From Immigrant at 14 to CEO: Fahad Khan’s Remarkable Journey to Building a Marketing Empire

From Immigrant at 14 to CEO: Fahad Khan’s Remarkable Journey to Building a Marketing Empire

Kelly Kennedy: Welcome to episode 178 of the business development podcast. And today we're chatting with the founder and CEO of Canada Prime Marketing, Fahad Khan, and he is going to tell us how becoming a Tony Robbins platinum partner absolutely changed his life. Stick with us. You are not going to want to miss this episode.

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 development podcast based in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada, and broadcasting to the world.

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And now your expert host, Kelly Kennedy.

Kelly Kennedy: Hello. Welcome to episode 178 of the business development podcast. And today we have an absolute rockstar marketing expert for you today. We're bringing you Fahad Khan. Fahad is the dynamic CEO and founder of Canada Prime Immigration and Marketing. He began his entrepreneurial journey at the remarkable age of 23.

Under his visionary leadership. Canada Prime Marketing has forged strategic alliances with Fortune 500 giants like Telus and SodaStream, maintaining these partnerships for over a decade. His company has earned prestigious accolades including top spot in Edmonton across all industries and being named among Canada's fastest growing companies by Profit 500 and Growth 500.

Fahad's relentless drive and innovative strategies have not only propelled his company to the forefront of the marketing industry, but have also cemented his reputation as a leading business strategist. Beyond his corporate success, Fahad is a certified international business and life coach, mentored by luminaries such as Tony Robbins and Brian Tracy.

His commitment to personal and professional growth extends to his role as a brand ambassador for NAIT and his initiative, Today's Youth, Tomorrow's Leader, which aims at inspiring millions of young people in emerging countries. As a keynote speaker at global conferences like Lyft Pakistan, Fahad motivates audiences with his belief in the power of new perspectives and breaking free from limiting beliefs.

With a passion for shaping the next generation of leaders, Fahad Khan is not just a businessman, but a catalyst for lasting change, empowering individuals to rewrite their stories and reach unprecedented heights. Fahad, it's an honor to have you on the show today.

Fahad Khan: Thank you so much, Kelly, for the invitation.

And it is a pleasure.

Kelly Kennedy: It's the pleasure. The pleasure is mine, dude. I've been following you on LinkedIn for quite some time and I love your I love your social game. I love the information that you put out in the world. You know, you don't really hold anything back. You share a lot of great ideas with the world.

You're doing some really cool things around the world with your public speaking. And yeah, it's I'm really excited to have this conversation with you today.

Fahad Khan: Wonderful. I'll definitely share whatever I can and hope and I'm pretty confident the audience you have, which is phenomenal, and they will get some value out of it and worth the time for everybody.

Kelly Kennedy: It's it's really cool that you're right here in Edmonton and that you've been doing this for so long. You know, what is it? Almost 16 years in the marketing industry. You started when you were 23.

Fahad Khan: Yes, that's when I started the business, but in sales been since the age of 16. So in selling, you might have experienced some of those guys selling credit cards in the malls, airports trying to stop you take this credit card..

I think we were one of the pioneers used to sell and I was very blessed when I, when I was under the age of 18, I managed to go out and do. That marketing job and got some experience and built from there. There's a lot of learning experiences, but the biggest breakthrough happened when we started our own business at the age of 23.

Kelly Kennedy: Wow, man, that blows my mind because I think back to me at 23. That was when I started my business development career and I was just a young punk at it. But just to think that. You'd actually launched Canada Prime Marketing at 23. Blows my mind. Like, that's amazing, dude.

Fahad Khan: And at the end, the best part was the reason we started was through the adversity because as you know, when you're doing some entry level jobs, some small credit card sales of this, my biggest thing was I was making good money, but I wasn't getting paid sometimes.

Yeah. The commissions wouldn't come in and then In our Tony Robbins world, we say there's a time comes and then you say enough, that's it, and then it's a breakthrough moment. And that's when we started Canada Prime and fortunately, our first major client, even in the first six months, we started talking and was actually TELUS as our first client.

Kelly Kennedy: Wow. Wow. Yeah. Like that's like most companies dream to work with a company like tell us someday for that to be your first client. Wow. Like, that's all I have to say.

Fahad Khan: Well, timings is everything, you know, I always say wrong timings. No matter what you do, let's say you try to sell face to face during the COVID time.

Good luck. You're not going to get it. I believe when we got the client like tell us we were blessed and the timings were perfect. I remember I worked on the pilot project at that time and they were about to launch optic TV, not the fiber, but the first brand was the optic TV. They were rebranding in 2009 and 10.

And we were right there at the right time. And perfect timing is where when you show up as a savior. And everything else is history. We served them for 12 years and always grateful for what I've learned from their leadership, what we have done and the impact which they have created in their own company and the company with my company and hundreds of people who have worked with us, right?

So it impacted the lives.

Kelly Kennedy: Yes, no, for sure. I would love for you to, you know, take us back. Obviously, you've been doing sales a really long time, but were you always this entrepreneurial motivated? Like, take me back to being a kid. What, you know, run me through a kid to today. How did you end up on this journey?

Fahad Khan: So basically, I came to Canada when I was 14 and back home, I remember I have two older brothers. My mom always. used to say that one of my kids gonna be a business owner. And luckily or fortunately, I was the youngest one. Both of my older brothers were studied from U of A, they become engineers. And I was not the smartest one when it comes to the traditional education.

There's no way I would have gotten to University of Alberta, but I got into NAIT, which is a great institution. And from there. I enjoyed selling because my, after my first job was like Burger King, which I hated it after two weeks, I told my manager to fire me, true story. I made up me and one of my friends.

I remember we made in two minutes or something about 39 Whopper juniors. And then we were giving high five. I'm like, dude, this is not what I wanted to do, but I learned something right after that. I remember I studied at J. Percy Page High School, so Millworth's Town Center Mall is right next to it. We used to go sit there, chill after the school, all the friends.

And one of my friends mom used to work for credit card sales. And I would be, and we are East Indians, right? I'll go up to the, I'll say, Auntie, get me, give me a job, help me out. I want to try, I want to try. And I remember, One of the best compliments I ever received was by her. She said, after a few months, Fahad, you're the most annoying, determined kid I've ever seen.

And thank God she gave me an opportunity because selling credit card directly, you're not allowed to sell under the age of 18. So she gave me a chance. I was a supporter helper and she knew I was good at getting people and then they will do the due diligence. So that's how I got my first exposure. And I remember She wasn't my trainer, but one of my, when she got me in, I have one of the other supervisor who was helping me and wouldn't take his name.

I still know I remember him. I haven't seen him for the longest time, but at that time, my English, even it's not perfect today, but it was a very, very heavy accent. And he said, Fahad, you would never make money in sales. So when being a 16 year old, he tells me you wouldn't make money in sales. You are this.

Because what indirectly he did was now, if I talk about psychology, he labels me, you're not good enough. You have an accent and you will not make it at that time. I was always brought up with the mindset. If he says no, I want to prove him wrong. And he was so damn right. We didn't meet enough money in sales, but we made a fortune.

So there's a difference. So from there we learned, we grow and. Then always did credit card sales for five years among all the best credit cards you can save for major leading companies. I was fortunate to study at NAIT. I did my marketing diploma from there, not the degree, but people ask me in Pakistan, especially, sir, what do you have?

Do you have a degree? Do you have a bachelor's or do you have a master's? I'm like, I have PhD. They're like, in what? I'm like results, not sound like hockey or anything, but as you know, even in business development world or in the world, the clients we work with, you're as good as what you deliver what you did two years ago.

Great job. You were rewarded. They clap for you. They paid you. What are you doing in the last six months? What are you doing now? So it matters. So we've been paid. 99 percent of my income probably would came on off. My career would be is based on what we have delivered. Not like here you go. 10 million if you deliver great if you don't deliver not so great, but based on performance.

So that's a little bit of the journey. And then before I started my own business, I was part of network marketing. I know we have this Dilemma like network marketing is terrible, this and that. I wouldn't make those kind of comments, but I said the best thing about the network marketing I was at, I had a great mentor who always said to me, still a good friend.

