine for the woman who founded Burt’s Bees.

Todd: Yes. Roxanne Quimby contacted us a few years ago. That’s under construction and I was in the meeting yesterday about that. They built the foundation last year and I’ll be going over again this summer and then Roxanne’s son Lucas. I think they used $20 million on the building and about $100 million donated the money for the land. Now they found out about the work that we were doing on Fogo Island. We’re moving more and more in that direction because the clients have great motivations and so the developers. We work with some of them where we try to focus on quality, but at the end of the day, it’s about making money and it’s a business, that part. Whereas my personal interest is actually working with a philanthropist because they have the money, and their intention is just to make the best possible architecture. Then it’s usually for a good cause. Then it’s a great alignment of our values and their values. It’s a very interesting field and we just publishing an article now called Architecture and Philanthropy a Catalyst for Change. Fogo Island, for example, there is the Inn has created 70 small businesses on that little island. Wouldn’t that be fantastic if you made a building that could generate its own economy?

That’s what we’re trying to interest in now, not just being a drain on economy and a maintenance nightmare, it’s a building that actually gives back. We’re trying to move in that direction. There’s not many clients out there like the client at Fogo Island Inn, like Zita Cobb, and then Roxanne Quimby at the Katahdin National Park. They’re hard to find, but when you find them, it’s fantastic.

Erin: Let’s talk about coming home and how do you feel architecture impacts the way that we live, interact with or appreciate a place?

Todd: I think architecture when done with care and with love can create care and love. What saddens me now is there’s a lot of architecture that’s half-designed. It’s good enough. It’s a bit sad because these things last for hundreds of years and then the homes we create, there’s only actually even one of them ever been sold. People fall in love with these places. Then things the Fogo Island Inn, for example, I love that place. I was there, there was a woman I met on the roof. One time my two daughters were in one hot tub and her husband was in another hot tub. We started talking. She was a psychology professor, so we could be open really quickly.

Then I asked her why she was there and she goes, “Well, my husband’s going to die in six weeks, has a terminally ill disease and going to take euthanasia and he said, this is one of the places he wanted to visit before he died.

Erin: To talk, not only about the end of life but the beginning of life too, because in your experience you’ve had a handful of clients whose children have become architects. Just hanging around the Todd Saunders effect or what was that? How did that come to be?

Todd: I don’t know how that was. It just started happening. It was like you were with these families and these little 9, 10-year-old kids were often there at the office hanging out and then you meet them afterwards. Then they say, yes, my son’s an architect. Then my daughter became an architect, works in the city now and maybe living in these houses probably does affect them on some type of level. Then they probably see the love and care we put into these things.

Erin: Exactly. It was such a positive effect.

Todd: Yes. They probably see their family’s experience, enjoy, like making, creating something. It’s a big deal, starting from nothing and then creating something which you live and creating needs and layers of memories,

Erin: Todd Saunders, creator, and architect of the Fogo Island Inn and Studios in Newfoundland and Labrador talks about that gorgeous labour of love, shaping history and the future. When we come back, when we discuss labours of love, volunteering often comes to mind. 

As a realtor, when you volunteer your time, make a donation or raise funds for your favourite cause, you are making a difference in your own community. Help amplify this great impact and maybe even inspire others to do the same by sharing your story online, using #realtorscare. 

Designing the Fogo Island Inn, and we’ve referred to this throughout our chat today. I couldn’t wait to get to this, and I really do urge people to find the documentary Strange and Familiar, an award-winning film about your heart’s work. I won’t say your life’s work because you are a young man but designing the Fogo Island Inn was a milestone in your career, Todd. What was it to honour the island’s history while in some ways shaping a vision for new architecture in the area?

Todd: This is a place, it’s one of the poorest provinces in the country, always been, and there’s not many architects there. I have already practiced for about 10 years and I never thought I’d make a piece of architecture in Newfoundland, but because I travelled, I worked in six or seven different countries and traveling over 100 and its places India, Portugal, Costa Rica, South Africa, Japan, they have their own architecture, their own identity. I always kept checking back to Newfoundland. It was the more I was away, the more I appreciated the uniqueness and the individuality of Newfoundland. Then when I did get the call, it was yes, I think Zita chose me.

She interviewed 50 architects, but I think she said one time, it was because I had as much to lose as she did if it went wrong. She knew I would give it everything. I gave my heart and soul to that project. It’s a big part of me, but for better or worse, like I mentioned in the film, whatever we did or whatever we designed would be the future of that place forever. Luckily, and I knew in the bottom of my heart that this would go well. Luckily it’s created some amazing change and just people who’ve been there, David Letterman’s been there, Gwyneth Paltrow, the Prime Minister of Canada. That’s one part of it then, but there’s one very interesting people from all around the world. Like the producers of Come from Away, I walked them around through the four studios, we spent the whole day with them.

Erin: I love the one that you designed that is for writers. You just walk right in and there’s the desk overlooking the window. It’s like, “How could you not create in this space?”

Todd: Yes, there was the ex-CEO The National Gallery Canada. It’s actually called the Bridge Studio, but it was actually designed for a writing studio, but no one knew that. He walked into the door when he was there and he said, “I want to sit down and write a book here.” It’s made for that. 

That’s getting back to the needs again. That one was the only studio made for a specific art type, which is writing. Then we just said, what do you need? It was a desk, a chair, a place to put your pencils, place a to lay your paper, a little seat by the fire, and that was it.

Erin: It’s just so wonderful. I hope that you’ve got one tricked out with acoustics. Somebody like me or you can sit down and do some broadcasting from there.

Todd: Yes, that’s right. I think all of them can be used for that actually; that was the one interesting thing is when I’m designing houses, they’re bespoke and tailor-made to the person. This is one of the first projects I did where everyone had to be a possible user. That was why the inn worked so well. We had a collaborative process where everybody’s opinion was equal because everybody could be a possible guest.

Erin: How do you get there?

Todd: Yes, you can fly Toronto to Gander, I think directly now. Then from New York, it’s New York–St. John’s Gander, and then drive out from there.

Erin: Oh, you drive. Okay.

Todd: There’s a private airplanes can land on the runway in Fogo, which is just a five-minute drive from the Inn. A lot of people do that.

Erin: We’re back in a moment with architect, son of Newfoundland and Labrador, and now resident of Norway, Todd Saunders, who will tell us why he’s glad there’s not a Canadian flavour if you will when it comes to our architecture. 

Enjoying REAL TIME? Well, we hope so. Thank you. A reminder to subscribe wherever you love your podcasts for monthly episodes with guests who share ideas that we promise will resonate with you long after the closing theme has played. Don’t miss our next episode with TSN zone James Duthie, about the art of conversation. 

Now back to Todd Saunders. Now, Todd, you’ve talked about all of the different countries in which you’ve worked. With this global perspective, what can you tell us about Canadian architecture? Is there a Canadian flavour?

Todd: I think there’s a Canadian attitude and thank God there isn’t a Canadian flavour and I’ll explain why I was the judge for the National Architecture Prize in Canada, which is called the Governor General’s Award. I’d been away for years, and they just asked me to join. I was in Ottawa and then presenting, I think they presented 100 projects that were being made in Canada. It reminded me a bit of Norway because Norway’s a very long country, very monotone culturally, like the people one language and 95% of the people are Lutheran; but in Canada, it’s also a large country, but very multicultural.

Norway there’s a lot of different architecture here and a lot of different personalities in the architecture, which I didn’t really prefer. I saw the same thing in Canada. I saw these young companies do spectacular work. It made me so happy to see the high quality. I wouldn’t say individuality, that’s not the right word, but uniqueness. It was very specific to place, like hyper-specific. That’s what I hope the style, we call it a style or a flavor of Canada, I think that would be the best thing Canada can do is just be very, very, very specific to where you’re working on. That’s what I tell these architecture students I work with. 

I gave the lecture at Yale last fall when I was teaching there. I ended off by saying, everyone’s looking at these so-called ‘star’ architects. Then they’re working all around the world, but I said it’s one part of it, but the real joy I got out of the project was actually focusing on one place, like Fogo Island, and then really going deep. I encouraged them to find – you can do your projects all around the world, but maybe find one place you really, really love like community, and put a lot of effort in there. Use a lot of time, build up relationships and really go deep. 

I think Voltaire talked about it. He said ‘cultivate your garden’. That’s what he meant. Use the time to get to know the garden where you…and then it’s your whole life you can put into there. You can take what you learn from these other projects, bring them back to that one place and then focus on being hyper-specific. Then trying to create an architecture that adds to a place and that people are proud of, and people love, and architecture gives instead of takes.

Erin: In that way, I think there’s a great tie-in and a familiarity with REALTORS® in that it is about connection and connection with community.

Todd: Yes, and I think that’s what and I see it swinging back like the younger generations architects just behind me are, they’ve varied values. I see it in my oldest daughter, it’s 15, they’re different. They’re buying all their clothes. Second hand on these apps online. There’s a new economy coming out of this. There’s a new value set of systems. I see hope actually that the city I lived in was actually, there was shops everywhere on the corners when I first moved here 20 years ago and now 7-Eleven, Starbucks owns every one of them. Then the city’s not allowing people advertise companies in the public spaces and there’s a resistance to it.

Now there’s a uniqueness in this city, and I think it’ll survive. I’ve seen St. John’s, Newfoundland as well. There’s a lot of peculiar, interesting little shops there. Copenhagen’s got that. I think the world craves this multifaceted diverse things. I think we went through a phase where a Starbucks and 7-Eleven were taken. I think that’s on its way out, hopefully. That’s where architects and REALTORS® can play a role.

Erin: I love that. We seem to be seeing the changes of you talk about your daughters buying clothes secondhand and that there’s this new economy. It’s like turning old industrial areas, seeing old factories, becoming homes, and seeing porches, making a comeback and outside spaces.

Todd: Yes. That’s like makes much more interesting. See, I think there’s one thing that the REALTORS® probably know and people are interested in interesting neighbourhoods. For example, Kitsilano in Vancouver and certain areas in Toronto and Montreal. I think people are buying into neighbourhoods now as much as they’re buying a specific piece of real estate because the neighbourhood is becoming their living room. You can actually build smaller, and your gym is the parks and stuff like that. I think the architects and planners can make better neighbourhoods than the, and with a good variation of architecture.

I think, yes, I definitely know that the statistics with the real estate agents here, there’s certain neighbourhoods that the houses sell quicker and stuff like that. There’s two or three areas in Bergen here. That’s young people in their 30s and 40s and they’re staying there. They’re buying places and not moving. They’re really enjoying the neighbourhoods.

Erin: Now you’re designing homes for people who are in their 70s and up and you get joy out of that?

Todd: I loved what, my best clients are over 70. I just love it because they’re like, it’s their last house and they’re like, they know how to make decisions. They’ve been living in other places. It’s actually hard to design for younger, like the 30-year-old couples, if they’re not well synced and know each other. It’s difficult to design for them but the ones over 50, 60 gets easier, 70 gets even easier. Then I’ve done one couple, they’re both in their 80s. They just turned 80 right now. That was fantastic. Such a joy to work with them. Yes.

Erin: You enjoy one-story houses. Tell us why this is such an insight into architecture that I hadn’t even considered.

Todd: Yes. It’s like a number of reasons that they’re easier to solve and they’re much more playful. Like a stair, for example, no one really knows that if you move a stair in a house, you might as well start all over again. You can move a few rooms around and stuff like that but as soon as you move a stair in a house design, then you really got to stick and move it, adjust it a little bit but once you move it more than so much, you might as well start off with a whole new house. Stairs actually take up a lot of square footage without even you knowing it. It creates hallway spaces but at the same time we do verticality in some of the houses, but I really started to enjoy the one-story houses.

Then with annexes where you have the core rooms in one part and then there’s an annex or a guest bedroom or a garage or a yoga studio or some other pod, which is connected by a roof and you create this like covered outside space between these two or three different elements. That’s where it gets fun. We’re starting to do more of that and stuff like this. You can work on Zoom and you don’t have to travel that much anymore.

Erin: As we speak to you, you’re sitting in your library in your home, and of course, it’s all about multifunction now, which is probably something that you always did embrace. You’ve spoken about it the parts of the house that are the gym or the home office or the guest room. Having houses where wellness is also integrated, like for meditation and getting well and allowing the light in.

Todd: It’s like a house, it’s a refuge in a way but I’m getting away from the single-family houses. We do them, but we’re working more on town planning stuff now. That’s where my love is because my undergrad is environmental town planning, and you can’t really get a commission doing a town plan when you move to Norway at 26 years old. Now at my age, we’re starting together. We’re doing a creative community outside of Atlanta, Georgia right now. We’re working on a second home community with live workspaces outside of Bergen right now. It’s like 47 different units that we could use, but we’re designing it in a way that looks like three different pieces.

It’s based on this old traditional grouping of farmhouses, that’s quite eccentric and unique to Norway. But I’m more interested in designing neighbourhoods. I would love to design a car-free neighbourhood somewhere in Canada, like the first off-the-grid car-free neighbourhood. That would be a dream and I think it’s possible. Unfortunately, there’s a lot of institutional barriers to these things, but fortunately some of the really eccentric architects are getting in. There are actually town planners in cities now, and there’s a lot more openness. I think we’re in for some really interesting types of projects coming up soon.

Erin: Well, what changes or trends, Todd, have you been seeing in Canadian architecture that inspire you today?

Todd: Because of COVID, I haven’t been home that much. Just generally in the world, there’s a strive towards uniqueness and interesting and different is I think that’s the key now. I think people are tired of waking up in a hotel in some city and there’s a five-second moment where you don’t know where you are.

Erin: Right.

Todd: I think that architecture has a role to play on that. Like why travel anymore if everything looks the same? I spent a week now in this town Barjac in France; it was fantastic. I was just down there working and observing people, little town squares, and history there and getting to know the waiter and the yoga teacher and stuff like that.

Erin: When we wrap up with Todd Saunders, how the givers are the greatest and why word of mouth is the best advertising here or anywhere else in the world. 

In your world, there’s no better tool than REALTOR.ca. Whether you’re looking to connect with local leads, grow your network, or find valuable content for your audience, REALTOR.ca has you covered. Visit REALTOR.ca today, reliable real estate resources all under one roof. 

There’s a high degree of trust established between REALTORS® and their clients and I’m sure that’s the case for you too. I found it fascinating to learn that you have never paid for advertising.

Todd: Once, that was a couple of months ago, actually I was tricked into it.

Erin: Ah.

Todd: It was an airline magazine –

Erin: Oh,

Todd: – did a profile on Scandinavian I didn’t even know. I’ve never – I think 25 years that we ever paid for … I do a lot of interviews, and this is actually giving away information. My last book is called Share. Interview with 30 Nordic architects, that’s coming out this fall and it’s like 99 questions that I always wanted to ask other architects, because they were like starting my own company and what it was like. I did those 99 questions, and I asked these 30 architects, most of my friends, and asked them to answer three questions and it turned into these great interviews and I think giving information away and I think that’s more of – 

People don’t understand it. It’s like you’re getting called by advertisers all the time and salespeople. They just want to take, it’s like, it’s the wrong way. If you want to get something, it’s the givers of the world that come furthest. Even though it’s in this hyper-economic society of selfies and stuff like that, everyone thinks it’s the takers that get the most but as the takers and then if you give without expectations, then you get a lot more in return. I think that’s why we never really, we’ve always been open to talk about our architecture. We create high-quality things. That’s another thing. If you do good stuff, people will want it. They want to pay for it and then they want to learn about it.

If you’re a person that has those qualities and you’re willing to give away and share, you gain a lot. It seems to work for us.

Erin: Oh, it sure does. Going back to what you said too, that integrity is your currency, which of course translates to REALTORS® so well, so let’s, as we begin to wrap this up here, Todd, what would you consider your key to successful client relationship management?

Todd: There’s a lot of layers to that. You mentioned the word trust. Trust is not a given. Like I have a lot of discussions about this. Trust is like layers of shared experiences. We use time with clients and the trust gets built up and we deliver. We’re reliable, it’s a big part of trust. We’re predictable. What we say, we do. I think that’s another tip for REALTORS® and then we never over-promise. Then we align our expectations very early along. Like I’m always asking questions. We very rarely draw to like the third or fourth meeting.

It’s a lot of asking questions and finding out things and when you understand another person, when you feel, you understand what they need and you focus on that, then it’s easier to make decisions. There’s too many architects coming to the board. I don’t know if real estate agents, but they come with a preconceived idea and they’re shoving it down in other people’s throats. It’s like they’re pushing their ideas and they’re not listening. Listening is a huge part of this and it’s ironic because I’m in a podcast and just talking but the listening and then asking good questions and then there’s curiosity. I think that’s why we do quite well.

