- So basically, first of all, I know I'm shit,
but I also know I'm special.
- Understood.
- So I just wanted to get that out of the hopper.
- That's cool.
- You know how I got this meeting?
- I don't remember.
- Okay.
So basically, I own a barter system in Canada.
- Yes.
- Canada's barter guy.
We met at Haste and Hustle, briefly.
- Yes, I remember.
- In St. Catherine's.
- Yes, I remember.
- And, basically
- I remember.
- You remember.
- Now I remember.
- Perfect, I just wanted to get in front of you.
Obviously, there was ton of noise after that.
You had told me in a video, I have a video recorded
where you said, "yeah, tweet me, I'll see it,
I believe in what you're doing, you know I do."
I attempted to get in touch with you, which is no big deal,
there's tons of stuff coming at you.
So I, basically, found another way,
cause I wasn't getting heard.
I happened to know a guy
who had the @Drock Instagram user name.
- Amazing.
- I don't know if you heard about this.
- I remember this part too.
I didn't know they were connected,
but I know that story too.
- I said I have to use a barter
- Yeah, you executed under thesis.
I love it.
- Exactly, so I got in touch with D Rock.
He had been attempting to username right
from some guy before and never got it,
but I happened to know this guy,
so I traded him a custom horse saddle
for his daughter who's in show jumping,
traded him a custom horse saddle,
through a TradeBank client of mine,
my barter system.
He was able to take the saddle,
I got the D Rock instagram user name.
I made the deal with D Rock.
He gave me the ask and here I am.
- Fucking love it.
- It's awesome, right.
- Amazing.
- I used barter to get a meeting to talk about barter.
- I love it.
Super meta and it worked out
way better for you this way
than if I would've just replied to the tweet.
- It did.
- 100%.
- I'm happy, this like plays
right into my narrative.
- This is my biggest thesis, right?
Which is everybody like just gives up.
It's why I like barter so much.
It's a move that people don't have
in their repertoire.
- Exactly.
- It's lost.
It's how we all used to roll.
- Yeah.
- Chicken for hay, hay for fucking a massage.
Rocks for fucking wire.
This is our currency.
- Exactly.
- I mean, I've always dreamed of building,
this is why I responded so emphatically to you.
For a long time in the 90's,
my belief was the start up
that would make me buy the Jets,
was to build the barter Ebay.
- Right.
- You know?
- Yep.
- I still can't believe it, actually.
It's being scratched by a lot of little things.
- Yeah, oh yeah.
- Um. I'm a fan.
So, anyway, what can I help you with
before we run out of time?
- Awesome.
Basically, I've been doing this for 20 years.
- Bartering?
- Bartering.
- Why?
How did it start?
- It started with me coming out of high school.
I was going to go into engineering.
I got started in sales with an alarm company,
realized I could close and
just went straight to sales.
Met a guy who was
in the barter business in Toronto.
- The classic media barter business,
the one that's kind of sometimes dirty,
sometimes clean.
- No, totally retail bartering.
- Retail bartering.
What would that mean?
- That would mean like
small to medium sized business,
where it's all on a platform.
It's organized, called barter business exchange
at the time, but it's called
TradeBank now.
- Right.
I would say I have 1,000 cases of wine
that I can't move at my store,
and somebody would say,
"I want that, I've got ..."
- Correct.
So I just did a deal with a winery,
in the Niagara region,
you know Niagara is quite ...
By the way, before I forget,
I brought you a ...
- Thank you.
Humphrey.
Yeah, I love it.
- So basically, I just helped this winery
trade off about a 100 grand worth of
long inventory, that was taking up space
in their warehouse.
They were gonna have to discount it like
50% to get rid of it.
- They got full value.
- They got full value in their barter account,
we helped them construct a new building
and get advertising and media in exchange, yes.
Made a whole bunch of clients
really, really happy in the meantime,
because they got it at Christmas time,
so we were able to get that out to our ...