He always said, Fahad, the person you are today is not the same person who will be successful tomorrow. And at that time, I didn't, I'm like, what does he mean? He's like, go about, think about it and we'll have discussion in the next couple of days. So he was the one. Who engraved into me, no matter how good you are, no matter how what sales you're doing, you have to keep investing into yourself.

If the person you're today will be just here, if you want to be next level, you want to compete with the best. Let's say I, I was listening to one of our podcasts where you guys were The best in Lebanon and Libya. I think two countries. You were number one, if I want to be, let's say I want to be the best, best podcaster, I want to be learning from somebody like you or somebody else who had done great things in these spaces.

Right? So that's where he convinced me to go to my first seminar, which was Tom Hopkins. Now he doesn't, I don't think so. He's that common now, but at that time I'm talking 2004 or four, no, not four, like maybe seven or eight. He was one of the best sales trainer. When I walked into it, I'm like, dude, I don't want to spend this 500.

I know about sales. It's all like, I know, I know, I know. Thank God I went to that seminar. Guess what? After 20 minutes, I realized. I have no clue about sales because I was just, I had a great energy. I was just a talking person and that's what I was doing. But technicality, I was wrong. I wasn't following the process.

And if I want to do something like a million dollar sale, I would never be able to get client like, tell us later, unless I would have followed. So thank God they invested. And from there, I started the first business. Got TELUS on board. Save the money reinvested in others and 2017/ 18 and 19. That was very blessed year where we became Canada's fastest growing company for three years in a row.

Revenues went skyrocket. Teams were over 120 250 people actively working and then. The next major breakthrough for me was getting with Tony Robbins in 2018, where one of my friend recommended you should go see Tony. He was coming to Calgary for my success resources, which was a, as a guest speaker, I'm like, I've heard him.

He's great, but sure. I took my team with me. I remember I took 12 people and. Right after Tony Robbins, I'm like, holy cow, this is amazing. His energy jumping, this guy's like me. So he, and I love how he sells in a, and it wasn't even selling. I think he goes at the end. I'm doing this big event at Miami, Florida, that's Palm beach.

This is not for everybody. This is business mastery. It's about 15, 000, like technically it was 20, 000 in the Canadian dollars with your expense, flight and ticket. And. Not everybody qualifies for it. If you don't have money, if you don't have it, don't come and blah, blah, blah. He's did everything. I'm like, dude, I want to be there.

And that's when my first major event happened with Tony. And from there, we built a lot of other things. And maybe when you ask me more questions, I might be able to shine some light on that, those things too.

Kelly Kennedy: Yeah, and actually I'm just gonna, I'm gonna take you right into that right now because not everybody gets to meet Tony Robbins.

Like, I think that if you spend any time in sales, in business, in entrepreneurship, you've listened to Tony Robbins, right? Like you don't end up in this world unless you've spent some time listening to Tony Robbins. What was it like to meet him and work with him?

Fahad Khan: So basically meeting once is one thing.

And when you become a platinum partner, there's like four or five things, like in a business world, we say it's the highest ticket item, which he promotes, but it's not just he's selling you it. Look, if I like to give you an idea to become a platinum partner with Tony Robbins, if I do all the math in Canadian dollars, it's about 220 to 250, 000.

Wow. It's the criteria is a lot of people can afford that money. By the way, the problem is you're traveling. away from your business every month for 5 to 10 days. That's where the challenge is. Many business owners are not the owners, they are the operators. If I go for 10 days, my business starts sinking.

So, for me, the experience was like, I did qualify, I did got in, we had a great team. And I said, you know what, I'm going to take this leap of faith. And I told this to Tony and it is publicly, It was my last event when I was attending Tony in a physical space, he goes, he picked me and I don't know how I was like, he said, we were talking about cars and I told him I'm Tony a year ago, right at this spot.

I came for the first time and I was thinking, should I go buy my favorite car McLaren? Which I was very close to buy it. I really love McLaren and it was, it's going to cost me around 250 to 300, 000. Or should I go invest into Tony Robbins? And thank God I made a better investment. He comes, give me a big hug in front of 5, 000 people.

And when you become a platinum partner, we, it's, it's, he does spend a lot of personal events with you where you get to spend time. You get to learn like, I have, of course, a lot of pictures with him doing my other office, like I have a big frame where he's hugging me and I, I always, he said one thing is why live an ordinary life when you can live an extraordinary one.

So, the main money we are paying is not only for learning, what we are paying is for the network, because the people who are in that group, there's usually 300. active P members on a yearly basis, they are all very successful. If I see myself, I would say I'm probably bottom 10 or 15 percent net worth. So let's say you and me, Kelly, let's say we both had a platinum partnership.

We have our exclusive seating at the front stage. And if I'm talking to you and we are not there for an hour, we are there for 15 hours a day. We are there for 12 hours learning over the five days period. And if I have a challenge in my business and true story, this happened with me, he has about four or 5 billionaires in that group.

And he doesn't tell who it is because then people see it. I was sitting with one of the gentlemen and it's been 12 hours. We are talking, you know, sharing our things. Okay. This is my breakthrough. This is ours. And one of my other friends from Tony Robbins, he looks at me and he's like, dude, do you know who that guy is?

I'm like, yeah, this is what his name is. It's like, really? He's like, yeah, he's like, do you know, what does he do? I'm like, he does, he manages he has a golf course management company. He's like, that's what he told you. I'm like, yes, he just laughed. He's like that guy. He's one of the billionaires and he owns some of those courses too.

I'm like, holy, but the thing is that person was so humble. I learned so much about life. And he made me feel like I'm a superhero. So what it is like in that group is Basically, you meet a lot of other successful people who you can share your problems Some are great at business. Some are great at making money.

Some are great at saving money but some are great at like relationships or they're good at spirituality or they're good at fitness and it's the Synergy, which we have and still most of those people are on my contacts. We talk time to time and It's just the brotherhood which he's created. What he's selling, I would use the word selling because the world we are in, he's selling is the experience and the network and how you collaborate together.

So if, if I say, Kelly, I need help with investments in my business, I'm sure you are, you will not 10 other people who would be able to help me. And that's the people we need in our network. So for me, it's a worth investment and it's the best experience I did. And the funny thing is. And Pakistan, when I use his name, I tell people about him.

Most people that knew they say, does this guy pay you to talk about it? I'm like, no, he taught us one thing at so much value, so much value in other people that they become your raving fans. So I'm one of that where I spent quarter million dollars to learn from him and I go talk about it. And he's paying me nothing and I don't care, but the thing is, he's impacted my life.

If you impact my life, I'll go endorse it without having any agenda. I'm like, look, Kelly was great or XYZ person was great and they helped me. So why not? Because we don't have to be selfish. We rather have the mindset of abundance rather than scarcity. When you said like I've shared, like I've given the best secrets to best things in Pakistan or international forums.

I know 99 percent of people will not go and execute. Knowledge is not the reason they lose. The reason they lose is because of this mind. And that's what Tony builds. It's the mindset.

Kelly Kennedy: If you were to go back to the beginning before you ever went to one of Tony's seminars, all the way to today, is there like an overlying lesson. One big lesson that you really took away from all that time?

Fahad Khan: Before, before entering into the world of Tony Robbins.

Kelly Kennedy: Yes.

Fahad Khan: I think the best one was, like I said, my, one of my mentors said, you got to start investing into yourself. And. Sometimes I always say, when you start feeling, you start building a gut feeling and when you are pinned against the wall, there are two, two things, two or three things happen when you're, doesn't matter if you're a professional athlete or a business, sometimes you're so much against the wall, you don't have any other option to go and break through because for me, I knew I had to build something, otherwise I wouldn't be able to work, to hit my goals, what I have and That's where I had to knock some doors for Telus and to get them on board.

And even my first contract for TELUS was not the fancy, fancy, sexy contract where, Hey, you do the marketing, do a digital ads. No. Yeah. Our first major contract was pure sales door-to-door selling. He's like, Fahad, we know you are a door-to-door salesperson. You've done this for us. Can you teach 25 other people at that time?

