Discovering Your Company's True Value Proposition with Joel Magalnick

Discovering Your Company’s True Value Proposition with Joel Magalnick

Kelly Kennedy: Welcome to episode 36 of the Business Development Podcast. And on today's episode, I have an amazing expert interview with Joel Magalnick of North Then West. And today we are chatting about value proposition. What is your company's value proposition? How do you stand out from the crowd? What makes you better than your competition?

Today we are gonna help you answer some of these questions. Stay tuned.

Intro: The great Mark Cuban once said, business happens over years and years. Value is measured in the total upside of a business relationship, not by how much you squeezed out in any one deal, and we couldn't agree more. This is the Business Develop Development podcast based in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada, and broadcasting to the world.

You'll get expert business development advice, tips, and experiences, and you'll hear interviews with business owners, CEOs, and business development reps. You'll get actionable advice on how to grow business, brought to you by Capital Business Development capitalbd.ca let's do it. Welcome to the Business Development Podcast, and now your expert host. Kelly Kennedy.

Kelly Kennedy: Hello. Welcome to episode 36 of the Business Development Podcast. Wow. It's hard to believe at this point that we're clipping along. We are, we are recording today at pretty much my four month little anniversary. So we are, we're clipping along. And today I'm here with Joel Magalnick amazing interview.

This is such an interesting one for me. I actually met Joel at a at a a Edmonton Chamber event coffee with the Chamber event. And we kind of hit it off because when I was sitting down with Joel and we were just kind of chatting about what he does, he has such an interesting company we'll get into this.

Joel Magalnick is the founder and designer in chief. I love that. Joel Designer, Joel Magalnick has had a long and varied career across multiple areas. Joel worked as a developer in the early days of the web. He spent dozens of years or dozen years as a journalist running a community newspaper, several years running his own marketing and consulting practice, and taking breaks between all of these.

Joel joined the founding teams of several app-based startups to help them get off the ground. Joel is also an instructor at the university level. He designed and taught a curriculum for digital communications course at the Wenatchee Valley College in Washington State, and is currently the faculty or at, on the faculty of McEwen University, where he teaches user experience design.

Most recently, Joel launched his consulting practice North Then West, which works with companies that are currently struggling with their value proposition. He helps companies identify their value proposition so that they can refocus themselves to become leaders in their respective industries. Joel, it's a pleasure to have you.

I've always enjoyed our conversations. Thanks for coming on the show.

Joel Magalnick: I, I am so happy to be here and I'm so glad that we have finally made it to this day. It's been a few weeks since we, since we booked that. Yeah. And and, and thank you for correcting yourself. I don't wanna have aged myself too much of having worked in the news for dozens of years.

Kelly Kennedy: No, no. Do dozens of years. You know, I'm sure knowledge-wise you look like you know that much, but you definitely don't look like you've been a professor for dozens of years.

Joel Magalnick: Well, that's only been a few. It's only been like five or six. But yeah, I've, I've been out there for a while.

Kelly Kennedy: Yeah. Yeah. No, I've been really excited to have you on the show, Joel.

I really have. I thank you so much for coming. I we really met by chance, which is kind of funny. It's, you know, I, oh yeah. I love coffee. The crowded room. Yeah. I love coffee with the Chamber for that cuz you just never know who you're gonna meet. And when I met Joel initially and we were just chatting about his company and I was introducing Capital Business Development, Joel basically presented something to me that I had not come across in my entire career, which blew my mind because it's like when you've been in business development as long as I have, you've seen a lot of things.

You've come across many different companies, many different ideas. But Joel, your company North Then West is really game changing. And I, and I truly mean that. And I know right now it's small and, and we're, we're, we're growing. But the idea of a company that sole purpose is to help other companies with value proposition is, is a game changer.

Joel Magalnick: Wow. Yeah. And, and it's interesting because I did a good amount of research as I was really kind of landing on this idea and I really didn't see anything out there. What part of the business of North Then West, and I'll, I'll actually kind of explain the name of the company because it's, it's very intentional.

So the idea is that when we're thinking about North it could be your compass, it's, you know, looking up to the North star that, that true north of really understanding who your company is, what you're about, why you're there in the first place. And from there there's a saying by Horace Greeley back in the 18 hundreds go West Young man.

Yeah. Which is the idea of finding your opportunity. I love it. So, yeah, so, so that's really where it came from and the idea is that once we have that value proposition, once what you, you know, what your company stands for, that's where you can really seek those opportunities, really build out, carve out that niche and, and move forward.

Kelly Kennedy: The reason that I think that this impacted me so hard, Joel, and it's funny because you would think sometimes, well, you know, Kelly, you're in, you're in business development. Why is this important to you? It's important to me because I'm in business development and I have to market these companies, and I find that.

Many companies that I've worked with in the past, or that heck that I work with, you know, from, from day to day that there almost inevitably becomes a question in the marketing process to say, how do we differentiate ourselves? What is our true value proposition? Why are we doing things better than our competitors?

And I'll be honest, that is a hard conversation in almost every company that I've worked at because I think at times it can be hard. And I think the bigger the company gets, sometimes the further away from understanding the value they, they become.

Joel Magalnick: Absolutely. And it's, it's interesting because as a company grows, they're bringing new people in.

And when you're bringing new people in, you know, oftentimes they're going through that interview process, they're getting all their HR stuff taken care of, but. It's not often that there's actually a real true onboarding of not just, this is what your job is, but this is why you're doing it. And this is why it's really important to be a part of that team to all get to this particular goal.

And like I can actually think of somebody that I was speaking with recently who lasted on a job for about a month cuz he was basically hired, tossed into a room. Until they were gonna put 'em on a project, no training, no nothing, and basically setting 'em up to fail.

Kelly Kennedy: Yeah. That totally, totally. And, and you know, that's, that's a problem at a lot of different companies and I think especially as smaller companies do struggle with this because of just time.

There's time constraints, right? Like me and you both operate smaller firms and it can definitely be hard. But I definitely understand too, it's like the flip side of that is if you don't do that, if you don't bring them up to speed and let them know kind of where your value is, why you're doing things the way that you're doing them mm-hmm.

They don't necessarily have a reason to do it the way that you want it done.

Joel Magalnick: Yeah, for sure. And one of the benefits actually of a smaller company is, Hey, I'm showing up. I'm sitting here at this desk twiddling my thumbs. There's probably a good chance that someone will notice.

Kelly Kennedy: Yes, absolutely.

Joel Magalnick: And, and, and you know, there's nothing wrong with getting thrown into the deep end as long as you're kind of getting guided along and you're at least learning the ropes.

But if you're just kind of sitting in a room with nothing to do and, and nobody to, to answer questions, then that's a whole different thing. Yeah, totally. But, but that's really not truly value proposition necessarily. It, but it, it does show where there are companies that are suffering in understanding what that value proposition is if their whole team isn't coming along with them.

Kelly Kennedy: Yeah, no. Yeah. You need everybody kind of on the same board. You need your culture, you need your culture moving in the same direction. Absolution. Absolutely. Because if, and you know what I mean? I've worked in companies with bad culture and I've worked in companies with amazing culture. And I'll tell you what, I'll pick a company with amazing culture any day of the week over one with struggling culture.

And it absolutely, you know, I'm sure we'll get into the importance of culture as we move further into this episode. Mm-hmm. For now, I actually wanna take us back to the beginning. Joel, you've been, you know, you've done a lot. You've had a very, very varied career. You've done many things. Take us back to the beginning of your entrepreneurial journey.

What what inspired you to take that step?

Joel Magalnick: Yeah. And actually before I answer that, I do wanna take a moment of appreciation because I've been listening to your podcast since we met over the past couple months. And I just, I wanna let you know when, you know, we're talking about value proposition is that for you with the Business Development Podcast, like that is a value proposition for Capital BD because you are, you, you have found a niche and clearly, I mean, you've already won an award and you've, you've garnered thousands of listeners.

