Ideas are Easy, Execution is Hard with Rodney Lover

Ideas are Easy, Execution is Hard with Rodney Lover

Kelly Kennedy: Welcome to episode 98 of the business development podcast. And on today's expert guest interview, we have a business story for you. 40 years in the making. We have CEO, Rodney Lover, head of atWork Office Furniture, one of Canada's premier office furniture chains. Stick with us.

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. 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 you're an expert host, Kelly Kennedy.

Kelly Kennedy: Hello, welcome to episode 98 of the business development podcast that absolutely blows my mind. I cannot believe we are just about to cross 100.

We are so excited for that here at the business development podcast. It's been a long time coming. Not many shows make it to 100, so it's kind of a Huge deal. I did notice that there was a local show right here in Calgary that recently crossed their 100 and they got news coverage for it. So I'm like, come on, give us some news coverage for our hundred episodes.

I'm I'm super excited about it today. We have an absolutely amazing expert guest interview. He's a fan of the show. He's a sponsor of the show and he is a friend of the business development podcast. Today, we have Rodney Lover, CEO of atWork Office Furniture. Rodney is an accomplished professional with a diverse background in business and entrepreneurship.

As the CEO of Lover's atWork Office Furniture, he has played a pivotal role in establishing the company as Southwest Ontario's premier destination for office furniture over the past 40 years. His commitment to creating comfortable and productive workspaces reflects his passion for connecting people and fostering effective work environments.

In addition to his role at Lovers At Work, Rodney serves as the digital mastermind for the At Work Office Furniture Canada Buying Group. His expertise in digital strategy and marketing consultation has been valuable not only in the furniture industry, but across various sectors. Rodney's journey in entrepreneurship and startups is marked by his involvement in angel funding, allowing him to navigate through the different stages of business development.

His expertise in this realm speaks to his keen understanding of the challenges and opportunities that entrepreneurs face. On a personal level, Rodney finds joy in spending quality time with his wife Valerie, with whom he's shared 30 years of marriage. Their three children, now young adults, contribute to the fulfilling family life that Rodney values.

When he's not immersed in the world of business, you might catch Rodney at home enjoying a business book or paddling in a small lake. Alternatively, he may be indulging in his creative side by remixing dance music or hitting the back roads, combining his love for driving with the search of a cozy cafe.

Rodney's multifaceted interests and experiences contribute to a well rounded and dynamic professional and personal life. Rodney, it's an absolute pleasure to have you on the show.

Rodney Lover: Fantastic to be here. And congratulations on almost a hundred episodes. I can't believe it. I'm sure there's podcasts out there that die before, you know, 8, 9, 10 you have been consistent your energy and your positivity have riddled the podcast world for almost a hundred episodes and it's, it's awesome to listen to you and yeah, just enjoy the flow of great Wisdom and, and tips, you know, that you drop.

So, so fun to be here.

Kelly Kennedy: Oh man, it's so great to have you. And you know, you've been a fan of the show for so long. We've been in contact, I think now at this point for probably about five or six months back and forth. I think you reached out kind of initially just wanted to start a conversation and we had a video call and that ended, that ended up leading to coaching services for at work and then eventually led to a sponsorship of the show, which as you know, I appreciate immensely.

Our show can no longer grow at the level it needs to grow to keep up with the big boys without that outside funding. So being able to do sponsorship advertising with that work has been amazing. And I appreciate you and HyperVac and Maverick NDT for jumping on board and giving us that early support because that's really the hardest support to get for any show.

It's those initial people to jump on board and say, yeah, we believe in what you're doing. We believe in your cause and and we want to support this. And you know, you put your money where your mouth is and you know, you've helped out in so many ways with the business development podcast. And I just want to say.

You are a friend of the business development podcast. I appreciate you immensely. And honestly, I've wanted to do this show for a while. You initially told me no.

You remember that?

Rodney Lover: Why do I want to talk on there?

But it's, it's yeah, it's, it's exciting to just. Yeah, just enjoy some time with you, Kelly. And, and as you mentioned, you know, we did have a coaching session and with our sales team and, and yeah, it was, it was great. You dropped some truths there and pushed us, you know, into some uncomfortable corners and.

It's only going to bring us more prosperity and, and excitement in the new year. So that's great.

Kelly Kennedy: Awesome. Awesome. You know what? And, and I, I totally feel you and I get exactly what you're saying. You know, I, as I've said, even with capital, we've been pushed into some incredibly comfortable quarters over the past few months.

There's been a lot of shakeups and change ups in the ways that we do proposals, which is why we redid the proposal playbook from lessons that we learned. Yeah, you know what? There's, yeah, exactly. That's it, right? Like sometimes it's those uncomfortable corners, which is where you have to be in order to push yourself to the stage that you're going or you need to go, right?

Mm-Hmm. . I've never had an easy change, let's just put it that way, . But I've always had valuable change. Mm-Hmm. . And so I think sometimes we have to recognize that you don't you don't evolve and grow in the easy times. You evolve and grow through the challenge.

Rodney Lover: Absolutely. And, and as I say, you know, you don't go somewhere different with the mindset that you have currently, you've got to change that mindset to take your, take yourself to another place.

And that's the whole reason why I started listening. We were. You know, our world has changed our industry has changed and and so I've evolved my role and in turn want to go to a different place in my understanding of business development. So.

Kelly Kennedy: And yet I find it so funny because I look at you, Rodney, I look at your background.

The reality is it's like you have a background so much further in, in sales and marketing than myself. You know, you've been through the gamut, you grew up in a business. Like the reality is I should be learning from you and so I think, I think it's so funny when I look at people like yourself and Colin Harms, who's also a supporter of the show, a funder of the show, a sponsor, but also a fan and you guys have something that I don't see that often and it's just this willingness to be open to new ideas and I think you see so many business owners who they've been in it for 20 30 years, they know everything, they don't need any extra help, they don't need an outside opinion, they What is it about you that opened that up for you?

You know, there's a lot of people in your position, Rodney, that would say, I know it all. I don't need to listen to this punk kid. But what, why, why did you get on board with the business development podcast? Is that just who you are as a person? Or like, how did you, how do you essentially handle that?

Where, where instead of getting stuck in your head, where it's like, I know everything I need to know I'll figure it out on my own.

Rodney Lover: I think really the, the roots of that. Are passed down from my dad. He was always very open to learn when we made mistakes. It was like, okay, we didn't go to university for this.

We can, we can try and fail and try again. So I think that being interested in learning new things every day. And being humble enough to say, I don't know, everything is a great position and a fun position to grow and continue to grow until we're dead. Right?

Kelly Kennedy: So agreed. Agreed. And in my opinion, you know, I mean, I come on here as a business development expert, but the reality is I am.

