The Unsure Entrepreneur

The Unsure Entrepreneur Podcast
Guest: David Cohen

SUMMARY KEYWORDS
entrepreneurs, business, mentor, entrepreneurship, sell, business owners, david, membership site, mastermind, unsure, people, grant, canada, support, share, podcast, resources, entrepreneurial, tap, feel
SPEAKERS
David Cohen, Roger Pierce, Intro

Intro 00:00
You're listening to the unsure entrepreneur podcast with Roger Pierce. Whether you're scribbling business ideas on a napkin, or wrestling with this should I shouldn't tie question, get ready to explore the realities, the risks and the rewards of entrepreneurship as we share the stories, scars and successes of small business owners.

Roger Pierce 00:22
Hello, and welcome to the unsure entrepreneur podcast. My name is Roger Pierce, and I'm thrilled to introduce my guest, David Cohen. Hi, David. Hey, Roger. Good to be here, man. Thanks for asking me. I'm so thrilled that you're here today. We're gonna have a great talk my friend. We will. Let me give you a bit of background about David David is a multifaceted entrepreneur to say the least, and a beacon for aspiring business owners. As the founder of your big venture.com. David has dedicated his career to empowering individuals who are stepping into the entrepreneurial arena. He is not only a seasoned small business coach and mentor, but also an adept trainer and teacher sharing his wisdom through various educational programs and resources. David has panned the motivational book live life Swift, encouraging readers to pursue their entrepreneurial dreams with vigor and clarity. Beyond his writing and coaching, he is the host of the podcast 26 minutes with more, he delves into the intricacies of entrepreneurship with various industry leaders. And I would say David is known for his tireless advocacy for all things, entrepreneurship. And his approach really ensures that every entrepreneur he meets is in good hands and receives the help and support they need to succeed. And you know what, aside from the words I've just written, I want to hear you explain a bit better about what you do? Well, I gotta start just, I ended the 26 minutes with podcast. So I'm in a bit of a holding period, as you probably know, with your podcasts, podcasts, or, you know, there's sometimes are hit and miss, but we do it because we love it dovetails nicely into why I do what we do. I just I'm an advocate for people doing what they love to do, and making it happen and doing living their passion and making a difference. Not only am I an advocate for that, but I do a lot of teaching and coaching work while mostly teaching and teaching entrepreneurs for various economic development, nonprofit entrepreneurial programs. You know, I've hosted a radio show for for seven and nine to two plus years. For entrepreneurs, I've written a few books for them. So it's really a passion. And I think the passion is just to see other people, you know, having permission to be who they are. And entrepreneurship affords that possibility. It sure does. And you've done so many things, the books you write, you've got a couple of books under your belt. And I remember listening to and I think I appeared on your radio shows small business, big ideas, wasn't it? Yes. Good memory. Wow. And you've been in and out of the entrepreneur support ecosystem for years, and you're so connected to it. It's fantastic. Yeah. And that's how we met, we were in the ecosystem. Together. We're both in this game, like it or not. But you know, let's what you and I have in common, we both really want to help entrepreneurs. And you know, I want to start maybe by expanding upon the new website, because that's really a fairly new part of your life, isn't it your big adventure.com?

David Cohen 03:35
Yeah, it's geared to young entrepreneurs who are starting out, the premise is to help them have the learning and the training and the support, they need to have confidence, but also to be able to sell and to relate to people and build relationships. And so it's part one of a two part thing. And the next part is I'm working on a membership site, a paid membership site for youth entrepreneurs.

Roger Pierce 04:02
And you're telling me you mentioned something there about selling I know, that's one of the focus areas of the site, learning how to sell Can you expand on that?

David Cohen 04:11
Well, you know, if you don't sell it, nothing happens. Right? There's an old saying, like, you know, if sales not made, nothing happens and, and it's true. So, as an entrepreneur, you need to master that skill or, and the other quote, they say is if you learn how to sell, you'll never worked for somebody else. Again, you'll be self employed. And that's the whole I guess the benefit of selling and learning how to sell is that you will control your destiny if you know how to relate to people and give people what they want and good value and be able to communicate effectively. And it's not rocket science. It's not something scary. It's just, hey, here's who I am. I have an idea. I think I have something that you might be interested in. And then it flows from there.