Then I tell the people on the team that when you’re in conversations with people, it’s not about making the best design. It’s not about making the most money. It’s about building up relationships. If you build up a good relationship, that’s a fantastic thing. I was on an airplane a while ago. It was like 12 years after my dad had died and the pilot actually gave me a favour because my dad used to fix his plane and it’s like, it’s a relationship. That’s like my dad did something good for someone 20 years ago and then someone else still remembers. I think that’s a lot to do with anyone in business. Real estate, architects, selling books at a store. It’s like the personal connection you make with people it’s extremely valuable.

Erin: It is. It is. Todd, one final, final note here. What is one thing that you suggest to someone who is listening right now that they can do to become more attuned to the architecture around them?

Todd: Let’s say walk slower. Like the value of just taking a walk around your neighbourhood and that’s what probably saddens me the most about the way Canadian and North American cities are designed. They’re not experienced up close. When I take a walk, like walking around your neighbourhood. I was just in Mexico City. I missed my plane to Fogo and then I said, “Ah, hell with it. I was just going to stay in this neighbourhood called Condesa.” I walked like an hour in each direction. I could feel like, I know that was a beautiful walk, so walking and observing, being curious.

Erin: Taking a break. Todd, we can’t thank you enough for your time, your consideration, your immense talent and for everything that you’ve done to bring Canada to the fore, you’re an incredible ambassador for this country. Even as you work abroad and make your mark in all of the different communities in which you plan and you build. Thank you for that.

Todd: Thanks for those very kind words and thank you.

Erin: Once again, I can’t recommend highly enough that you search out and watch the documentary Strange and Familiar: Architecture on Fogo Island and see and hear our guest Todd Saunders in and about that Inn. You really have to see it to appreciate Todd’s magic and his vision. It’s glorious. 

Join us for episode 28 of REAL TIME, when a career television broadcaster talks about the art of conversation, the most important element in that vital part of your business and so much more TSN’s James Duthie will be our guest on REAL TIME, so don’t miss it. 

REAL TIME is an Alphabet® Creative production brought to you by CREA, the Canadian Real Estate Association, Technical Producer, Rob Whitehead, and Real Family Productions and I’m Erin Davis. Thank you so much for joining us and we’ll talk to you again soon on REAL TIME.

On episode 27 of REAL TIME, we are joined by Newfoundland-born, Norway-based architect, Todd Saunders best known for his iconic design of the Fogo Island Inn and Studios in Newfoundland and Labrador. A Canadian architect with a global presence, Todd joins REAL TIME to share his unique perspective on Canadian architecture and his approach to evolving it. We’ll look at the influences that have shaped Canada’s built environment and how a base understanding of these influences can help REALTORS^® add value. Todd, thank you so much for joining us.

I wonder if we can go back a little bit if you would tell us about your professional journey from Newfoundland and Labrador to Norway which is where we’re joining you today. How has your career unfolded?

Todd Saunders: The journey from Newfoundland and Norway was from – It started when I was about 15. I left Newfoundland. My dad worked with Air Canada, and we moved to Halifax in my last two years of high school there. Then I studied environmental planning at the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design. Then I wanted to be a landscape architect and I went to Rhode Island School of Design and as an exchange student. I touched in architecture when I was there. Then I was working in Vienna, in Berlin for a while when I was 21, 22. Then I did my master’s degree at McGill University and I studied ecological architecture and town planning, Master’s green architecture.

The weird thing was it was for my Master’s thesis, I hitch-hiked from Paris to China unexpectedly. I got a bunch of scholarships to look at Northern ecological communities. One of the communities is actually in Norway and on my way there, I hitch-hiked through Bergen and I fell in love with the place and a year after I was finished my Master’s degree, I came back. I didn’t go to my graduation at McGill. I put my thesis in the mailbox at the airport and I was gone before school was finished. I was quite eager. Then in Norway, I started off, I was 25, 26 years old. No contacts, just learning the language.

Basically, I started working really hard and it was on the sidelines of architecture while I was building playgrounds for children and their parents at different schools. I did a wastewater treatment system with a bunch of architecture students. Then I actually got a teaching position at the Bergen architecture school and me and another guy teaching together started a company. We started building our own projects. There was a little cabin we built and bought the land and built it ourselves. That’s actually how we first started our first experience for real estate agents where we project got published in the local newspaper.

Then we got 15 or 16 calls, people wanted to buy it and we intended on keeping it, but we sold it after a couple of weeks. We owned it and did really well economically on it and then started winning competitions. It was a hard start because it took about three or four years before we got any really interesting projects. It was like my early 30s before we started getting stuff built.

Erin: It seems like Norway, did have some familiarity within you to Newfoundland. It’s almost like the title of the award-winning documentary Strange and Familiar. Did Norway feel at all like home because of course it is now? You’ve been there for almost 20 years meeting your wife around 1995 or ’96. Now there you are in Norway planted like John Lennon’s Norwegian would. How is it that Norway resonated with you in terms of maybe comparison or familiarity to Canada?

Todd: Visually it was the same but economically, Norway is one of the richest countries in the world. But at the same time, their country from farmers and fishermen, and I experienced that upwards richness, wealth when I came here. First, when I got here, it was still a lot like Newfoundland down to earth. The architecture was very low-key, very practical. The landscape was the same, the food was the same, it was basically salt, pepper, dill and fish and then root vegetables. The food was very similar. Culture, it’s a bit different though. Newfoundlanders are extremely sociable whereas Norwegian in the countryside are quite private.

The city I live in Bergen, they’re more like Newfoundlanders, very hospitable and talkative. I actually really like the city I live in Bergen. I feel very at home. That’s actually why I came here. I was actually supposed to live and work in Oslo, but it wasn’t that interesting or different compared to Newfoundland and Bergen was, but there’s a lot of similarities, but there are two different worlds if you start looking at it in detail. Architecturally, they’re very complimentary and that really helped my career.

Erin: You have said that you can’t plan your life, but that you’ve carried your Newfoundland roots everywhere and a few things that you learned there that stick with you. What have you brought from Newfoundland to your life in Norway? I don’t know if you’ve held any kitchen parties there in Bergen but what have you carried with you from Newfoundland as you’ve expanded your influences throughout the world? We’ll talk more about that coming up.

Todd: Newfoundland has a very good rap now. People are looking at it in a positive way. We have actually negative traits as well, but there’s an openness in Newfoundland and a hospitality and Newfoundlander would give you their shirt off their back. There’s an honesty and directness in Newfoundland. It was funny. You couldn’t lie in Newfoundland because it was your integrity is your currency. If you lied, it’s such a small place within half an hour, everyone knows you lying, and then you lost your integrity and you’re worthless.

That’s been brought with me, like hard work as well. Then growing up on these little small islands, you become very independent because nobody’s there to save you.

Somebody wrote a letter recommendation for me for a professorship one time and he described it as a, I was like a person they could drop in the middle of Siberia and then come back nine months later and then I’ve started my own business and doing really well. It was like, that’s a Newfoundlander. There’s a survival instinct. It’s a tough life down there.

It’s not leaning back and enjoying the flowers and orchids blowing in the air. It’s a tough climate and then there’s humour. That’s another thing is hard to come across in a podcast here but Newfoundlanders, that was the source of survival there, humour. I think that’s got me a long way over here. I hope that God, I haven’t lost that. I was like –

Erin: I’m sure you haven’t. When we return with Norway-based Gander Newfoundland-born Todd, we’ll talk about what he already knew long before the musical Come from Away.

Whether you’re listening in Goose Bay, North Bay, Hilliard’s Bay, or near the Bay of Fundy, you can tap into the knowledge of REALTORS^® across the country and share your own lessons and insights by visiting REALTORS^® Corner on CREA Cafe. It’s a hub of content created by REALTORS^® for REALTORS^®. Now back to Todd Saunders.

You left Newfoundland before 911 and of course, that was such a seminal time in Gander when the world’s attention turned to the hospitality of Newfoundlanders, which can’t have been a surprise to you. Now that is the touchstone that I’m sure people around the world if you say, I’m from Gander, Newfoundland, they go, “Oh right, Come from Away.” This has been something else that’s been added to your calling card inadvertently, hasn’t it?

Todd: Yes. That was quite unexpected, but it was not a surprise at all. I think the numbers were, it was 9,000 people landed and 7,000 people living in the place and everyone got a place to sleep, but that’s again hospitality and organizing things on the fly. That’s what Newfoundland is really good at because the weather changes 15 times a day and you got to adapt. I wouldn’t say malleable, but adaptable and optimistic and not really afraid of change. I think that’s what Newfoundland is there. It’s always there with them. I think that’s an asset to roll with the punches.

Erin: How much has that been integrated into your design philosophy, Todd? What is most important to you when approaching a project? You’ve already mentioned integrity is your currency? That is a great foundation onto which you can build. Let’s get into that a little bit, your design philosophy.

Todd: It’s becoming more and more about wants and needs trying make architecture that’s not overly – I wouldn’t say it’s very well-built, very well-crafted. What I like about Newfoundland architecture, it’s all handmade. You can feel it, wants and needs. I’m very, very focused on needs first. When those are covered in architecture and you can explore the wants, if there’s the economy there or then the need for it but we question it as well.

It’s like, “Do you really need that?” It ends up with really, really good discussions. Then another part of me is, I’m extremely curious person and that’s integrated into our process. We work with clients that are really eccentric and they got their economy in place. They’re stable, but they’re always teaching us something. We’re learning from them. They’re learning from us. It’s not all about attaining happiness in our architecture. It’s more about learning, I think, and growth.

Erin: It goes back to what you talked about, being the people from Newfoundland, they are flexible, malleable, the changing weather, the changing needs all the time. You come in with your skillset and then you get somebody who says, “Oh, I want a soft ice cream machine in the bedroom.” Something like that. You have to park your ego a little bit too, don’t you? In terms of saying, okay, I wouldn’t have done that, but it’s what you want. Right?

Todd: Yes. It goes both ways. Clients that come to us, they’re a bit like us. It is the beauty of actually now getting 52 years old and then podcast like this, and then we’ve done our third book now. People can read about our values and we’re attracting more and more people that want to help.

Erin: You’ve also been doing some philanthropy I understand, an information center in Maine for the woman who founded Burt’s Bees.

Todd: Yes. Roxanne Quimby contacted us a few years ago. That’s under construction and I was in the meeting yesterday about that. They built the foundation last year and I’ll be going over again this summer and then Roxanne’s son Lucas. I think they used $20 million on the building and about $100 million donated the money for the land. Now they found out about the work that we were doing on Fogo Island. We’re moving more and more in that direction because the clients have great motivations and so the developers. We work with some of them where we try to focus on quality, but at the end of the day, it’s about making money and it’s a business, that part. Whereas my personal interest is actually working with a philanthropist because they have the money, and their intention is just to make the best possible architecture. Then it’s usually for a good cause. Then it’s a great alignment of our values and their values. It’s a very interesting field and we just publishing an article now called Architecture and Philanthropy a Catalyst for Change. Fogo Island, for example, there is the Inn has created 70 small businesses on that little island. Wouldn’t that be fantastic if you made a building that could generate its own economy?

That’s what we’re trying to interest in now, not just being a drain on economy and a maintenance nightmare, it’s a building that actually gives back. We’re trying to move in that direction. There’s not many clients out there like the client at Fogo Island Inn, like Zita Cobb, and then Roxanne Quimby at the Katahdin National Park. They’re hard to find, but when you find them, it’s fantastic.

Erin: Let’s talk about coming home and how do you feel architecture impacts the way that we live, interact with or appreciate a place?

Todd: I think architecture when done with care and with love can create care and love. What saddens me now is there’s a lot of architecture that’s half-designed. It’s good enough. It’s a bit sad because these things last for hundreds of years and then the homes we create, there’s only actually even one of them ever been sold. People fall in love with these places. Then things the Fogo Island Inn, for example, I love that place. I was there, there was a woman I met on the roof. One time my two daughters were in one hot tub and her husband was in another hot tub. We started talking. She was a psychology professor, so we could be open really quickly.

Then I asked her why she was there and she goes, “Well, my husband’s going to die in six weeks, has a terminally ill disease and going to take euthanasia and he said, this is one of the places he wanted to visit before he died.

Erin: To talk, not only about the end of life but the beginning of life too, because in your experience you’ve had a handful of clients whose children have become architects. Just hanging around the Todd Saunders effect or what was that? How did that come to be?

Todd: I don’t know how that was. It just started happening. It was like you were with these families and these little 9, 10-year-old kids were often there at the office hanging out and then you meet them afterwards. Then they say, yes, my son’s an architect. Then my daughter became an architect, works in the city now and maybe living in these houses probably does affect them on some type of level. Then they probably see the love and care we put into these things.

Erin: Exactly. It was such a positive effect.

Todd: Yes. They probably see their family’s experience, enjoy, like making, creating something. It’s a big deal, starting from nothing and then creating something which you live and creating needs and layers of memories,

Erin: Todd Saunders, creator, and architect of the Fogo Island Inn and Studios in Newfoundland and Labrador talks about that gorgeous labour of love, shaping history and the future. When we come back, when we discuss labours of love, volunteering often comes to mind.

As a realtor, when you volunteer your time, make a donation or raise funds for your favourite cause, you are making a difference in your own community. Help amplify this great impact and maybe even inspire others to do the same by sharing your story online, using #realtorscare.

Designing the Fogo Island Inn, and we’ve referred to this throughout our chat today. I couldn’t wait to get to this, and I really do urge people to find the documentary Strange and Familiar, an award-winning film about your heart’s work. I won’t say your life’s work because you are a young man but designing the Fogo Island Inn was a milestone in your career, Todd. What was it to honour the island’s history while in some ways shaping a vision for new architecture in the area?

Todd: This is a place, it’s one of the poorest provinces in the country, always been, and there’s not many architects there. I have already practiced for about 10 years and I never thought I’d make a piece of architecture in Newfoundland, but because I travelled, I worked in six or seven different countries and traveling over 100 and its places India, Portugal, Costa Rica, South Africa, Japan, they have their own architecture, their own identity. I always kept checking back to Newfoundland. It was the more I was away, the more I appreciated the uniqueness and the individuality of Newfoundland. Then when I did get the call, it was yes, I think Zita chose me.

She interviewed 50 architects, but I think she said one time, it was because I had as much to lose as she did if it went wrong. She knew I would give it everything. I gave my heart and soul to that project. It’s a big part of me, but for better or worse, like I mentioned in the film, whatever we did or whatever we designed would be the future of that place forever. Luckily, and I knew in the bottom of my heart that this would go well. Luckily it’s created some amazing change and just people who’ve been there, David Letterman’s been there, Gwyneth Paltrow, the Prime Minister of Canada. That’s one part of it then, but there’s one very interesting people from all around the world. Like the producers of Come from Away, I walked them around through the four studios, we spent the whole day with them.

Erin: I love the one that you designed that is for writers. You just walk right in and there’s the desk overlooking the window. It’s like, “How could you not create in this space?”

Todd: Yes, there was the ex-CEO The National Gallery Canada. It’s actually called the Bridge Studio, but it was actually designed for a writing studio, but no one knew that. He walked into the door when he was there and he said, “I want to sit down and write a book here.” It’s made for that.

That’s getting back to the needs again. That one was the only studio made for a specific art type, which is writing. Then we just said, what do you need? It was a desk, a chair, a place to put your pencils, place a to lay your paper, a little seat by the fire, and that was it.

Erin: It’s just so wonderful. I hope that you’ve got one tricked out with acoustics. Somebody like me or you can sit down and do some broadcasting from there.

Todd: Yes, that’s right. I think all of them can be used for that actually; that was the one interesting thing is when I’m designing houses, they’re bespoke and tailor-made to the person. This is one of the first projects I did where everyone had to be a possible user. That was why the inn worked so well. We had a collaborative process where everybody’s opinion was equal because everybody could be a possible guest.

Erin: How do you get there?

Todd: Yes, you can fly Toronto to Gander, I think directly now. Then from New York, it’s New York–St. John’s Gander, and then drive out from there.

Erin: Oh, you drive. Okay.

Todd: There’s a private airplanes can land on the runway in Fogo, which is just a five-minute drive from the Inn. A lot of people do that.

Erin: We’re back in a moment with architect, son of Newfoundland and Labrador, and now resident of Norway, Todd Saunders, who will tell us why he’s glad there’s not a Canadian flavour if you will when it comes to our architecture.

Enjoying REAL TIME? Well, we hope so. Thank you. A reminder to subscribe wherever you love your podcasts for monthly episodes with guests who share ideas that we promise will resonate with you long after the closing theme has played. Don’t miss our next episode with TSN zone James Duthie, about the art of conversation.