But just in listening to like, even just your solo episodes where you're not doing interviews, like I've, I've taken a lot from them. So you know, as I got this business started and it's only been since the start of the year of, you know, how do I do my own business development? How do I find clients?

And some of this advice that you've given, for example, on CRMs and getting those started your idea of being consistent and persistent. I'm not following your 80 20 rule yet, but I'm definitely a work in progress. Yeah. And then, you know, setting aside time for the things that I need to be doing to, to grow the business as well and, and like really marking out that time each week is something that I've, I've always like aspired to, but now it, it's like, okay, yeah.

These are things that experts are saying. These are how you really can grow to success. Mm-hmm. And and, and finally with this was that when on our first chat after we met at the, at the commerce chamber thing, we you know, we were talking, you kind of gave me a little bit of advice on improving my website and just kind of, you know, offering a little bit more clarity.

And like, I, I always appreciate when I can get out of my own head and somebody can help me with the own stuff though my own stuff that I'm working on. So I, I just wanted to note that appreciation. Oh. And. And now I can answer your question.

Kelly Kennedy: Well, well, that was incredibly kind. Thank you, Joel. I I really appreciate that.

I really do. I Yeah, you bet. I do hope, I do hope that the work that we're doing here helps a lot of people. Like it helps you, you know, that was, that was ultimately the goal of this podcast. You know, you're right, it is a value proposition for capital. I do hope to eventually drive some revenue for capital with this show, but I also wanna educate the world on business development, which I feel like is a very underrepresented area in, in everything.

And I'll be honest, I think absolutely. Whether that's books, whether that's media, whether that's podcasts, the idea of business development has not been well represented. And I've recognized that for a long time. And I hope with this show to really change that. I hope, I hope that part of the legacy that I leave behind me is a much better understanding of business development and why it is important for all companies.

Joel Magalnick: Right. And I, I hope that the legacy that I can leave behind me is, you know, that same thing with helping provide impact for companies so they can be successful. So, going back to the beginning I graduated from university back in the nineties. And it was, it was actually quite interesting because even though my father had owned his own retail store, he sold medical supplies.

Okay. And I worked for him in, you know, through actually junior high, high school, a little bit into college. And so I could see, you know, the, the entrepreneurial aspect of what he was doing. The, the reason that he went into business for himself mainly was that because he just couldn't hold down a job.

And, you know, that, that could be a joke or not, but it. Like I, I can remember being like four or five years old and he would come home from work. He's like, I got fired again today. And it was like, they always took him back. It was always the same company, but at some point he realized, you know, he, if, if he is gonna be successful at anything, he's gonna have to do it on his own.

And so I sort of had that in the background of just sort of my journey, whatever my career was going to be. I studied journalism in university and my first job out was actually working for a, a weekly alternative paper. And, but the, but the one thing that kept getting pushed into me by my parents is go out and get a job.

Go out and get a job. Yeah. Go out and get a job. Not realizing that I had the permission, whether it was from myself or from somebody else, that I could actually go out and do my own thing. And so it took a long time for me to get there, to do my own thing. I had a few jobs. I worked as a developer in a web services company really kind of at the start of the rise of the internet.

And when that bubble popped, this is early two thousands. The I, I survived, I survived seven rounds of layoffs, I believe. Wow. Before my day came. Yeah. And it, it was clear that I'm not a very good web developer. And when we're talking about playing to our strengths, the when I got laid off, I decided I wanted to play to my strengths.

And that was in design and in writing. So I wanted, I wanted to make use of that journalism degree somehow. And so I started. I started my own little freelance practice and I was doing mostly design work, graphic design work, doing brochures, things like that. Not all that interesting. And started working or just freelance writing for a local community newspaper.

So from there, few months later, the editor quits moves on very quickly. A good friend of mine worked for the organization that owned the newspaper and was like, Hey, you know, maybe Joel should come in and you know, apply for this editor job. So speaking of getting thrown into the deep end, I came in the the previous editor was like, there's the file cabinets, here's how you turn on the computer.

I'll I'll drive you down to the press so you can deliver when the paper's done. But otherwise I, I'm outta here. I'm, I'm doing this action of wiping my hands. Wow. Remembering that we're on a podcast. Yeah. And all anybody would hear is like, you know,

Kelly Kennedy: that's ok. Thought that counts.

Joel Magalnick: It's, it's a thought that counts.

So yeah. So that first paper, we got it done probably four hours later. Then it normally was done and we're kind of getting calls from the press, like, where are you? Where are you? But you know, we gotta put together. And you know, from there it was 12 years of creating newspapers. And one of the reasons, one of the important reasons they hired me was because I had this tech background.

And you know, as we kind of go through my story, you're gonna start to see how so much is additive to things that I had done before. And so the, the website that this paper had when I started was I would compile everything that was in that paper into a Word file, send it to some dude to across town and he would post it up for us.

No pictures, just text. And the user experience side of me, the web developer, developer side of me was like, Uhuh. So really within that first year, we had moved to kind of a homegrown content management system. And then so, so that tech background really advanced us even beyond a lot of our pure publications.

And so I was part of an association across the US of of various newspapers. And I was kind of the guy that they came to for all their tech questions. Wow. And so within that time as well, this was also, you know, the iPhone was released, the iPad was released. We're starting to see new form factors in, in how we consume our content.

Yeah. And so that iPad first came out, and this was my, my first true startup was a company that would allow small and medium size papers to to white pa white label themselves onto an app that I had developed. When I say developed, I was working with overseas teams to do the tech stuff and the you know, I was kind of doing the design and, and everything else, and, and the, the sales, the outreach, all of that stuff.

So, took way too long to get to market. By the time we actually got finished, the you know, my potential customers had moved on.

Kelly Kennedy: No, no.

Joel Magalnick: So, Yeah. And so this is one of those things, like the lessons that I learned from, that I took to my, my future startups for sure. So let's fast forward to the end of that 12 years.

The organization that owned us shut us down. This was, we're seeing the loss of a lot of publications in the, in the mid teens at this point. And I was going to grad school. I was in the University of Washington in Seattle for digital communications. And so my focus was really on user experience design.

And so I started doing a good amount of freelance work in there. And within that, met a person who ended up becoming my partner with my next startup. And so we co-founded this company that was doing virtual reality education programs. That is awesome. And it was, we spent a, we spent a good year developing the full concept for the product.

And by the time, by the time we were, we were done. Like, and that was, we were sort of at that crest of vr when we started. And it was really difficult to get funding. And the thing, I think the biggest thing I learned from both of these is that when you're doing a startup in the tech world, you need to have a tech co-founder.

So that ended up not going anywhere unfortunately. But again, it, like, for me, this was all about the learning and within that time, like pretty soon after that I had been running my own consulting practice. I call it the refined story. And this was really content development and user experience and doing.

I had been doing some pretty good work over that time, reasonably successful. As soon as the VR startup ended, I got a call from a friend who was like, Hey, we need someone to do podcast content development. And I started doing a lot of this stuff for Microsoft. And so really for the past five years, I have been developing a lot of podcast series doing a lot of cool interviews with pretty amazing people for a whole bunch of podcasts that you'll see coming outta Microsoft now.

Wow. And yeah, and so like, it, it's pretty amazing. Some of these conversations I've had, and probably one of the most fun parts of this was early on we, I was doing one for, for healthcare and they sent me to this massive me health tech convention down in Orlando, Florida. Yep. And this room, I, I swear, is.

Like one mile long by like half mile wide. It was seriously gigantic, just filled with health tech companies. And basically I would corner people on the expo floor and say, Hey, can I interview for, for interview you for this podcast? And ended up with this pretty amazing series of, of really great conversations.

And so that's that really kind of went on UN until I came to a point where I'm like, I don't really wanna be known as the writer anymore. Mm-hmm. And so I took a ba basically a year long exploration. And at the same time as I was doing this exploration, I was also part of a third startup. I was not one of the founders, but I was member of the founding team of a live music app.