I'm like, is that what you're looking for? They're like, yes, I'm like, let me get you started. So the biggest thing is the hard work. Now we both lived in Alberta for a long time. I knocked at minus 30 degrees Celsius, minus 40. The hardest day, hardest day I would say, door knocking day was for me was minus 48, where mostly of our sales teams, we send them home.

But if I'm enjoying my life today or was traveling with Tony or doing things, you have to pay the price. You have to, if you think people just want to have the end result, they see your nice car, travel, this house, X, Y, Z things, they look at the materialistic and other things. They want to have your lifestyle, but they don't want to walk on the path.

Kelly Kennedy: Yeah.

Fahad Khan: And the problem is now, especially with the younger ones, like I'm in, I'm in the high thirties now, but the younger audience we are working with, the problem with that is with the media and everything, we are living in a world of instant gratification.

Kelly Kennedy: Yeah.

Fahad Khan: They want everything now. They press the button, it's done.

You want the food, you press the button. You want something else, you press the button. Anything you do, we have this phone in our hand, we press the button and it's done. But the success is not a press of a button. It's a lot of work. It's a lot. And even when I listen to some of your podcasts, you talk about the cold calling and warm calling, how to change that.

Some places it's 1 percent on a cold calling, but you might have to go through thousands of people, unless you create a better system of warming up the leads and make it better. And my biggest lesson was pay the price, work hard, I will say in summary. And

it doesn't, it doesn't matter. I remember the day where I sent the guys home after minus 35, a couple of guys went out because in the morning, I just wanted to have at least two or three contracts in my hand that we did some work because I don't want to be embarrassed in front of a client, go in the morning, go give them the contract.

I have nothing. And he was looking at me like, dude, you had zero? What? I'm like, at least I'll go get two of my sales, a couple of the guys. So at least we have something, save my face, right?

Kelly Kennedy: You're right. And you know, we talked about this earlier, like, obviously you, sorry, you brought this up earlier. And one of the things that you had mentioned is that the clients don't care how hard You worked what they care about is the result.

Your work delivers if you're able to deliver that result more efficiently. Great for you because you can obviously either do more work or provide better results and get paid more. But the reality is that so many people are focused on showing their work, but not actually getting the results. And I think that's what we need to change.

Because your client doesn't give a shit about how hard you worked or how many people you talked to. What they care about is how many of those converted into something for them.

Fahad Khan: So that's how the big corporates are working, right? They are all very business intelligence. They have AI. They are like every single matrix.

This, this, this, they can measure. And one thing is Like, I've been, like, even the clients I work with, they are always number driven, I would say some of those big clients, even now we are working for another big telecom, since, again, the timings is perfect, again, people don't, I've said about timings, and I, as we know, Shaw was getting bought out by Rogers, we knew that in 2019 and 2020 ish, I think, the news was out, and We knew we'll go with Rogers eventually when the timings is perfect and the day they started here, we were the first team out there for them because timings is everything and coming to the culture thing you were talking about the mindset about numbers, I'll share an example.

I believe again, this is my philosophy, which I haven't put it in my company to there has to be some human touch. You have to see humans as a human. They're not slaves. They're not just the numbers. They're not just the robots. Yes, there will be good days. There will be bad days because. I've been in the field.

I know what it takes. I know they are hard at work. They tough days, the bad days, but sometime we have to understand our people. Few days back, one of my even guys, like I randomly call him good guy from different country moved here. And I just felt his voice was really, really low. He almost like sounded like crying or something.

And the brother is everything okay. And as a CEO, it's not my job to take care of it, but I just random call and I, maybe the God or something happened and he, he wasn't feeling great. I'm like, okay, you know what? I'm like five minutes away from your house. Let's go out. And he did. And we talked and it was more like a human to human conversation because at the end of the day, he was going through something.

And if I could have helped, why not? And most companies need to have that. The word I would use is empathy. Understand people and be a little bit flexible because we are so much about policies. Okay, two weeks is the maximum time off you can take. I've got to take a month, month vacations, depending on the situation and what timings of the business we are in.

If it's the crunch time. We want to make sure, let's wait a little bit, maybe take the vacation longer after. But if it's a slow time, like summer is very busy for us, right? So I wouldn't recommend taking somebody. And one of my other gentlemen, he's a manager in our company, says, Ro, I will take my vacation in December, but I'll go for longer.

I'm like done deal. So that's where I think we need more of that. And every company is going to have their own policies and culture. And my culture is, We don't want to be just a marketing company. We are a training company. First, we want to train our people. We want to create an army of salespeople.

Doesn't matter. You work with me after three months or not. Maybe you are a summer student who's looking for summer job, making 10, 20, 30, 000, go back to school. But my goal is. And I say this in orientation, if I'm doing it, no matter how you come in, by the time you leave, my goal, our team goal should be as you become a brand, which is truly unstoppable, or who will be accepted wherever you go.

And I knew at that time, and we used to self tell us, if one of my guys who have worked for Canada Prime for more than three months, and they go to interview for Shaw at that time, they would have hired him. And a lot of my guys got hired right away. Because, yep, you've worked with these guys, you've done three months, we know.

Kelly Kennedy: Yeah.

Fahad Khan: So it's, these are some of the things like I've done that in my company because I wish we had that and other humanly touch. I would say it's not many companies does this, but I always take my guys to Mexico, like it's been about seven trips or eight trips. We have done over the last eight years minus the COVID where top performers, we will always take them on the long weekend in September.

And just because I know some people will go back to school. So at least if I am the top rep and I'm a student, I should at least be able to experience that trip. And Mexico is not just like for you and me might be different, but for a lot of these people, they have never, never. Experience anything like a five star hotel, a nice food, or they haven't been to the experience like the world's biggest zip lines, cave swimming, or scuba diving, or skydive, or having those ATVs on a sand dunes next to the ocean.

It's just different experiences, right? And that's, and my, for me, the best experience is the last day, when we are about to leave, when these people are crying, literally, like, we don't want to go back. Because that's when I know, I hit that.

Kelly Kennedy: Because you made an impact.

Fahad Khan: Yes. Because the thing is. The top guys who qualify, they might have made 30 or 50, 000 during that three months.

If I would give them 5, 000, it will be this much difference to them. They will, they will say, Hey, thanks for that for a month, two months, three months. But when I create that experience, that experience stays lifelong. Yeah, they will never forget that and still I receive phone calls time to time and like I went with my family I'm not having the same extra same hotel the guy went to the same hotel, which is very expensive hotel with his family And he calls me.

He's like bye bye means brother goes man. I'm here But you know when we went together that was totally a different thing. Yeah, I'm like damn right. We hit it.

Kelly Kennedy: I love that. I love that. I love that. What you want to do is make an impact. And one of the things that I really wanted to talk to you about just based on what we were just discussing and the way that you treat your employees and look after them is I think one of the challenges, like you said, me and you and other entrepreneurs of this time are experiencing leadership In a slightly different way, I think then than has ever happened before, right?

We have to create a world that our employees want to be a part of. They want, they want to be, they want to feel like they're a part of something very big, in which case we want that. I think one of the challenges that we face is how do we bring them in and give them this autonomy and freedom But also get the results because I think there's a lot of companies that are really struggling with this transition of, okay, we got employees working from home.

We got employees doing, you know, all sorts of things. There's a lot more freedom or I would say maybe a lot more responsibility, personal responsibility on our employees than ever before. How do we manage the results? With that personal freedom, and you know, I mean, I'll say that I've struggled with it. I know lots of people that have struggled with it.

You know, it sounds like you've kind of got a really great balance. Can you tell me a little bit about how you do that?

Fahad Khan: So let's use two examples. So I have a lot of teams internationally too, because a lot of my back office is in Pakistan. It's because When we are in a, let's say, sales industry, we are in a recruitment business.

We always say, which, which business are you in? Which business are you really in? And which business do you need to be in? We say, oh, I'm a marketing company, but the real business I'm in, I'm in a recruitment and training business because I hire salespeople, I train them. And if, and right now, in, even in Calgary and Edmonton, we are doing 30 to 40 interviews scheduling a day.