Now back to Todd Saunders. Now, Todd, you’ve talked about all of the different countries in which you’ve worked. With this global perspective, what can you tell us about Canadian architecture? Is there a Canadian flavour?

Todd: I think there’s a Canadian attitude and thank God there isn’t a Canadian flavour and I’ll explain why I was the judge for the National Architecture Prize in Canada, which is called the Governor General’s Award. I’d been away for years, and they just asked me to join. I was in Ottawa and then presenting, I think they presented 100 projects that were being made in Canada. It reminded me a bit of Norway because Norway’s a very long country, very monotone culturally, like the people one language and 95% of the people are Lutheran; but in Canada, it’s also a large country, but very multicultural.

Norway there’s a lot of different architecture here and a lot of different personalities in the architecture, which I didn’t really prefer. I saw the same thing in Canada. I saw these young companies do spectacular work. It made me so happy to see the high quality. I wouldn’t say individuality, that’s not the right word, but uniqueness. It was very specific to place, like hyper-specific. That’s what I hope the style, we call it a style or a flavor of Canada, I think that would be the best thing Canada can do is just be very, very, very specific to where you’re working on. That’s what I tell these architecture students I work with.

I gave the lecture at Yale last fall when I was teaching there. I ended off by saying, everyone’s looking at these so-called ‘star’ architects. Then they’re working all around the world, but I said it’s one part of it, but the real joy I got out of the project was actually focusing on one place, like Fogo Island, and then really going deep. I encouraged them to find – you can do your projects all around the world, but maybe find one place you really, really love like community, and put a lot of effort in there. Use a lot of time, build up relationships and really go deep.

I think Voltaire talked about it. He said ‘cultivate your garden’. That’s what he meant. Use the time to get to know the garden where you…and then it’s your whole life you can put into there. You can take what you learn from these other projects, bring them back to that one place and then focus on being hyper-specific. Then trying to create an architecture that adds to a place and that people are proud of, and people love, and architecture gives instead of takes.

Erin: In that way, I think there’s a great tie-in and a familiarity with REALTORS^® in that it is about connection and connection with community.

Todd: Yes, and I think that’s what and I see it swinging back like the younger generations architects just behind me are, they’ve varied values. I see it in my oldest daughter, it’s 15, they’re different. They’re buying all their clothes. Second hand on these apps online. There’s a new economy coming out of this. There’s a new value set of systems. I see hope actually that the city I lived in was actually, there was shops everywhere on the corners when I first moved here 20 years ago and now 7-Eleven, Starbucks owns every one of them. Then the city’s not allowing people advertise companies in the public spaces and there’s a resistance to it.

Now there’s a uniqueness in this city, and I think it’ll survive. I’ve seen St. John’s, Newfoundland as well. There’s a lot of peculiar, interesting little shops there. Copenhagen’s got that. I think the world craves this multifaceted diverse things. I think we went through a phase where a Starbucks and 7-Eleven were taken. I think that’s on its way out, hopefully. That’s where architects and REALTORS^® can play a role.

Erin: I love that. We seem to be seeing the changes of you talk about your daughters buying clothes secondhand and that there’s this new economy. It’s like turning old industrial areas, seeing old factories, becoming homes, and seeing porches, making a comeback and outside spaces.

Todd: Yes. That’s like makes much more interesting. See, I think there’s one thing that the REALTORS^® probably know and people are interested in interesting neighbourhoods. For example, Kitsilano in Vancouver and certain areas in Toronto and Montreal. I think people are buying into neighbourhoods now as much as they’re buying a specific piece of real estate because the neighbourhood is becoming their living room. You can actually build smaller, and your gym is the parks and stuff like that. I think the architects and planners can make better neighbourhoods than the, and with a good variation of architecture.

I think, yes, I definitely know that the statistics with the real estate agents here, there’s certain neighbourhoods that the houses sell quicker and stuff like that. There’s two or three areas in Bergen here. That’s young people in their 30s and 40s and they’re staying there. They’re buying places and not moving. They’re really enjoying the neighbourhoods.

Erin: Now you’re designing homes for people who are in their 70s and up and you get joy out of that?

Todd: I loved what, my best clients are over 70. I just love it because they’re like, it’s their last house and they’re like, they know how to make decisions. They’ve been living in other places. It’s actually hard to design for younger, like the 30-year-old couples, if they’re not well synced and know each other. It’s difficult to design for them but the ones over 50, 60 gets easier, 70 gets even easier. Then I’ve done one couple, they’re both in their 80s. They just turned 80 right now. That was fantastic. Such a joy to work with them. Yes.

Erin: You enjoy one-story houses. Tell us why this is such an insight into architecture that I hadn’t even considered.

Todd: Yes. It’s like a number of reasons that they’re easier to solve and they’re much more playful. Like a stair, for example, no one really knows that if you move a stair in a house, you might as well start all over again. You can move a few rooms around and stuff like that but as soon as you move a stair in a house design, then you really got to stick and move it, adjust it a little bit but once you move it more than so much, you might as well start off with a whole new house. Stairs actually take up a lot of square footage without even you knowing it. It creates hallway spaces but at the same time we do verticality in some of the houses, but I really started to enjoy the one-story houses.

Then with annexes where you have the core rooms in one part and then there’s an annex or a guest bedroom or a garage or a yoga studio or some other pod, which is connected by a roof and you create this like covered outside space between these two or three different elements. That’s where it gets fun. We’re starting to do more of that and stuff like this. You can work on Zoom and you don’t have to travel that much anymore.

Erin: As we speak to you, you’re sitting in your library in your home, and of course, it’s all about multifunction now, which is probably something that you always did embrace. You’ve spoken about it the parts of the house that are the gym or the home office or the guest room. Having houses where wellness is also integrated, like for meditation and getting well and allowing the light in.

Todd: It’s like a house, it’s a refuge in a way but I’m getting away from the single-family houses. We do them, but we’re working more on town planning stuff now. That’s where my love is because my undergrad is environmental town planning, and you can’t really get a commission doing a town plan when you move to Norway at 26 years old. Now at my age, we’re starting together. We’re doing a creative community outside of Atlanta, Georgia right now. We’re working on a second home community with live workspaces outside of Bergen right now. It’s like 47 different units that we could use, but we’re designing it in a way that looks like three different pieces.

It’s based on this old traditional grouping of farmhouses, that’s quite eccentric and unique to Norway. But I’m more interested in designing neighbourhoods. I would love to design a car-free neighbourhood somewhere in Canada, like the first off-the-grid car-free neighbourhood. That would be a dream and I think it’s possible. Unfortunately, there’s a lot of institutional barriers to these things, but fortunately some of the really eccentric architects are getting in. There are actually town planners in cities now, and there’s a lot more openness. I think we’re in for some really interesting types of projects coming up soon.

Erin: Well, what changes or trends, Todd, have you been seeing in Canadian architecture that inspire you today?

Todd: Because of COVID, I haven’t been home that much. Just generally in the world, there’s a strive towards uniqueness and interesting and different is I think that’s the key now. I think people are tired of waking up in a hotel in some city and there’s a five-second moment where you don’t know where you are.

Erin: Right.

Todd: I think that architecture has a role to play on that. Like why travel anymore if everything looks the same? I spent a week now in this town Barjac in France; it was fantastic. I was just down there working and observing people, little town squares, and history there and getting to know the waiter and the yoga teacher and stuff like that.

Erin: When we wrap up with Todd Saunders, how the givers are the greatest and why word of mouth is the best advertising here or anywhere else in the world.

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There’s a high degree of trust established between REALTORS^® and their clients and I’m sure that’s the case for you too. I found it fascinating to learn that you have never paid for advertising.

Todd: Once, that was a couple of months ago, actually I was tricked into it.

Erin: Ah.

Todd: It was an airline magazine –

Erin: Oh,

Todd: – did a profile on Scandinavian I didn’t even know. I’ve never – I think 25 years that we ever paid for … I do a lot of interviews, and this is actually giving away information. My last book is called Share. Interview with 30 Nordic architects, that’s coming out this fall and it’s like 99 questions that I always wanted to ask other architects, because they were like starting my own company and what it was like. I did those 99 questions, and I asked these 30 architects, most of my friends, and asked them to answer three questions and it turned into these great interviews and I think giving information away and I think that’s more of –

People don’t understand it. It’s like you’re getting called by advertisers all the time and salespeople. They just want to take, it’s like, it’s the wrong way. If you want to get something, it’s the givers of the world that come furthest. Even though it’s in this hyper-economic society of selfies and stuff like that, everyone thinks it’s the takers that get the most but as the takers and then if you give without expectations, then you get a lot more in return. I think that’s why we never really, we’ve always been open to talk about our architecture. We create high-quality things. That’s another thing. If you do good stuff, people will want it. They want to pay for it and then they want to learn about it.

If you’re a person that has those qualities and you’re willing to give away and share, you gain a lot. It seems to work for us.

Erin: Oh, it sure does. Going back to what you said too, that integrity is your currency, which of course translates to REALTORS^® so well, so let’s, as we begin to wrap this up here, Todd, what would you consider your key to successful client relationship management?

Todd: There’s a lot of layers to that. You mentioned the word trust. Trust is not a given. Like I have a lot of discussions about this. Trust is like layers of shared experiences. We use time with clients and the trust gets built up and we deliver. We’re reliable, it’s a big part of trust. We’re predictable. What we say, we do. I think that’s another tip for REALTORS^® and then we never over-promise. Then we align our expectations very early along. Like I’m always asking questions. We very rarely draw to like the third or fourth meeting.

It’s a lot of asking questions and finding out things and when you understand another person, when you feel, you understand what they need and you focus on that, then it’s easier to make decisions. There’s too many architects coming to the board. I don’t know if real estate agents, but they come with a preconceived idea and they’re shoving it down in other people’s throats. It’s like they’re pushing their ideas and they’re not listening. Listening is a huge part of this and it’s ironic because I’m in a podcast and just talking but the listening and then asking good questions and then there’s curiosity. I think that’s why we do quite well.

Then I tell the people on the team that when you’re in conversations with people, it’s not about making the best design. It’s not about making the most money. It’s about building up relationships. If you build up a good relationship, that’s a fantastic thing. I was on an airplane a while ago. It was like 12 years after my dad had died and the pilot actually gave me a favour because my dad used to fix his plane and it’s like, it’s a relationship. That’s like my dad did something good for someone 20 years ago and then someone else still remembers. I think that’s a lot to do with anyone in business. Real estate, architects, selling books at a store. It’s like the personal connection you make with people it’s extremely valuable.

Erin: It is. It is. Todd, one final, final note here. What is one thing that you suggest to someone who is listening right now that they can do to become more attuned to the architecture around them?

Todd: Let’s say walk slower. Like the value of just taking a walk around your neighbourhood and that’s what probably saddens me the most about the way Canadian and North American cities are designed. They’re not experienced up close. When I take a walk, like walking around your neighbourhood. I was just in Mexico City. I missed my plane to Fogo and then I said, “Ah, hell with it. I was just going to stay in this neighbourhood called Condesa.” I walked like an hour in each direction. I could feel like, I know that was a beautiful walk, so walking and observing, being curious.

Erin: Taking a break. Todd, we can’t thank you enough for your time, your consideration, your immense talent and for everything that you’ve done to bring Canada to the fore, you’re an incredible ambassador for this country. Even as you work abroad and make your mark in all of the different communities in which you plan and you build. Thank you for that.

Todd: Thanks for those very kind words and thank you.

Erin: Once again, I can’t recommend highly enough that you search out and watch the documentary Strange and Familiar: Architecture on Fogo Island and see and hear our guest Todd Saunders in and about that Inn. You really have to see it to appreciate Todd’s magic and his vision. It’s glorious.

Join us for episode 28 of REAL TIME, when a career television broadcaster talks about the art of conversation, the most important element in that vital part of your business and so much more TSN’s James Duthie will be our guest on REAL TIME, so don’t miss it.

REAL TIME is an Alphabet^® Creative production brought to you by CREA, the Canadian Real Estate Association, Technical Producer, Rob Whitehead, and Real Family Productions and I’m Erin Davis. Thank you so much for joining us and we’ll talk to you again soon on REAL TIME.

Over the last two years, we’ve seen technology progress at a rapid pace. Sometimes you may ask yourself, are we pivoting or are we spinning? Our rates of embracing new technology have skyrocketed, and there’s not a chance they’re going to return to pre-pandemic levels. We’re in this for the long haul, but what does that future look like, anyway? What are the risks and benefits of a society that engages, transacts, and communicates primarily through technology?

More to the point, in our industry of real estate, where personal branding, human connections, trust, and networking are fundamental, what does the digitization of our economy mean for a REALTOR®‘s business? These are all good questions, and fortunately for us, we have just the guest to answer them today. Sinead Bovell is, to quote her Insta bio, changing the narrative about who should be talking tech.

She’s known as the model who talks tech, founder of WAYE of tech education forum. She’s spoken three times to the UN on tech and the future. Sinead Bovell is our guest today on REAL TIME. Hey, Sinead, thanks so much for joining us today.

Sinead Bovell: Oh, thank you so much for having me. I’m thrilled to be here.

Erin: Well, you’re a futurist and an entrepreneur, and you’ve spoken at the UN and educated 1000s of people on the future of technology. One of the amazing things about you is just the road that your career has taken because it didn’t start this way, you didn’t start this way. Tell us about your journey from a management consultant to a model futurist, and social entrepreneur. This is fascinating.

Sinead: Thank you. Yes, I would say my career has been unconventional, to say the least, but I’ll add as technology continues to change our world of work, my career might not seem so unconventional by the end of this decade. To answer your question, I did start out in the world of management consulting. This is largely to do with how I define success growing up.

I only really considered jobs that existed. I was leaning heavily into societal versions of success. That led me to focus on the things that I liked, which was analytics, problem-solving, strategic management. All of that took me to a place of management consulting. However, along the way, I never felt fully satisfied and inspired by the problems that I was solving. In doing my MBA and landing the goal that I thought I always wanted, it became ever more apparent, and I couldn’t ignore this calling that I was in the wrong lane.

In some ways, the wrong life, these weren’t the problems I wanted to be solving whatsoever, but I didn’t really see an exit. I was simultaneously most scouted by a modeling agency. This is nothing that I had ever considered before.

Erin: How did that even happen? How did that happen? You hear stories about somebody in a lineup at a concert or just – tell us how that happened, Sinead. I’m curious about it.

Sinead: Yes. Interestingly, I was at a business event and a scout came up and said, “Are you interested in modeling? Do you model?” I was in the middle of a conversation with somebody about something else to do with networking, so I was entirely thrown off. I didn’t really take it seriously, I just kind of, as a Canadian would politely say, “Oh, thanks so much.”

Then she returned about a half an hour later. I took the card. I went into the agency a few days later, and I signed with them. Long story short, I ended up quitting the path I had created for myself and stepping into this new world, that I really didn’t know what I was doing, but what I did know is that I would somehow connect my old world with this new one, that the Fundamentals of Business and Economics, all the things I had learned, still applied here.

What makes me a little bit different in this new world might be the very thing I can use to step towards the life I wanted to live, whatever that would mean going forward. One thing I did realize is that I would show up to these photo shoots, and start talking about things like artificial intelligence, the future of work, all the conversations I was having in my consulting and MBA world, and people were incredibly intrigued and wanted to learn.

That was the first light bulb moment that all of these conversations I almost took for granted and got educated in weren’t conversations that everybody was invited to but conversations that everybody needed to be a part of. That was the initial light bulb moment for me, maybe there’s a gap that I can fill here. Maybe this is where I can be of service.

Erin: How did you get inspired to start WAYE? Tell us about this acronym? What it means and how you got it off the ground, Sinead.

Sinead: Yes, WAYE stands for Weekly Advice for Young Entrepreneurs, and where the inspiration for the name came about was, the more I studied the future of work and was forecasting the changes technology would bring to our workforce, the more I realized, a lot of us are going to become entrepreneurs in some capacity in the future. As we start to lean a little bit more into more flexible working contracts, things like gig work, a lot of us are going to have to be our own boss in some way, marketing our skills more frequently. That’s where the inspiration for WAYE as an acronym came from.

Erin: Just the name of it though, the first word is Weekly, so you are committing yourself right from the jump. How did that work out? Was there ever a point where you went, “Okay, this is a lot?” Or did you just know that you had that much content, and enough people interested to contribute and be part of all of this, that you knew your vision right from the jump?

Sinead: I would say I knew my vision. I would encourage every entrepreneur to know what their aspirations are, but there was nothing I could say concretely. Again, with entrepreneurship, everything was up in the air, and not only did I not know if this vision would work, but also if people would care. Is this content that people actually want to consume?