I am well aware. I was only an expert until yesterday. And as this landscape is changing with new technologies and AI, it's going to shake up the whole game. And so we really talk about the fundamentals on the business development podcast, right? We, we go back to basics. I'm not really, I'm not really talking about anything brand new.

And, and I think there's a lot of people that come to the show and they're like, show me the new big, great thing. And it's like, yeah, we'll teach you as we're learning these new things, but. The reality about good business development is to go back, you need to go back to the fundamentals because there is no easy button.

There is no, I'll push this and AI will do all the work for me. , right? Not yet. Anyway. Yeah. There really isn't. And so what we really tried to, there really isn't, we're really trying to, is just, just fundamentals.

Rodney Lover: There really isn't anything new under the sun, right? And, and we just get used to something and to the point that we don't listen anymore and we need to be told in a new way told from a new angle.

To internalize it and go, Oh yeah, I could try that. So you know, we can learn from every age. You know, we learned from our, our kids saying something off the wall or asking an off the wall questions. So, yeah, I, I don't profess to know everything and, and I'll never know everything, but but it's great learning from all kinds of people.

Kelly Kennedy: Agreed, agreed. And I would argue that I learned just as much from each and every one of my guests as I, as I've ever taught anybody, like the reality is as an entrepreneur, as a business owner myself, I, I, I find these conversations so valuable because you have, you know, decades that I have years, right?

And it's like, I can learn just as much from each and every one of these interviews as any of you guys can learn to, which is why I think it's so important. I've been successful in the space because I genuinely am immensely and intensely curious about, about entrepreneurship, business ownership. What are the better ways to do things?

What are the hard lessons learned so that I don't have to learn them the hard way? I I had a boss growing up and I spent a lot of time in this organization and I worked directly under him. And I remember every time something horrible would happen, he'd look at me and say, Kelly. You're learning this the easy way.

You're learning this the way that you don't have to pay for it. Learn your lesson here and don't repeat this. And I owe that man. Because, you know, he, he learned million dollar lessons that I just had to learn by watching and saying, okay, don't do that. Rodney I want you to take us into your history.

Man, 40 years, 40 years at atWork. What was it like growing up in a business?

Rodney Lover: Well, actually, yes. This year we celebrated our 40th year in business in our particular business. Essentially goes back farther than that. My grandfather came over as an orphan to Canada and ended up owning a small country store.

My dad grew up living above it. And so he Was around business all his life. And so was I when I came to lucid thought somewhere around seven or eight I was working in the business working at the cash and we had a small chain. Similar to, I always describe it. If you think of a shopper's drug mart or a drug store that was almost a miniature department store, but we didn't have prescriptions.

We had electronics and we had. Many of them around the Tilsonberg, Ontario area that was tobacco country at that time. We, we had a quite a thriving tobacco industry around that area. And so. You know, my family really grew up in retail somewhere around 81 when interest rates were 18%. My dad got a little far extended with it with his, you know, 9 or 10 locations.

And I just remember sitting on a couch in our living room across from my parents, my two sisters beside me, and my dad was sharing that we were going into bankruptcy and I didn't understand, you know, really what that was, but you know, the conversation was over, go to my room, hiding my head in my pillow, crying just because it was scary.

So I was about 10 at that, at that time. And it was really hard, but it was absolutely the best thing that ever happened to our family before that being in the business that we were, my dad was away a lot the business was open from nine to nine Monday to Saturday, and I didn't really see him that much.

If I wanted to see him, I went to. The stores. And even when I was at the stores, he was, you know, all over the place. So so I, I had good training as a kid working in the stores, but I didn't see my, my dad a whole lot But anyway, we, we went into bankruptcy extended high interest rates, recession there was actually a blue mold epidemic that really trashed the tobacco industry during those years and, my dad started paring down assets, so getting ridding, getting rid of locations. And particularly, I remember an auction that we had at our head office to get rid of. You know, furniture and warehouse equipment and, and such. And even my dad's 57 Oldsmobile that he had refinished refurbished.

And which was really quite sad to the kid that liked cars. Yeah. And, but after that, actually at that auction, my dad's told me later, he said, you know, I, I saw things being auctioned off and people were excited and paying more than, than I may have had, had originally, and it just kind of, he, he was always A great business guy and a wheeler dealer but it did give him an idea.

So in fact, at that point, he started buying up the assets of distressed companies around Southern Ontario and collecting up the the business equipment, office furniture store fixtures into a warehouse and having auctions and that. Was starting to feed refeed, you know not only the family, but, you know, like his pocketbook when he handed in the keys to his small chain, I think he had 35 bucks in his pocket and didn't really know if he was going to have a car or a house.

Kelly Kennedy: So I can't imagine what that must have felt like for him.

Rodney Lover: Yeah. You know, I, I, I'm only now at 50, you know, recognizing the you know, the stress and, and, and the concern that he, that he would have had you know, and I'm sure in his own mind, you know, thought I'll do anything to. Feed my family, but but it, you know, he sure got knocked down a number of rungs.

Kelly Kennedy: So there's not many people that bounce back from that. Well, you know, I had that conversation with, with Colin Christensen actually, and you know, he went through a pretty similar thing and he said it was incredibly humbling and. Yeah. It really did get to the point where it allowed him to kind of see where his values really were.

I think a lot of business owners, we can get pretty tied up in our organizations and in the day to day grind of it all, but at the end of the day, it's really about our families. Isn't it?

Rodney Lover: Yeah. Yeah. And my grandfather was alive at that time. He was an older dad when, when my dad was born. But I want to say that he was in his.

Mid seventies anyway but said, you know, Dale to my dad, I'm here until my stomach, stomach caves in, I'll, I'll give whatever I need to and and they work their way out and through, you know, the surplus auction and such people were asking my dad for things do you have this or that, or I'm in need of this and some point he thought, well, I need to put it into a structure and and have open hours and, and such, and not just do this every so often.

And so we started building a separate business in an old wire sorry, in an old wire factory and rather than, you know, bright lights and the clean atmosphere of a, of a department store, and that was the start. And, and about that time with the interest rates and taxes and such organizations were moving out of downtown Toronto into the suburbs and taking opportunities on leases, less leases and such.

And we started buying up floors of office furniture. So we really spent the first few years, really started in 83 taking out large quantities of, of office furniture out of, out of downtown structures in, in Toronto and bringing it out to, you know, more small town or rural Ontario and selling it to farmers and industry and, and companies.

And yeah, that, that was the start of our adventure.

Kelly Kennedy: Wow. Wow. And, like, what was the, back then, was, like, the idea of office furniture in, in a home a weird, a bit of a weird thing? Like, did you guys have to sell that as an idea? Because, at that time, I imagine not too many people were working from home.