Roger Pierce 05:01
And what do you say to entrepreneurs who say, my idea is so hot? It's going to sell itself customers are going to beat a path to my door? I

David Cohen 05:09
say, how many podcasts? Are there? Millions? Now? How many websites? Are there? How many, you know, how much competition Do you have? Start there, and you'll soon realize that there's many options, and many doors to be the path to so it's like, you need to stand out somehow. Nothing sells itself. Yes, exactly.

Roger Pierce 05:34
Well set, just to harp on that a bit. Because this is such an underestimated area, in the startup journey for for new entrepreneurs. They a underestimate how much they're gonna have to sell and be a lot of them are very nervous about selling to right, they think, Oh, well, we'll have to do much of that. I'm not very good at it. But man, entrepreneurship is mostly sales. And persuasion isn't a David. Yes.

David Cohen 05:58
And it's relationship building. And it's crafts, building crest, and being able to converse and offer something of value to somebody else. And that value is something they need that's going to help them achieve a goal or reduce pain or get pleasure.

Roger Pierce 06:16
What you said is so accurate. It's the way we look at it. So instead of thinking about, Oh, I'm taking money away from somebody, I'm causing some kind of harm by selling, you're actually there to help. You're there to add value, right?

David Cohen 06:30
You just said you're there to add value, focus on the value don't get into price. Issue. Don't, don't don't negotiate over price, focus on what you do for somebody else. And if they need a bad enough, they'll find the money, don't worry about that.

Roger Pierce 06:46
You're helping that customer solve a problem. Hmm. So important. And so on the website, this is going to be a focus area. I'm so glad to hear it. And I know you're doing lots of are you doing training programs and things like that to go with the website? Yeah,

David Cohen 07:01
so the membership site will have guest experts like yourself, I do want to bring you in down the road. On some more up and ready, we're going to have guest experts, we're going to have talks we're going to have learning, we're going to have events that they you know, content that young, young entrepreneur 19 to 35 can tap into the goal is just to help them succeed and have them have that confidence and, and the knowledge and the skill sets in order to succeed.

Roger Pierce 07:31
I love the fact that you're you're focusing on young entrepreneur is very near and dear to my heart. Years ago, I had some programs that I ran to help young entrepreneurs, what are some of the tripping points? What's preventing young people? Like you said, 1935, from taking that leap?

David Cohen 07:46
I guess at first blush, and to say it's maybe the uncertainty of the times we're in? You know, I think that's that's kind of having an effect on a lot of people these days. I hear that song, you know, should I stay? Or should I go now, there's never a good time to start. And Nothing's ever perfect. So start now see where it goes, see what happens. And you might be surprised. So I feel it's it's just the uncertainty of these times. And again, it's just having the knowledge like how do I do this? How do I make it happen? How do I get a client? How do I what do I go to register? You know, you mean, I need a bank account or a business plan. So it's, it's really having the education and that support in order to make things happen. And that support is really super important. It's important for somebody young but Roger, it's also important for guys, you know, our age who are maybe thinking, you know why I've worked for the man all my life, I now retired, I want to start something. You

Roger Pierce 08:53
know, I almost wrote a book called The had great name for it, the gray haired startup. It was gonna be a book for people over there over the age of 50. That was when I had my 50th birthday, five years ago, and then I abandoned that idea. But I always thought, you know, there's a whole other market there too. For people, young people, older people, people are starting businesses at all ages, aren't they? Yeah,

David Cohen 09:16
they are. And the same barriers that somebody young, younger might have. The older people have the same barriers. But

Roger Pierce 09:25
that can't be said there are some particular challenges for young people, number one, access to capital. What do you recommend and that kind of problem?

David Cohen 09:34
Look around there, there is capital available and you just have to shop around a little bit, you know, another barrier turn to get back to the Capital One. But the other barrier too is because they're young, they might not be taken seriously by an older business owner. But in terms of capital letters, their options I mean, first of all, get friendly with your bank manager. get friendly with your local Economic Development Office, they might have access to funds and grants, go to your local library, tap into some of the directories they have, like one that comes to mind is a foundation, they have a directory or listing on their website, as to all the foundations that are out there. So Foundation's, their mandate is to actually grant money to businesses or nonprofits that are helping serving their mandate. So I'll give you an example. Sleep family, you know, the slates, they own Q and o seven CFR B back in the day broadcasting company, they have a fund for musicians who are fallen on hard times. So they, they help support musicians, right. And so I've heard ads on jazz FM lately about this fund. And that if you know, a musician has fallen on hard times, and let's face it, the past four years has been rocky for them to that they're there to support, and then in a variety of ways, so tap into the resources that the local library has, they're just like, that's what they're there to do. They're there to help your economic development office places like Futurpreneur, which actually provide funding and loans along with the Business Development Bank of Canada, to help fund businesses owned by people under 35. Right. So I think these resources and and start worrying, you know, like if you know, your bank manager, or they kind of know you go talk to them, and see what they can come up with