- What percentage of the barter on the
TradeBank and all that is that world a barter
that I understand much more,
which is you get full value of your product,
you get media in return,
the people in the middle
are playing on both sides and are
making their margin versus wine for markers?
- Or construction.
So, basically, the way we make money
is based on a transaction ...
- I totally get that.
I got it, I understand that.
That I understand.
How much of the ecosystem is the established
media barter world that I know very well,
you know where people trading media
versus stuff for stuff
or services for services,
that don't include advertising?
- Well we do a lot of advertising too,
but not at the level you're talking about.
- Yes, I understand.
Just on your world, I'm just curious.
- We're a very small part of ...
- I understand.
- You can't find your business on barter.
- And do people still do a lot of cash in your world.
- When I say cash, I mean U.S. dollars
or Canadian dollars, I don't mean
cash under the table.
- I understand.
- There is a lot of that too.
At TradeBank what we do, is a small portion,
we basically promote that any business
should never barter more than three to ten
percent of their annual sales and that's
additional new business, incremental sales
on top of their regular cash paying customer
business right now.
So, what we do, is we generate ...
- What's like a funny trade that you've seen there?
- A funny trade?
- Yeah, give me like a historically
funny trade.
- Historically funny trade.
- Or just one that I would deem unusual
as somebody who doesn't know the world as well.
- Well, it's very unusual for people to say,
"I was able to..."
I'll give you one right now.
A Tupperware lady.
You heard of Tupperware?
- Yeah, of course.
- National brand. International brand.
So, we had a Tupperware lady
who was in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan,
way out in Western Canada.
- Yeah, I know it.
- She wanted to renovate her home, right?
Well, she's gonna have to go cut a check
and pay money out of her pocket
or she can actually do the smart way
and trade Tupperware for construction.
So, we helped her sell about $60,000
worth of Tupperware, through Tupperware
e-gifts in exchange for the construction
of her new home and incentivizing
her down lines, like her down line marketing team
to actually do more sales.
That's something that people are blown away by.
We do anything from marketing to advertising,
to construction to retail,
to restaurants to wineries.
- I'm getting married this year
in December and we've got the photographer,
the limo, suit rental,
all of that through TradeBank.
- Right. And what did you give them in return?
- Working for John.
- Yeah, trade dollars.
- TradeBank currency.
- I see.
- TradeBank currency monetizes the system,
so what happens is like ...
- I totally understand.
- My passion is that there's so much
business waste out there.
- It's a highly profitable business
when you're the platform.
- Yes.
Oh, yes.
- It really is.
- It's not mainstream enough.
This is where I would come to you.
- 'Cause a lot of people got dirty people in it.
- Exactly.
- Especially on the media side.
- Exactly.
It's got to be legitimized
and my passion is that there's
so many businesses out there that are
wasting away ...
- Considering we have so little time
and now that I'm grounded,
what do you think I can do for you?
You get to write the script.
What is it?
- This is my meeting I paid for,
what I want to do, is I'd love to be
on the Ask Gary V Show.
- Yes.
- As an expert in retail business barter
to train your people, the marketers,
how to train their clients how to
capitalize on their down time,
idle inventory, that sort of thing.
- Understood.
So, to answer that question,
much like the same reason
I don't give quotes on books.
The only people that are on Ask Gary V,
are people that I've really got some
deep knowledge of, because I'm scared shitless.
- Totally get it.
- Scared shitless.
Compounded with the fact that you are in an
industry that is far more scary to me
than a person on TV, or a songwriter,
or things of that nature.
The answer is it's not inconceivable.
I'm not against it.
- No, it's gonna take some time.
- I'm concerned that I have to do real work
to get to the yes that I'm not so sold
I'm excited about doing.
- Right.
- So, help me crack that.
- Which I will do over time.
- Okay.
- No problem, I can make that happen.
- Let's work backwards for a minute.
Let me play it a different way.