Rodney Lover: Yeah at that time, the only real homeowners that were buying office furniture regularly, we would get and, you know, we're close to Christmas it's it would be a guy coming in and saying, I am going to buy a chair for my wife's sewing room, you know, and, and so it was odd, you know, it was a, an odd, odder thing to have office furniture in your house.

Kelly Kennedy: My gosh. Okay. All right. So, so it's 1983. Are you, are you working like as a, as a young, young boy at this point, are you working in the, in the

Rodney Lover: organization? Yeah, you know, and, and I always think that in today's day and age and You know, this is from my perspective and from my background. But from my perspective in this, in this time we have pretty low expectations about young people of, of their productivity in life.

And really prior to that, I had had experience. We had radio shacks in the back of our stores. And I worked in one of them at 11, you know, approaching customers, asking them what they were, you know, coming in for and, and cashing them out. So I had had a little bit of training in that regard.

So I think I was a pretty good help to my dad when, when we go to auctions, I, I, the help that I was, was I plow through a boat. 30 worth of food as I was waiting for him, the snack dude with the table and all the snacks on it really got friendly with me. He was happy to see me, but, but, you know, we would, we'd pop back with trucks or we'd fill our car.

As we, you know, at the end of the day and and then eventually, as we had an open store work in that, and I can remember you know, it might've been a year later when on a Saturday morning, we were open from nine till 12 and often it was just my dad and I on Saturday and he popped up the street to go see a friend and I was in there.

Alone for an hour you know, and we weren't that busy but I think that day I was so frustrated because the two people, two gentlemen that came in the door and I'm alone in this, you know, 12, 000 foot square foot warehouse and, and retail spot they had both had questions. I couldn't answer.

I could answer so much. I just couldn't answer those two questions. I'm like, my dad will be right back anyway. Yeah. I did, you know weekends, holidays and such. I spent with my dad or, or around the business.

Kelly Kennedy: One of the questions that I had was, I see it a lot where people grow up in a business.

They work with their dad. My dad had a business as well. He, it was, it was really just him. He was, he did mechanical maintenance. And so he worked for like an organization, had his own organization for years. And I remember just like you being a kid. And being taken to work with my dad because he had nowhere to take me or nowhere to leave me.

So I just came with him and I'd be working in the same thing, like 50, 000 square foot warehouses is just hanging out and we bring rollerblades and rollerblade around or whatever else, but just to keep us like entertained. Right. But it's but I grew up watching my dad and he taught me so much, but what I realized about spending all that time with my father was that that was not what I wanted to do for a job.

Long term. And I did kind of wonder like growing up in an organization, did you ever feel the same way where you're like, Hey, this is dad's journey. I don't know if this is really the one that I want to take up. Did that ever happen to you?

Rodney Lover: I can't say that. You know, we had different facets to it. You know, there was sales, there was delivery and, and the logistics part of it.

There was office work to be done. So. It wasn't quite one thing, not that I never had any other desire. At one point I thought I might go into radio. Yep. I had a voice for radio or sorry, a face for radio.

So I spent, I actually did spend some time as a teenager working at a radio station and, and realized that the, the, the lid, the, the Maybe the compensation lid was a little lower than, than I hoped. But yeah, and I, I ended up in the U S for school thought that I might get a position with a large U S.

Company. But at the time that I thought that I always thought I would come back because I enjoyed working with my dad and all of our team. And I think by 90, you know, we might have been 20 of us. And I had a, I had family around the business, other family around the business. And, and yeah, I did. I did enjoy it.

Certainly, you know, I understand that. You know, Kelly, that not everybody, you know is attracted to what their parents do. But everybody's got to find their, their niche, right?

Kelly Kennedy: Yeah. You know, I respect my father immensely. I, I love, I love the effort that he put in, in order to put food on the table for us.

I think I just recognized that that wasn't me. That wasn't. That wasn't going to be me. And like the reality is I wouldn't have been great at it. What I'm really great at is business development. So I'm very thankful that I took my own path. But it was very much, you know, my mother really encouraged me to just do what felt right for me.

And for a long time, I had no idea what that was. Like the reality is when I went to business school, it was because I just needed a lot of options because I didn't know what the heck I wanted to do with my life. So it wasn't It really was. I talk about it on the show all the time that business development really chooses you.

It's not a, it's not a career that anybody goes to school and they can't wait to be in business development. Most people, and I would argue most people don't even know what it is until they are actively working in an organization. And someone says, Hey, do you want to do business development? Or you'd be great at business development.

Why don't you take a look at that? And I remember. Being told that I was going to be put into head of business development for a company and having to Google it because I'd never even heard the term before. And I'd already been through business school at this point. So it's it is funny sometimes how how life.

How the path of life kind of shows up, but you know, me and you have had this conversation. I've had this conversation with Colin and lots of people that I couldn't imagine not doing it. Like the reality is there could be a time when I don't need to do business development anymore, but I don't think there's ever going to be a time that I don't want to do business development, which is why this show makes a lot of sense and which is why, you know, my organization is strictly focused on business development.

It's really what I love and what I enjoy and where my passion is. But yeah, I kid you not. I hadn't. I had no idea even what business development was until about, you know, 2011, 2012. And there was some googling and I figured it out and here we are.

Rodney Lover: You take the opportunities as they come to you and not that they can't change over time.

You know, obviously. You know, people have kind of a solid part of their nature, but you know, I, I took to the sales side of the business but but really didn't think about the marketing side until I was back from university and and really I spent most of the nineties thinking that I was going to be like my dad and there was a time that that, You know, came to a head and I had to admit to myself that I wasn't the same person and, and I kind of understood that, but even my dad said, you know, I, I, I'm realizing you're not me, you know, and you've got, not that we didn't realize.

That each of us had different talents, but but I think at the time that we were having that conversation prior to that, you know, he was thinking, this is how my son's going to be. He will do things the way I have done them, maybe with some new, you know, little flavors, but he will. You know, work the business the same and and really, we were having that conversation when we figured out that that wasn't the way it was going to be and, and I needed, I needed different people in my life to make it a success.

Kelly Kennedy: Yeah. And one of the things that I wanted to talk about, obviously, is that. You were in business long before the internet and the internet changed everything. Right? Your dad couldn't have seen that coming. Right? And just like right now, there's things that me and you can't see coming. In our organizations, the way that they operate today that are going to completely flip everything we do on their heads and our sons are going to have to figure that one out, right?

Absolutely. Yes. But it's, it's crazy because it's like, you can only plan for what you understand. And we live in a time now that every 20 years, what we understand is flipped completely on its head. Yes, tell me a little bit about what it was like you know, taking at work from a brick and mortar to to an online stage.

You know, I imagine you spearheaded that whole thing. What was that like for you?