Roger Pierce 11:38
fantastic advice. And I love the name naming of those organizations Futurpreneur and, and all the other words, enterprise Toronto to you know, near and dear to my heart here in our city. Every city in town, US Canada, has an economic development office, as you pointed out, and usually there's some kind of startup help available, go there, talk to your local government as well and see what kind of resources they can connect you to. I have a friend I don't want to give him shameless self promotion.

David Cohen 12:07
He's really reliable and trustworthy. He owns a company called fair FAI, our grant writing.ca. And he's really expert in all the grants, how he makes his money is he'll write the grant for you. And if you get it, you have to cut them in on the action. So guy like that just tap into his newsletters, because he sends the best newsletters. I feel he's really trustworthy. You know, there's some of these grant, things you might see advertised, and they're like, it's a bit of a

Roger Pierce 12:42
hoax. Absolutely. I'm glad to share the information. And you raised a good point. And a lot of new entrepreneurs don't know this. There are billions and billions of dollars worth of startup grants, subsidies, loans, you know, incentives, tax credits, aren't there, David, you go on canada.ca. And you work your way through the business information. And us go to sba.gov Small Business Administration, billions and billions of dollars out there. And if guys, like your friend can help entrepreneurs do the proposals to get it, I'm all for it.

David Cohen 13:16
Yeah, that's what he specializes in write to write the proposal. It's a lot of work. It's like writing a business plan all over again. And

Roger Pierce 13:25
you know, there are grants, which is now you know, free money, then there's loans. BDC does a lot of stuff here in Canada, that's our Crown Corporation bank. I work with a lot of banks, as you know, to with small business content. And there, they've got programs for women entrepreneurs, and visible minorities and a lot of different type veteran business owners. There's lots of different programs out there. So to your point, if you just poke and explore and investigate, you'll find a lot of this stuff, launch it. Yeah.

David Cohen 13:53
And if you get turned down, don't get bummed out. That wasn't for you, me, you know, maybe there's something better. Yeah,

Roger Pierce 14:00
maybe a little different approach or a proposal Part Two, you never know. Or

David Cohen 14:05
start small and work your way up and bootstrap it. Like find your business yourself. That's your best bet.

Roger Pierce 14:10
And for people who are looking for a list of handy resources, shameless plug to on unsure entrepreneur.com. under the resources tab, I have a lot of these resources listed. So please feel free to check that out. You mentioned something about community support for budding entrepreneurs. And you gave a good good list of resources there. Anything else comes to mind in terms of your favorite go to resource for entrepreneurs?

David Cohen 14:34
Don't laugh, but podcasts, such as yours, you know, are really like look at the information flow we just shared and like less than, you know, 15 minutes it's amazing. Right? YouTube channels. Yeah, reader, a voracious reader. You got really good books that'll tell you the ins and outs of things. A mindful like sign up for courses. I signed up for a course recently with Stu McLaren, who teaches you how to have a membership site. Now, the drawback on that is the day after that course, I think I got three emails and next day, it's like, oh, no, I opened the door, open the door and look for came in at three emails a day for the you know, so you have to be mindful of that or just manage your content. But read, you know, read business books network, you know, join some networking groups, where you're going to learn, you know, go to a BNI or, or join your local Board of Trade in Toronto or Chamber of Commerce in areas outside of the GTA, join some of those and, and network and tap into people who have done it before and to see, you know, pick their brains, you know, and also get a mentor or a mastermind team going get an older mentor that you can trust and talk to maybe once a month. See what how they did it. And

Roger Pierce 16:04
I'm glad you brought up mentoring because I know you've done a lot of that a lot coaching, teaching, training, all forms, how important is that Dave until a young entrepreneurs journey,

David Cohen 16:14
I think it's super important. Because in the path to being successful can be a long journey. But if you have support be at a mastermind team, or a mentor, or a coach, you're gonna it's not going to take as long you're going to learn things faster, as they come up for you. And then you can pick someone's brains about it. Like, you know, how, what do I need to do? How do I handle this situation? That kind of thing. So you're going to fast track your success by having a mentor or a mastermind team, or even a coach, if you can afford it.