In terms of weekly, our news cycle is, fortunately, or unfortunately, now down to minute to minute. I knew that I would continue to advance the conversation in the best way that I could, but in terms of there were no assurances that any of this would work. Of course, there was the unconventional background also fueling some of my concerns. Would people take me seriously? Is this somebody that they’d want to listen to? I prevailed and persevered through it, and here we are.

Erin: Yes, here we are, indeed. You once said that you noticed the gap in the speed at which technology advances and people’s ability to use it. How big is this gap and who do you think is most affected by it, Sinead?

Sinead: I would say there are multiple gaps happening simultaneously. That depends on the geography you’re looking at, the age group, the skills, economic access, all of these different factors are lenses through the various tech education gaps and tech access gaps that we see. 

On the one hand, when you look more geographically, there are a significant portion of the world that can’t even access the Internet, whether that’s the infrastructure itself, whether that’s cultural norms or things like the internet not being gender-neutral in certain locations. There’s that gap that actually is global, even if you’re in a country that leans heavily into technology, you’re still going to find that divide, depending on location, economics, et cetera. 

Then there’s the policy base gap. We see technology changing at a pace that our infrastructures aren’t designed to keep up with. Technology is leapfrogging ahead of all of our systems.

That’s quite a gap. Then even if you consider yourself somebody that is tech-savvy, you can pop around on social media, get your news online, there’s an additional gap of how the world of work and life is changing as a result of technology. How we live and exist today is going to look fundamentally different in 5 and 10 and 15 years. There’s all of these different layers and tears of gaps that I’m trying to tackle the close, but I think each of them, all of them are of critical importance.

Erin: Yes. The goalpost just keeps moving and moving and you stop to take a breath and you go, “Okay, it’s moved again.” You’ve suggested, if you want to see what the future holds, all you have to do is Google how tech is disrupting my career. I did that just before we sat down in real estate, and boom, right there, there’s a Forbes article, right online with 15 ways that technology is disrupting real estate. Really, the tools are at our fingertips if we just know where to look or even know to ask the question.

Sinead: Yes, I would say, leaning into technology is the best thing that we can do about our future. Leaning into how the world is changing, doing as much as we can to take initiative, like things like Googling how my career is changing, or how this role is being impacted by advanced technologies.

Erin: Coming up, Sinead looks at how we’ve been forced to fast forward into the future over the past two years, and just how that going. 

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Now back to Sinead Bovell as we discuss the future and the reality we’ve been living in for the past two years – the pandemic. Let’s talk about that because there has been so much said and written about it, but really there is no limit to it because your opinion on how the pandemic impacted our with technology now that we’ve been trusted further and faster into a more digital-first economy.

Sinead: Yes, so the pandemic it’s a really interesting case study when it comes to technology and on the one hand, it has been absolutely devastating the amount of lives that have been lost that are still battling this horrific pandemic and virus but I’d say when we look at how it impacted our societal infrastructures and our world of work and life, we have accelerated into the future by at least a decade. 

The changes we’re seeing today weren’t on the forecast charts until your 2027, 2030. Interestingly, we often fear that technology is outpacing us and our ability to keep up, which is true in some respects. But at the same time, a lot of us adapted quite quickly. We fumbled around on Zoom. I think you’re on mute is literally going to be the phrase of this time.

Erin: Or you should be on mute. That’s the other phrase, right?

Sinead: Either of those. You’re on mute, you should be on mute or where are you tuning in from, all of these different phrases that we’ve all used at some point, but we got the hold of these technologies a lot faster than I think we would have on ourselves had we not gone through these past couple of years. It has certainly fundamentally accelerated us into the future in many ways.

In some ways, it’s been good. I’d say things like healthcare and industry with so much red tape technology offers a lot of efficiencies, a lot of ways to leapfrog over these legacy systems that were blocking access and now we realize if you can just call in, FaceTime in, remotely meet your physician instead of hustling into a city or having to take a day off work that is a win for everyone.

Of course, it’s not always going to be the right answer, of course, technology you can’t solve all the problems. There are times when you need to go into a hospital or visit your doctor but there’s also a lot of times when you don’t need to do that and so the pandemic forced us in many ways to make these changes and to adapt and in some ways, there have been some silver linings here.

Erin: Yes, and what has felt like spinning is actually pivoting, if you look at it in a positive way too. Yes. Now how do you suspect that digitization is going to impact industries like real estate where personal connections and you mentioned going to a hospital, we can do our medical care so much online, but so a doctor looking at you can often tell you, “Okay, there’s something going on with you. What aren’t you telling me?” Real estate, let’s take it back to real estate where personal connections are so fundamental to business, Sinead.

Sinead: Technology is going to have quite a profound impact, on the real estate industry, and it already has, right. If you were to rewind the clock only a few decades ago, the idea of listings being online was fundamentally unheard of and now that’s the first place we go to check the real estate market if we’re interested in buying or selling or even just browsing. So that’s already been a massive change and social media as well but of course, as we look out into the future technologies like artificial intelligence, virtual reality, augmented reality, you may have heard terms like the metaverse.

These are going to change how we access information, where we access information, and where consumers and prospective buyers and sellers expect the industry to be, and here’s what I mean by that. If, for example, a technology augmented reality or virtual reality becomes more mainstream by the end of this decade, I don’t just want to search and see a house online. I’m going to put on my augmented reality glasses and do a tour as best I can up until the limits of that technology. It doesn’t mean that technology is going to replace the job of the real estate agent. That real estate agent will probably be a part of that walkthrough in the form of a hologram but in a lot of the different areas, our fundamental behavior is going to change.

However, I will let’s say when it comes to something like real estate, an asset and a decision that is usually one of the most important decisions, or at least most important financial decisions in most people’s lives, there are things that you cannot just replace or substitute with technology and this is one of those cases.

An artificial intelligence system may be good at understanding which properties to show you that you might be interested in, but you’re going to want that human real estate agent’s opinion on the areas that AI can’t give you, those subjective human-based experiences that real estate agents have that an AI system doesn’t. Real estate, it’s not a cookie-cutter process.

There is last-minute bidding that happens all of these things that an AI is not cut out to deal with, these ad hoc changes and pivots. That’s where a real estate agent is going to be critical, but you do need to be leaning into how this world is changing. When you hear terms like the metaverse, it means you should stop and think, “How could this change my relationship with technology, with how I sell?”

Erin: Sinead, when you mention the metaverse, I have to confess, I approach it with a degree of cynicism because to me, it’s Mark Zuckerberg changing the conversation from Facebook and saying, “Hey, look over here.” You are addressing it with respect and vision so tell us what we need to know what we can even take in and digest and this point about the metaverse would you?

Sinead: Yes, I have some of the cynicism with you. I totally get it. We hear it. We cringe the way it was introduced to a lot of people, but here’s what I’m turning into a little bit more. Not so much as the cartoons and running around in this virtual world that is a part of it, but that’s not what I think would be important for an industry like real estate. I’m turning into a world, in which the digital is equally, if not more important and so what could that mean in real estate?

It could mean that you have a digital twin of your real house as an asset so when somebody goes to buy a house, they buy their physical house, but they also buy a digital twin that is powered by artificial intelligence, that you can do everything from seeing how furniture rearranged would look before you actually buy the furniture. To get flags and notifications when something’s about to break down ahead, actually breaking down and the same way digital twins are used in engineering right now.

A manufacturing plant would say this dishwasher is going to break down in the real world. We’ve been modeling it on our simulations. We would have that of our houses as well. Those are the types of things that I’m paying attention to. Outside of the real estate, we’ll probably have one of our physical bodies for healthcare and things like that but those are the areas that I’m turning into. I would also as, a real estate agent and technology like augmented reality so if I can show up and give somebody a tour via a hologram that’s a real plausible scenario, for the future.

Again, if you were to align the clock 25 years and tell someone they’re going to really engage in this thing called the internet, and they’re going to put their house in this cyber community, and people are going to bid on it and make appointments on it, we would think that was crazy. Now here we are. So, the metaverse, I think that there are elements that we can ignore, but there are elements that are very legitimate. They’ll of course depend on how the technology changes over time but that’s how I would think about it as a real estate agent.

Erin: If I was to buy a digital twin of my house, what might I expect to pay?

Sinead: Yes, I would say there are many ways that you could look at this question. You could buy actual real estate just in the metaverse and not have a physical house with it but it really depends on how things evolve so maybe this is something that is included in the house deed so it’s not necessarily something that really increases the economic value of the house. It’s something that becomes expected over time and we might look back and think it was ludicrous that we didn’t have this security system where we’re monitoring our house in real-time and where we’re getting these updates, where we’re able to make changes digitally before we invest in them. Physically I think in time, that’s probably the level that well, we’ll get to but there are all different ways that it can evolve and, of course, nobody can predict the future. If anybody tells you, they can, I would be very skeptical.

Erin: When we return. How much do we spend betting on the future? Sinead looks at the risks and the questions we should ask. 

Enjoying REAL TIME? Thank you, and be sure to visit crea.ca to access valuable resources and discover more fantastic and useful real estate content. 

Now back to Sinead Bovell, founder of tech education forum WAYE Talks. From a business standpoint then, what are the risks and opportunities of investing in new technologies?

Sinead: It depends on what you mean by invest. If I’m putting a bunch of money into developing a technology that I hope my line of work will lean into, of course, that’s always going to be a risk. We forecasted the Internet to go one way and it’s gone an entirely different way and people have lost money in that. The dot-com bubble and even technology like virtual reality. If you think that that’s going to be the future and that isn’t the technology that underscores the future, then you’ve probably lost out.

I think that there will be economic risks as we step into this changing world of technology. I think where you can’t really go wrong is what are the general-purpose technologies that are becoming foundational?

The Internet was one and artificial intelligence is another. These are areas where it becomes a little bit less risky but we still have to do our research and lean into them. I think, of course, any investment is always going to be a risk. It’s do your due diligence and ask yourself where is my market? Where will my market expect to find me? Where will my customers seek out information? What will that behavior look like over time? I think that’s in many ways is worth the risk of meeting your customers where they are or where they expect to find you.

Erin: Something that we often hear and feel is a lot of the fear and questions around AI. You’ve talked a lot about AI and the future of technology as it relates to business. How do you think, Sinead, that this growing shift to word automation will impact the workforce? Who’s going to be most affected either positively or negatively?

Sinead: I will say I have yet to come across a job or an industry that won’t be impacted by technology. The same way it’s hard to find a job that hasn’t in some way been impacted by the Internet. 

In terms of who will be quite drastically impacted and then what we can say with more certainty, artificial intelligence as it stands today can do one task really, really well and a task that is repetitive and predictable. That would lean more into roles that are more administrative in nature or food preparation, scheduling, and task management. All of those types of roles unfortunately do fall under some of the main advantages of artificial intelligence.

Those types of roles were seen more so in the line of automation versus augmentation. However, 90% of the workforce will have some of their tasks drastically impacted by artificial intelligence. That doesn’t mean that your whole job’s going away but it does mean that tasks in your job will eventually be passed to an AI, some of those tasks. The tasks that can’t are the tasks that are fundamentally human in nature that we need that human interaction, that human viewpoint or opinion or perspective and it’s not something that we can automate.

Erin: The human interpretation, the experience, the wisdom, that sixth sense too because you’ve been there before.

Next up going where we haven’t been before. The upside of tech in our everyday lives, REALTOR.ca is the most popular and trusted real estate website in Canada. Don’t miss our next episode of REAL TIME when two CREA members discuss how REALTOR.ca is evolving into so much more than a listing site. Just make sure you subscribe to REAL TIME when Episode 25 drops, you’ll be there to catch it right away.

From shopping to working to dating and real estate our love affair with technology, it grows stronger by the day. I don’t have to tell you that. You don’t even have to be a futurist just realistic. 

Sinead, what are some of the benefits of a society that is increasingly engaging, transacting, and communicating through technology? What are you seeing as the benefits of this?

Sinead: Our personal view of the world has expanded in many ways and in ways that we couldn’t have imagined or predicted. It has really minimized the idea of borders in some respects. We’ve shifted into a lot more efficiency in our day-to-day transactions. 

The things that I like to point out, one being in the pandemic, for example, we all had to switch to a laptop or screen-based workforce and you’re only really seeing your colleagues in these little squares. At the same time, it was probably the first time many of us saw into the homes of our colleagues. We saw cats running across computer screens and children interrupting meetings. Those were often met with nothing but compassion and empathy and understanding. It became a lot easier to say, “I can’t schedule a meeting at this time. I have to do a pickup or whatever it is the case.” 

We became a much more empathetic workforce in a much more compassionate and understanding workforce. In the same ways that we feel technology takes something innately human from us, in other ways it does the exact opposite. It really does open our doors in our windows to one another in ways that previously weren’t possible without technology.

Erin: That is a great point because previously if somebody said, “I’m sorry. I’ve got to pick up my daughter at daycare or whatever.” There might have been, admittedly or not a bit of an eye-roll, from somebody on the team. Now you can picture that little girl or you can see that employee as a parent who has responsibilities and you go, “Yes, okay. We’ll schedule this for later.” Whether we knew those barriers or whatever those preconceived notions were, they seem to have as you say fallen by the wayside as we open up to compassion. That really is a positive thing to focus on.

Sinead: I think so. I think the conversations around remote work and flexible work, these are incredibly important conversations for a variety of reasons but not least of which being inclusivity. Who are we excluding from the workforce simply because we incorrectly assumed they had to be there. We were probably excluding new parents, people with different physical needs, and accessibility needs, all of these sorts of communities. Even when it comes to building a more diverse workforce, a workforce that’s more reflective of society more broadly, that might not be available in your specific town. Now in a world of remote work, there are no more excuses.

We can truly hire and source from everywhere and we should be leaning into that. I think that it’s brought a lot of important conversations and not just because in some ways or sometimes it’s more comfortable to work from home. From a more inclusivity standpoint in a more progressive society, we don’t really have the excuse to exclude people anymore. We have fundamentally proven that that is a myth and it doesn’t exist. Everybody can join the workforce if we’re willing to accommodate.

Erin: Of course with every gift, there seems to be a risk, especially where we’re talking about technology. What are some of the risks? There’s a great vulnerability that is out there from a technological standpoint, is there not?

Sinead: Absolutely. With every technology there are risks. Especially in technologies like artificial intelligence, the way our data is being captured, the more things we do online, the more exposed we are and the more vulnerable we are. We’ve seen right now we exist in a world where our data is used in ways we don’t understand, in ways we don’t truly consent to, our personal information and our personal lifestyles are mined, refined, and sold. That has quite drastic impacts on society from multiple lens points or vantage points. Whether it’s national security, whether it’s just privacy, and the right to exist in private, all of that is being challenged by technology and not in a good way.

I would say when it comes to the risk with technology, I think I flag data almost immediately. Of course, things like workforce augmentation and automation, that is a very big risk. Not even just a risk, that’s something that we know is happening that we actively have to deal with. Then there are the things that are unforeseen. The ways technology will change the world that we haven’t really accounted for.

That’s also why everybody in some capacity needs to exercise some elements of being a futurist. Companies especially, governments especially how can we forecast in some ways how the world is going to change so we can minimize the risks as much as possible and we can be prepared as possible for what’s to come.

Erin: Up next, Sinead shares what we could be even should be embrace racing more for our workforce and in our social media lives. 

Your go-to source for content is just one link away. REALTOR.ca Living Room features timely articles, inspiring design tutorials, and everything else you need to make your or your clients’ dream home a reality. A world of possibilities awaits at REALTOR.ca Living Room. 

Now the rest of our chat with Sinead Bovell, our human guide to a digital future on REAL TIME. What digital opportunities are businesses not taking advantage of right now, Sinead? Can you think of any off the top of your head?

Sinead: There are a lot of different digital opportunities. I think businesses are still not fully embracing how digital technologies can shape their workforce for the better. We’re still seeing a bit of reluctance around things like remote work, but also where are your customers on these digital platforms that you are not taking advantage of?

We’re only now in the last five years, seeing companies step into social media and that become a non-negotiable, but the conversation is changing. Whether that’s augmented reality, and keeping up with how that world’s changing or worlds like the metaverse, it’s not as much that you have to suddenly be there, but you have to be leaning into it and preparing your business to make the leap should these technologies scale in the way that they’re forecasted to.

I think what we’ve seen with the pandemic, is technology isn’t going to wait. It was challenging for many, many companies to pivot and to adapt, but they didn’t have a choice. The companies that struggled the most probably would struggle the most over this next decade. They probably wouldn’t have survived or won’t survive the next decade as we see fit, so I would encourage everybody to lean into the world of technology and to take it seriously even if it sounds something out of a world of fantasy because that’s how we would’ve described technology, the technologies we used today, in decades ago.

Erin: Yes, absolutely. To wrap up here today, and we do thank you again so much for your time. If you could Sinead, share one tip to help our REALTOR® listeners thrive in a world transformed by technology, what do you think it would be?