Rodney Lover: Yeah, I, I got out of university in the early nineties. I have a friend that is considered internet type. Trademark expert and both of us got into the marketplace about the same time and, and I say that about him because really in the early nineties, it was the thing that all the older people in business give it to the young kid, you know, it's, it just wasn't fully understood.

It was new technology. You know the kids understand this and and, you know, mental note, you know, when, when things are being given to the young kids to understand you know, like 10 years ago or more. You know, kids helping their parents with their, with their iPhones. Yeah. It very well might be a big deal, you know?

So so really when I came into the business after, after being away you know, I, I was kind of taking over the marketing and, and had some. Some different ideas and, and, and learning what was working at the time and the internet was starting to be a thing. So okay, let's, you know, make a website and and so it, it's been over time, you know, understanding, okay, this is what we can do.

This is what is actual return on investment in this new technology and And so over time, we've certainly taken advantage of it. I wasn't, I was an early Google user. I really thought it was, you know, the better search tool when it came out. And and they were a little bit fun and, and simple.

And so lots of people thought, you know, what is this silly tool? It's got a silly name but when they flipped on their paid advertising it was like, wow, this is, I can really see where this is going to go. And so that was our, my solid, you know understanding that it was going to be a tool that we could really use.

So yeah.

Kelly Kennedy: I love that you took us into Google because you actually sent me a list not that long ago and said, Kelly, do you know much about SEO? And I'm like, nah, it's not really my background. You sent me a whole list of here's some terms you should use for your future shows because they're all in the business development orientation.

And I was like, dude, that's amazing. And then we started talking. You're like, yeah, like I've been dealing with this for like 20 years. And so I was like, okay, well. Why don't we talk a little bit about SEO? Because I think this is something that a lot of business owners, unless they are relevant with it or, or have used it for any period of time.

No very little about, do you want to maybe give us like a little one on one on SEO?

Rodney Lover: Sure. And, and, and so we're talking about search engine optimization is SEO. Primarily I spent my time with SEM, which is search engine marketing, which is the paid side. And And part of the reason for that is as someone that had bought media for 10 years prior to that, I wanted to see results and when you're, you know, even in the early days, when you're trying to game Google and get into the search.

Terms. It could be weeks. It could be months before you showed up. And I know that's an industry and an expertise. You know, probably even more respected now than it than it has ever been. There had been shysters or there have been shysters in that, you know, realm. People that maybe not are totally on the up and up to tell you the truth trying to, trying to show up in the search terms can be a little bit of a weight.

And I didn't like trying to help people, other people do that and not be able to show them results. So paid was in a way that, you know, within hours you could have your ads on search. So, so that was kind of my focus.

Kelly Kennedy: When you're in that space. You know, tell me a little bit about what the learning curve was like for you.

Obviously you're trying to figure out terms that people are going to search. That, that represent your organization so that when people search those terms, it's, it's at work that pops up. Right? What is that process like? How do you go about determining what the best terms might be?

Rodney Lover: Well, Google at the beginning had an open sandbox.

So you could actually go in and and, and essentially see lists of, of related searches to a term. And to me, that was Awesome. Because people don't always use the terms that you wish they would for your industry or what your industry considers normal. They ask for one thing and, and they really meant this thing that has another name.

So, so, I really liked that. Google's always been very strong in their data. Delivery. So so they've got, you know, keyword tools that you can put in a term. And then in turn, it shows you all the related search terms that people use. And that's essentially what I sent you. And, and you can use it in all kinds of ways, whether it's figuring out what people are actually wanting in your industry searching for what itch isn't getting scratched.

And I think you know, start using it to understand the mindset of your buyers is, is the the value.

Kelly Kennedy: How do you measure success in that space, Rodney? Like, can you, can't, Obviously, it's hard to, to take it to a dollars and cents, right? In that particular case, are you determining value based on where you're placing with each search?

Or how do you determine whether or not you're getting the best value out of that or not?

Rodney Lover: So, I took over our marketing when I was in my twenties and my dad is shrewd and although, like, joyful, cheerful, friendly he also asks. You know, each dollar where, where it's going and when it's coming back, you know, so so you know, I had that training and when I got into it into Google marketing and of course, you know, okay, you're spending this, how am I getting it back?

Now, at the time they were going up against traditional marketing, so newspaper ads which are very hard to track unless you're putting a coupon in which we didn't do yellow page ads which, you know, you could, you could certainly. Track phone calls in. Maybe you put a different phone number so you could kind of see what how many calls were coming from it.

But, you know, the theory of the online was that they could track right from click to sale if you had an online store. Now, it took us a number of years to get a real serious online store. That we could essentially track that, but that is the beauty of online marketing that if it's a fully online trail from bot, from, you know, discovery, click to, to checkout that you can see the return on investment.

Kelly Kennedy: Amazing. Yeah. And for me, like. Metrics is everything, right? I talk about it on the show all the time. Like, if you're not tracking your metrics, how do you know where the heck you're going? Whether you're performing or not, right? And so I talk a lot, even to my business development specialist, where I'm just saying like, look, just track your weekly results.

Because it all is data. Like, we've gotten to the point with capital now. Where we can look at a client and we can say, okay, based on the data that we have, we can guarantee this number of results with this amount of effort. We'll aim for whatever you want, but we know for a fact we can hit this because statistics say we will.

But you won't have that information unless you start to track the statistics. And I know that you are also very shrewd about tracking statistics. And there's a reason because if you do not do that. It's almost impossible to know if you're getting a good value for your money.

Rodney Lover: Absolutely. Yeah. Yeah.

Tracking and feedback. The feedback loop is so, oh gosh, so amazing. You know, they say compound interest is you know, the eighth wonder of the world or whatever, but the whole reason why it is. Valuable is because there's a loop. There's a loop. And so with feedback, you can make adjustment. And like I've even done it in my personal life something that was a real game changer for me was journaling and not just journaling to get it out, being able to look back and saying, okay, this was my mindset.

This was my question. This was my Use. Feeling, you know, down or up or whatever, and being able to look back and say, okay, why and and so what, what do you do with it? I, I've got so many calendar reminders now, even just, hey, book. Vacation because, you know, at this time of year, because, you know, I recognize that the end of September is always kind of a down for me.

So I've got something up ahead, but that came because I was able to look back and see, you know, what happened. So the feedback loop in marketing is, is, you know, the same, you're, you're tracking through seeing what worked. And and then trying to build on that.

Kelly Kennedy: Yes. I love that you talked about journaling.

When did you start journaling?

Rodney Lover: I journaled a little bit in university, but it was probably into like I was probably 30 something before I really. Took it seriously. And I'm not, I'm not incredibly disciplined about it, but I, I, I just do it in the morning as, you know, as I've got thoughts or as I noticed something in my life or have to work something out in my mind.