And we basically developed a product, created a product, it's still going. And, and I'm seeing people That are still using it. But the the idea was that music, live music is important for many, many people. I, I love music.

Kelly Kennedy: Me too.

Joel Magalnick: Developing this, like, just learning so much about how passionate people are about music.

Yeah. And you know, we, we created this app that connected people with musicians from wherever they were with the goal of just having music going 24 7. And, you know, hopefully the app gets to that point. I came to a point where I realized my value proposition or my value for this company is not is not really working for them anymore.

I feel like, you know, I've come to a point where it's time for me to, to advance forward in a different direction. Yes. And and these are things that happened and it wasn't like animosity or anything like that, which can happen, but just realizing that the market and my, my needs were going in a different direction.

Yeah. And, and it was actually like a huge, it was a huge leap forward for me as far as, you know, jumping, jumping the ship. Totally. In some ways, because there were times, you know, especially with the newspaper where I saw the writing on the wall, sometimes I'm like, no, I gotta keep going. This, this all depends on me and it doesn't have to.

And so sometimes value proposition is, is shutting it down, leaving it behind, moving on, and letting the next generation take over.

Kelly Kennedy: Yes. Yes. I think you hit the nail on the head. I think some companies, I don't necessarily think that all companies have to necessarily close their doors, but there does have to be an evolution.

There has to be an evolution. And sometimes Absolutely. Part of that evolution is saying goodbye to what has worked for you in the past. And I think we'll probably get into that later in the show with you. But yeah, I, I totally, I just, I, I totally understand what you're saying.

Joel Magalnick: Yeah. So let's wrap up the origin story here.

I, I spent about a year really just kind of figuring out what is it that I wanna be doing? What's, what's really important. When, when I had my previous iteration of my consultant practice refined story, I had a really hard time saying what my own value proposition was. I would work with clients and talk to them about differentiation and you know, where they might belong in the market and a a, a lot of those areas around, around marketing and, and just kind of getting their name out there.

And I came to the conclusion that North Then West shouldn't be just about marketing. It should be existential, but it really should be talking about this is who we are and why we exist, and why we're so important for whoever our customers are. And that's, that's where this came from.

Kelly Kennedy: It's an amazing idea.

And you know what I mean? I I, I haven't come across it before. I don't know if it's necessarily, I just haven't come across it before, but I remember the first time that I heard you talking about it seemed to be very fitting cuz I had had a conversation. I kid you not like a week or two weeks before with a, with a different customer just saying like, Hey, maybe it's time to like re re rethink our value proposition here.

And I remember that conversation being, well, how do we go about doing that? And I, and I think that isn't an unknown thing. I think that that is the norm. I think most companies struggle with, how the heck do we even identify our value proposition? Okay, these are the services we offer, but why are they better than everyone else's services?

Why do we do it better? Why should it be us? I think that that's a very hard question for a lot of companies to answer.

Joel Magalnick: It is. And if you think about it in terms of startups today and legacy companies that have been around 10, 15, 20 years, a lot of these newer companies may be thinking about it because there's a lot more in our startup ecosystems that really discuss value proposition and talk about not just creating a product because you've got some sort of expertise, but how are you gonna turn this into a company?

Some of these older companies came about sometimes by accident or you know, somebody was good at something and it's like, Hey, I'm gonna turn this into a business. It grew became something, large things expanded. There were acquisitions, mergers, all of these things. And then all of a sudden it's like, okay, what, what actually do we do now?

Kelly Kennedy: Yeah. Yes, yes. Agreed.

Joel Magalnick: And, and do our customers know? Do our customers know who we are? Like I've talked to companies that. Started out doing one thing and their customer still thinks that they do that one thing, even if they've left it behind.

Kelly Kennedy: Yep. Brand, brand identification, right? Mm-hmm. So, okay. Yeah. So, oh, sorry.

Go. Sorry, Joel, go ahead.

Joel Magalnick: No, no. That, that's pretty much all I had for there.

Kelly Kennedy: So I guess what I'm, what I wanna get into is how do we, how do we help these companies, right? Like, how do we help a company, you know, right now to identify maybe where some of their strengths are in the market? Let's say that we're talking to like a legacy company, like we're talking about a company now, now it's been around 15 years, maybe, maybe its services have switched up three or four times.

The management's changed three or four times, and now there's almost no tie to what that original company was, which is, I feel like what happens is, As companies grow and evolve, they lose their connection to who they were in the beginning. And maybe even those founding people are just no longer with the company.

And that's when they run into an identity crisis. Who are we, what are we doing? Okay? We know that these are our legacy services and people still buy them, but how do we differentiate ourselves? Cuz now we got 15 other competitors doing the same thing. Where where would you start with a company like that?

Joel,

Joel Magalnick: I, I would start out with kind of where we started out in this conversation, which is that, that origin story, and it's entirely possible that not everybody knows what that origin story is or has dug in, but really getting an understanding of why they came to exist in the first place and how and who, how they got those customers and who those customers, original customers were.

And so this involves conversations with. You know, management, if there's previous management still there, that's great. You know, just having sort of that institutional knowledge and being able to leverage that is hugely important because in a company that's been around that long, oftentimes, and I've, I've seen this and I, I have been a part of this, you know, in particular with the newspaper where there were people that had been there for like 10, 15, 20 years longer than I had and knew how things had been done before.

Sometimes were resistant to change. Sometimes we're happy to go along with whatever. But just understanding where they came from is really huge because that really can help set the tone for where the company is going. It's also good to, if possible, get access to existing customers and really get a sense of what are they expecting from, from this particular company.

Cause when I talk about and define value proposition pretty simply it's, you know, the value a company's customers get from being a customer. Are they getting what they're expecting? Is the company delivering on, on what they're expecting? So I, I really think it's starting there and just, you know, sometimes there are hard conversations, but it's, it's all about having that communications.

Kelly Kennedy: Yeah. Well you, so you kind of hit on something in that where, where we're going back, you know, in order to figure out where we're going, we have to go back to the beginning. We have to, we have go back to move forward. Is that a fair, a fair analogy? It is. It is. And so if we have to go back to move forward, one of the other challenges that I've also kind of seen, and I, and I, you know, I've seen this, I've, I think I've even struggled with this with capital at times where.

Sometimes I have, you have a vision, you know, as a founder, you have a vision as to what you think. Mm-hmm. Your company does. I'll be honest, capital has shifted in the time since I founded the company to what I thought it was going to be, to what it truly is has actually been a different thing. I actually learned our value proposition more as I operated the company and saw the results that we created.

I think I started with an idea where we could provide a great service, but I never realized how great that service actually was or how good it could be, or how in some cases, game changing It has been, and I think a lot of, a lot of founders run into this problem, and I, I'll be honest, I'm gonna, I'm gonna take a big guess and say that you don't even know how, how influential your business is going to be.

I feel like from an outside perspective, and, and a knowing as to the value of your service, that I, I'm gonna make a prediction that your company is going to do incredibly well, Joel, because I do think there's a gigantic gap. For the services you're offering. However, I guess what I'm saying here is, is that it can be hard to tell where you're going because sometimes it's more amazing than you ever thought.

Joel Magalnick: Yeah. Well, fingers crossed. I, I, I really, I hope we do and don't have the crystal ball. Absolutely. None of us do. And a lot of times we're guessing, A lot of times we can use data to help guide us for sure. But yeah, you're right. Like we, we don't always know. And so there's a certain amount of risk there.

And you know, when, when you came to that realization, Kelly Kelly, when you were got to that point, you were like, wow, this isn't exactly what I envisioned it would be, but it's like, great. How much intention did you put into really leveraging that greatness? And pushing forward in that direction. Yeah,

Kelly Kennedy: like I think once I recognized that the model I had worked amazing and that the service that it provided provided exponential value to our clients, that was a big eye-opener to me.