Wow. So if you have to schedule 40 interviews a day, my question is, how many resumes do you need? How much call time it takes. You have to talk to the people, you have to screen them a little bit. It is a two minute conversation at least. And then you have to send them the email and follow up. It takes an hour.

If I have to do that here, it's very expensive. So my whole HR actually works from remote. It was just working from Pakistan. That's one of the innovations we do, but coming to now you ask, how do we manage the balance for international remote teams? There are two things, the physical teams and remote teams.

Remote teams are great. They can be as long as people live in mature and they are target driven. So I know many times we wouldn't have the best days when they're scheduling interviews, but when, if I'm going to Calgary, I say, Hey, I'm going to take four managers and we need to have 60 interviews scheduled every day for next three days.

They will, they will push, push through. So numbers is one thing for me. Yeah. And reward them. Like, like in Canada, we have a lot of benefits culture, but country like Pakistan, you don't get paid vacations. You don't get gym allowance. You don't get some extra like Christmas and XYZ holidays that the local holidays we have.

We give that. We do reward them a little bit good, but we give them flexibility. For Canadian teens who are local, I always say it's about culture you're going to create. And I'll keep on focusing. My goal is we have values in our company and the second value, which we always put is have a culture of always learning and growing.

So that is one of that. That is something we learned from TELUS. I remember when I used to go to TELUS buildings all across Canada, they will have these values written on their wall. And I loved it. I'm like, it's a great idea. We should have five, two or three or five values which we should stick with. And my one of the.

One of the values which was close to me was learning and growing. So we, we make sure in our office, it doesn't matter. You're selling door to door, you're selling in a mall, you're selling at a trade show events, anything training, all this goes on. And second is the culture of celebration, individual success, and the team success.

So team successes, individual successes could be like in Mexico. That's a big one right now. Last weekend, not this weekend, the weekend before, some of my guys moved from Toronto, they were running my teams there, and they transitioned to the new campaign here in Edmonton and Calgary. They've never been to Banff, so we had a team in Calgary, I called some of my five, six guys, I'm like, hey, you know what, finish your work on Saturday night, come on over, we'll stay in Calgary, and Sunday morning, we'll go to Calgary, and then we'll celebrate the night out with all the guys and the girls teams we have, like the management.

So, Having something together, like as a bonding thing, like we did a small hike, we sit together, chill together, pushed each other and we did a hike in a suit. Most of us, but it was like a 20 minute. It wasn't really a hike. It's like 20, 30 minutes, right? Because you get to create that culture. And now I, and I like to listen to my team.

So I remember one of the new guys in Calgary, he mentions like, why don't we do conferences like every Every year, I'm like, we do once a year, kind of a Christmas thing, but that's a brilliant idea. Maybe we should do quarterly between Alberta team and when we launch BC, maybe in Kelowna or maybe in Red Deer in the middle.

So for me is accountabilities first and for the physical teams, it's always got to be a culture. Culture, what you want to create. You want to have fun because my guys, and when I say guys, girls and guys are mostly 18 to 25 year olds. Yeah. And it's different to manage somebody at my age or your age where we are in different phase of our career.

So the needs for them are different than the need of somebody who's 30 or need of 40. And the day we know what really drives them, and if we can give them, we win.

Kelly Kennedy: Yeah. Okay. Okay. I have a question for you because you are working with a much younger generation. That's what Gen Z's right at this point at that age.

What is your experience been like to work with them?

Fahad Khan: Challenges are there. I would say it's more challenges. More challenging. The reason is again, that instead of gratification, we talk about people want success, my most of the team members turn out to be the one who does well. Again, don't want to sound like discrimination, but usually they are not the local, mostly they are new in Canada.

International students who are willing to work hard, who are willing to do more as compared to somebody who has spent 20 years at Vaughan in Canada, because they take a lot of things for granted, I think. Again, that could be my hallucination, but I've seen, I have my data in front of me and I can see if, if you ask me, Fahad, give me your 20 reps in the last one year who were taught at 18.

Will be the ones who have moved from another country in the last five years are usually they are still students So now I know my ideal customer because when we are hiring, that's my ideal customer is 18 to 25 who are usually looking to get settled in canada That's why when you see another company, which I have which is which is an immigration I don't do a lot of immigration here, but from pakistan and international countries.

I deal with that but the thing is When somebody student is here, we all know somebody who's spending 20, 000 to 25, 000 a year for two years of five, four years degree, they're not coming here just for the education, as we know, their goal is eventually to get settled in Canada. Things are tight. Things are tougher now, but they always want to come here.

And if I could be the vehicle to give them better communication. Give them better selling skills because most people especially from eastern countries Many of them are not very great in communicating as compared to they would be like how I was I felt the pain and if they practice selling the practice they're going to be better and later when they graduate if you're I always tell them if you are my consistent seller.

You do good. You're my top 20%. We'll sit together and I will see how can I or my company can support for you to get settled more like in a legal manner rather than you getting corners left, right, this and that. And I always say we are very blessed. We have supported lots of people, lots of people over the last now what, 15 years.

Do you get settled in Canada? Most of them now are PR citizens. Some are running their own businesses. One of my actually director in our company now, he is a 31 year old, came as an international student. Now he owns still a director in our company. Six restaurants doesn't belong to a rich family and six restaurants.

When I say they're franchised. So three Edo Japans, three casadas. All of them 600, 000. So he owns that he built, he built his network. He spent time and he's like a brother to me right now, right? We spend time together. We have traveled together, but that's the whole thing. When he comes back and say once in a while or once every month, father, I'm grateful for this, or some of the other guys who were graduated with us in 2013 and 14.

Some of them are running their landscaping company, engineering company, marketing agencies, different type of business. We're still friends. That's the impact we have created. That's what it's about. I've created my own competition.

I have, but you know, I'm not worried about it. Yes. I'm not because I'm going to go keep on growing.

Kelly Kennedy: Well, what you've actually done is you've given them the skills and empowered them. Like. That's what I see.

Fahad Khan: And that's the, when I wrote my mission life statement, I used to believe in this before, but it became more clarity. I remember. So what on my car, I've written 23, right? So people always ask, why do you have like 23 like this?

It's like, it looks like a race car to their life. Do you go to rally? And it's a conversation too. Actually, it is a conversation tool for me, especially let's say if you bump into me on a white or downtown, Hey, that's a nice car. Why does it say I'm unstoppable on it? That's my brand. And we did it. I like it.

It looks good. Then I said, 23, there's two days, which are the most important in my life. And both days, one day we don't have control on, that's the day we are born. So the day you're born, you don't have control. But the second most important day for us is the day we find our true purpose, our calling for you.

It could be like podcast for me. It was happened to be on the same day on my birthday. I remember I was in Australia. Cairns, Date With Destiny with Tony Robbins and it was the third day and it was my birthday, second or third day. That's when Tony Robbins, he start crafting your mission life statement. It gives you through the workshops.

And he asked a question to me. He's like, when I say life is what's the first gut response you get at that time. My first gut response was life. It's a gift. It's been given to us. It's like a present. We didn't have to do anything to earn it. Some people like it's happy, it's miserable, it sucks. It's great.

Whatever the meaning is. I wrote, it's a gift. And same day, I remember later he asked, he put us through a meditation and into a very emotional state. And then he asked, what is your purpose of existence? And that day I wrote, Giving should be a lifestyle. So you see that? Then I wrote my mission life statement.

Life is a gift. Giving is a lifestyle. Combine them together. And that's where whole philosophy changed. And I, and I, at that time, I happened to be in Pakistan right after that. And I, somebody tell me like, Fahad, in Pakistan, there's 65 percent youth under the age of 35. 230 million population at that time, now 240.

I'm like, holy cow, why don't I go in and start empowering these? So when you said empowerment, then we just took it to the next level. Honestly, I'll tell you, I've spent over 200, 000, that does not include my time. That's just the travel, cost of the tickets and some events, which I've put together, where I've taught thousands and thousands and thousands of people on my own expense, and people still don't wrap their head around, they're like, why are you doing it?