Sinead: My one tip up and it’s actually very, very simple is to every month, every six weeks do a simple Google of how my industry, my role is being impacted by technology. How technology is changing the work that I do. You can get more specific, you can say how artificial intelligence is changing my role, but I would every month, every six weeks stay in the know, do the best you can to lean in and be prepared. Something as simple as a Google search, I think that has some great return on investment.

Erin: Wonderful advice. Again, we do thank you so much for your forward thinking, for your time, and for leaning in with us today, Sinead. Thanks so much.

Sinead: Thanks for having me. It’s been so great being a conversation with you, Erin.

Erin: Follow Sinead Bovell on all social media platforms or Sinead Bovell, that’s S-I-N-E-A-D-B-O-V-E-L-L.com. Her insight on everything happening now and in the future is well worth your time. 

REAL TIME is proudly presented to you by the Canadian Real Estate Association. Produced by Alphabet Creative and Real Family Productions. Rob Whitehead is our technical producer. I’m Erin Davis, inviting you to be sure and subscribe, so you don’t miss one of our inspiring, informative guests, wherever you download podcasts. 

Next time, two members of CREA talk about the evolution of listing sites in Canada, how REALTOR.ca is evolving into so much more, plus the mechanics of Canadian real estate. Thank you so much for sharing this conversation with us, and we’ll talk to you again soon on REAL TIME.

Today it’s my pleasure to share with you an amazing chat with Hamza Khan, about what makes a leader. Hamza, as you’ll soon hear, knows where of he speaks. He’s a bestselling author, a teacher, an avid learner, and of course, a sought-after public speaker. Mr. Khan has two TEDx talks that I know you’re going to want to look for, especially after hearing our discussion. I can’t stop thinking about some of the things we talk about today. Active inertia, you stress, and how your social media are all about, give, give, give, and then ask.

Hamza Khan joins REAL TIME to talk about what it means to be a great leader as the workplace and workforce continue to evolve. What do employees look for in leadership? How can those in charge pivot to thrive in the future of work? What does that even look like? How can employees thrive to be seen as a leader in real estate? We’ve got a lot to cover. Buckle in and get set to take some mental notes from episode 23 of REAL TIME.

Thank you so much for joining us here, Hamza. We are so excited to be listening to you and chatting with you. You’re a celebrated thought leader who has spoken to hundreds of audiences globally about the future of work, and of course, you’ve written books on business resilience, even delivered a TEDx talk about the differences between management and leadership. Whew. All right. How did you get here? Tell us a bit about your journey.

Hamza Khan: Wow, wow, wow. First of all, thank you so much for having me on the podcast. I’m really, really excited. A little bit about my journey, I began my career working in the education space, specifically within student affairs, both at the University of Toronto and at Ryerson University. Those experiences then set me down the path of entrepreneurship. I created a boutique digital marketing agency that worked primarily in the education space as well. I got to work with institutions outside of those two that I just named. Then that put the wind in my sales to start my current company, which is a soft skills training company known as SkillsCamp.

Throughout that journey I’ve been very fortunate to do a lot of public speaking, to write two books, and to do considerable research on the future of work where I’m now studying at Ryerson University. I’ve come full circle in a sense. I’m studying the future of work, specifically the relationship between organizational leadership and occupational burnout, really interesting stuff.

Erin: It is, it is, and you’ve never stopped learning, which it’s a great message right off the top too.

Hamza: Yes. Thank you, Erin. I would describe myself as a lifelong learner.

Erin: How about the time you were an intern at Sony? That is a fascinating little beginning as it were, and something that you saw that a lot of people didn’t.

Hamza: Yes, that was a really, really formative experience in my career. One of first jobs that I had while I was at university, studying at the University of Toronto, Scarborough in my fourth year, I got an internship at Sony Music that was supposed to only span three months. Now mind you, this was in 2007 at a very interesting time in our history. This was right before the 2008 financial crisis, and then at the same time, the music industry was going through considerable disruption.

I watched from the inside out as an intern, as a fly on the wall, as somebody who had access to all of the different conversations, as many as I could at the time, just hopping into meeting and talking to this person and that person, I got to watch from the inside as active inertia, the tendency to repeat tried and tested behaviors, even in response to dramatic environmental shifts. I watched how active inertia collapsed Sony Music entertainment.

This is a company that had to engage in layoff after layoff during the time that I was there, and what should have been a three-month internship ended up spanning for more than a year, Erin. Actually, my boss pulled me a set and said, “Hamza, I know you’re only here for three months, but you might want to stick around. This is going to be like a compressed MBA for you.”

It truly was because I got to see again how Sony music, but not just only Sony Music, the entire industry responded to these external forces of volatility, uncertainty, complexity, and ambiguity, and it was a compressed MBA, an unforgettable rehearsal of the four stages of an organization’s evolution. Every organization is introduced, it grows, it matures, but then it has to decide, is it going to renew or decline? Unfortunately, and I hate to say it, Sony didn’t renew itself in time. They eventually did, but it was quite a turbulent journey. I consider myself very fortunate to have seen that from the inside and then taken those lessons with me throughout my career.

I think often about this quote from Jack Welch, the ex-CEO and chairman of General Electric, which interesting fact about them, they’re the only company from the 1917 Fortune list, which remains on the Fortune list today, the Fortune 500 list specifically. I think it’s because they’ve embodied the ethos that Jack put forward, which is, change before you have to. That’s rooted in another one of his quotes that I think about often. He said that if the rate of change on the outside of the organization exceeds the rate of change on the inside, the end is nearer.

Erin: As Jack Welch himself would say, prepare for when your leadership is challenged, and that really brings home the message that we’re talking about today. You’ve been quoted as saying that you sink to the level of training, preparation, and character with belief that another crisis will happen and more things will test you throughout your career. Can you explain what that means, sinking to the level of training, Hamza?

Hamza: That’s really interesting. I had a very vivid experience at the start of the pandemic. Like many people, I was afraid, I was spending time with my family, not sure how all of this was going to play out. My father, God bless him, a very hard worker, a very resilient man, but he was terrified at the start of the pandemic. Anxiety got the best of him and one night he suffered a panic attack, and thank God I was at home. I was able to see it and get him the necessary help. In that split second where I saw him fall on the ground and have a panic attack, which then led to a seizure, my mind went to a really dark place. It was an out of body experience. In the flash of a second I rehearsed my entire life experience with my father, every memory, good, bad that I’ve had with him just in the blink of an eye.

When I reflected on that experience afterwards, because suddenly in that moment, I remembered how to deal with somebody who was going through this, I remembered how to administer CPR, all of this training that I picked up throughout my life within the Canadian Armed Forces and courses that I’ve taken with the Red Cross just came back. I booted up a dormant program, if you will.

When I reflected on that experience, Erin, it reminded me of something that I talk about quite often, especially when I’m talking about burnout and stress. There’s something known as the amygdala hijack that happens to people when they’re overwhelmed by sudden and unexpected stress. A part of their brain known as the amygdala, a primitive part, overrides their prefrontal cortex. The prefrontal cortex is the part of the brain that you and I are using right now. It’s used for high cognitive functions. It’s used for complex planning, creativity, so on and so forth.

When we are stressed in a sudden and unexpected way, like I was, when my father suffered his panics attack, the amygdala took over, it overrode, and in effect hijacked the prefrontal cortex and sent blood away from my brain, away from my prefrontal cortex towards my extremities. It got me prepared for fight, flight, or freeze. I learned in that moment something that I had been theorizing up until that point, which is when faced with a crisis like COVID or anything for that matter, a new competitor entering into the space, a conflict at work, whatever the case may be, a leader doesn’t actually rise to the occasion. That’s an optical illusion caused by other leaders falling back, and you sink to the level of your training and preparation, and your preparedness for that leadership moment depends on what happens in the moment, it depends on the days, weeks and years of planning and preparation that go into that.

Erin: Hamza Khan polishes his crystal ball and focuses on soft skills and what we can expect the next decade to bring. One thing that’s hard to predict is style, but you can stay on top of what’s new and now in everything from housing trends to design tutorials at REALTOR.ca/Living Room. Check it out for inspiring and entertaining articles always at REALTOR.ca. Now, back to Hamza Khan. 

Hamza, your keynotes are grounded in preparing organizations to thrive in the future of work. What does that future look like?

Hamza: Excellent question, Erin. I appreciate you giving me the space, the platform to share these insights.

Erin: Are you kidding?

Hamza: Published a book.

Erin: We’re so glad to have you here. Honestly, this is amazing. Sorry, go ahead.

Hamza: Thank you. I’m getting a little emotional thinking about that experience with my father, because that served as the impetus for me to then write my second book, Leadership Reinvented, a book that I immediately started writing after reflecting on that experience, because I thought to myself, Wow, every leader in the world right now, government, nonprofit, or business leader, especially in the real estate world as well. Every leader who is being forced to contend with the increased volatility, complexity, and ambiguity caused by Covid-19, this is a reflection of who they truly are. The actions that they’re taking, the thoughts that they’re having, this is their true leadership disposition because they’ve all sank to the level of their training and preparation.

Anyways, that experience inspired me to write Leadership Reinvented which is about being distinctly human in the future of work, of leaning into the things that can’t be easily distilled down to binary code. The things that can’t be reduced to ones and zeros. I believe that in the future of work, the things that are going to be done by human beings are going to be those that can’t be done by machines.

The future of work, like I said, looks distinctly human. By 2030, Deloitte estimates that 70% of the workforce as we know it, will be disrupted by technology. Advances in automation, machine learning, artificial intelligence, you name it. Like I said, what’s left will be the jobs that can only be done by humans and those jobs will require the soft skills, creativity, collaboration, critical thinking. To anyone listening to this, get bullish on the soft skills because by 2030, there’s a good chance that you’re going to be forced to rethink your entire career game plan. I promise you that what’s going to be left are going to be the things that make you, you. The things that make us human.

Erin: The job of leaders is going to be, if I understand your message correctly, taking care of their people, enhancing the human resistance to creating leaders.

Hamza: Amen. Absolutely. Couldn’t have said it better.

Erin: You did say it. I’ve read your stuff. You’ve also said something that stuck with me from the jump, and it should be a meme, it should be a t-shirt. It should be on everybody’s desk, if we have desks. You can’t always make the right decision but.

Hamza: You can make a decision and then make it right. Story of my life.

Erin: That’s beautiful because it encompasses forgiveness, forgiveness of ourselves, for others to look at us and see the humanity but can we delve into that a little bit deeper please, Hamza.

Hamza: Yes, certainly. We can’t always make the right decision but we can make decisions and then make them right. Especially when we’re talking about the future of work and being prepared for those leadership moments, the key is to just keep on moving. Keep moving forward and keep striving to reach that forth point in the evolution of an organization and have the necessary training and preparation, so that when you are faced with the turbulence, the stress of that decision, the decision between renewal and declining that you default, you sink to the level of training and preparation that results in you automatically engaging in the behavior that will lead to the organization renewing itself.

It’s a messy process. We can’t get it right. You can plan as much as you want. You can forecast as much as you want. At the end of the day, it’s still you, it’s still your colleagues. It’s still the organization that has to go through the process and take the actions and you’re going to misstep along the way but that’s part of the process, that’s part of the journey.

Erin: I think the time in this case though, time is seen as a luxury when it comes to making things right that perhaps was not the right decision to begin with. You’ve got to be given that time. It’s a necessity and not a luxury.

Hamza: Well said, and I think it was Boston Consulting Group who said that changes that were planned over the next five years will need to be made in the next two. That’s how much time is being compressed according to them as a result of the pandemic. Every organization, entrepreneur included, sole proprietor, somebody listening to this who might just be an agent of one, running a one-person operation, that includes them too. They’re going to have to change faster than they think. We don’t have as much time as we thought.

Erin: Why is it compressed?

Hamza: I think a whole host of factors. Again, I keep on coming back to that acronym that I learned when I was in the Canadian Armed Forces as a way to describe our external environment. Volatile, Uncertain, Complex and Ambiguous, VUCA. If I had to break them down even further, the more volatile the environment, the faster and further conditions change. The more uncertain environment, the hard it is to forecast, the more complex the environment, the harder it is to analyze and the more ambiguous the environment, the harder things are to decipher.

Another way to think about VUCA, those four forces, is as entropy. It’s essentially a law of the universe that things that are unattended to get worse over time. If anybody listening to this is engaged in avoidance, if they’re ducking and cowering and thinking that the external environment will reset to a more comfortable time, I think they’re in for a rude awakening. Like I said, if left unchecked, disorder and randomness tends to increase over time. Let’s just put it this way, Erin. Chaos is hungry for failing organizations, failing professionals and it thrives when people are unprepared.

Erin: That’s chilling, and undoubtedly dead on. We’ll be back in a moment with leadership speaker, author, educator and so much more, Hamza Khan imagining the world a new and envisioning fresh ways to work. 

Celebrate two years of REAL TIME with us by revisiting some of our most popular episodes from these two seasons. We’ve talked about design ideas, social issues that affect us all no matter where we live, living green and plenty of great ideas on how to get your message out. Hamza discusses that a bit later too. Catch them all and be sure to subscribe so you don’t miss one episode of REAL TIME.

Other than the entropy that we’ve talked about, what work related trends are we seeing as a result of the pandemic? Let’s get positive here because there have been a lot of good things that have come out of this as we now have two years in the rearview mirror. Let’s look at that and what you think is or are likely to stick.

Hamza: Yes, and I appreciate you shifting us in this direction because I think, especially given the focus of my research, it tends to focus on the consequences of inaction. It tends to focus on the people and the organizations who aren’t moving fast enough, but you’re absolutely right. There’s so much to be gained by this. I often think about a quote from a poet by the name of Arundhati Roy who wrote at the start of the pandemic.

She wrote, historically, pandemics have forced humans to break with the past and imagine their world anew. This one is no different. It is a portal, a gateway between one world and the next. I love that quote because it gives everyone, yourself and myself included, the permission to innovate, the permission to see new ways of working. Your question is a really good one. What work related trends are we seeing as a result of the pandemic and what’s likely to stick?

I think the big ones, Erin, are permanent working from home arrangements as well as hybrid work arrangements. Those two things we have demonstrated over the last two and a half years almost, not only can people be productive while working from home and having flexible work arrangements but in most cases, I would say, they can be more productive. That I think is going to stick, it’s going to be left to the leaders to figure out how to do so in a way that also respects the need for collaboration, for the serendipity that comes from being in a physical workspace.

There’s benefits to all three of those styles in-office, hybrid, and working from home. I think in the prevailing paradigm of work, working from home and hybrid work arrangements were the exception to the rule. That’s perhaps the biggest one that I think we’re seeing as a result of the pandemic and what’s likely to stick. 

We’re also seeing this final sweep of digitization. Any industry that hasn’t been touched by digital disruption, to be honest, every other industry I can think of has gone through it, beginning with the entertainment industry back in 2007.

I think the final bastion of change is traditional education, a space that I’m intimately familiar with, that I currently work in. To a certain extent I would also say the real estate industry has a couple of elements that require digitization but I think it’s already happened as a result of the pandemic. I’m not too worried about that. We’re also seeing an increase in uptake in gig work and side hustles. More people are getting into the industry. More people are adding on different components to their portfolio of work which is really great.

The one that gets me really happy or the two that get me really happy, Erin, are a reprioritization of well-being at all levels. I get really happy about that. People taking the time, taking the opportunity to step back and reflect on where the imbalance in their life occurs or maybe present and thinking about well-being in a more holistic way. Not just physical well-being but also mental, emotional, and spiritual well-being. That’s been really cool to see.

Then, I also think that we’re seeing a great leadership reinvention. Every leader in the world right now, myself included, is taking a hard look at their assumptions about leadership, their leadership style and are thinking about ways to be more human-centric. 

What’s likely to stick from everything that I just listed right now will be everything except the great leadership reinvention but not if we can help it and that’s why we got to get this podcast out to as many listeners as possible.

Erin: The great leadership reinvention. What do you mean by that? Can you elaborate a bit on that?

Hamza: Sure, sure, sure. There’s so much over here but I’ll try to keep it succinct because I could go on for like five hours about just this topic alone.

Erin: We could listen, trust me.

Hamza: You think about the old way of leading or like the old playbook. It was rooted in what was known as the Theory X style of management. This was advanced by Douglas McGregor, a professor from MIT. In the Theory X style of management, the leader assumes that the employees are lazy, that they want to avoid work, that they need to be micromanaged. This is how some leaders thought about their employee at the start of the pandemic.