I think when I initially kind of went into our service thinking, yeah, we'll help a lot of companies out, we'll do business development and things will go forward, but the reality is, is the results of what we do once I recognize, holy crap, that, you know, these aren't just mediocre results. Like our, our, we are essentially creating exponential results over time, over the next three to five years for our clients with these services that we're providing in six months to a year.

It's a big deal. And yeah, it's like I, I feel like I'm still learning what that means for our company and for our clients as, as they, as they let me know the results or as I start to see the results of those efforts.

Joel Magalnick: Yeah. And learning is absolutely a huge part of this service as well. There's a lot of change management involved.

And there are a lot of needing to let go of old habits, and that's not easy. No. And so anybody that I work with is gonna need to have that, that recognition of like, you know, I can come in here and I can be like, yeah, this is where areas we can change, we can do our little assessment. I can show you my charts and graphs and all that stuff.

But, but ultimately that job is up to you to actually make it happen. Yes. And you have to, like, I can help guide you. I can, I can connect you to the right people if we, if we need that. But you know, this is, this is an outside voice coming in to really to help you push forward.

Kelly Kennedy: Yes. And I identify with that perfectly, Joel, because capital business development's the same way.

Right. We can do all of the work, we can get you in the room, but. We, you know, at some point you need to step up and make your pitch. At some point you need to create those relationships on your own. And so I feel like any type of service is like that. It's like, obviously we will do the best that we can to, we can take you so far, but there's always gonna be a point where you need to take some personal accountability for what happens next.

Joel Magalnick: Absolutely. And so yes, there is personal accountability, but there is also the team accountability side. Yes. Yes. And my, my preference is to work with sort of those, those small and medium sized companies, because they're the ones who I believe often are so busy doing the work that they're doing, that sometimes it, it'll be years before they realize like, wait a second, we're we're not who we thought we are anymore.

And, and, and there's not always anybody out there to help them get move forward once they have that. That realization. And so to me it's, it's really important to be able to, to have those hard conversations, but also make sure that when we're having those conversations, that their team is a part of that as well.

Yes. Because ultimately any change that any company makes, it's gonna be put in place by the people who work there. And if it's just a decree coming from the top, like, thou shall change. Yeah. It's, it's

Kelly Kennedy: not gonna work. Yeah. Yes, yes. Culture is very hard for commandment, I guess. Yes. Culture is very hard to change once it's established.

I mm-hmm. I would almost argue almost impossible. And I know that, I know that you have an entire business on how to do that, but my gosh, I would like, in my experience, I've seen the steadfastness and Yeah. Mm-hmm. Like I would almost argue, once a culture is established in a business to change that shift almost requires all new, all new people.

Joel Magalnick: Sometimes it might, but I, I think the other side of this is that where it can be possible, and I have seen where it is possible, is that when you're allowing your team to have some autonomy and have some power in helping to implement those decisions and even help make those decisions, then change is going to be much more likely.

And, and that culture shift is gonna be much more likely.

Kelly Kennedy: Yes. And you touched on something.

Joel Magalnick: You know, a lot of older businesses are, are very top down. Yes, yes. They're, they're very top down. And and I don't wanna advocate for flat organizations everywhere because it's not always appropriate and flatness is not always a good thing necessarily, but empowered employees.

Are going to be much happier at the end of the day when they come home from work and more willing to help achieve that goal when they come in in the

Kelly Kennedy: morning. Yes. Yes. You hit the nail on the head. And, and at capital, I hugely advocate for that. You know, like I, I want, I want my employee input. Why? Because they're, they're smart people with great ideas.

Like that's the reality. We hire smart people with great ideas. We hire great business development people, but we, we also hire great leaders. And so at the end of the day, it's like, I want that input. I hired them because they bring, they fill gaps that I have. And I'm well aware. I never once walk into anything and say, I know everything about this situation because I am smart enough to know that I do not.

I do not. I know what I know. And while that, that has served me to this point I need to know what I don't know to serve me tomorrow.

Joel Magalnick: Sure. It requires a huge amount of humility. Totally. And that, that's, It's, it's important I just to move forward.

Kelly Kennedy: Yeah. I find it funny cuz I, I was talking with somebody actually, literally today.

I, I had a meeting today before this with future podcast guests and we were chatting about, you know, being a expert and I'm quotation an expert right now because, you know, the reality is, we, we are all, you know, most of the people on the show are experts. I, I would say that I'm an expert in business development up to this point today.

I'm an expert in business development. I would say that at this point, Joel, you're an expert as well, but the reality is, an expert never stops learning. You know, you never, you never wake up tomorrow and say, yep, I know it all. I can do everything and I don't need to learn anymore. The reality is, Yeah, I'm an expert at business development, but I'm not gonna stick my head in the sand and pretend that it's done, that my learning is over.

The reality is, especially over right now with, with the advent of AI and everything that's changing, the whole landscape is shifting. Yep. And if you don't keep up with that landscape, you are gonna be left in the dust. So even if you're an expert today in what you do, remember, you can't stop learning. You can't put your head in the sand and say, the way that I'm doing it today is the best way forever, because it's just not going to be.

And I've, you know, I've sat down with Cole my employee with capital and just said, look, if you see technology that looks like it's going to help us, I wanna know about it because I wanna be ahead of the curve. I don't wanna be the person playing catch up in five years or two years, or heck six months.

I wanna be the guy who's leading the way that we're doing business development. So, absolutely. Yeah. Let me know, let me know if, if new technologies are coming and you think they can be, I want know about them because I don't wanna be left in the dust. And I think we have to as. As business owners, as entrepreneurs, as experts in our field, we have to keep our ears to the ground because the ground is shifting all the time.

Joel Magalnick: Yeah. I, we are all a work in progress, and this is true of humans, this is true of businesses that, you know, at, at the same time, we're, we're evolving our experiences shape the way that, that we behave and, and, you know, show up for work every day. And you know, at the same time with companies, those values change, the products evolve, the markets shift.

And if we don't move forward, if we don't figure out the best way to reach those customers and adjust our products and services to meet where they are today, then that's where the failure comes from.

Kelly Kennedy: Joel, you have, you have some background experience in ai. Can you maybe step into that a little bit?

Joel Magalnick: Yeah, sure.

And so this, this mostly relates to a lot of the marketing stuff that I've done and you know, developing things like podcasts and, you know, blogs and, and just talking to a lot of people who are very knowledgeable from either from the technological, excuse me, the technological side, the business side you know, subject matter experts.

And, you know, probably starting about five, six years ago is when I really started learning about some of the capabilities that AI has and ways that it actually can, can help drive, drive businesses forward even smaller businesses. So yeah. Where, where do you wanna take this conver this part of conversation?

Kelly Kennedy: Shit now, five, six years ago?

My gosh. It's like, I feel like I only learned about what AI could do less than a year ago.

Joel Magalnick: Sure. I can actually. I can actually be I can remember being at a, at a conference right around that time. And there, this was a Adobe was presenting. So Adobe makes their creative suites, so like Photoshop, illustrator tons of other products.

And the speaker came up onto the stage and he is like, who here has ever used ai? And you know, a handful of people put up their hands and then he holds up his phone and he's like, does anybody here use Siri? And all these hands went up. And that was sort of the realization, I think for a lot of people, like, oh yeah, this is really starting to embed itself into our lives.

And, you know, Adobe is using AI a ton in its products. Yeah. For, you know, there are some incredible things that you can do with photos today that you could do even a couple years ago. Like, I remember spending like four days restoring a photo for a client. Yeah. Using Photoshop many, many years ago. I don't wanna say how many years ago.

Which, you know, can be done today in seconds. Wow. So, yeah, so, so amazing things there. The the direction that AI has taken in a lot of industries has been in things like internet of things, iot, so sensors collecting lots and lots of data. I can remember one, one podcast that I worked on. I was talking to the owner of of some larger farms and using sensors to measure soil quality.