Because there's something has to be bigger than just the money. It's, I always say one thing again, philosophies, we get to the point where we have our own beliefs. I don't care how many millions you have made. Of course we have hit that. I don't care. Are you a billionaire? My question going to come down to is my way of judging somebody or measuring success would be is how many lives have you really impacted?

Kelly Kennedy: Yes.

Fahad Khan: How many lives have you created where you have saved a life, somebody who was a given up on their life, suicidal or something you've said, or maybe somebody who has given up on their life and couldn't make money and you taught them how to make 500 a month in a country where that's about the way, like five times above the poverty line.

I think that's where more fulfilling is. When I received that text message from one of the young 18 year old, 20 year old kid in Pakistan, he goes, goodbye. I just want to share a good news with you. I'm like, tell me, he says, remember I used to be on a motorbike, which is like motorbike in Pakistan is about 500.

Let's say that's a thousand dollars, right? And then a bank, a car, even used car, old car, beat up car, whatever it is, that is a progress. And when they send that message, nothing is more fulfilling. And that reminds me when Tony always says success. Without fulfillment is an ultimate failure. You can have all the money, you can have everything, but if your heart is not contempt, if you are missing from inside, you are technically screwed.

They are billionaires in this planet who have a lot of wealth, but they are miserable inside. So what's the point of it?

Kelly Kennedy: Yeah, no, I know what you're saying. And I also see, I've I've talked to you, like obviously at this point you're like probably interview 75 or 80 for me. At this point, of very successful people like yourself.

And you know what, it goes back to that kind of beginning statement that nothing is going to happen for you without hard work. And I've seen those people lose, lose a lot to accomplish what is eventually work life balance in their opinion. And most of them say, yeah, I hit a point where now I feel content.

I feel fulfilled. I've hit that point in my life where I feel like I am balanced. But so many of them lost so much to get there. But I don't see a shortcut that doesn't involve that hard work. You know, like in your experience, how were you able to do that?

Fahad Khan: Ah, funny thing is when I started first two, three years, my with Telus, I remember I still have some very common friends with our brothers and everybody we sit and they recently, they made a comment and even before slack by, I never get to see you.

You're always like sometime in Pakistan, sometime in Mexico, sometime here. We don't know where you are. And even on my social media, you wouldn't know where I am because my team or when I'm posting one day it will be Pakistan and Turkey, then this, but I might be not I mentioned because. It's nobody business where I am.

The people I really care about, they should know, but other people, they should let them be confused. They're like, holy cow, whatever's happening. But he always says, I never get to see, man, you're living your life. I'm like, if I go 15 years back, because I know that person for more than 15 years, because childhood, we spent together high school and things like that.

I'm like, when I was working for three years. You didn't see me at that time either. The only thing was at that time I was very busy just building. Now you don't see me as because sometime I'm experiencing. So balance is never, the thing is that everybody's different from me. I'm a, I, if I say I'm a workaholic, I enjoy what I do.

Okay. Not if you ask me to do something I hate, I'm not going to be passionate about it. If you say, if you have to fly to Pakistan tomorrow and you have to be on a stage, I'll be there next day.

Kelly Kennedy: Yeah.

Fahad Khan: Because it's my passion. It gets me going. A lot of people, even close people to me, they said, I don't understand why you're spending money doing all this.

So balance for everybody has their own definition. When you say balance, what is your definition of balance? When somebody says success, you said they feel successful. If somebody, I mean, I can go and meet a lady, she will say, well, I'm a mother and I grew up and true story. And actually I asked, I'm like, do you feel successful?

She said, like, yeah, I'm like, tell me why. So like, well, I have two kids and I raised them good. They both are going to university and they are getting settled. So I think I'm successful. Who am I to judge? I'm like, similar to you are, because some people say million dollars and people, the 10 million, like I said, it, how many lives you impact for me, whatever your definition of balance is, it has to be yours.

Nobody neither you should tell or I should tell you know, what five hours of gym two hours of this five hours of work Three hours of family time or whatever numbers are like who are we so for me? I enjoy what I do I'm going to continue doing that no matter how much money I make if not this i'll continue doing something greater than that.

Kelly Kennedy: Yeah.

Well, I think so much of balance, unfortunately, can be not just you, right? Especially if you're a family person, right? Living in a family, you're going to have difference of opinion of what is balance at any given time. And I know, like, we've struggled with that because, you know, like, I have four boys. I try to do my best.

I'm trying to grow this podcast, my own company, everything that I'm doing is I'm very busy. Like, yeah. Honestly, I schedule all my time for that. If I was to show you my calendar, it would just be blocked up because that's how I have to live my life in order to accomplish what I know I need to accomplish.

But sometimes it's very, very hard to balance that. And I'm sure I look at you and your success and I know I have a feeling you're very similar to me in that front. It's so, it's so very hard to be an entrepreneur. And try to balance everything. And I know that that's one of the biggest struggles that I've seen come across this stage, you know, with with a lot of the executives that I've spoke with is that balance is it feels almost impossible.

Like you said, it's it's an opinion, but it's It's also not always in your control, if that makes sense.

Fahad Khan: I would say a strong word which will help a lot. Delegate a lot of your work. Honestly, we can save so much time delegating. My philosophy changed a while ago, and It's all about somebody said control is an illusion.

I don't know if it was Tony Robbins or Brian Tracy. Somebody said and they went depth into it a while ago. And I'm like, what do you mean? We want to control everything. This meeting, that meeting. Why not? The day we let the control go, that's when we will grow. Because in business, as a small or mid sized business, like even right now, sometimes I have to do certain things.

Like last five months, I have to spend a lot on business. But I know this five months will get me five years back.

Kelly Kennedy: Yes.

Fahad Khan: So I know that. And biggest thing is for especially entrepreneurs, if let's say Kelly, you'll, if you make, let's say 200 an hour, let's say your, your price tag, when you go to the market, you get rewarded 200 an hour.

And my question is why are you doing 25 an hour job with somebody else can do or 10 an hour, let's say your admin staff, or maybe booking the appointments or maybe Editing a video, let's say, or editing an audio. You know you will do the best. But we can outsource some of those things. A lot of, like I said, my HR is outsourced within my company, but it's all done from Pakistan.

Even half of my things, like my social media, I shouldn't be saying, mostly I don't post myself. I've teamed, they've seen, some of those team members are old ones with me, they know how I talk, they've seen my every single event. They take the audios, they make clips out of it, they make something out of it.

Why should I be doing all the time? Yes, time to time I will post, but sometimes I feel good or something happens, I'll just post it myself. So a lot of tasks, rather than, a lot of people say, oh, you should work on your weaknesses. No, my belief is 90 percent you should be working or 95 percent on your strengths.

Delegate your weaknesses. I'm not very, when it comes to being like a whole calendar management person, that's not how I am. I love doing it. I'm an important things. I'll put it, but there will be things which I have to get it done. I'll get it done. And you need to make a decide what do you need to do?

I'll take the important meetings. I don't have to take every meeting. I work actually right now. I'm working a lot in Canada, but once the teams are set, I don't have to. Yeah. My team always says in Pakistan, they're like, sir, you know, You work, you will go into like five, 10 meetings back to back. How the hell do you do it?

You don't eat. Sometimes you don't do this. How do you operate? I'm like, I actually work more in Pakistan at that time. That's because I, if you, if you're driven, if your fuel is passion, you'll be fine. But many of us, unfortunately, we're doing just because it's a jobs and the entrepreneurs who are listening.

My question to them is, ask yourself, why did you go in business for the first time? And I can bet you if I ask three more questions after that, 90 percent people will say for financial freedom. And my question to them is, after 10 years, do you have more time with you or less time? And chances are they will say less time.

They're working more, making similar, but they are more drained out. Yeah. The question is why did you spend half a million or a 50, 000 or whatever the number is to buy yourself a job? A business is something which grows without you. You, my philosophy became, I'd rather make a little bit less money rather than doing everything.