In my mind the function of writing, of course is really helpful.

Kelly Kennedy: Yeah, I, I, I, I'm bad about it. I need to start journaling. You're not the first person who says it's valuable. And I'm like, ah, I really should just listen and start doing it. I I hated writing growing up because my hand would cramp.

And so, as a kid, I just hated writing. And so, I take so, it's so funny because I take so many notes all day long. I'm taking notes literally right now, like during our conversation because I take notes all the time. So, I've learned to, to, to write, but journaling about my thoughts, my feelings, things along those lines hasn't been something that I've explored much.

And it is something that I'm starting to realize, okay, I think there's some value here. I think I need to start doing this. What I tend to do is I write goals. So I have my notepad. I literally go through my notepad every single day. I have new page every day for different, different things, whether I'm doing client meetings or whatever else, like just like you, my calendars are packed full of meetings all week long.

So I live off my calendars and I live off my, my, my notebooks. And I usually go through three or four of them a year, but Yeah, like what you're saying ultimately is, is that there is value in, in just writing, just writing what you're feeling. It doesn't have to necessarily be about business or your goals for the week or whatever else.

Can you explain to me a little bit about what you write when you journal?

Rodney Lover: Sure. I, I have a prompt that I do. Three things I'm thankful for, for and that's just, you know, to, to get my juices going. And then, you know, really I'm just writing. Okay. Sometimes I'm copying down things that happened. You know, maybe we're on a trip or we did something on the weekend or whatever, just to record it and, you know maybe process it.

But then, you know, there's, you know, interests in housing market economics you know, just passions that I have that, you know, I'll write down a thought and kind of work through it. Yeah, you talked about goals and you know, you hear goal setting and such, and it's like, how do I even enter that?

Space to attack it and one way I have, and I thought I'd just share is something that's really great is Zig Ziglar's wheel of life, and it's a multi spoked wheel essentially with different areas of your life. Mapped out. So there's career, financial, spiritual, physical, intellectual, family, and social and, and there's different ones different names for those spokes sometimes, but I found it really valuable to kind of break up your life into those spokes and see You know, what your goal in those areas are.

It's just a, just kind of the next step sometimes when you're given such a large task, it's hard to imagine or even, you know, get your head around where to start, but that's a great place to start is the wheel of life.

Kelly Kennedy: You know, you, you run a pretty massive corporation and I, I envy what you're saying and I completely understand like, absolutely we need more free time to have fun and do things.

But like, I think most of us, and I know I struggle with this. I'm so busy, Rodney, I'm so busy and it's not like just busy. It's just, I have lots of obligation, whether it be you know, to the podcast or to my organization and my business. And then to my family, I think that I really struggle to make time for fun or just for or just for planning something enjoyable because it just all feels like it feels I think I feel sometimes like if I'm having fun.

I'm taking time from something that I should be, you know, I mean, I shouldn't, I shouldn't be doing that. Right. I, I don't, I, as a kid, I love playing video games. Now I look at video games. I'm like, I've just, just wasted time. I can't do that. I need to just, I need to do my business or I need to plan the next show, or I need to reach out to the next guests for the show.

And I need to find the new sponsors or I need to find some new clients for capital or keep Cole busy. Right. Like there's I think I can start to get very overwhelmed. I know I'm not alone in this as a business owner. I think you can really get, you know, you got, you got to, you got a two track mind. You either got the business or you got your family.

Everything else is on the sidelines. It sounds to me like you've really found a way to balance that out. At what point were you able to do that? Because I'm sure that that was a learned experience.

Rodney Lover: Yeah, you know, I, I'd say I didn't know how much time I had before we had our three kids. And you know, didn't know what I didn't know.

And as our kids have gotten more and more self sufficient as they've gotten older, I would say it's almost like a melting of the ice or, you know, the clearing of the fog. So I won't profess that I did it with young kids. But it, it has been a number of years now, certainly, and, you know, I'm still learning.

I, certainly over the last few years is we've had, you know, through COVID, we were, you know, sometimes daily trying to understand how the world worked. The last few years have been busy and, and intense. And and my wife and I were talking a few weeks ago and it's like, why can't we seem to plan farther ahead for our vacations?

And I grew up you know, with, with parents that didn't. Didn't really talk about far off vacation planning. It was, you know, when, when my dad was available, it was kind of ambiguous. And then all of a sudden we were going so, so so, you know, here I am. I would say I was self professed planning nerd that can't plan.

You know, farther ahead and I finally thought to myself, why am I not putting this on a spreadsheet? So 2024, I have our vacations, you know, kind of mapped out and you know, I don't necessarily know where we're going, but, you know, there's, there's rows of. Open space that we're going to fill, and we've got to approach it a little bit more planned.

So as far as getting time, like I've been an early riser for years. So that was my kind of quiet time before the kids got up and yeah.

Kelly Kennedy: Yeah, it's it's so funny. I, I, I'm totally with you. I look back to, you know, my time before I was a business owner before the podcast, before any of this. And it's like, my gosh, like how much time was available.

And, and I didn't plan my time. And now it's so funny. It's like, I I'm totally with you. It's like, where can I rob two more hours? Can I rob a couple hours from the morning from my sleep? But it's like, It's crazy how fast you start to recognize, especially when you have responsibility and a business and other things going on in a family that you want to spend time with, how, how fast it's like, okay, now we really need to get scheduled with our time.

We really need to be deliberate about our time usage because that's the one resource that we, we have a very finite amount of.

Rodney Lover: Yeah. John Maxwell actually Was a good encouragement. He's a leadership writer. Great, great leadership mind and trainer. But he, he always talked about having planning time in between the holidays of Christmas and new years, he would plan the next year.

And I took that to heart. It's a, it tends to be a quieter. Quieter week of days. And that's been a really good thing for me. So I usually take you know, half a day of hours and and, you know, that's my planning time for the coming year.

Kelly Kennedy: Yeah, yeah, I like to do that as well. Typically, I'll have like, not in January, but usually in December here, I'll sit down and I'll just write out some goals.

And what's super funny about writing out your goals is you won't you, you don't really need to look at them necessarily after in my experience, what I found is once I write out what my goals are, it's almost in some ways like, oh, they just happened. It's a very writing out goals is a very weird thing.

And there's something magical that happens when you write out your goals over the course of a year. And it's Yeah, you probably won't hit all of them. Yeah. But I think by the time you go back and you look, you'll have hit a lot of them. One of my goals for 2022 going into 2023 was I wanted to either start something on YouTube or a podcast or like some type of outward facing thing.

I hadn't, I didn't have any plans at that point for how that would happen. And It just kind of did. It's a very weird scenario, but yes, I'm a huge advocate for writing down your goals for the year. Even if it's just a quick exercise that you write out 10 or 15, there is something magical about goal writing and it does work.