And if the soil quality went down, then they could figure out where do we need fertilizer and how much fertilizer do we need? The business outcome there is that large farms can save money on fertilizer and get better yields because they know how good their soil is. There was, when I, you know, when I was on that showroom or the, the expo floor for that health tech conference, I talked to somebody that was using the HoloLens, the like the mixed experience?

Yes. So, yeah. Part vr, part augmented reality, and this company had created this application where surgeons putting on this holo lens would have basically visuals guide them through spinal surgery. Wow. Yeah. And because the system could see, like, they would have a little camera on the end of the needle and it could show like, anomalies, anything, you know, wherever that surgeon needed to go to, to do that operation.

Like incredible, incredible stuff.

Kelly Kennedy: Yeah. It sounds like something right outta like Star Wars or Star Trek.

Joel Magalnick: Oh yeah, totally. And you know, like you watch those first episodes of, of Star Trek or like, even from 20 years ago, I remember like some episodes, like there must be some powerful artificial inte artificial intelligence in there.

I'm like, well, you say computer every time and ask the computer to do something, and the computer responds. That is also ai.

Kelly Kennedy: That's right. Yeah, totally. Like I, you know, I'm, I'm always a bit dumbfounded. I really think dumbfounded is the word. Mm-hmm. I'm always dumbfounded at just the sheer advancement of technology over the last 15 years.

I like, yes. I can't, you know, like, frankly like high school graduate, Kelly could never have seen the world that we have today and been like, holy crap, that's really our world. I just, I, I still find it amazing. Yeah. Then I think, okay, like this year has really been, I would say 2022. 2023 has really been the advent or the introduction of AI mainstream.

Right. So we are at year one. Of ai and I am already immensely impressed at what I'm seeing. Imagine what world looks like 15 years from today, Joel.

Joel Magalnick: It, I, you know, I actually struggled to, to imagine because there, because it is moving so fast that that future thinking like two years ago, future thinking would've put a lot of the things that we're seeing today with, with generative ai, you know, five to 10 years from now.

And so that said, it is very impressive and the num, the number of companies that I'm seeing pop up that are providing all these new types of, of tools for writing, for design, for for ordering, for retail, like all kinds of incredibly cool stuff. It's it is mind boggling. It is also something that we need to be cautious about.

I believe one of the, the. Subjects that we would talk about quite a bit with a lot of this marketing work that I did was responsible AI and making sure that the algorithms that you're using are are safe. That they are recognizing if there are people of color or people with disabilities that might get left behind or, you know, the, the algorithms may not recognize them and it could have negative effects mm-hmm.

For on their lives. And so there are, there are definitely issues that I actually just saw the other day that currently these AI models mostly run in English. Yes. And so there are, you know, thou three plus thousand active languages on the planet today. Yeah. So what happens to all of those languages, even, you know, Spanish and French and Arabic and so many, so many of these really off spoken widespread languages like, What happens to the people who don't speak English, but speak these languages and

Kelly Kennedy: Yeah.

Do they get left behind from this revolution? Well, and it's like, it's like not just left behind, it's like exponentially left behind. It's like, yes. Like, you know, they were even talking about, Elon Musk was talking about what Neurolink, right? Mm-hmm. And basically saying neural link is gonna be immensely expensive, like stupidly expensive.

However, it's like if you have neural link, you are gonna be exponentially at an adva. Like, it won't even matter. Like basically he was saying like, the cost, like upfront will seem ridiculous, but then the knowledge that you'll have available to you when you are running neural link and like, you know, I'm, I'm not, I'm not for against this.

I'm still like, I don't understand it, but like, I get it. Basically what they're saying is that if you don't, if basically if you don't have ai, at some point you're gonna be like mentally so far behind that, you know, the, the cost wouldn't matter. It's like what you're losing is far greater.

Joel Magalnick: Yeah. And. There.

I think there's an argument for that, and there's probably several arguments against that. Totally. And I don't know that we have enough time on this episode to get into all of them. Yeah. I, but I, the one other thing I did want to talk about and kind of relate it to the work that I do with North Then West and just some of that, the knowledge that I've gained about AI is that large companies in particular are adopting the, adopting many different forms of AI in very, very rapid paces.

Sure. And smaller companies have the opportunity to gain access to a lot of these tools as well. It's becoming more and more available for them where this figures into figuring out what your true north is and enacting culture change and. And just kind of making sure that any company can be successful with using it is really understanding what its purpose is going to be.

Understanding how your employees are going to interact with it. Yep. There's a lot of fear that ai, that computers are gonna take my job and so they're, this, this is happening today and it's going to continue to happen. And so, kind of like we were talking about earlier, there needs to be training involved there and not just training in systems, but really true upskilling.

So a lot of these redundant tasks that people are doing today, like, yeah, I didn't really wanna fill out that form again and again and again, kind of a waste of my time. I'd rather be out on the front helping my customers, you know, really choose their items Yeah. That they're gonna purchase. So being able to, to explain and train on.

You know why some of this automation is going to help you do the job that you actually wanna be doing.

Kelly Kennedy: Yeah. It's a tool.

Joel Magalnick: It is a, it is a tool and, and we need to recognize that it, that it is a tool.

Kelly Kennedy: Like you said though, it's you, you touched on something that I think is very important, Joel. You basically said large companies, so for all my entrepreneurs out there starting businesses or operating businesses, your large, you know, large competitors are adopting AI very rapidly.

And what this means for you unfortunately is, and, and Joel, we can talk to this, but what this means for you unfortunately is if you do not do the same rather quickly, you may be left behind to a, to a rate that you might not be able to catch back up. Is that not a fair statement?

Joel Magalnick: I think it is a fair statement and I think it's also fair to say that as you are, if, for people who are thinking about starting up a business, As you're developing your business plan, figure out how AI and automation fit into it.

Because the, the one advantage that any, any founder, any really small business has over a lot of these large companies is that you have the power of agility that yes, you're not steering a massive ship. That if you're starting in a particular direction and you're realizing it's not working, then you have the ability to pivot and pivot very quickly.

Yeah. If there's a problem on your website that says something that's, that's incorrect or that it's you know, the, the message isn't landing properly, you're the one who gets to go in and change it. You don't have to put in trouble tickets and talk to marketing departments and, and doing all those things that, that could take weeks in order to make simple changes, which I have seen before.

Kelly Kennedy: Joel, when you're working with companies on, you know, on their value proposition, you might be discussing AI with them and how they can implement it in their business. Mm-hmm. I think a lot of business owners struggle with this, including myself. How do we, like, there's a, like, you know what I mean? You can look on a list.

There's, there's a li you know, there's list coming out every day on LinkedIn where you see like, here's all the new AI companies. How in the world do they figure out how to implement those things in their business and make them work for them to give them a competitive advantage?

Joel Magalnick: Yeah. And that, I think is a really hard question to answer yet there are tons and tons of tools out there, and we, we have seen this with I mean, I don't really wanna get into the crypto thing, but we saw this with crypto companies.

We saw this early on in the web with web companies, like in internet service providers. There's always a mad rush to get in on the ground floor and, and really try to, To create something oftentimes, because, you know, people are chasing those almighty dollars and yeah, that's fine, but inevitably there's a shakeout and those shakeouts happen more and more quickly.

I suspect that the companies that you saw come out on today's LinkedIn list may be gone six weeks from now or a year from now, because they didn't necessarily set that groundwork for being not just a product or service, but, but, you know, setting that groundwork to actually be a company and, and operate and hire employees, treat their employees well, and and figure out what their growth looks like over the course of a three year, five year, 10 year trajectory.

Kelly Kennedy: And what you're saying is that they really should have hired you. Not here any AI companies listening right now. I think you guys might need Joel.

Joel Magalnick: Yeah. And so like what is, yeah. What, what is that value proposition? Okay. That's great. We've got, we've got a language learning tool that, that does something a little bit more niche than, than the chat G P T, which, okay, that's great.