Roger Pierce 16:54
For those who don't know, can you explain more what a mastermind group is and how it works. So

David Cohen 16:59
if you've read the book, Thinking Grow Rich, Napoleon Hill started one way back when with Ford, Carnegie in Edison, Thomas Edison, and I know a match and being on that team. Oh, and Firestone. So the thought process for Napoleon Hill was you can get more with five minds a mastermind than you can with one. Now, modern day masterminds. Unfortunately, those guys are no longer with us. But if you read Jack Canfield, 64 success principles, he talks about masterminds, and he's got YouTube videos about it. Now, it's about really getting together with peers and people that you you like, and that bring certain skill sets and all knowledge to the table, and you get together and maybe you meet, I believe, like, no more than six or your meeting will take too long. And you meet once a month, and you discuss your wins, then your challenges. And then you brainstorm on your challenges. So now you're getting like input from, you know, four or five people that are in your group. And that helps you sort of navigate that road faster that we talked about before. And you end with here, my goals, somebody hold me accountable. You closed the meeting, and you plan for your next meeting. That's the sort of the Coles Notes version of it. But basically, your meeting with peers or other business owners, people that you respect and like and that everybody's contributing to each other. I

Roger Pierce 18:33
love it. Just dwell on us a bit. The Mastermind Group is a great idea. There are also mentoring and paid coaches out there. But there, let's let's focus on volunteer mentors. I mean, in the States, we've got score.org, which is like the biggest volunteer mentor organization in the US. And that's retired business owners helping new entrepreneurs out for free. And there's lots of that around, isn't it? I

David Cohen 18:57
don't know, too many mentors, groups that in Canada like that. My approach is you have to approach somebody too, that you like and trust, and ask them to be your mentor, I don't find that there's a lot of mentor groups out there and you

Roger Pierce 19:14
maybe not as many of us in the States, but you raised a good point. So how do I solicit my own personal mentor? How do I do I just call someone out of the blue? How would I go about that?

David Cohen 19:23
I'm under the belief that you should sort of have a knowledge of who they are. Maybe there's somebody that you follow on social media that you like, maybe it's a friend of your parents or, you know, an uncle or a cousin or something that you respect that and they're in business or or maybe there's a skill set, you know, that you like, I like the idea of tapping into a trade association. So let's say you're in the, you have a retail store, for example. So you would talk to the retail trade association and ask like Who are your top retail? All right, give me your top five in Canada, not the big names, but the smaller independents, then you start to call the owner of the stores. And then I would ask like, you know, hey, I've been following you, I got your name from, you know, the Retail Council of Canada. I'm just starting out myself. I'm wondering if you'd be open to being a mentor for me. And here's, here's how I see it working. And then, you know, ask for feedback. Do

Roger Pierce 20:28
I love it? Do you know what and be respectful to if you do get that mentor opportunity? Be prepared for their time? Have your questions ready in advance, stick to the agreed time together, whether it's 15 minutes by phone or whatever? Once a month, don't not show up.

David Cohen 20:44
And don't sell each other? You can't you don't do business. It's a mentor relationship. The

Roger Pierce 20:49
I got the website wrong score.org. So I'm thinking of in the States, wow. You see, we need that in Canada. Entrepreneurs, once they get into it after a few years, let's let's be honest, the passion and the excitement of it all can start to wane. So what's your advice to entrepreneurs to keep that passion and enthusiasm going for your business?

David Cohen 21:10
That's a great question. And in my work, as a coach who's facilitator, I've seen it, and it's usually the five year mark, something happens after five years, because the first three are like, oh, man, you're getting up and running. Now, by the third, it's actually something happening. By the fifth you get bored or stale or tired, right. And I've seen like, business owners somehow screw it up, like they sabotage their success. So I'm under the belief that in the five year mark, you should recreate something, bring in something new, a new product, a new service, a new, something to keep you fresh, right? Failing that, if your business is worth something, it might not be a bad thing to step away and sell. So you can go on to another path, right? Keep yourself fresh, keep yourself engaged. When we're bored. And we're not engaged, we make mistakes, we get lazy, we do something stupid. So you want to avoid that. If you're not feeling it, you know, you have to look in the mirror and say, What do I want it from my life. You're not married to the business. It's you at the end of the day, it's you and you're in charge, you could do what you want. You want to sell the business and move up to the land and farm, do it. There is no attachment. You are not your business. You Are you your business is an offshoot of who you are. Excellent

Roger Pierce 22:41
points. And to your history, you've had multiple businesses, I've had multiple businesses, nothing wrong with being a serial entrepreneur and maybe a start something up again, you know,