Rodney Lover: So a little, a little tip on that is very often we write out our goals and you know, they may be behag's, big, hairy, audacious goals. You know, you can also put small goals on there too. And what I really like to do, I, I've, I've kept again, in that format of, of all the different sections of life little goals or big goals on essentially a word document.

And then The end of each section, I actually copy down throughout the year, things that relate to that section of life that are a win. And, you know, years ago, I had a guy encourage me to write down my wins on, on a sheet, things that felt like a win in my life. You know, because oftentimes we just focus on the negative again, you know, writing down kind of the wins in those different areas throughout the year was really positive because I could look back at the end of the year and say, okay, I may not have hit my goal.

Look at all the great things that happened you know, throughout the year in that in that area. And a few years ago, I added a kind of a 1st of the year temperature gauge of each of the sections. So I could kind of see. You know what my next year's temperature gauge, how it related, you know, or compared to them.

But anyway, just to say, you know not just goals throughout the year, you know, looking at them, but also the little wins writing them down. So you can focus on the positive and the things that are happening in your life, the blessings that, that are, are coming. But you may not remember months later.

Kelly Kennedy: Yes.

Yes, I I'm with you on the gratitude thing. I'm regularly say prayers. Thanking just thanking God for what I have in my life because I wouldn't have it right. Like the reality is, is that you know, life has been up and down in my life. I've had some really great times. I've had some really horrible times, but the reality is it's like if my family's healthy, if we got money in the bank.

If we're going to make it another month, like the reality is that I'm thankful. And I think it's important, you know, like you said, Rodney, to really celebrate, just celebrate the things you have, because there's a lot of people who don't have what you have. And so it's easy as an entrepreneur. And I know I find myself falling into the space too, where I'm always looking for the next bar.

What's the next bar I can hit? How do I make this? Better, you know, how in 2024, how do I make the podcast amazing? How do I, how do I make it hit this like top 50 or top 10? And we're always shooting for that, but it's like, the reality is sometimes you got to look back and be like, holy cow, like look at all the things that we did.

And it is easy. It is easy if you get into that forward thinking flow to not celebrate the small wins. Have you have you found that that's been a challenge for you? Or was that something that you were able to kind of figure out along the way?

Rodney Lover: Yeah, I don't think I've had a challenge celebrating the wins.

Kelly Kennedy: But we're still like the ambition side of it. You know what I mean? It's like the winds, they come, but then it's like, what's the next bar? Have you found a way to kind of be like, okay, like I'm actually really good with where we're at today. Like, I'm just going to be thankful that this is where we are.

Rodney Lover: Yeah. I guess if you're not growing, you're dying you know, and, and you know, after 40 years in business, like, you know, we, we could be comfortable but, you know, the reality is rust never sleeps. So, you know, you're either growing and getting a little better or. You know, you're not. So yeah.

Kelly Kennedy: With an organization like at work, obviously, you know, what does a planning, what is like a next year planning session look like for you guys?

How do you guys make sure that you guys are staying ahead of the curve?

Rodney Lover: Well,

I wouldn't say, you know, it's a, it's a solid you know, planned week that we do that. We're just always talking about, okay, you know, what, what's, what's new, what's what's the market telling us what are our customers asking for? So it's a lot of listening, so, you know, and, and, you know, obviously we've got our planning tools and we work to those, but but I can't say, you know, it's a, it's an intense you know, planning.

Maybe we should, maybe that's a weakness.

Kelly Kennedy: Well, that and you know, I don't know, maybe not. I think it just depends on what the goals are, right? You know, speaking to, to at work, the quality of your products is amazing. And thank you so much. Rodney sent us. Send us an office chair and a desk for for our den.

It's been absolutely amazing. It's a shared workspace now for me and Shelby. We absolutely love it. And incredibly high quality incredibly well done. And the care of that work team was great. And I'm not just saying that cause you sent me a desk. I'm saying that because it truly was great.

Rodney Lover: We really have some awesome manufacturers that we work with loads of them.

Canadian U S. You know, made other items made around the world too, but we, I guess in our minds, we're curators and and that's, you know, a real desire of ours that when we sell something, provide something that it gets used for, you know, 10. Plus years.

Kelly Kennedy: Yeah, no, and, and incredibly high quality and beautiful.

It makes our den. It really makes our den pop and I, you know, I wanted to I wanted to speak a little bit to that because we are talking to a lot of business owners who are working from home who may be just working from their kitchen table or who may, like the reality is that I've worked from wherever I could work for the most part, most of my life that before we had the, you know, the, the desk that you sent us, we had just like an old, essentially like an old file cabinet style desk that we'd picked up at a, at a, I think Shelby.

She loves thrifting. So Shelby will come back and be like, Hey, I bought this thing. And it's like, I think we're just using a thrifting desk, which was awesome, but did the job. But you know, what I can say is the quality of the, of the furniture that you work in on a day to day basis is important. And you don't realize it until you get something nice to work in.

So what would you say to some of those people working from home right now? Well, maybe you're working from their table.

Rodney Lover: Yeah. I think that Yeah, it's something that we don't really think about but when you, when you go into a new apartment or buy a new home, how do you interact with that space? A lot of your interaction is actually using the furniture that's in the rooms.

And so furniture is really important and Yeah, you know, that's that's the world we live in in the commercial sense in in an office. So, you know, oftentimes people are interacting with the furniture that we're providing, maybe even more than they are with the furniture than that's in their home.

And you know, we're sitting in a chair for hours. And so it is important. Important support important to feel good in it. You know, and we believe certainly that the style makes, you know, a feeling and in turn, you know, your office looking modern looking good, feeling good, feeling comfortable, has an effect on your productivity.

Kelly Kennedy: Yes, 100%. And actually, one of the things that I would speak to in that front would be before the days of working from home, we went to work and we worked at our offices and most of our offices were outfitted with office desks and chairs and everything else. Right. And so. We have this weird thing as humans where when we get into a space that we recognize is used for a purpose, we can switch into a mindset where we, you know, we turn on, we turn on, we're able to work better underneath that scenario.

And I think when everyone went to work from home, and I am, I'm first person to say, I struggled. working from home. It took me months and I hate to admit that it took me months to get to a point where I had a space where I could associate as work in my own home and still turn on the way that I could turn on at an office.

And I think that having nice office furniture in a space in your home that you designate for work has the same effect. It allows you to sit down, turn on and your productivity goes through the roof.

Rodney Lover: Yeah. And you know, you can, at the end of the day, you can leave things on your desk and shut the door and be in a different mindset, which is really positive.