What was true was that younger and younger generations, certainly my generation, Gen Y, and I know this to be true for all of the students that I teach as well in Gen Z, that they require a Theory Y style of management, which isn’t really management at all. It’s actually just being led. It’s assuming that these people are adults. They’re perfectly capable of managing themselves. They have the best of intentions. They’re creative, they’re self-reliant, they’re resourceful, et cetera, et cetera.

In the words of Admiral Grace Murray Hooper, you manage things and you lead people. The great leadership reinvention is going to see people shift away and just abandon the Theory X style altogether, unless you’re dealing with a problematic employee in which case you might have to step in and micromanage a little bit over here but I would contend that it’s also the leader’s responsibility to see to it that those employees are phased out of the organization. I’m a big believer that there’s no such thing as bad employees, there’s only bad leaders. I will be the first to say that as somebody who has been a bad leader in the past and is actively working to be a good one.

The great leadership reinvention is ultimately about four qualities, of leaders becoming more human-centric. That’s prioritizing people over everything. It’s about them being changed friendly, making innovation a priority. It’s about becoming values-driven and Gallup has shown this time and again that what employees want out of the workplace more than money, more than titles is they want purpose, they want meaning, they want engagement. I think that being a values-driven leader is really important and that can go into a whole other area of study which is the Theory Z style of management. I’m not sure we have enough time for that one.

I gave you human-centric, change-friendly, values-driven and the last one is self-disrupting. This goes back to the quote that I shared earlier from Jack Welch which is, change before you have to. All of the organizations and the people listening to this podcast who were shocked by Covid-19, this is a wakeup call for us, that this event can happen. It can stress us out, it can disrupt our business. Let’s use this as the impetus to start disrupting ourselves well in advance of whatever that next disruption may be.

Erin: You’ve also talked about embracing the flexibility. It was birthed through necessity totally like so many great things. Now can you put that genie back in the bottle once people have said what I really hate that commute in the morning or I’m enjoying having this melded life, this balance of home and work? Now, of course, with real estate and REALTORS®, you can’t do everything virtually, but can that flex be flexed even more in the future as we head through that great gateway as you quoted the poet earlier?

Hamza: This is going to be tricky. I think about this all the time as somebody who does a lot of solo work. I’m studying right now attachment theory and it’s talking about how at the end of the day we are social creatures, we need each other’s company, we need to be with people that we like including our coworkers. The research is showing that this is a great way to reduce our stress, to reduce cortisol, and to produce oxytocin, the bonding chemical that has tremendous benefits for us just on a biochemical level alone. Being around other people, engaging with customers, with clients, with colleagues, with managers, it’s really important.

I think that Zoom and Microsoft Teams and other virtual communication technology that we’ve used, Slack, Discord, whatever you may be using over here, was a good holdover. It has shown us that we can maintain relationships. We can continue to do work, if needed, virtually but where possible we should find ways to incentivize employees and teams to come together in-person. I think the onus is on leaders and I would also encourage leaders to include their subordinates in the decision-making process with the question of how can we make our shared workspaces more conducive to productivity and collaboration?

I think you’ll be surprised by the answers that you get. Like where I’m recording this podcast right now, I can look out and I can see an office building right beside my home here and it’s empty. It’s empty at the time of recording and I think that’s largely because if I look inside all of these windows, I see a very boring space. It’s cubicles. In a strange way, Erin, cubicles reinforce isolated work.

Can we reimagine what a shared workspace looks like? Maybe it’s hot desks, maybe it’s an eclectic combination of seating and standing arrangements. Maybe it’s something that’s conducive to bumping into people. It allows for the kinetic energy that comes from when the right people, the right engaged people are in a shared space together. Maybe leaders need to think about intentional ways to bring people back to the office. For theme days.

Maybe they can say, if you’re coming back to the office two to three times a week, and let’s say that that’s your prerogative, on Wednesdays from this time to this time, we put our computers away and we all meet up in the boardroom or we all meet up in this creative space and we do some innovation exercises. We try to imagine what sort of organization would disrupt this one and we try to emulate attributes of that organization. There’s so many possibilities.

We sometimes focus on all of the things that we’ve gained from working from home but I would encourage everyone listening to this podcast to also think of the things that you’ve lost. Trust me, one of the things that we have lost is people and being in an environment where the magic that comes from people seeing each other and not being mediated by the screen is possible.

Erin: When Hamza Khan returns, sharing the lessons he teaches about social media, this is so good. 

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We return now to our enlightening and fascinating talk with educator, speaker, author, and leadership expert, Hamza Khan. 

Part of what we are embracing now is of course, the myriad ways that we can get our messages out, whether it’s TikTok, Insta, Facebook, all of these different platforms. How important is it for people to be using these keys in order to reach the audience? What do you put out there? You have a pretty good formula as to the give and ask that’s really important for people to hear.

Hamza: One thing I should mention is that I’m also an educator teaching at Ryerson University and prior to that, I was one of the founding members of Seneca College’s social media certificate program, which was the first in the country and I’m really proud of that. I teach social media classes. It’s a really interesting class because it transcends the technology itself and it has less to do with the individual platforms like Instagram and TikTok and more to do with branding, marketing, and communications as disciplines.

I assure all of the students, and I want to give the same assurance to all the listeners today, that being effective online in terms of branding yourself, in terms of using social media to get your business out there comes down to these four words. Do things, tell people. It’s really that simple. Do things, tell people and you’re already doing incredible things. The business that you’re running, the sales that you’re making, the testimonials that you’re acquiring, the connections that you’re fostering, the events that you’re volunteering at, your presence in the community, you’re doing these things but now you have to let people know because this is where our market has gone.

At least for the last 10 years, certainly I would argue even longer than that, there’s been a gradual shift to people living their life offline to living it online to the extent that now we’re having conversations about we’re going to go fully online with the metaverse. I don’t know how we’re going to eat in the metaverse. I think we’re going to have to come back out of our virtual reality from time to time to perform some very basic bodily functions, if you will. The point remains that the audience’s expectations and behaviors have shifted to spend increasingly more time online.

The last time I checked, Gen Z is spending something 15 to 17 hours a day connected to the internet. This is where our audience is. If this is where our future customers are going to be, then the onus is on us to present ourselves in a way that is memorable. That we’re top of mind when it comes to this generation. I would include myself as well in that to make decisions about buying a home, about renting, whatever the case may be, about getting mortgage, all of that.

There’s a couple of things that you can do to create an effective personal brand online, again, and they all fall within the do things, tell people model. The first thing that you can do is share testimonials that you’re getting from the different clients that you’re working with. Ask for them. If you’ve done a really good job with a particular client, ask them to write you a Google review. That’ll go long way towards increasing your searchability. You can also take that Google review and turn it into an Instagram quote and share that. You could also perhaps even record them if they’d like talking about what it is that you did for them and how hands-on you were and what the experience of working with you is like and that can serve as some social proof that you can broadcast across your social media.

You can then also ask for warm introductions via social media. I’ve seen a couple of REALTORS® do an exceptional job of giving resources and information generously. I’m in the process right now of buying a home. I’m working right now with a REALTOR® who I followed for a number of years and didn’t do any business with but they were so great in terms of providing education.

What’s the word I want to say? I don’t want to say it was easy because as a social media user and a content creator myself, I know how much work goes into this but they seem to have found their groove with producing their Monday tips and providing eBooks that I can download. A whole manner of things. Do that. I would say, what should govern all of this, the sharing of testimonials, asking for warm introductions, giving resources and information generously, just be a mensch. Try to be helpful, try to be useful to your community. You give, give, give and then you can make that ask. I think a lot of people make the mistake of jumping onto social media, creating a website and making the ask right away, but you actually have to earn the trust of your audience first. I think that this real estate agent did a phenomenal job of earning my trust over years of nurturing me in their funnel.

Erin: That’s amazing. Build the bond without necessarily being on topic but on brand. Playing the long game, it is a long haul.

Hamza: Playing the long game. Actually, earlier today, Erin, I was looking at another one of my friends who is running a fantastic real estate account on Instagram. They were talking about their experiences of going through a pregnancy. You might think listening to this, what does being pregnant and sharing that have to do with my business? Well, it creates a bond. It humanizes you. It makes your story very compelling.

In 1927, a doctor by the name of Dr. Bluma Zeigarnik advances a theory known as the Zeigarnik effect that states that humans are irritated by unfinished tasks. I think that this can also apply to social media. If I’m invested in your story, I’m more likely to continue to follow your story until it reaches its resolution. By simply engaging with one piece of your content, that’s all I need, if I just for the first time see your post about you going through your motherhood journey, I want to know what’s going to happen next because I’m invested at a subconscious level. I want to see this through until the child is born, but then I’m not going to stop at the child anymore. I actually want to follow through the child’s evolution and development.

Throughout that entire process of you sharing, you can definitely weave in elements about your work. Even if you don’t want to talk about your work at all, if I’m curious enough, I will actually click on your bio and then I’ll see, oh, wow, you’re an agent. If I go on your website, you’re offering this webinar series that I can attend. Fantastic. It’s free of charge. Next thing you know, something will click. I’m looking for an open house and then I remember what’s top of mind for me is that you shared on your Instagram story or on TikTok that there’s an open house coming up this Saturday. That’s how the new sales funnel looks like in this digital world.

Erin: As my mentor, Valerie Geller, who is an amazing broadcast journalist and teacher of broadcasters, just this tidbit is, be personal but not private. There is a line in there and it’s brilliant.

Hamza: Be personal, not private. I love that.

Erin: She’s great. Is there a telltale sign in the online world, Hamza, that tells you, that’s a good leader?

Hamza: That’s tough because it really depends. I’m thinking about this especially in the context of like some of the listeners of this podcast are sole proprietors, others are organizational leaders and especially online, trust, leadership, and authority are tightly grouped together. Be ridiculously helpful. I can’t stress that enough. I think that everyone, regardless of what you do for a living, if you strive to be genuinely helpful, that is going to take care of all of your other success metrics, because the natural byproduct of being ridiculously helpful is all of the success that comes with it. I would advocate that the best leaders that I see out there are ones who are genuinely helpful and actively helpful for that matter.

Erin: You’ve said that there are two kinds of marketers, pull marketing and push marketing. Can you tell us what that’s about?

Hamza: Yes, sure. The push marketers, you know them, and you’ve probably unsubscribed from their newsletters and you’ve probably muted them on social media. They’re annoying. They’re in your face. They’re human popups, if you will. God bless them. They’re trying their best, I understand. But maybe if you are a push marketer listening to this, let me tell you very respectfully that you might be annoying your audience.

What you want to do instead is become a pull marketer. Again, provide value. Solve a problem for your audience. Help them do something better, faster or cheaper. At the very least, help them do something better, faster, cheaper. If you do this enough, if you do it consistently, if you do it actively, and if you do it with good intentions, eventually what’s going to happen is you are going to pull people towards you. You are going to be top of mind for them. You are going to be unforgettable.

I’m a very good example of this. The agent that I defaulted to when it came time for me to make the decision about who I want to work with to go through this process of buying a home was the one who earned my attention over this long funnel. I was pulled to them. They didn’t have to push their services to me, they pulled me into their orbit.

Erin: Excellent. Now how can sole proprietors, Hamza, like many of our REALTOR® listeners strive to be seen as leaders in their field? I know you’ve been reading a really good book that has this acting as if sort of an underlying theory here. Have you got anything out of that that you can share with us?

Hamza: Winning by Tim Grover. What a book. It’s quite an intense read, I must say. Again, I feel like a broken record over here, but think it’s worth repeating over and over again, but you just have to be useful. You have to give, and that’s how you’re seen as a leader. It’s very clear to your audience that you are helping other people. Unabashedly share those testimonials that I alluded to earlier. Capture them and share them.

Like I said, if you’ve done a great sale, if somebody is happy with your level of service and you’re working with them, make that known to your followers. It’s a feel-good story. It’ll impress people and it’ll create the narrative in their minds that you are somebody who is helpful, who can get the job done, who is effective, who is again, human-centric, has all the values that we’ve been talking about throughout this entire discussion that we’ve been having so far.

Act like the sort of person that you would want to work with. Act like the sort of person that you would do business with. Act as if you are already this successful business owner, this business person, this REALTOR®, whatever you may be right now. Act as the best version of yourself and conduct yourself accordingly online and the rest will take care of itself, I promise you.

Erin: Our final segment with Hamza Khan is next. We’re going to talk about stress. Guess what? There is a good kind, and he’s going to share that insight and wisdom with us in just a moment. 

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Now, as we’ve discussed, real estate runs on an entrepreneurial spirit and certainly, so do you, so tell us, how do you stay grounded and healthy and avoid burnout, Hamza?

Hamza: That’s a great question. There’s something that’s very helpful in the conceptualization of burnout known as the conservation of resources theory. We experience stress typically in three instances. The first one, when there’s a threat of a loss of resources, the second one, there is an actual net loss of resources and the third one, there’s a lack of gained resources following the spending of resources. I’m not just talking about money, I’m also talking about time, energy, and attention.

It’s really important for entrepreneurs and people with an entrepreneurial spirit to do two things. There’s so many I can give you, but I think the chief among them are to assemble boundaries and to guard your precious resources, to guard your time, to guard your energy, to guard your attention. One way to guard your time, for instance, is by putting non-negotiables in your calendar.

Let’s say that it’s really important for you to replenish your energy by working out in the day. Well, don’t leave that to chance. Don’t let it be something that is occasional. Make it likely. Make it consistent. Put it in your calendar every morning from 8:00 AM to 9:00 AM, I’m going to work out. Fantastic. If you find yourself consistently pushing off lunches, well, put them in your calendar the same way that you would reflect a meeting in your calendar or a showing in your calendar. Put in from 12:00 to 1:00 every single day I’m going to eat lunch and I’m not going to do any work while I’m eating lunch, because that’s just working while eating. 

Assemble those boundaries against your precious resources, number one. That also includes your attention. Being very intentional, for instance, about turning off notifications, maybe using some app, like I use the Pomodoro technique to guide how I work. I work in 25-minute bursts with five-minute breaks.

The second part of the solution that I would advocate for entrepreneurs, and those who are entrepreneurially spirited is a guilt-free replenishment of your energy. Imagine that every day you start your day with four full buckets of energy and you have the mental bucket, the emotional bucket, the physical bucket, and the spiritual bucket, and you empty these buckets as the days’ tasks require.

Now, most people wait until the end of the day to maybe sit down with a warm meal and watch something on TV and replenish their energy, but they never quite get all of their energy back. They go to sleep waking up the next day feeling groggy. The year that I burned out in 2014, I didn’t take a single break for 11 months and I hoped that I could take this miraculous trip around the world in December of 2014 and recover. Unfortunately, I burned out in the process. I learned the hard way that if you don’t pick the time to relax, your body will pick it for you and it usually picks the most inopportune time.

Replenish your energy on a daily basis, ideally throughout the day, if you can. If you have the opportunity in the middle of the day, if you’re big on naps and you can take a nap, take a nap. If you have the opportunity to drop your kids to school and that replenishes your energy, build that into your calendar, make that non-negotiable. Guilt-free replenishment of your energy, I would argue, is part your job. It’s not a nice-to-have. It’s not an augment. It is essential to the work that you do.

Erin: I love that. It’s permission. Thank you. Then there’s your idea of reconceptualizing bad stress as good stress?

Hamza: Yes, yes, yes. I thought, like many of the listeners, that there’s only one kind of stress, distress, and that is stress that causes trouble, danger, feelings of alarm. I learned, after I had burned out in 2014, that there was such a thing as good stress, eustress, E-U-S-T-R-E-S-S. This is stress that is helpful, plentiful, is a precursor to something more desirable.

Research out of Stanford by Dr. Kelly McGonigal who wrote The Upside of Stress, a fantastic book, by the way. She revealed through her research that simply reframing a stressful experience as one that produces eustress instead of distress is enough to change your reaction, your body’s reaction to that stressor. You actually register that stressor as less stressful.

I actually did this quite recently too. I’m in a master’s class right now and I thought to myself, “Oh, man. I don’t want to do this. It’s a huge drag on my time. I don’t feel quite ready for this.” I found myself going into a mental spiral. Then I took a step back and said, “Well, this is actually a precursor to something more desirable, I want to continue to develop my understanding of this subject matter. I want to become more adept at the work that I do. So, this is necessary for me, this is the thing I got to do to get to do the thing that I want to do.”

I know that many of the listeners right now feel that way about a lot of their portfolio, there’s things that you don’t like to do right now that are causing you psychological stress. Coming back to the conservation of resources theory, you might be perceiving it as a threat, a net loss, or an insufficient reward. I promise you, if you drop a T-chart, and in one column you write down distress and the other you write down eustress as the labels, and then you just move things from one column to another, there’s a very, very good chance that the things that you are perceiving to be stressful right now, for example, let’s say updating listings, you think, “Wow, I don’t have the time for that right now. It’s really stressful.” If you see this as important to building your book, to meeting your targets, and then you take it a step further, what is the transcendent end result of doing this work? Well, I get to have all the things that I want and enjoy them with my family. I promise you that you will actually process that stressor quite differently.