So I'd rather hire somebody for 20, 000 and have allocated X amount of dollars in Pakistan where I can have the HR professional with a master's degree in Pakistan who can run my whole HR for less than 600 to 500. Canadian. And they will be a very good, their English would be as good as you, way better than mine or as good as you because it's your native language and they can pull the accent, Aussie accent too, or British accent, some of those guys.

So because that's what they're trained. So our question always is. What do you want to leverage and give up like yesterday, like earlier, we're talking, I went and play cricket. I enjoy doing it. I'll create a time for that. Anything you enjoy doing. If you are passionate for that, you will create time.

Kelly Kennedy: Interesting. Interesting. Because I, you know, I mean, I know I have struggled as, as an entrepreneur. Because there's a lot of things that I used to do a lot before I was an entrepreneur. Once I became an entrepreneur, finding time to do them has felt hard. And I don't feel like I necessarily don't like doing those things.

But I haven't felt the same passion to do them. I do get a lot of passion in my work, especially with this podcast these days. So I do find myself being drawn to You know, how do we do this better? How do I get better at this thing? But yeah, it is one of those things where I, you know, I mean, I know I'm not alone in this.

There's a lot of people who enjoyed things or had hobbies and, and things they like to do before they were entrepreneurs that once they became entrepreneurs, they have struggled to keep up with those hobbies or passions.

Fahad Khan: Passion, I say evolves. What we are passionate at the 19 year age or 20 is different.

When you hit 25, it will evolve. I do a lot of actually workshops of this. And most of my audience, when I'm doing my public speaking is like 18 to 25 year olds, again, a lot of younger ones than I do. There's another segment, which is more like a 25 plus who are making some money entering the business. So there's different talk.

People always are worried. Oh, I don't know what I'm passionate about. It's not, you don't have to discover your true passion today. If, like I said, if you ask me, my passion, like, do I like selling? Yes. I enjoy sales. Is it like my number one passion? It will be number two or three. My number one would be is the public speaking, empowering youth.

That's what my number one, because my question is, what would you do if you're not paid and you have to spend your money and you will still do it? Hmm. Right. So again, Let's say if I want to, like I shared earlier, like it is a procrastination side a little bit, I would say I'll agree to it, but I wouldn't be able to launch the podcast, which we are supposed to do.

Then my question is, if I'm launching, I always ask myself, what is my end result I'm looking for? Is it the fame? Is it the personal branding? Is it the monetization? Is it this or is it that? And if, if the answers are more towards money related, then they might not be the passion related. But if we can find something we are passionate about and we can monetize that, that's when we win for the longterm.

Kelly Kennedy: Yeah, there's a there's a Japanese term for that. I believe it's called icky. Ikigai.

Fahad Khan: Yeah, there's a and they're like recently. I was talking to somebody. They use that Ikigai and there was another thing they talked about it. The concept too, but at the end that's the whole thing. Like if you can find real, you don't know what will you would love if you're 20 year old or 25 try different things.

What do you enjoy? What do you like doing it? Explore yourself, right?

Kelly Kennedy: Yeah, well, you know, and just thinking about that, I couldn't have known how much I would love podcasting even two years ago, right? Like it was one of those things that when I started doing it and seeing, you know, the impact that we were making in the world, you know, just the people reaching out and saying that everything we're doing is helping them.

I was like, holy crap, like this is actually awesome. I couldn't have known at the time. I remember feeling really kind of dumb. Actually, I was sitting in my basement at the time. We were just recording in the spare room, literally talking to a wall, thinking, what the hell am I doing? Why am I doing this?

Who's even going to listen? And then a lot of people listen.

Fahad Khan: Honestly, I would say Kelly, I was actually, I put my couple of my guys to on your podcast to listen and to go with the structure and I wouldn't just make, say, give compliment just to make somebody praise anybody just to make them feel good, but actually your system is pretty good, like from your website page.

Do the podcast page to the email follow ups and things like that. And sending emails for reminders and things you've spent time in the tools. And that's what I, next thing we are working is like marketing automation, which we work on a lot is how do we automate most of our operations? So same thing you're talking about entrepreneurs too.

Like they are drained out, like. They don't understand with the power of AI how much things they can do now. All everything, whenever we say AI, 90 percent of business owners just think chat GPT and they just get locked there. They don't even have an idea what you can do with those, not only the chat GPT, but everybody talks about it even in the international country, oh, chat GPT, chat GPT, blah, blah, blah.

I'm like, how much money have you made through it?

Kelly Kennedy: Yeah.

Fahad Khan: Most people don't have the answer, oh, no, no, this. And I can say, if I've not made, maybe I've saved at least, at least half a million dollars through it. Yeah. They were like, how? I can't say all the things, but certain things. Okay, let me show you something.

There was a document which needed to be created for one of my clients. Again, AI, how powerful it could be if you are smart to use it. I went to Fiverr and Upwork to find somebody in that field who can do it. The cost was about 25, 000 starting to 50, 000 in the market rate, Upwork and Fiverr. And the wait period was almost.

One week to two weeks delivery time. And when do I need the document? Today. And I'm like, shoot. And the topic, I don't have no expertise in that topic. I understand computers and stuff. It was related to technology. I'm like, time to roll up the sleeves. I put myself in lockdown mode. I created 50 page document through the different AIs and I resolved that problem, saved 50, 000 and got the client happy and got that job done.

And they approved everything, which would have taken two weeks, maybe potentially for rushing it for 50, 000 USD, what was that? So how do we use this? So my biggest thing I would say is who are stuck entrepreneurs, even you're a dentist or something, there's so many tools like from auto appointment booking to automating, automated, reaching out to even right now we're working.

Your voice call, Kelly, it will be like you get a telemarketer probably calling. It will sound like me, but it will be AI. You wouldn't even know it. They will book an appointment for you.

Kelly Kennedy: I saw that.

Fahad Khan: We already been testing and piloting and it's been pretty damn good. I think the US have some restrictions on the policies they just added, but who's going to go and track all these small little companies down?

Like if, yeah, if Telus or Roger start doing, then it's an issue with small company, like, which is less than 300, 000 revenue, they're going to use it and leverage it. So when we complain about time, these things are going to disrupt it, either you're going to be on top or you're going to get disrupted.

That's why I keep on investing on these tools, investment, and make sure that we are on top of all this. And if somebody ever needs help into these things, sometimes it takes a quick conversation of 10 minutes, ask few great questions, and you can find what is the problem and what they might be using it.

Kelly Kennedy: Oh, man, man, we could do a whole like we could do a whole nother podcast on and we should 100 percent I'm going to have you back and we're going to spend a lot of time on marketing because I think that that's a very critical spot. But I do want to just chat with you because obviously AI has changed everything.

I would say 2023 there's going to be the time before 2023 and the time after 2023. It is a clear line in the sand at this point, the world is going to be completely different. Marketing is going to be different. You know, one of the things I wanted to ask you, because as, as such a leading marketer the reality is you have a pulse on what the future looks like better than most.

You know, I mean, I would argue that AI is really Capitalizing in marketing, I would say that marketing will kind of get the best of the best because that's it makes money at the end of the day, things that make money get lots of investment. We're going to see AI take off on that front. You know, you're already telling me some of the ways that you could frankly do this for free.

But one of the things that I wanted to chat with you about is what do you see? What does the future look like for marketing with the advent of AI and how do people know that they're picking a winning product?

Fahad Khan: Few things I will share. The more technology we get. Marketing doesn't get easier. There was a time you go 20 years back, it would take probably less than 13 impressions for somebody to buy 13 impressions could be a certain different point of contacts like billboard and the radio ad or something they will buy.

And now it is. We are bombarded with so much marketing, like even our phone is listening, everything is listening for a while and it will show us, show us, show us. So marketing is harder, but simpler. So if people get, if people know what they are doing, so few things. And I think it happened to be a miracle for me too.

So remember, I keep on saying I work with youth a lot. I say the best investment we can do is let's start investing into 20 to 30 year olds. Let's enter 30. The reason is These kids, I will use the word kids still, they're better at AI, better at technology, better on computers than we would be. Yes, we have the wisdom, we have the funds, we have capital, we have leadership and all that.