How many other people came up with this idea and did or didn't implement it? How many people are doing it cheaper than you? Yeah. I don't ever counsel going after going as the value leader and, and competing on price, because you'll always be undercut. Yep. But yeah, those are like, have you done your competitive analysis and how do you, and this is, this is the west part of North Then West.

How do you as a company, whether newly starting or been on the, been around the block, how do you jump ahead of that competition? How do you create that niche, that category for yourself? So everybody is following you. Yes, this is, this is Starbucks. Coffee was not a commodity the way it is today until the mid nineties when we started seeing those green stores pop up everywhere.

Kelly Kennedy: Yes, yes. No, you, you hit the nail on the head and I think, okay, and, and you know, you can speak to me, but I'll be honest, I don't spend too much time thinking about what my competition does, because that doesn't help me. What helps me is, is true to be forward thinking about how can I provide my service better, more effectively, more efficiency to improve my value proposition, to improve my exponential growth for my customers.

That's where my head is, that's where the capital business development hat is, and that's where I want all of my management thinking, because if we're sitting there always watching what our competitors are doing, you know, we're always a step behind anyway. The big secret, like the secret isn't to watch your competitors, the secret is to always think about how can you provide better service today and, and how can you do it utilizing the tools available to you.

Joel Magalnick: Yeah. So I would agree with that. We definitely don't wanna be looking over our shoulders. Yeah. But I will say that knowing who else is out there on the landscape Yes. Is very helpful because it really does help you figure out what that niche is. If I am saying, well, you know, I'm getting into you know, rather than, than value proposition, I'm, I'm getting in, I'm, I'm gonna keep on doing my writing business, let's say I'm gonna just, you know, create podcasts and do marketing campaigns.

There's 50 million other people who are out there doing that same thing. Absolutely. And that huge pool of other people doing marketing. How do I differentiate myself? Yeah. And it could be by industry, it could be like, there could be any number of areas where I go, but in a pool that's so crowded, if I drown, who's gonna notice?

Kelly Kennedy: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. And what would you say for those companies that are really struggling with that?

Joel Magalnick: Aside from, Hey, let's talk there's it, it really is, you know, understand your con your current competitive landscape, and then let's find a direction that you can go where you can, you, you can make everybody follow you.

We, we can just invent something entirely new. Yeah. And that invention that, you know, everybody can say that, you know, I'm in the marketing category, but if I'm in the marketing category for automotive distributors in Edmonton as one particular niche, let's say, and you know, there's nobody else who's doing that.

Everybody else is like, is just, you know, doing the entire country or, you know, hitting. Edmonton, but so many different industries. If I say I know auto, auto parts distribution better than anybody else, I can help you find the customers that you need or the stores that you need better than anybody else.

That's that direction. Yeah. That you go. And it could be that it's something that the company has never thought of before, but you know, maybe there's somebody in, they're like, I'm a big cyclist, for example. And so there, the cycling market in Edmonton is relatively small. There's not a whole ton of of sports stores or bike stores here.

But if I were to say like, Hey, we're serving the cycling community. Mm-hmm. It might not be a big enough niche, but you know, to get our name out there as like, you know, we're the ones that cyclists turn to and cycling stores turn to for everything that they need in order to get their name out there and, you know, provide the best service for people who are looking to buy a bike or ride a bike or find a place to go.

You know, for the best trails. Then that's how we're gonna win.

Kelly Kennedy: Yeah, no, you definitely, yeah, you hit the nail on the head, Joel. Like that's just, the reality is that companies need to be forward thinking. We need to be, they need your service. That's like the reality is, and I truly believe this. I'm not just pumping you up.

The reality is, I've seen this enough times, Joel, I've been in enough rooms where the value proposition question comes up because it inevitably comes up in any type of business development scenario. Because we need to know, as business developers, what is it that sets you apart from your competition?

That is a very important thing because when we're trying to craft greatly worded pitches on behalf of your products, we need to know what sets you apart. And so, I have run into this plenty of times where the, the challenge comes up where it's like, what is our value proposition? And sometimes that's not an easy question to answer.

I think most of the time we can pull a few things out and say, okay, this is what sets you apart. This is what sets you apart. We're gonna, we're gonna take this angle. But I think that if more companies used a service like yours to really narrow in and heck maybe even identify things they hadn't even thought of, it would set them apart for sure.

By leaps and bounds instead of by millimeters.

Joel Magalnick: Mm-hmm. Yeah. And the, the, the caveat I put on that though, is don't chase the, the shiny things. Sometimes the shiny things are great, but you know, if, if you're putting AI into your business for the sake of putting AI into business, into your business, because you can say that you've got ai.

Mm. At some point people are gonna get wise to you. Like, okay, great. How's this helping me as a customer?

Kelly Kennedy: Yes, yes. It's like, have, make sure that everything that you're implementing has a true purpose or a true efficiency boost that is actually going to serve your business instead of just being eye candy.

Joel Magalnick: Yeah. One, one word that, that I think is really important with, with North and West is intentionality and make sure that everything you're doing is intentional. With my teaching, I haven't really talked about my teaching very much, but you know, I'm working with design students who are taking their very first class and user experience design that, that digital experience.

For those of the listeners out there who are not sure about what this is, because a lot of people actually have to ask me, what, what the heck is that? If you're on a website or on an app and you're having trouble figuring out how to get to that purchase screen or find that next page, or, you know, find a button to click for that call to action, that's a poor user experience.

Mm-hmm. So a good user experience is, is hardly noticeable. And so that's really where I'm trying to guide my students to as they're learning. And so they're, like I said, they're often having their experience, their first experience with UX in some of my classes. And so it's, it's really fun for me to be able to, to, to see how they advance with this.

But it also kind of shows, like when we're talking about intentionality, if you just put a picture on a page, on a webpage with no reason behind it, then what's that gonna do for the people on the other side? Mm. Mm-hmm. Yeah. If, or, you know, you're, you're putting boxes here, like, okay, that's great. Maybe it looks good.

Where's the functionality behind that?

Kelly Kennedy: Yes. Yes. It's like, where's the cohesiveness in your message? Mm-hmm. Joel, if okay. I have a, I have an interesting question. I think this, this might help. I know I have some companies listening right now who are like, okay, value proposition thing, I get. But like, I think, I think maybe, maybe we understand what our value proposition is.

How would a company know, and this is a, you got a little checklist that they can run through to say, okay, okay. We, I don't know if we know this. I don't know if we know this. Okay. Yeah. We need to call Joel. What, what might be a way that a company can identify that they need some help?

Joel Magalnick: Sometimes it comes on balance sheets.

Like their, their revenue is down and they don't know why. I mean, it can be the economy. We can always look at the economy and be like, yeah, things are bad, so therefore things are bad for us. But it could also be high turnover in the business. It could be that the products that they're offering just don't seem to be selling as well.

I mean, that also comes back to revenue, but it's also you know, things are just not flying off shelves. Mm. Like they used to be. And. Or, you know, it could be that if they are looking over their shoulders, maybe they're looking over their shoulders too much right now. And, you know, if they are selling products that are similar to others' products and those other products seem to be going more successfully than, than the ones that they're selling I think that could be a pretty good warning sign.

One, one of the, this is more marketing than anything else, but one of the ways when I see that maybe a company has run outta ideas is when they start releasing the same product and lots of new colors.

Kelly Kennedy: Yeah, fair enough.

Joel Magalnick: It's like, okay, we need to, we need to add some innovation to this now.

Kelly Kennedy: Yeah. Yeah. No, no, that makes sense.

Are there any other ways that you can think of that a company might be able to, are there some questions they should ask themselves?

Joel Magalnick: Yeah, I, I, I would say they, they can ask questions of themselves, like I. Why are we, why are we here? I think is, that's sort of the big existential question. Mm-hmm. And if two or three years ago, or five years ago, they could be, they could answer that question.