Kelly Kennedy: Yeah. And it's something that like, I don't think anybody had to think about. Except for with COVID, right? It just shook everything on its head. Tell us a little bit about what that experience was like for you and your team. Obviously, you know, you have a, you have a beautiful online presence. You have one of the most beautiful furniture websites I think I've ever been to, Rodney.

You absolutely kill it. I love it. But you also have massive brick and mortar stores in Ontario. What was COVID like for you guys and your organization? Obviously, I'm sure the, the home sales probably went up through the online, but what was that like managing large retail chain stores?

Rodney Lover: Yeah, our, our showrooms were important before COVID you know lockdowns for sure.

I would say somewhere in the late nineties early two thousands, we transitioned to have outside sales teams. So not only did we have showroom and inside sales, but we had outside and and that quickly included designers, interior designers on staff where a salesperson or a salesperson and a designer would go out into.

The community go to an office walk, do a walk through discovery measure up and and have us give them designs back for their office. So, so let's say, you know, prior to 2020, you know, we were very much either in showroom. Or outside sales. Certainly we did a lot by email, by phone, all of that.

But yeah you know, sometime in January of 2020 I was starting to read about, you know, this weird thing happening in China and and my dad and I have been stock investors and I've had Starbucks stock. So one of the things that I was reading is that Starbucks was closing down all their locations.

I'm like for a period of time to, to avoid this, this situation. And I was like, wow. That is gonna affect us. So we really started talking about it intensely. I'm sure lots of other people did as well in January, February. And so March hits. And to tell you the truth for the first 2 weeks, I was at home while there was people here.

In our showroom answering phones and such. But the reason why I was home is because my, my my middle daughter was in Australia and just got home before the plane stopped. And and, you know, because we became, came in contact with an internationally traveling person had to, had to stay home.

But anyway you know, thankfully in the past years, I had installed chat on our website. So, you know, the pandemic happens, everybody's at home and, and now people are contacting us through email, chat and phone and trying to outfit themselves as they struggle to figure out how they're going to keep.

keep the wheels on their businesses. So so we went from a little bit of online to a lot of online, obviously, you know, those first two or three months it was like mainly online. Yeah. But we already had the infrastructure built and that's a blessing. That I won't take the credit for. It's just a passion that was instilled in me and we have been working on it.

And to tell you the truth, many people prior to that thought I was a little bit nuts in it, but to me, we were, we were bringing online availability in the commercial. Furniture workspace where it hadn't been much before that. Certainly you could go on and buy supplies and, and, you know you know, kind of basic furniture, but not real commercial office furniture and I just had had a passion for that and a belief in it and then and then 2020 happened.

So you know, even my business partners at the time probably didn't fully grasp the value of it until until then either. And and then boom, we were shipping. Chairs and other things throughout Canada through our online store.

Kelly Kennedy: Yeah. Yeah. And like I said, I've, I've, I've obviously browsed your online store.

It's absolutely beautiful. Like the, it's probably one of the best done furniture store websites I think I've ever seen. So congratulations. It was money well spent and effort well, well, well delivered. And you're right. I do think it did. It probably did separate you guys out, especially during the pandemic.

You know, one of the things that I wanted to talk to you about Was you know, we talked a little bit about it ahead of the show, but we mentioned that ultimately most of the work you're doing is B to C, right? Like at the end of the day, even though you're selling business to business, it's it's to an end user per your, per your point.

So it really does fall into that B to C space. B to C is something we don't talk about much on the show. And the reason being is I'm not a B to C expert. That's just not my space. It's B to B. It's relationship based selling. It's repeat business, that sort of thing. And with you, it is too, but it's still a little bit different.

Could you maybe give us some tips on how to effectively market B2C for some of our B2C listeners?

Rodney Lover: I guess we've always had a little bit of a B2C mind when it comes to what we're in. We have customers and clients that have bought from us for 30 plus years. Maybe their buyer changed, you know, but the company's You know, been with us for many, many years or decades or a decade or five years, and we're seeing them every few months.

You know, or they're contacting us every month as, you know, they may be a facility manager that's outfitting, outfitting their teams but they're still people. And so, you know, we all know we research online so that's a place that we've concentrated on. I think I, I think there's a lot the same.

And, and again, you know whether you're selling in business or to somebody at home they're real people they've got, you know, needs and, and it's You know you're developing a relationship. It's about trust and follow, you know, follow up and doing the right thing when things go sideways.

Kelly Kennedy: Yeah. Yeah, no, I love that. I think one of the challenges that I've always kind of seen on the B2C front is just that. It's like, how do you develop the relationship with somebody If you only necessarily, maybe you only sell something to them once every two or three years, the relationship becomes a lot harder to manage and a lot harder to develop.

What are some of the tactics that atWork has, has utilized to keep that conversation going, to keep that interaction so that that customer, even if they're only buying from you every two or three years, you're still in contact with them. You're showing that you care. You're showing that you stand behind your product.

What are some of the ways that you've been able to do that with atWork?

Rodney Lover: Wow. I think being real upfront being real people and not overpromising you know, begins that journey with them. We do have regular, regular email communication with our customers. You know, where we try not to only talk about product because yeah, you know, the buying cycle is only.

is, is, is a certain length. People don't wake up every day and think, gosh, I can't wait to buy a filing cabinet.

Kelly Kennedy: You know, although when I have bought filing cabinets, it's been, it's been an intense search. It's like, oh, I want the best one. I want the one that's going to work best.

Rodney Lover: Yeah. You know, it's not a sexy product, right?

So it's not naturally attractive. And and so we'd like to say we're putting the fun in furniture. I guess so.

Kelly Kennedy: Well, I was going to say I've met you and Eric, so I think you guys are probably putting the fun in furniture.

One of the things that I wanted to talk about to you with that work, you know, is the design side of it. You know, you guys offer, offer design, you know, to any, to any company who's looking to, to design a. along with the, along with the office furniture purchase. Do you want to speak a little bit about that?

Cause I think that's super interesting.

Rodney Lover: Sure. Yeah. You know, we, we did it but we didn't do it formally for many years. And somewhere around 2000, we had a, a gentleman that Couldn't work as intensely as as others would do to some health issues. He said, Rodney, you know, I think I can be a value in behind the sales team.

And, you know, layout offices and such. And we're like, yeah, that's a really good idea. Okay, do that. And he had a bit of humor. So he'd always try to put a little strange thing in his drawings. It was kind of fun. But anyway, that kind of put us into office design. I know there was other people in it prior to that, but it was a newer thing for us since that time.

We've certainly been much more involved in in design. We're still primarily space planning. We don't do necessarily floor to ceiling but we have designers come to us who are doing the floor to ceiling and we'll look after the space planning and furniture. But yeah, we'll. We'll go into a space, measure it up and then, you know, with our quote back and proposal, you know, customers are seeing a layout and oftentimes, you know, a render of the space so they can visualize it.