Why not accomplish the same thing
without me being the gate keeper
that puts you on?
The speed in which it happens, right?
- Yeah.
Oh, yeah.
- That's the thing I always think about.
- Yeah.
- I became Inc and Fortune and Wall Street Journal,
so that I didn't have to rely
on them putting me on.
The thing that I'm trying to do
for a lot of people ironically
is show them how to do it,
so that they're not then at the mercy
of me putting them on.
- Which is cool.
So the other question I had for you ...
- So I wonder, I'm trying to think
if like there's on that note,
I'm trying to think about how
I can help.
But keep going.
- The other question is,
you're one of the best, obviously,
at helping businesses reach a
business to consumer market,
in terms of digital media,
Have you worked with or do you ...
- B2B?
- Some B2B?
- A ton.
That's where I make a lot of my money.
I'm coming.
One minute, promise.
Yes, let me tell you exactly how you do it.
You should start a weekly podcast
or are you doing a video podcast now
or like what are you doing?
- Not yet.
- You need a weekly minimum,
weekly minimum thing.
I think podcast is really good
for this space.
- You're pushing that for yourself right now, yeah?
- I love it.
I just think it's good.
- So, LinkedIn is where I get most of my
business, B2B.
- Understood.
You're gonna love what I'm about to say.
- Okay.
- Whether it's video or audio,
the number one way for you to get people,
is to spend 100 to $1,000 a week
on Facebook ads, against the segmentation
that is called employees of.
So you can go to the 20 biggest
businesses in Ottawa, in Vancouver,
in Winnipeg, in Calgary
and Saskatchewan and run your content,
I would do it like this,
"Does your CEO know, does your CFO know"
like literally the video starts with,
"Does your CFO know ..."
and you target it and you just do your thing,
word, video, audio on explaining why
and I would attack it right away with,
"I'm aware why some people
are unaware or cynical to barter.
Let me give you the history of it."
You'll need to get maybe even more educated
than you are.
- Oh, yeah.
You know what I mean?
- Like, what really happened in the 70's and 60's, right?
But Facebook ads against employees of
who then see it in their feed
and then forward it to their CFO.
It kills.
- It kills, yeah.
It kills.
- It's the secret sauce.
- Using the c market to get to the B2B market.
Leverage them as your sales reps.
- By making the creative say,
"Does your CFO know?"
They're like, "Does my CFO got it?"
And then three of those 800 people,
have the courage to forward it to their CFO.
CFO gets three emails on the same thing,
she watches.
- Oh, for sure.
100%.
- Got it?
- Yeah.
Okay, that's cool.
I had something else on my list.
Oh, one more thing I have on my list.
We might have to cut this,
this is kind of a private thing,
out of the show later,
if it ends up being on.
But, I have a friend of mine,
who is a pretty big business guy
in Niagara, he's launching
a brand new retail winery store,
right on the busiest highway,
right there in Niagara.
- But does it have to be state controlled?
- No.
- 'Cause that's how ...
In Canada?
- No, I don't believe it does.
They're actually opening up a brand new winery,
then selling retail wine ...
- Where am I going?
- We have a meeting with ...
Cool.
One minute.
- We're looking, we're actually looking
for, if you'd be interested in exploring,
obviously not making a decision,
exploring the idea of owning
or partly owning, what's going to be
a very large retail wine store,
right in the heart of Niagara.
- Send me all the information.
Let me put my lawyer, 'cause the legal
liquor laws in America are so convoluted,
I want to make sure it doesn't fuck me up.
But thrilled to look at it.
- You would look at that?
- I would look at that.
- So, when you come to Toronto
in February, for GenerationNow, maybe
we can arrange something with that crew?
- I'm thrilled to explore that.
- Okay, the other thing was,
how do I stay in touch to ...
- Email.
- Email?
- Email.
- Alright.
- Thanks, boss.
- Pleasure.
Take care.
(rock music)