We're here because we are the top, top provider of I don't know, golf club handles, let's say. Right? I don't know anything about golf club handles, but maybe there's a grip there that, that was, was perfect. And Yeah. And like, it's just not doing it for us anymore. Or, you know, what the heck do we do? We've got so many different product lines now that, that it, we're just spreading ourselves across everything.

And we don't have anything that acts as a true leader in our, in our lineup or, you know, what industry are we in? And it's okay to be in multiple industries for sure. Like, I don't wanna come into a company and be like, stop selling that thing because that's not in your lane. Mm-hmm. But, But how does, how does it help you achieve your greater goals as a company?

Beyond just what maybe your shareholders or, or you were expecting it as far as profit or your employees in, in terms of you know, profit share and that sort of thing.

Kelly Kennedy: Yes, I, and I, you know, I run into this with a lot of companies too, and one of the first things that we do with any type of business development service is we go in and we kind of talk about, okay, what are the industries that you serve?

And I think I, you know, I've seen this a lot where companies are spread so thin with different industries that there's, that, that nothing's getting a, you know, a, a laser beam attack. And, and the problem with spreading yourself so wide is that you're just not getting the opportunities you should. And the other side of it is not all industries are as beneficial to you as maybe one of them is.

And so you need to identify, you know, who's going to make you the most revenue? What is, where is the best area to, to focus your time? Because the reality is, as a company, Regardless of how many employees you have, you have a, you have a finite amount of time available to, to focus your energies. And if they're not focused in the right directions, you are gonna be losing revenue because of that.

Joel Magalnick: Yeah, absolutely. And I, I think the last thing I would ask is, who's my customer? And you know, one of, one of the things that I struggled with, with the, the music app was I felt like this could be a really great B2B sort of business. And, but we were, we were behaving as more of a, a b2c, a business to consumer sort of, sort of company.

And there was definitely value in both. Yeah. I could see achieving there, there was more scale for individual musicians on that B2C model, but more ability to reach wider audiences with that B2B model. Sure. And so there, so, and I don't think we could have successfully been both.

Kelly Kennedy: That's a tough choice.

That makes sense. That's a tough choice to make. Yeah, for sure. And it's so funny cuz you know, we talked about the 80 20 rule at the beginning of this, but I really like, I, you know, I was just talking with Erin Holowach of homeFree Realty and she, she actually started ComFree back in the early two thousands.

That was a really awesome interview. Yeah. And we were really talking about how B2C is just the exact flip. It's just a straight flip. You know, if you're doing 80 20 you know, active marketing to passive marketing with b2b, with your b2c, it's an exact flip. You need to be doing 80% passive to about 20% active.

It's you gotta have that like almost a mindset switch. And so I could see as a company how you're like, how the heck do we necessarily do that? Like we can only, we only have so much time. Where do we focus it? I could see that being really tough.

Joel Magalnick: Yeah. And I think it was interesting with that conversation was when she was talking about in particular like, yes it can be a B2B sort of business, but ultimately everybody, you know, specifically when we're talking about buying a home Yep.

Everybody is a consumer. Yes. Right. Like, okay, maybe I'm, I'm trying to market to like the staging company or whatever, but the owners of that staging company need to live somewhere.

Kelly Kennedy: Yes. Yeah. I, I, I definitely, I definitely see the B2C world and I'm still kind of trying to get my B2C expert as, so Yeah. If you know anyone, Joel, feel free to send 'em my way.

I'm trying to get somebody who's a true expert in B2C, because, you know, I speak to B2B a lot on this show, but that's because that's my background, that's my company, that's what we do. But you know, there's a whole world of B2C that I think needs to be explored better on this show. And so I am definitely, and, and if you're listening to this and you're a B2C expert, I want to hear from you reach out podcast@capitalbd.ca because we are, we're looking to, I wanna touch into that a bit more.

Cause I know I'm dealing with some business owners and that's their model and we haven't represented it as well as I would like to yet.

Joel Magalnick: Yeah. I like, the first thing I think about when we say B2C is retail, but there's just so many other. Types of services out there. Like, you know, I think of professional services, restaurants, hospitality.

Totally. It's, you know, wide range. But yeah, there, there are different needs there and different desires, but ultimately we are all, whether we're business owners, business customers, whatever we are, we are all consumers.

Kelly Kennedy: Yep. Nope, absolutely. Joel, we are coming to the end of our show. It's been Absolutely.

Joel Magalnick: Really we are, it, it feels like it has flown by.

Kelly Kennedy: It. It they do, they do tend to do that, but you know how it is. You gotta leave people hanging and wanting more. That's just how the world works.

Joel Magalnick: This is true. What should I leave them hanging with?

Kelly Kennedy: You know what? I want to, I wanna give you the opportunity to pick my brain a little bit.

Do you potentially have any questions for me in the business development realm?

Joel Magalnick: Yeah. So I, I would say that as much as I'm, as I work in value proposition, that business development side has always been a struggle for me. I've never been a natural salesperson. What are. What are some of the tools that you, you offer to some of those first time business founders, business owners to, to really spread the word about like who they are because I, I have vast experience in storytelling experience in doing a lot of marketing things, but that's, in a lot of ways that ends up being more passive and cold calling just doesn't really seem to go anywhere anymore.

Kelly Kennedy: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. I talk about, I talk about it in the cold calling episode. I know. Mm-hmm. I know it's not a sexy topic, Joel. I totally get it. I'm sorry though. There is just no better way to tell your story than to pick up the phone and call people, and I think that's really what it comes down to. You need to believe in what you're selling.

I think. I think a lot of business owners, and, you know, I mean, I literally had this conversation with my employee the other day and he goes, Kelly, I. I see you in these, I see you in our initial interviews, and you just absolutely kill it. You come through, you're confident, you believe in what you're doing.

You know, you let them know that you're 100%, you know, I'll let, I'll tell people, look, if I can't sell your product or if I, if I can't do it, I will let you know. But if I believe in it, if I'm confident in it, I will be confident in it. And I think one of the things missing from a lot of people, and this comes in time, Joel, as you refine your pitch, cause I say this too in the cold call episode, that nobody's pitch starts out perfect.

Mine doesn't either. With every new client, it takes me probably at least a month to really refine that pitch to something that I feel sounds great. I feel embodies their product represents their product well and, and puts it forward in a very compelling way. But that takes. Multiple attempts.

You're not gonna make that. That's not absolutely, that's not gonna be your first five calls. That might not even be your first hundred calls, but at some point you're gonna say it enough times that it becomes automatic and you're gonna actually start to believe what you're saying. Because the reality is, I think a lot of founders, a lot of business owners, we struggle to believe in our own product.

And so I, I would fully agree with that. And so if we're still feeling that imposter syndrome, and that's what that is, if we're still feeling that imposter syndrome, which we all feel I'm guilty to, I struggle, I still struggle at times with imposter syndrome. But remember that that's what it is. Your product is great, your product is great, or you wouldn't have a company, okay?

Your idea is greater. You wouldn't have been able to even move forward with, with where you're at. And so I think my best piece of advice, Joel, is to just believe in what you're selling. I want you, when you're on that phone, talking to your potential customer to be confident, to be truly confident, steadfast.

In your belief, in your business and your company and, and the value that it will provide them. And if you can come across confident, steadfast, you will move mountains. Believe me, you will.

Joel Magalnick: Right. Sit up straight, have that because you can hear it.

Kelly Kennedy: You can this, you can hear it.

Joel Magalnick: Like, I own a pair of cowboy boots at one point.

Yeah. In my life. And I would put those things on and it didn't matter where I was. Like, I just felt like

Kelly Kennedy: I know the feeling. I know the feeling.

Joel Magalnick: Yeah. So, so, yes. And, and so like, you know, shorts, t-shirt and cowboy boots didn't matter.