Do I want to sit and create the whole thing? I'd rather have this 20 year old cool guy come to me and say, Hey, boss, we can do this, this, this. Hey, sir, we can do this, this, this. I'm like, you know what? That's a great idea. How about you try it? And one of the things which I believe Google started doing, and Facebook now does it, and all the tech companies does it, they give 20 percent of their time to employees.

For skunk work, I think slack was result of skunk work where they'll say, you create something and it becomes, it will be property of Google, but you will have some kind of a share or something into a leadership role, right? So that's what we started doing. Keep on investing in youth. I work now, if let's say I'm on a stage and if I have million people can reach out, they're going to create something and I can lead them because what they are lacking is usually capital and access to markets.

So we take their their. Knowledge their expertise because they can sit 10 hours, learn about this because they are more passionate about it. Us as a leaders in marketing, our goal is how do we leverage them? We reward them good. We let them do it. I don't have to go create everything. I'd rather come up with the idea and get somebody with the lower cost to execute that.

And how it's going to disrupt would be it's. It's going to be insane. It's already half. People think they can just continue doing the same old thing. You will be gone. You'll be gone very fast because there's going to be so many businesses which are going to come and disrupt. I'm already invested very heavily into SaaS side of the businesses.

So people who doesn't know like softwares, which we use, like even your Gmail, you're using Google suite as a SaaS product. Even if you're using anything like Spotify or Apple, any subscriptions, they all are. Netflix is the biggest example, right? So I've already invested into those things for marketing automation, but also keep in mind, if you're not going to update yourself to these things, you're going to be gone or find somebody who can, if you think it's too expensive, you may be wrong.

Don't always go for the lower price. Sometime you might be able to try to save those 50 or 500 that's going to cost you more in form of time. Because I've made that mistake a million times and sometimes we just try to shoot ourselves again. So spend time into it, learn about it, what is happening, and if you don't know, reach out to somebody.

I think you will have a lot of information and if people want to reach out, if I can guide sure I will do that. Somebody from my team will guide them. Again, my team always says like, sir, you meet so many people. How come you don't do business with them? I'm like, I don't have to be at every meeting.

Doesn't have to be a transactional. That's my philosophy. Again, like, what do you mean? There's nothing else free lunch. I'm like, you know what? If the guy was nice, everything we met. Maybe today or tomorrow we will cross a path and I met some great business deals just because maybe a year after two years after because they remember me and I didn't have to target the wallet all the time.

So let's keep ourselves updated to it. And there's a lot of research people need to do. And one thing I'll suggest them if they're on a tick tock, honestly, just search AI tools and start swiping event like going going. Eventually, the algorithm will know that you want to watch AI videos, it will show you so many things you will like, holy shit, you can do this, you can do this, you can do this.

You might not be able to execute all of them. But that's just a simple thing, because I would see your business from a different lens, and you would see your business from a different lens. So you would know, oh my God, this thing exists, I should apply this.

Kelly Kennedy: Yeah, well, I love that you touched on it, and I know we were talking before this show that we are using an AI to help us with our clips, and like the reality is, I couldn't get the, you know what I mean, I don't have the time.

I couldn't get the quality of clips from these shows that I can get by using an AI to do it. And it saves me stupid amounts of time and allows me to compete with some much bigger shows. Like that's what AI is. AI is like an exponential power, what do you want to call it? You know, like upgrade at the end of the day, it takes what you could do times it by 10 and allows you to compete on a much bigger stage than you could without it.

Like, I think we have to remember what it is. It's not, it's not out there to take your job. It's out there to give you superpowers.

Fahad Khan: And even if people think it's going to take a jobs, if you're going to be scared, then be scared or do something about it. Complaining is not a solution. There's somebody else will be like one of my mentors always said, hey Fahad,

remember there's better looking guy than you are. They're smarter person than you are out there. There's a much wealthier person than you are. There's a harder working person out there. So everybody's replaceable. So the only key is you keep on fighting every day. And I always use the mindset. We say, like I talk about in my workshops about identity creation.

Usually this is more like a CEO or a business mindset person. We say, okay, there's a mindset called gladiator mindset. I'm sure everybody has seen the movie gladiator. What happens in a gladiator? There's a fighter, one or two or 15. They're fighting and one or two will walk away alive. Next day they fight again.

And the mindset is. Hell no, I'm not dying today. Somebody else is. So you have to survive for your survival. And business is the same game. The longer you play, the more game you play, chances of being out is faster. Some of the stats are from the U. S. and Canada combined are, I believe, just only U. S. 80 percent of businesses fail in first five years.

Only In 10 years, less than less than 4 percent businesses ever hit a million dollars. And I think the number was only 0. 004 percent ever businesses ever hit 10 years and make a 5 million revenue a year revenue, net profit. And the day we hit that, we hit that 5 million a while ago, but we were waiting for the 10 year, 5 years ago, and we celebrated that.

So the thing is, somebody's going to come and wipe you out. It could be a competitor, it could be technology, it could be just the market might die. It could be another COVID can happen. What are you going to do? You can sit, complain, cry about it, but nobody cares, bro.

Kelly Kennedy: Yeah, and I would say any long term business that you look at, any one of them that's made it 25, 50, 100 years, they are doing things and selling things completely different than the products and service they started with.

Evolution is what creates success over time. Every company has to evolve.

Fahad Khan: And always I say business, whoever is the business people is going to be always two things. You can argue with this, you can fight about this, there's going to be two things. One is innovation. Innovation doesn't mean it has to be the best AI technology.

For me, when I say innovation is, how can you do more and less or how can you do more and same? If somebody costs, something is costing you 10 today, how can you make it for 9? That's innovation. If it's taking you one day to create it, how can you make it in 22 hours? So that's innovation. Do more and less.

And for us, the biggest, one of the major innovation was when we moved most of our HR to Pakistan and we built our own teams and that saved us money, time and effectiveness. Second thing is marketing. Everything, every business going to fall on rise on the marketing. Even if we have a bad product with great marketing, you will do fine.

If you have a good product with bad marketing, you'll survive. If you have a great product with great marketing, you will hit a jackpot.

Kelly Kennedy: Yeah, and well, let's just lead right into it. You know, we're a full hour into the show. I'm not even kidding. I'd love to have you back and I'm literally just nail it on marketing.

So I think there's so much here, but I do want to spend some time with you. I know that, you know, you are an expert business coach yourself life coach. You've mentored with some of the greatest people. Mentors on this planet at this point in time. And you know, you also have an incredibly successful marketing company.

Can we talk about some of the services that you provide?

Fahad Khan: Okay, so there are two types of clientele we work with. One are the giants, like we work for TELUS, we work for another telecom co. jco, we work for Rogers now, and I think we might be the only company who have done these kind of telecoms as a marketing company in Canada.

So with these guys, we are more focused towards direct sales, event planning, strategies, and things like that. So that's more because these big giants have their own internal marketing. Marketing house with 5, 500 people, depending on what they need. So they have their, so they outsource certain aspect of business.

So that's one segment of business. So the second segment of business is midsize and small businesses. You could be like a couple of dentist clinics you have, or you may be like running a small business where they are looking to scale their sales. They're looking to add more visibility. They're looking to either have a coaching like where marketing coaching and business coaching are two different things.

Usually, if I'm doing business coaching, marketing coaching is like a gift from my side on top because as a marketer, I will always find the flaws in that side too. So the other segment, which most people would be falling into because they are not the fortune Forbes 2000 companies, like help them through their digital presence.

Personal branding is one of the things. So anybody, even Callie, you do a great job on that. Anybody who's out there who is want to be really, really super successful. Personal branding, do not compromise on it. People will invest because of the leader behind it. And I can assure you some of my Forbes 2000 clients or fortune founder companies, they don't just look at Canada prime marketing to give them a contract.

They say, who's the person behind it? What has he done? What is his vision? What is he doing? I can vouch for it. That was some of the reasons. So that's the biggest tip I'll give to somebody will help them. And the next would be is from SEO. SEO is people don't understand like digital marketing. It's very important too.