You know, people are visual. So, you know, being able to give them that You know, really makes it tangible before they're going to invest all those dollars.

Kelly Kennedy: Yes, and I think the important thing is that, you know, people that are designing a space or business owners, right, are looking at a space and it can be hard to see what would work best in that space if you don't know what you're looking for, right?

Like, in a situation like that, the reason I see this so valuable, Rodney, is that they can come to you and say, you know, In this space, we're going to use it for X purpose, and we're probably going to seat X number of people. How, what is the most efficient use of this space? And an expert like you can come in and say, Hey, you know, we can show you how to fit everything you want to fit in here.

This is the best use of the space. Here's the equipment we would recommend. Oh, and by the way, not only that, we'll install it for you. It's a hell of a service. It's a hell of a service and it's something that most people do not think about until they're in that situation. And, and once they get in that situation, they don't know where to go.

Rodney Lover: Yeah. And, and, you know, you can do it on a graph pad, you know, or back of a napkin, but you know, are there fire codes that you've got to consider when you're putting 20 people in a room you know What about, you know, storage in this area? Or you know, the way this team works is a little different.

These people need more storage or, you know or such. So there's lots of aspects to it. Ergonomics works in their style you know, color flow. You know, we all know, you know, there's a certain spot in the kitchen that everybody goes to in your home. That seems to be a collecting point. And you're always kind of bumping into each other.

So you so we're trying to work those things out prior to. You know, the to the installation. So people aren't having a, a challenging time working together or that they're naturally bumping into each other and having good conversations or have a, a good little meeting spot to have a sit down.

Kelly Kennedy: One of the cool things I saw when your emails the other day came through and it was with those really cool little rooms that you guys are selling the soundproof rooms freaking awesome yeah yeah and they just kind of fit almost anywhere you need to put them but they're like this little isolated office space that you can pretty much put anywhere it's so cool.

Rodney Lover: Yeah you know the the office booths we've got a couple in our showroom and it now the team booth that we've got in our showroom where I am Gets used constantly.

I was in there this morning. It's just a little enclave that really feels comfortable and cozy being in, but it's also quiet and focusing. And we've got them from 1 person to 6. And yeah, it's a great, great space to work. Wow. Yeah. Especially in an open office, an open office when things, you know, you need a a quiet space and not disturb the other people that are trying to knock Knock it out.

And they can be certainly less expensive than a renovation or adding a room into a room. And maybe you don't even own the space. So, you know, anything that you build, you'll be leaving behind if you move. These are a great investment.

Kelly Kennedy: I was actually so, you know, obviously I'm in podcasting. So I was looking at it from that kind of standpoint.

I was like, man, that would be a great little soundproof room that you could create for your podcasters listening, go, go to our, check out these little soundproof rooms. I feel like you could, you could put a couple of things on the, on the walls and you could have this like perfect little soundproof space to do your shows from.

Rodney Lover: Totally. And, and they absolutely have gone to homes amazingly. So yeah,

Kelly Kennedy: I believe it. That is super cool. Well, Rodney. Man, I appreciate having you on the show. You know that with this show, we're always trying to educate and inspire, right? That's what we do here on the business development podcast. You've been in business a long time.

You've been an entrepreneur, literally your entire life. It's January. The show is coming out in January. We're recording it right now on December 15th, but it's coming out, you know, mid January and you know, we want to inspire some entrepreneurs. You know, what's the best piece of advice? You know, what would you what would you say to a new entrepreneur who's maybe on the fence and they're looking for that little kick in the butt?

How might you inspire them to take that leap?

Rodney Lover: Oh man, would I be inspiring? I guess I would be pressing them to do market research. You know, ev Ideas are easy. Execution is darn hard. And so, you know, having an idea is awesome. You know, being able to take maybe two separate things and put them together.

And I remember reading a creativity book years ago and as it talked about bringing ideas, you know, to Synergy, it kind of gave this little cartoon of A dumb idea, and it was a pizza delivery guy that was also a taxi driver and the, and the person in the back was having to go around, you know, as he was delivering pizzas really years later, Uber and Uber Eats came out.

You know, and so so anyway, ideas are easy execution is super hard and I was in angel funding for many years and, you know, watched startups who were, you know, trying to act on that awesome idea and. You know, it is a slog after that. So do your research upfront. So your trajectory is at least towards success rather than, you know, running with this, this cool idea into an area where no one's going to pay you for it.

Kelly Kennedy: Yeah. Yeah. And I think too, it's also important and I see this with a lot of startups is they have this really great idea, but they're not really, you know, at some point, your great idea has to make money, right? It's not, you're not going to change the world if your product is not sustainable, if it doesn't make money.

So it is really important that you guys figure out. Okay. Not only is this feasible and I can make it, but I can actually make it and sell it at a profit and somebody is going to buy it because I'm sorry, if your product doesn't have a profit to it, if you're not making money with it, it's going to be really, really hard to keep your ideas moving forward, if not impossible.

Well, that's it, Rodney. This is the end of episode 98. It's been an absolute pleasure having you on. You know, we have a ton of people listening to the show. I hope all of them go and check out at work office furniture atwork.ca. Rodney has amazing stuff. His online stores are amazing. You're in Ontario.

I did notice that you now have an office either being, being built in Edmonton or something along those lines. What's going on with that work in Edmonton?

Rodney Lover: You know what, Edmonton has just been good to us. We've had you know so many from the area. Reach out to us and connect we do deliver across Canada and into the U. S. Occasionally. But but we're really physically we're in southern Ontario. We have install partners across the country in Canada and really deliver you know, install right from Vancouver to Halifax. Right now we've got some things going up to Yellowknife but Edmonton I know there was a reception desk ordered yesterday from Edmonton so there's there's good people everywhere, and I always think, you know not everybody in every community has a resource like this.

So resource like us, I guess so we love outfitting working people right across the country.

Kelly Kennedy: Yes. Yes. And like I said, amazing. The delivery was perfect. The organization everything that needed to happen to get everything here was done. And it was, it was awesome. It was awesome. And I appreciated that immensely.

Thank you so much, Rodney. Thank you for being a supporter of the podcast. Thank you for being a friend to us and to me and for the beautiful office furniture you sent us. Very, very kind. Rodney also sent us these beautiful Christmas cards. He's got some sweet Christmas cards going out and man, I appreciate you.

Thank you so much for everything you do for the show. And you know, our, our listeners appreciate you as well, because they, I think they recognize that we're at a stage now with this show that without people like you, without sponsors being able to help us take this to the next level, it's, it's hard, but you know what?

We have sponsors. This thing is going to the next level. And I am super, super excited about what 2024 will bring. We're going to do some big stuff with the business development podcast. Thank you so much. Until next time, this has been episode 98. We'll 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.

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