Kelly Kennedy: Yeah, yeah. No, it truly is. I, I truly, you know what I mean? I get it. I totally get it.

Like people say that while cold calling, it doesn't work for me. The only reason it's not working is that you are not confident in your pitch yet. You're not confident necessarily in your product yet. All I need you to do is change the mindset. And I know this sounds absolutely crazy. This sounds just a little bit nuts.

I know. It's, you're like,

Joel Magalnick: it's not, it's not it. I, I fully agree with that.

Kelly Kennedy: Because it really is the mindset that's holding you back. Mm-hmm. It's not, it's not your product or service cuz your product or service is probably great. It's probably amazing. It's probably game changing. It's, you need to change the way that you see your product or service.

You need to believe in it because if you believe in it, it makes all the difference in the world.

Joel Magalnick: And I do find, because I've been going to a number of, of networking events over the past several months and talking about refining that pitch, like I definitely can see over time how it has improved how it's.

Flows out much more easily. So yeah, I fully get that.

Kelly Kennedy: It, it sounds funny, but I feel like everybody starts there. Juul, everybody starts there. Yep. Everybody starts with the imposter syndrome, is what I'm selling even needed. Mm-hmm. And I think especially with consultants and small business owners who are, you know, kind of getting out there and doing it for themselves, maybe for the first time, maybe they're really great at what they do, but this is their first time actually trying to pitch their product.

That's tough. That's, you know what I mean? There's an entire industry built around marketing and business development for a reason because marketing your own products are pretty, is pretty hard. And I think a lot of owners especially struggle with marketing their own product. And I, which is why in the beginning of this podcast, I actually advocate this is why you should potentially have somebody else do this for you at least maybe in the beginning because.

The reality is somebody else doesn't have that connection to the burn or the pain when maybe it gets rejected or maybe someone says no. And we take that personally when it's not personal, but it can feel personal when it's your baby, your company, your product.

Joel Magalnick: Yeah. And you know, having been a journalist for so long, you develop enough of a thin skin where you, where, or thick skin where you, you, you realize that okay, you know, this isn't personal.

Like, I can, I can take the no's, I can take the rejection. That's ok. But a conversation that I had with a friend recently was do we play to our strengths or do we try to become better at the things that we're not very good at? So this idea of actually like bringing somebody on to help with that business development with those sales actually isn't a bad idea.

And the other part of this, like right now I'm an independent consultant. I hope to grow. I will grow over time. But this is for any founder, any business owner, anybody who's doing anything out there. Do not do everything alone. Do not try to take on every single aspect of your business because like you said, Kelly, there, there are only so many hours in the day.

Yes, time is our most valuable asset, and so let's use it to our best abilities for the things that, that we are the most good at, and continue learning those skills and building those skills.

Kelly Kennedy: Totally well, and, and that's, you know, I mean, that's what it kind of comes down to as well. It's like, you know, if, if a business owner such as yourself is starting out trying to do the business development for themselves, right?

Well, you might make 20 or 30 calls and, you know, start to get discouraged or like, you know, for whatever reason, you know, it's just not working or, you know, it's tough. It can be really hard. But if you take someone like from my company, capital Business Development, and you put us on calls and say, we make 20 or 30 calls, we're coming across confident, we're talking to the right people.

And that odds of getting the meeting, you know, you might make 20, 30 calls and get absolutely nowhere. We might make 20, 30 calls and get you four meetings, five meetings. Right.

Joel Magalnick: The difference is value. Right. It it's right. Like and the value of that is is immense.

Kelly Kennedy: Yes. Yes. Right. And so you have to look at it too from like, okay, yeah, I can make those calls, I can do that.

And yeah, in time my value proposition will get better. But if you do outsource that to someone like us, who, that's what we do, that's truly our specialty in life. We're just gonna be more effective at it, which is hopefully over time gonna provide you exponential value. Absolutely. Yeah. Well, yeah.

Thanks Joel. Do you have anything else or?

Joel Magalnick: I think I. Warn myself out.

Kelly Kennedy: Yeah. We have hit the end. Well, you've, you've provided tremendous value today. I think you've had, you've made a lot of people think, Joel, because I think, I don't think I, I'll, I'll make a wager. I don't think that anybody listening to this show has come across a company like yours.

I don't think so. Feel free to let me know if I'm wrong. But that is how rare a company like North Then West is, and I think you are really, I'm really proud that you're in Edmonton, by the way. I know you're not originally from here. You are, you are from the United States, but you have found your way to Canada.

And well, well, not just welcome, but thank you for doing that. And thank you for settling right in my backyard, right here in Edmonton.

Joel Magalnick: You bet. And it's been a pleasure being on the show, and thank you for having me.

Kelly Kennedy: Yes. And so if you have a company and you are struggling with your value proposition, and I know you're not alone, and don't feel ashamed if that's who you are, because believe me, I've been in business development long enough to know that many, many companies are struggling with this.

Joel, how can they get ahold of you?

Joel Magalnick: Yes. So you can reach me at my email, joel@norththenwest.com. There's two t's in that north, then part, so Joel@norththenwest.com or just come to my website norththenwest.com and reach out to me through there. I would love to have a chat. Yeah, no judgment as we're, as we're saying.

Yes, it, it can be really hard totally to, to send that, send that note. But really no, no judgment. I, I am here to help anyone. Create greater impact in whatever industry they're in.

Kelly Kennedy: Yeah, absolutely. I, I think, you know, this is the first company, Joel, where I've actually had to put that caveat in and just say like, look, I know that that's a hard, because I think for a lot of companies to be able to admit that, like, yeah, I think we need some help in this, in this avenue, can definitely feel a little bit self-conscious and mm-hmm.

Yeah. I do want you to know that if that is you, believe me, you are not alone. Y i I think you and 95% of companies at least, will struggle with this challenge at one point in their existence. So I think if that is, you get ahold of Joel. You know, I've, I've talked with Joel multiple times now. He's awesome.

I think he's gonna be able to help you with your business. Until next time. Oh, just a heads up too, if you are enjoying this show you can actually send us questions. We're gonna have a community questions episode. I'm gonna try to do it monthly, but I need people to send us some questions. So if you have questions that you would like answered on this show, please send send it over subject line community questions to podcast@capitalbd.ca

that's community questions or, sorry, sorry, community questions. And you can send it to podcast@capitalbd.ca. If you have enjoyed this show today you can reach us also to just drop us a line at podcast @capitalbd.ca or follow, subscribe on your player of choice. This this interview was with Joel Magalnick of North Then West.

They operate out of Edmonton, Alberta. Joel, do you have any limitations of area that you can help people in?

Joel Magalnick: Not really are, are you talking geographically or Exactly, yeah. Industry. No, I, I work in, in Canada. I work in the US so if you're elsewhere, we can talk about that as well. And my, my real central scope of, of size is in that like 20 to a hundred person company.

Okay. So yeah, that is, that is where I am and industry agnostic.

Kelly Kennedy: Okay. No, that sounds awesome. So if you are struggling with your value proposition, Joel Magalnick' of North Then West, he can help you. This has been episode 36 of the Business Development podcast. Still just trucking along. Still hard to believe that we're almost, we're almost, it's episode 40 already, man.

It's crazy.

Joel Magalnick: It's, it's great and it's great. You just keep it, keep it going, man. Keep it going.

Kelly Kennedy: It's hard to believe. But thank you so much my lovely business development podcast community for all your support. You know, we wouldn't be here without you. I wouldn't do this without the feedback, and thank you for all the kind comments.

Until next time, we will catch you. On the flip side,

Outro: this has been the Business Development Podcast with Kelly Kennedy. Kelly has 15 years in sales and business development experience within the Alberta oil and gas industry, and founded his own business development firm in 2020. His passion and his specialization is in customer relationship generation and business development. The show is brought to you by Capital Business Development, your Business Development specialists. For more, we invite you to the website @ www.capitalbd.ca . See you next time on the Business Development Podcast.