It's just like how visible you are from paid ads to those. These are just some everybody else can do, but what I give them is also. Like a platform, like a tool in one stop shop, you can have everything. Let's say CRM your, where are your leads? Where are your customers sitting? Then how can we automate that?

So after you call them, automatic text message goes, Hey, you know what? It's Fahad. We were talking earlier and I kind of like missed you. Is it possible? Give me a quick call back because a lot of people see text. They will respond back. What's up messaging? And then if they didn't have responded, maybe after three days we have put a timer.

Automatic message goes, Hey, you know, I must, Hey, Kelly, you might have got really busy, but I was hoping that we can reach back. It is pretty cool. Something I want to share those kind of strategies we can put in then. Other thing biggest will be is so digital products, if somebody's selling courses or things like that, everything we can give in one platform, there's so many tools.

So we put everything together from your email marketing to your text message marketing, your automatic callback from your Google Business Manager to your Facebook marketing to social media, any social media, everything in one rather than you having 20 dash was trying to see as a CEO or a small business owner.

Holy shit, where do I go? If I can do that one login, I think your life will be easier. That's where you get the time back. And those are the things we can implement in midsize businesses. And the best part is it doesn't cost you a fortune. It doesn't cost you a fortune. You don't have to invest 50, 000 or anything like that.

Kelly Kennedy: I'll vouch because you're right. You can do all of these things yourself, but there's something to be said about knowing how to do it effectively. Because you can also burn a ton of money on useless stuff with digital marketing.

Fahad Khan: Absolutely. And I think you were talking about this in one of your podcasts, like I was, like, usually, I think it was more of a of one of the podcasts, I think it was 117 or something.

I remember the number because I listen to random things on the way and time to time I listen to you or Tony or take a few others, like sometimes you get an insight, right? So, and on the other side, people need to be very careful. Like you can, there's two type of models. Do it yourself. We say DIY model or let it do it for you.

So do it yourself model would be is, ah, you want to go explore yourself? Sure, go ahead. Or you can have a team, which would be like a dedicated account manager or somebody will help you. Say, hey, you know what, we'll sit together once a week, or initially three times you have to sit together to get your goals in line so we can put things together and take the business to the next level.

And I'll share just an example. In one of my team member in Pakistan, like I said, it's not like I'm creating competition, but we empowered this individual. He's 20 now, probably 21. He's running his own VA company, virtual assistant. He's doing very similar things, what I can do. And he's doing his own clients and he's making pretty good money.

And like a kid who can sit in Pakistan, make 15 to 20, 000. On a monthly basis, regular with a team of 50 people, not 20 people, that's what he can clear. It's not bad. So the reason I'm sharing that is because his VAs can do a great job. If somebody comes to me and I need a VA, I have two options. Should I start my own VA company or I call one of my students and say, Hey, brother, this is what we have.

Can you handle this? Because I have trust him because I know he worked with me and it's working together and resolve the problem. Like synergy, it is more about and collaboration rather than again, last thing I need is honestly, like I'm invested into five other startups recently. Last title I need is another CEO.

Kelly Kennedy: Yeah, that's fair. I don't know. I don't know if you have the time for another CEO.

Fahad Khan: No, there's a, it's nice, nice and fancy, but.

Kelly Kennedy: Okay, okay. Did you ever get the car? That's the question.

Fahad Khan: No, I made a better investment. So the car I drive is I'll share a picture with you. If you are an adult, I'll take you.

It's. Okay. There's two things always. Okay. In marketing, this is a lesson marketing and car. So 250, 000 for was, let's say 300, 000 would have cost you a McLaren. Yeah. I ended up getting another car, which is a sports car. It's an Alfa Romeo. Actually, it costs a fraction of it. Then I'm going to wrap around it.

The real value is a lot less compared to the real value, but the perceived value is some people say, is it 300, 000? Is it 400, 000? It's a half a million and the best responses. I'm like. Something like that. I don't know how much you pay. I'm like, I don't pay for it. Like, I'm like, company pays it. It's like, you must have a great job.

I'm like, well, there are some perks of being a CEO of certain companies. So, because the thing is, if they think it's 200, 000 worth, it looks like Lotus almost, so most people don't even know the brand, the problem is, and, but it looks pretty cool and sexy. So at the day, the question was, okay, now this is what I learned in Tony Robbins, too, why?

When we need something, why are we buying it? There's some human need we're going to meet. Because it was significance. And I would get like, Yeah, I did it. I feel good. It's the ego boost. But if on the same thing, I got it on a fraction of a cost, one third of a cost of the same car, and I get the same significance out of it, why should I get to go spend that much money?

And I'm only capped at 5, 000 kilometers on top. It's gotta put like 80, 90, 000 kilometers, and I only drive like hardly three months.

Kelly Kennedy: Well, and I would argue too, That a supercar is a supercar is a supercar and hear me out on this, because to an average person, they just see a supercar. They don't know if it was 500, a million, most people see that and either way they, they have a hard time perceiving like what they perceive is that you have a supercar.

That's it. Like that's the perception at the end of the day.

Fahad Khan: The next one I will get is for sure it will be Lotus. Lotus. The reason I get, okay. Another reason when I take, okay, if I, again, not putting anybody down, if I'm driving on a road, if there's a Honda next to me, he says, nice bro, nice car. Sure. Cool.

I appreciate that. But when the guy is next to you, I was right at Strathcona, we were driving on Gateway Boulevard, right? Right next to White Avenue last year, two brand new Lamborghinis husband and wife, they both have Lamborghinis. Wow. They both were driving their own Lambos.

They pulled next to it. They look at me, gimme thumbs up, and they say it. That'd be, that's a different league you're playing. And I parked on the white. At some time, I remember there was a guy, he pulled up, pull over is like Porsche is something very unique one. He he pulled it right over there. He comes out.

I'm sitting at, what is that? The Mexican Julio, where are you? I think right opposite where the remedy is. My car is parked and goes, take a video, run around. I'm like, you know, what makes you feel good? That's it. And I always, I can perceive that I work on and I would go by that car, which is rare in the market.

And actually. The one I have, there's only two in Edmonton. Wow. So all these Corvettes, which are great, they might've paid good money, but every other person you will see, it's not, again, it's, it's not a neck puller anymore because you've seen everybody recognize Lamborghini. Everybody loved it. They're great cars, nothing, but the one I, It has a super engine.

It is a super car. It's the lightest car. It's all carbon fiber. And when people go into the specs, they're like, holy shit, it sounds good. It makes you feel good. At the end of the day, if I can meet my needs by spending one third of the money, I can take the other two third and work and put it in my passion.

Kelly Kennedy: And you know what my argument would be? I'm not sure that you would get more value, more feeling value, right?

Fahad Khan: Maybe for two days more.

Kelly Kennedy: For maybe two days more that you would, but the point is, every time you get in your car and you go for a drive, it doesn't matter that it's not a McLaren because you still feel amazing when you do it.

Fahad Khan: And Tony asked me that question at the end, like, why did you bought it? I'm like, since I've spent like this, like 13 days with you, I bought it only for significance and thank God I didn't. So even if I do have a chance it doesn't matter. Like if I have the money sitting in my pocket, if I would need to do it, I wouldn't invest that into a, personally, I wouldn't go buy the Lamborghini or Ferrari, any of those things.

With that price tag, the reason is depreciation and it's not worth it for me. I would do that in Pakistan if I need to because the value goes up, but my next will be definitely Lotus because it's unique, less, and I like to be unique.

Kelly Kennedy: Yeah. Yeah. And I love a Lotus.

Fahad Khan: And most people, it's a very nice one. The new ones this year, I think it's used to Emera.

They changed their name. Now it's, it's pretty damn good. I think two years ago they changed it. It looks pretty good. And the best part is it costs you less than 150.

Kelly Kennedy: Amazing. Amazing. Fahad, that takes us to the end of our show today. Thank you so much for joining us. We've been graced today by Fahad Khan, CEO of Canada Prime Marketing.

Until next time, we'll catch you on the road. 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.