Erin: That’s amazing. As we end, could you – there’s just been so much. You have filled our buckets again and again here, Hamza. If you could share one last tip to help our listeners become stronger leaders, what would it be?

Hamza: Okay. Ready for this one?

Erin: I am.

Hamza: As counterintuitive as it sounds, be more human.

Erin: Be more human. Is there any way you can elaborate on that at all?

Hamza: Absolutely. Coming back to an earlier question that you asked about what the future of work looks like, I think that, again, everything that can be automated will be automated. By the year 2030, we are going to find ourselves in a very, very different epoch of work than the one we are in right now. The most effective leaders, the ones who are able to attract and retain and engage top talent, the most effective entrepreneurs, those who are able to compel others to work with them, the most happy people are going to be those who have made considerable investments in their humanity.

These are people who have gotten bullish on soft skills, they’re creative, they’re empathetic, they’re emotionally intelligent, they’re collaborative. Again, the jobs that we’re going to do in the future of work are going to be those that can’t be done by the machines or can’t be easily done by them. You just have to extrapolate a little into the future, not that far, just 2030, those jobs are going to be distinctly human. That is what is going to remain at the end of the day.

In the words of futurist Alvin Toffler, I think about this quite often, he said that the illiterate of the 21st century won’t be those who can’t read and write, it’ll be those who can’t learn, unlearn, and relearn. Mental dexterity, flexibility is another fantastic skill to invest in that’ll allow everybody listening to this to be prepared for when the next change comes and to continue to change themselves and arrive at that fourth stage of the organization’s evolution, and renew every single time. In this way, you cross the chasm of time, time and again.

Erin: Thank you so much for the time you’ve spent with us today, you went past your Pomodoro rule of 25 minutes. We are so, so grateful to you, Hamza, it’s been a pleasure and all the best to you in the future. Thank you for helping us with ours.

Hamza: Thank you so much, Erin. I really, really appreciated this.

Erin: We appreciate you listening and joining us for this 23rd episode of REAL TIME from the Canadian Real Estate Association. We know your time is precious, and thank you for spending some of it with us. 

On our next episode, we’ll keep our eyes on the road ahead with an expert on AI and the future of work, Sinead Bovell. You’re not going to want to miss it, so be sure and hit that subscribe button. 

REAL TIME is produced by Rob Whitehead with Real Family Productions and Alphabet® Creative. I’m Erin Davis, and we’ll talk to you here next time on REAL TIME.

With Mr. Hall, the newest member of CBC’s Dragons’ Den team, we’ll explore principles, best practices, and trends in negotiation, as well as key takeaways to help you as a REALTOR® to strengthen that skill. Look at you with the still new dragon glow to you. [chuckles] You said on a promo for CBC that everybody was going to love you and all the dragons were going to love you. How has that worked out so far, Wes?

Wes Hall: They still love me.

Erin: Oh, good.

Wes: That’s what happens when you’re a lovable person. Everybody is going to love you, right?

Erin: Oh, okay. All right. I’ll keep that in mind for our conversation here. It’s great to have you with us. Your story is unbelievable. You did, as you know, grow up living in a tin shack in Jamaica, and now here you are one of North America’s most influential power brokers, a hugely successful entrepreneur, an anti-racism activist, and of course, as we mentioned, the newest dragon in the den. Tell us if you can, Wes, here, and it will make a best-seller one day if it hasn’t already, your journey from such humble beginnings to where you are today. Would you, please?

Wes: It is indeed a journey. When people hear about this tin shack, they probably roll their eyes and go, “Of course, everybody is from a tin shack.” I literally was from that tin shack. It’s got the zinc roof. If you look it up on the internet Wes Hall’s tin shack, you probably will see it. Me and my grandmother in a picture standing looking at the shack and me saying to my grandmother at the time, “I’m going to get you out of this place one day.”

I have 14 brothers and sisters, by the way, a traditional Jamaican family where I have zero full brothers and sisters in that number. My mom and dad was never married. They had a one-off and I was that one-off. That’s why I’m so special because you just can’t replicate Wes Hall.

[laughter]

Erin: I wish you’d work on your self-confidence a bit.

Wes: I’ve tried. It’s just so hard.

[laughter]

Wes: It’s hard to be humble but I try.

Erin: You came to Canada in your teens.

Wes: September 27th, 1985, Friday. I came to live with my dad and I moved to Malvern. That’s where my dad was living at the time and he had five kids in Canada on his own. I came in to live as number six in that household. He had another daughter that was in Jamaica that came later on, but I was out of the house by that time. I was added to that household and it was the most amazing thing for me because it was my first time on an airplane, my first-time seeing traffic lights because I lived in literally the bush in Jamaica.

When I came here, I got off the airplane at Toronto International Airport, Pearson. I walked outside and I saw these people, my siblings, and my stepmom, and my dad waiting for me. Oh, man, it was just a euphoric moment. Then I got into their vehicle and I’m driving on a six-lane highway, the 401. I’ve never seen anything like it before. Then we landed at his house in Scarborough that the whole neighborhood was still under construction. It was mud and dirt but to me, that was paradise. I found paradise coming to Canada.

I kept that picture of me and my grandmother in that tin shack on my desk on Bay Street for two reasons. One is to remind me of where I came from and never to forget, and two, to celebrate this great country of ours. It’s only in a place like Canada – I hear about the American dream and so on. You never hear about the Canadian dream, but the Canadian dream is alive and well. For me having that picture, it’s really celebrating the Canadian dream, that you can come from a tin shack and you can end up at the top of corporate Canada on Bay Street.

Erin: It is an amazing story. The Canadian dream, as you say, we don’t tout it enough. It’s our nature to downplay stuff like that. Your grandmother who raised you and your brothers and sisters, what kind of an impact or influence did she have on the man that you are today?

Wes: Everything, every aspect of who I am today was architected by her. When you think about it, she didn’t sit me down and gave me lessons and say, “Here is how you become a man, Wes.” She used her example of industriousness to show me what I should be when I grow up. See, I was abandoned. My oldest sister, she was two years older than me, my younger brother who was a year younger than me, and I was 18 months at a time and we were left in a house by ourselves by our mother. A neighbor heard us crying and went to the plantation. My grandmother worked at a plantation. She worked in a plantation, banana plantation, a coconut plantation depending on the season.

The house that we were raised in was provided by the plantation owners for the workers to raise their family, so my grandmother had this two-room tin shack that she was given. She came and got us from the plantation and brought us to live with her. I was 18 months old and she wasn’t argumentative about it or was bitter about it. She was 60. Could you imagine at 60 years old, you have all these grandkids that you’re raising already and then you inherited three more and the three was all under five years old? You would have some resentment towards your children or your kid that did to you or towards your grandkids.

My grandmother, I never ever remembered her holding it against me as a child. She was working extremely hard to make sure that there’s food on the table for us, to make sure that we went to school. We didn’t have much. I didn’t wear shoes to go to school because we couldn’t afford it. There are times when I didn’t even have food to bring to school to have lunch. The fact of the matter is that she knew that education was important, and she made sure that we went to school. I grew up watching her, and as a result of watching her, it was instilled in me what I should be when I grow up and I wanted to be like her.

Erin: She taught you the art of negotiation, I understand too. As anyone who has been to a Jamaican market, as a tourist, I always go in there and I go. “Oh, I hate to haggle. I hate that bartering back and forth.” If you don’t know how to do that, you don’t belong there.

Wes: Listen, when you are poor, you have no choice. Just put it that way. If you think about my grandmother raising all these grandkids, and she has a finite amount of money to spend. If you think about what it’s like to work on a sugar cane plantation, you’re in the hot Jamaican sun, you’re bent over with a machete in your right hand and grabbing the stalks or sugarcane with your left hand and you’re chopping at the root. Then you chop the stalk at the top and then you put them in piles, and you do that for 10 hours a day. The only time you stop is to drink some water, wipe the sweat off your brow and have a little bit of a snack or something to eat quickly and you go back at it again.

When you get that paycheck, once a month they pay you, you have to stretch that money as far as you possibly can. When you go to the market to shop, you have to make sure that if they’re saying that tomatoes are $2 a pound, you try to make sure that you get that tomato for $0.50 a pound. That’s what I saw in my grandmother when she would take me to the market with her that not a single price that she was quoted she end up paying for that product. She always negotiated and she always got the price she wanted.

Erin: She was also someone who was selling her wares as well, so you sold from the other side.

Wes: Exactly. I saw the buying part and the selling part. When you’re buying, you want to get it as cheap as possible. When you’re selling, you want to get the most money as possible. One of the things that my grandmother would do is because she would sell puddings, for example, she would bake these amazing puddings and she would sell them. Her puddings were so good that she would be selling it for more than everybody else in the market. She’ll be sold out before everybody else. That would create this amazing word around the neighborhood that if you want to get the best pudding at the market, you have to go early because Mama Julia’s pudding is always sold out early.

When you’re creating that kind of demand for your product, it doesn’t matter what the competition is doing because you’re always going to get your price. Especially when you’re going to be sold out before everybody else, you can keep on marketing that up. That’s what my grandmother would do, that her pudding was the most expensive pudding in the market and it’s always the one to go first.

Erin: Before we leave Jamaica and head to Bay Street, which is where we’re speaking to you today, what became of your grandmother? Were you able to share some of your bounty with her before she left us?

Wes: You know what, thank you for that question because I never really got asked that question in the past and I really appreciate it. In that tin shack picture that you would see if you search on the internet, I was 22 years old and my grandmother was a very old woman at the time. I went back and I said to her, “Mama, I’m going to get you out of this tin shack one day. I’m going to work hard enough in Canada. I will continue to work hard to get you out to that tin shack.” I got my first big break on Bay Street, the first one I became a vice president on Bay Street, I’m like, “Finally, I’m ready to get my grandmother out to that tin shack,” and she died two weeks later.

She never saw the ultimate success. See, I had three children. I was working hard. I was trying to provide for my family, and I was waiting for the perfect opportunity, the perfect timing to bring her over to show her my success. As a result of waiting for the perfect opportunity, she never saw any of it. I shouldn’t have waited. I should have brought her in here a lot sooner so that she can see what I saw when I came here at 16-years old, September 27th, 1985, because that impressed me, just being in this country impressed me. I know she would be impressed by this country and by what I was doing to work hard and to try to provide for myself and my family here.

She never saw it. She died in that tin shack. That’s one of the reasons why, Erin, I push myself as hard as I do because she deserved to be where I’m at, she deserved to appreciate the fruits of my labor because she was a big part of that and she never got it. I don’t really work for money anymore. Yes, I initially started by saying I want to make as much money as I possibly can, but now I try to change people’s lives by the wealth I’ve created for myself by working hard. If I can change people’s lives like my grandmother changed my life, this world will be so much a better place.

Erin: That is so beautiful. Thank you and I am so sorry. I’m so sorry for that regret for you, Wes.

Erin: Coming up, how Wes Hall just about let his biggest break slip away because he had to. It’s a great story. Love REAL TIME? Thanks for finding and supporting us. Subscribe to our channels on Spotify, Apple, and Stitcher to stay up to date on future guests and stories, or visit CREA.ca/podcast for more details and to catch up on past episodes. They are all worth your time.

You referred to that job, that vice presidency that you got on Bay Street. Your first really big break, but you almost talked your way out to that one. I just love the lesson in here. Be prepared to lose, Don’t pick a fight with someone who’s got nothing to lose. Tell us that story, Wes, if you would, please.

Wes: I was living in a 1100 square foot house with my wife. We couldn’t afford to pay the mortgage. We had three kids under three years old and I had this job offer to be director of business development for a US company and I was going to be business development director in Canada. I had this mindset that my next big break has to be a vice president position. I won’t accept anything less than that. This gentleman, the CEO of the company, offered me this opportunity to be director of business development and he told me what the salary was and so on.

I remember when he gave me the call, I was in the master bedroom with my wife. We didn’t really have enough money to afford a bed, so the box spring and the mattress was on the floor and that’s where we’re sleeping. I took this call and the gentleman says, “I have exciting news for you, Wes. After the job interview and everything, I’m offering it a position of direct to business development.” I said to the gentleman, “I really appreciate the offer, however, I would like to be a vice president.” He said to me, “I don’t have the authority to offer you a vice president position but director of business development is yours”. I said to him, “When you have the authority to offer me that job, give me a call”.

Erin: Oh.

Wes: He said, “Okay.” [chuckling] He hang up the phone, and that was it. My poor wife was laying on the mattress on the floor. She could not believe what just happened because we didn’t even have enough money to buy diapers for all the kids and I’m turning down this job not because of the money, but because of the title. She couldn’t believe it, but guess what happened. Two weeks later, I got a call from that gentleman and said, “I have the authority to give you what you want,” and I became a vice president on Bay Street.

Erin: Oh. Those were some tense two weeks with your wife, though, I’m going to guess.

Wes: [chuckles] We’ve been married for 30 years now and I can tell you if I didn’t get a job, it probably wouldn’t have made it to 30.

[laughter]

Erin: Wes, why is it so hard for us to negotiate fair compensation?

Wes: I think we’re afraid of losing out. When you think about it, that’s your value. That’s what’s going to create wealth for yourself and your family. That compensation is going to allow you to take nice vacations, live in a nice home, be able to do things for others philanthropically, and so on, but yet we find it very difficult to tell people this is how much I’m worth, this is what my value is to you. We go into companies and we create massive values for companies.

When I was working at this vice president level at this company, I was creating a ton of value. I was underpaid and I went into my boss’s office and I said, “Listen, I’m underpaid because here’s the value that I’m creating for you, and here’s where my compensation is. They don’t align with each other.” They fundamentally disagreed with me on it and I left to start Kingsdale. If they didn’t disagree with me, I would be still working for somebody else and I wouldn’t have started my own company, Kingsdale.

As a result of starting this company, I became one of the most successful person in the industry and become the person that I am on Bay Street today because I wasn’t getting fair compensation to begin with. I tried to do something about it, and when they refused to do something about it, I decided to go on my own and bet on myself. That’s the problem, a lot of people aren’t prepared to bet on themselves. When you think about it, would you prefer to invest in somebody else or would you prefer to invest in yourself because you know what you can do, you know what your limitations are, you know what your capabilities are as well?

Why not bet on yourself especially when you want to be an entrepreneur, but you go, “Man, I just don’t know if I can do it.” You need to get those doubts out of your mind, at least give it a shot. That’s why I decided to do, when I started this firm, I said, “I don’t want to be sitting here 20 years later regretting the opportunity that I’ve missed. I want to know that I’ve tried it, it didn’t work and I can pivot and figure something else out.”

Erin: Boy, have you ever made it work out for you? Let’s talk a little bit about high-stakes negotiation. How do you go about reading the room?

Wes: Every single negotiation we go into, we have to figure out who’s on the other side of that negotiation. Some people are prepared to pay more than others, some people are just not. When you are in a business where there’s no particular price list, for example, if you look in the real estate business and there’s typically if you go down a particular street in a particular neighborhood, every single house is not exactly priced the same.

There’s room there, wiggle room for your creativity, and for you to now determine to the market why your house should be more valued than the other houses in the neighborhood, and in sometimes, 20%, 30% higher. There may be features that you put into your house that others didn’t put into there. How do you value that? In terms of negotiating, you have to figure out how important are these things to the person buying my house?

Erin: How does a REALTOR® go about finding out what’s important? Just listen or what hints would you give, Wes?

Wes: I would say the questions that you ask. When you’re going through a showing, for example, you have to appreciate what are the things that are getting the person’s attention that you’re touring through the house. Sometimes, for example, we’re going through and we are just excited about, “Oh, I can’t wait to show them this part of the house,” but yet that person is still in the kitchen looking around the kitchen, but we want them to hurry up so they can show them the important part of the house. Guess what?

The reason why they’re in the kitchen, maybe he’s a chef and he loves to cook. He’s picturing himself in the kitchen cooking a beautiful meal and you’re trying to interrupt that by showing him the gym when he doesn’t care about the gym because the gym is so beautiful or the theater is so beautiful, but he doesn’t watch TV or he doesn’t watch movies, or he doesn’t really care about those things. We need to read the audience and to see what’s appealing to them and then focus on those moments.

One of the things that somebody said that I heard great about selling the house is that sometimes after you finish the showing, just sit in the living room or some great part of the house with the person and have a conversation with them because then they can visualize themselves living in that house, sitting in that room, maybe reading a book, maybe the fireplace is on and it’s snowing outside. All of a sudden, it changes their view on the place because they see themselves in it. Sometimes we miss those little part of getting things done. If we focus on those things and pay attention, we can close deals really quickly and we can actually get the prices that we are looking for.