David Cohen 22:51
yeah. And I've had times where I've had to bail and work. Maybe something didn't work out. I remember, like, the recession in 2008. I had my business but it that recession really affected spending for a little bit, and ended up getting a full time job for a few years, right, just to balance things off. So that's okay, too, you're gonna have, it's like remember the show Quantum Leap where Sam would come in and out of various characters, right? It's like that you're gonna come in and out of entrepreneurship. It's a marathon, not a sprint. Exactly. And you have to take care of your yourself, you have to take care of your home, your home economics, your

Roger Pierce 23:37
relationships, your significant others, your family. It's not all about sleeping at the office and working 80 hours a week. No, gosh, although it can be watching our clock here, too. I got a couple more things to ask you. And I could talk to you all day. But can you tell me can you share a couple of pitfalls for startups? For people who are just getting going, you know, some things you've seen from all the entrepreneurs, you've worked with a couple tips maybe to help them avoid those pitfalls, get on the right path,

David Cohen 24:05
lack of research, they didn't research, things like costing, and all of a sudden say, Oh, I didn't know you had to have business insurance? Oh, I didn't know that it would cost much to you research, research, everything costing, what it's going to cost you what are your ongoing costs? What are the risks? What are the rewards, knowing your market knowing your strategy, then really just start like small get your first client and then your next and your next like you don't have to, you know, be big all of a sudden out of the gate. You know, you want to grow into this and let your business evolve and grow and and then you nurture it, but feel research and the lack of research because research scares the bejesus out of people that are afraid they're going to hear no or your idea sucks. And you know what, that's the best thing I'm here, because I'd rather know my idea sucks and invest a ton of time and money and energy into my business only to find that my idea is just not going proved

Roger Pierce 25:11
yourself and maybe your lenders or event investors, that the concept of sound, do a test right? Can you run a ticket a booth at a local flea market, you can set up a simple web webpage and take orders and test it that way.

David Cohen 25:24
And when you're there, build your, your list like your client list, hey, sign up for a prize and get people's names and numbers. So now you start building you enter your listing in touch with them, they can buy online, you know,

Roger Pierce 25:40
I love it. Okay, well, we're winding down here, but I'm going to ask you, this show is the unsure entrepreneurs, for people who are thinking about the whole thing, and maybe they're on the fence, maybe they've got risk averse feelings, maybe they're unsure, they're nervous, a whole bunch of causes can happen there. What do you say, to someone who is on that fence?

David Cohen 26:01
Like we just said, I think just try it out. Try it on a small scale. Get that first customer see how it feels? How did what was the process that you had to go through, understand what you're getting into, by doing the research and knowing you know, the, the ins and outs of it, but just start by getting that first client and then the next and the next and the next. And then when you hit a certain point in your business and growth point, then it's time to go to the next level. And that might mean yeah, I'm gonna leave my job. And I'm gonna go full time. There's an example of two guys I follow on YouTube. They're Adam petal, and I forget the other guy's name. Anyway, they have a site called on YouTube called Blue Jays today. And they both laughed. They announced like a month ago, they both left their day jobs. And now they're doing this full time. And so they're on all the time with Blue Jays content. You could watch the game with them. And they're commenting. Often, they're really quite engaging. And they've actually been on cp 24 as guest talking about the Blue Jays. So I think for them, Mike, it got to that that point where they had a lot of followers, they have subscribers right to their Patreon page, and members. And it got to the point where yeah, let's do it. Let's quit our jobs and do this full time.

Roger Pierce 27:28
Absolutely. Great story. I love it. Keep your job, get things going right into your self sustaining. Wonderful. Thank you for sharing that. Well, David, that's all the time we have. But I want to thank you very much for sharing your entrepreneurial wisdom and journey with us. It means a lot to me. And before you go, can you tell us how to get in touch with you? Oh, best bet is your

David Cohen 27:50
big venture.com or D Cohen at your big venture.com. That's my email. And that's the website, and I'm on LinkedIn and Facebook.

Roger Pierce 27:59
That's great. Well, thank you so much. Appreciate it. We look forward to catching up again. And to our listeners. Thank you for being here and be sure to return next time for more insights from the unsure entrepreneur.

Extro 28:11
That's it for this episode of the onshore entrepreneur podcast. Thanks for listening. Be sure to subscribe so you don't miss other candid conversations with small business owners. And be sure to check us out at unsure entrepreneur.com