Erin: So much of this is listening, isn’t it?

Wes: It is. One of the things that I tell my team when we’re negotiating, for example, and sometimes in real estate, you’re on the phone negotiating with the other side and you give them all the this is why this house is so great and everything, the feature sheets is all there and everything. Then you tell them, “Okay, but this is my price, $10 million.” Let’s say, for argument’s sake, we’re in the big leagues here, $10 million. This person on the other end, you convince them that this is the best house for them and you know you convinced them is the best house. Then when you put the $10 million on the table, again, you try to justify it still.

Why? You’ve already convinced them that this is a house for them. Now you have to convince them that $10 million is a price that they need to pay in order for them to own it. Let them determine why it’s not worth $10 million. Sometimes we try to sell against ourselves. We tend to just oversell when we already have this person closed. Then we try to justify the price tag that we put on there.

We shouldn’t justify. If we list the house for $10 million, once you start to you put your feature sheet out and you start to bring people through it, $10 million is $10 million. You bring me an offer for $10 million, nothing less. You bring me something less, I’m going to have a conversation with my seller about it, but at the end of the day, this price is the price that you’re going to pay ultimately. You’re not going to get me to say it’s eight or seven because other come say this is unique, and these are the reasons why it’s unique. When you find that buyer that know that this place is unique, you got to close them.

Erin: Sometimes it’s listening to the seller too, the seller who maybe doesn’t want this house torn down for a replacement. That they want to be able to come by and see it again with their grandchildren one day and say, “This is your parents were born,” or something like that. There can be things to listen to in the seller’s story too. Can’t there?

Wes: Absolutely. I sold my first house for $200,000. Bought it for $112,000 and I sold it for $200,000. It’s over 30 years and every year, I go back to look at that house because I remembered when I was standing in the bedroom, when I got that job offer and I turned it down, I remember that I fixed that porch at the front. The porch was done by me, my hands. 

I take pictures of that house it’s important to me that I do that. Then I bring my kids by to say, “This is the way you were born.” If I now, let’s say, when I was selling that house and I had that emotional attachment to that place, and somebody said, “I’m going to rip it down and I’m going to this amazing building there and the house is going to be fantastic,” fine, that’s your dream, but you just took away something that’s really important to me because you’re going to demolish it.

As a result of that, I prefer to sell it to someone for less money who’s going to preserve it than somebody who’s going to destroy that memory. Sometimes if we don’t appreciate the seller’s motivation for selling, we could be leaving a lot of value on the table and we completely could be losing opportunities because we just didn’t listen to the reasons behind why this person is selling this house.

Erin: When we return to REAL TIME, our guest, Wes Hall, one of Canada’s top rank business negotiators looks at the things that hold us back, the barriers when it comes to negotiation. If you’re like me, you find the best coffee or tea is the one you’re enjoying at home, maybe right now, but the best content is at the CREA Cafe. Tap into the knowledge of REALTORS® across this country of ours. Share your own lessons and insights by visiting REALTORS® Corner on CREA Cafe, a hub of great content created by REALTORS® for REALTORS®.

When we’re talking about negotiation, as you’ve pointed out so perfectly, it can come with a great range of emotions, especially in an industry like real estate where clients aren’t just buying and selling houses, they’re buying and selling homes. They’re buying and selling the place where your children came into the world and where you took that phone call and said, “No, I’m going to wait for VP.” Wes, what are common emotional barriers to negotiation? You’ve said there’s a thin line between arrogance and confidence. What are some of the most common emotional barriers?

Wes: I think sometimes it’s really not really understanding people’s motivation. When you think about the real estate transaction is one of the most important transaction that you’ll ever do in the business world. I buy and sell companies and so on, but that’s only a very small number of individuals that are in that category. Most people that own a home, at some point, they’re going to transact. At some point in their life, they’re going to sell that home, and then they have to make that decision very, very quickly. The longer you stay in that home, and the more improvements that you make to it, the more difficult it is to part with it.

You’re parting with your neighbors that you’ve built great relationship with over the years, you’re going to the unknown in the future. If you don’t understand the emotional attachment that people may have to that piece of asset that they’ve cherished for so long, that have built their value – My company, for example, that $112,000 home that I bought, for example, allowed me to a bigger home that allowed me to put a leverage on it to start my company, Kingsdale. That home created a value that I have and the wealth that I have today. It was an emotional attachment because it’s my future.

If you don’t appreciate it, that it’s my future, and don’t really treat it like that, then all of a sudden I don’t want to do business with you because doing any type of business, especially in that space, it’s about trust. I have to have trust and confidence in you that we’re going to have a good working relationship, you’re going to respect what I bring to the table, and I’m going to respect what you bring to the table.

When you give me the advice to say, “Wes, you should take this undervalued number or this price,” that I trust that you’re coming from the right place and that you just don’t want to turn me over because you have so many deals on the table and you have so many other clients, I have to be so special to you that I believe that I’m the only client that you have even though you may have hundreds. You have to give me the impression that I’m so important to you, that there’s nobody else that you’re paying attention to. My business, Kingsdale, when you think about what we do, we advise companies that are doing hostile takeovers and shareholder activism.

When I’m advising a CEO that’s under threat, somebody is saying that we’re going to replace you because you’re not competent. Then I’m talking to that CEO and I’m saying, “Wait a minute here, I’ll call you back because I have somebody else on the phone to talk to,” how do you think that person feels? In their mind, they’re the most important person on your list and you’re telling them that no, let me call you back because I have other things to do. We should make sure that we spend as much time.

If we look at it to say, “You’re not paying me as much as somebody else,” guess what? That person in the future could be paying you so much more because you’ve cultivated that relationship. Again, I spent $112,000 for my first home. Could you imagine had the real estate agent, who actually didn’t, treated me just like a sale? Then I bought my second house for double the price and then my third house and my fourth and my fifth to now I’m here in Dragons’ Den and I’m creating this wealth.

Could you imagine if that $112,000 relationship had been kept to this point how much more successful that relationship would be for that initial agent? We have to look at relationships as very, very long-term and thus forget about the price because people go through cycles in their career, and you want to follow them through that cycle. It’s all dependent on how you treat them from when they’re at the beginning of the cycle to all the way through the cycle.

Erin: In their career and in their families. You’re going to need more bedrooms, you’re going to need fewer bedrooms. You might want to buy a second home, if you’re able to, for your children to live in.

Wes: Exactly right.

Erin: All of these and the importance of building relationships. Just before we get off this particular part of the conversation, Wes, and we’re just loving having you here today, how do we cope with our own humanity? How do we cope with our emotions and not let that overrule the sense of a business decision?

Wes: When you’re successful, there’s a lot of pride and ego that comes with success, the reason being is because everybody’s telling you how great you are. Your staff’s telling you, “Wow, you’re number one in the city,” or you’re number one in the province or you’re number one in Canada. Then all of a sudden, there’s other things that start to come with that. Hubris comes with it and you need to have people around you, they’re just not buying it.

I always use the expression with my wife that we’ve been married for 30 years next year. We go for walks every morning and literally I say she carries a pin around with her so that when my head is getting too big and bloated, she just takes the pin out and just pop it. That keeps me grounded because I know that that person, she’s going to call me out. I want people around me to call me out because that’s the only way that you are levelheaded because sometimes we get ahead of ourselves, and even the people that like us hate us as a result of it.

[laughter]

Erin: I can’t imagine.

Wes: I know. The kids are like, “This is too much, he’s too much.” If that start to happen, that means that you just aren’t surrounding yourself with the right people or maybe you have them but you’re not taking their advice. I know some of the most successful leaders that I know today are people who have amazing people around them and they listen to them, and they get good counsel from them and it allows them to be grounded and still be very, very successful.

One of the things that I look at as well is, philanthropically, if you’re a successful person, do you give back? Because it takes a certain personality to go, “I’ve earned all this money, I’m going to give it to help certain causes,” or if you don’t have it financially yet, to donate your time to mentor maybe kids in underserved communities or people who want to be a part of your sector to be able to bring them in and give them that free advice and mentorship. If you do those things and you do a lot of them, they automatically keep you humble.

[music]

Erin: When we come back with negotiator extraordinaire and newest star of CDC’s Dragons’ Den, Wes Hall, does he ever get intimidated? And a tough message that Wes had to deliver that ended up being called the best advice the anxious recipient had ever gotten. 

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Now back to Wes Hall on REAL TIME. As somebody who leads shareholder activist campaigns, what strategies have you used for approaching sensitive or difficult negotiations because you are involved, you are giving back, you are being the person that little Wes in bare feet going to school needed at that time other than your dear grandmother? What strategies have you used? What do you keep in your heart while you’re doing this?

Wes: First of all, I’m never intimidated by people. I remember I was advising the CEO of a very large company; it was a hostile takeover and a proxy contest. I was brought in on the file pretty late. I was in my late 30s and this was a very big transaction. The CEO made a lot of fundamental mistakes in communicating to the market and strategic decisions that he made. These shareholders came out and said, “We want him fired.” The board and the CEO hired me to defend them. After analyzing the situation, I decided to set a meeting with the CEO, and I went into his office. His office was massive, massive, massive office. It took me like five minutes to walk to his desk from the door.

I sat there in front of him and I said to him, “I am really good at what I do, but there’s so many mistakes that were made I can’t help you and you’re going to lose this fight. My recommendation is for you to get into the boardroom and negotiate an exit package with the current board because we’re going to lose this fight and you’re going to have a hostile board coming in. It’s either negotiate with friends now or enemies later. Which do you prefer?” That’s a tough message because at the time, this gentleman was making a few million dollars a year in compensation and he had a great life. I told him there to go resign tomorrow.

The next day he actually resigned. Still today he’s like, “The best decision, best advice I’ve ever been given.” If I was intimidated by the size of his office, how much his compensation was, that I’m just this 30 something-year-old Black guy walking into this accomplished person’s office to give him this piece of advice, he wouldn’t have gotten the right advice because of me being intimidated and me being afraid to do the right thing and say the right thing because of how he was going to respond to it. We have to always appreciate that integrity first, that matters.

Sometimes we’re giving people advice that they don’t want to hear because we’re intimidated by them. If we allow that to stop us from giving the right advice, I don’t think we’re being good advocates, I don’t think we’re being good advisors. In the real estate business, that’s what you are, you’re an advisor. You’re going to walk into somebody’s home and you’re going to tell them, “I know you think this house is worth $10 million, but it actually doesn’t. It’s worth 5 and there’s a reason why f5 is a good price for it.” You’re going to sit there and go, “Well, you know.”

If you were intimidated to have that conversation with that person, you’re going to take it at 10, you’re going to try to sell at 10 and you realize that you can’t execute at 10. You’re going to bring them an offer for 5, which you know is the right offer, but then all of a sudden, your credibility is out the window because you weren’t upfront and you weren’t transparent in the beginning.

Always be transparent because at the end of the day, after giving that CEO the advice, if he didn’t resign and we lose and he loses everything because all of a sudden, the new guy’s coming in going, “I’m not going to negotiate your compensation package with you, I’m firing you right now and you have to sue me to get what you’re entitled to.” He would have been worse off in that situation. I would feel bad that I didn’t give him the right advice, to begin with, because I was intimidated or was afraid of what he was going to say. We always have to think about our integrity when we give advice, is this the right advice, and why? If the client doesn’t want to take it, you’re not going to have any regrets.

Erin: When we wrap up our talk today with Wes Hall, how to navigate the waters when you’re working with family, don’t miss it. 

In our previous REAL TIME episode, you heard about homelesshub.ca and so many more valuable links as part of our REALTORSCare® Week. REALTORSCare® is all about bringing you information to help you help others, a national guiding principle celebrating the great work done by the Canadian Realtor Community. You can help raise awareness for the charities and causes closest to your heart by sharing your story. Just use #realtorscare on your favorite social media platforms. 

Now back to our guest. He’s a master negotiator even when it comes to family, Wes Hall. I can’t imagine what it was like growing up one of your five children with a master negotiator. Did anybody ever get a raise in their allowance or how did you move your negotiating prowess into parenthood, or was this something that you left mom to do? How did that all work out, Wes?

Wes: First of all, two of my boys are working with me. One is working with me very, very closely. Last week, he said to me, “I know we’re on compensation season, so I just wanted to know what’s going to happen with my comp?” I said, “How much are you making?” He told me and I said, “Why do you need more than that? I’m paying your rent, you’re living with me at home, I’m buying your food. The only thing that you have to worry about is the clothes that you wear. Why do you need more money than that?”

[laughter]

Erin: Not fair.

Wes: That’s a reasonable response to it. He started to stutter a little bit because he didn’t really know how to respond to that. I said, “Plus, the work that you’re putting in, you’re going to inherit in the future anyways. Why do you need money now? You’re fine.”

[chuckling]

Wes: I said that in a sense that I want to see how he responded to it. He certainly held his own and justify why his compensation should be higher and he will get a higher compensation. What my wife said to me at times is that just remember that you were dad first and you’re their business person and the boss second. How you interact – When you’re working closely with your son or your daughter, especially in the real estate game where there’s a lot of families working together, sometimes we forget the fact that we’re just a parent first and the business will be fine.

I keep that in mind every time we’re having conversations, whether it’d be about tough conversations like compensation, conversation about discipline in terms of a work discipline, meaning that you messed up on this thing, and how do I respond to you? Do I respond to you as your boss or do I respond to you as your father? When I get home, do I have the boss hat on at home or do I have the dad hat on at home? I make sure that I’m very careful in terms of what hat I’m wearing when I’m having those conversations because it could ultimately affect our relationship in a very negative way if that’s not managed properly.

Erin: Is there a limit on how much shop-talk at home or over the dinner table?

Wes: [laughs] My wife manages that, Erin, very, very well. She’s very good about – We try to have dinner as a family at 6:00 PM every evening. Around the table, we talk about different things but we’re very balanced in terms of what we talk about. If I’m sitting on the couch reading a book or I’m watching a show, he doesn’t walk in and say, “Hey, by the way, that deal, here’s what’s going on,” and all that. He respects those boundaries.

If we’re having a five-minute conversation about something business at the dinner table, we do that but it’s not an hour conversation. It’s a very short conversation, but the rest of the conversation is about family, about us, and the business will come. We don’t overly focus ourselves on business, business, business, because that could be draining and there’s no time to unwind and there’s a lot of stress that comes with that.

To the extent that when I’m walking with my wife, for example, if I have something on my mind business-wise, that’s where it gets resolved because it’s amazing. When you’re talking to somebody who’s not in the sector that you’re in, they can see problems from a completely different perspective. I value that perspective because I would never have thought of the solution the way that she would think about it. I find that we solve a lot of problems in my business world by having those walks and having those conversations with her about challenges that I’m facing and coming up with a completely different way of thinking about it that I wouldn’t have.

Erin: You know, Wes, that once COVID’s over, you’re not going to be able to hide behind the mask and everybody’s going to be recognizing you from TV. Your wife’s going to need a bigger pin.

Wes: [laughs] It’s funny I was walking through the neighborhood, and this was when I was just announced on Dragons’ Den. This young lady walked by me and she turned around and said, “Are you Wes Hall?” My wife was with me, and I said, “Yes.” She’s like, “Oh, I love you. I can’t wait to watch you.” My wife after, she turned around, she looked at me and said, “Oh, man. I’m not going to live this down.”

[laughter]

Wes: I’m like, “See, I’m a big deal, honey. You got to treat me like a big deal.” She shaked her head and go, “Yes, never.” [laughs]

Erin: That’s great. Great, great, great. Thank you for helping us to talk about negotiating deals and everything that’s been a part of this, Wes. It’s been just such a pleasure, and you are a big deal.

Wes: Erin, you know what? You’re so kind, you should be my PR person.

Erin: [laughs] Oh.

Wes: [chuckles] I probably can’t afford you for that.

Erin: Now that you’ve taught me how to negotiate.

[laughter]

Wes: That’s right.

Erin: Thank you.

Wes: Thank you, Erin.

Erin: Best of luck to you in everything. I can’t wait to read an autobiography about you, or I’ll write it with you.

Wes: It’s coming out next year so stay tuned.

Erin: Awesome. Thank you, Wes, so much.

Wes: Perfect. Thank you.

Erin: Thanks again to Wes Hall for joining us for this episode of REAL TIME brought to you by the Canadian Real Estate Association. 

Remember to be sure to visit CREA.ca to access valuable resources and discover more fantastic real estate-related content. Don’t forget to hit that subscribe button. Will you, please? REAL TIME is produced by Rob Whitehead with Real Family Productions and Alphabet® Creative. I’m Erin Davis. Thank you for making the time to join us.