From Teacher to Tech Visionary with Nathan Plumb

From Teacher to Tech Visionary with Nathan Plumb

Kelly Kennedy: How does a school teacher become a tech founder leading one of Alberta's most innovative software companies? On today's episode, we sit down with none other than Nathan Plumb, managing director of Fabled Solutions, whose journey from education to entrepreneurship shows how curiosity and creativity can build industries from the ground up.

Stick with us. You are not gonna wanna miss this episode.

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

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

Kelly Kennedy: Hello, welcome to episode 288 of the Business Development Podcast, and today it is my absolute pleasure to bring you Nathan Plumb. Nathan is the dynamic managing director of Fabled Solutions, an award-winning technology company, revolutionizing web and mobile application development. Born and raised in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada.

Nathan's journey has been anything but conventional. After earning his bachelor of education from the University of Alberta, he spent four transformative years teaching across Europe and Asia, building a foundation of leadership, adaptability, and global perspective. Transitioning into technology, Nathan's entrepreneurial spirit led him to grow fabled solutions from a small team of three to nearly 20, all while fostering innovation and delivering software solutions that consistently exceed client expectations.

Nathan is more than a tech leader. He's a visionary who thrives at the intersection of strategy, creativity, and execution. Whether managing high stakes, custom projects, or bridging the gap between clients and developers, his focus is always on creating impactful results-driven solutions with a deep passion for growth and an unwavering commitment to excellence.

Nathan Plumb continues to shape the future of fabled solutions and the broader technology landscape. His journey is proof that adaptability, vision, and determination can transform not only careers, but entire industries. Nathan, it's an honor to have you join us today.

Nathan Plumb: Thanks Kelly. That was quite the intro.

Thank you so much.

Kelly Kennedy: Thank you so much. It's really, really awesome. You know, we connected a while ago and you know, we got to meet, went for coffee and I was immediately intrigued, man, you've done some stuff and you know, especially that like interesting jump from education to technology. I can tell you in like 300 episodes, that is nothing we have seen yet on this show.

Nathan Plumb: Yeah. Well, maybe not as strange as you, as you might first think after you kind of dig into it. And education, it gives you some really key skills that actually transfer so well into, into other industries. And I, I would say if you ever are hiring people and they have teaching as part of their resume, I mean it should it should.

Really, really sparked some interest in in you as a, as a hiring manager for sure.

Kelly Kennedy: Yes, yes. You know, I would agree. And I would say like the further I've gone down my path, my path really led me into teaching, which honestly was something I never saw coming. But dude, I love it. Like I was born to teach, like my passion is like 100% now in training other people how to do bd.

I absolutely, absolutely love it. Never saw it coming, but now I totally get it. I know when I was in school I was like, who in the world would want this teaching job? Yeah. I was not a great student. But it's funny now because when I look back, honestly, it's probably one of the most rewarding things I've ever done, period.

Nathan Plumb: For sure. Well, it's so funny too because like why did I get into teaching and I guess it's because I didn't really have a clear idea of what I really, truly wanted to do and what I really enjoyed, and I think like that's so, so true for any 18-year-old. You just don't even know what the possibilities are out there.

Yeah. You just, there's just not enough understanding of what potential jobs you can fit when you're just coming out of high school. And so you go into university and you're trying to like, take some generalization or generalized courses to get some kind of degree to get you somewhere. And for me it was just education was the quickest way I could find to honestly leave Edmonton , at that point.

I was also probably very similar to a lot of Edmontonians Yeah. Who grew up in Edmonton. There's this drive to, to explore the world a bit. I mean, we're relatively isolated geographically, and I think, I think you wanna kind of spread your wings and teaching was a really good opportunity to do that.

I, I saw a very clear path how that could let me. Go and explore the world, and it absolutely did. And I'll like forever be grateful for that choice I made. I think it was absolutely the right choice at that time in my life. Yeah. Let me go to to England and to China and teach in some really amazing context with some amazing people.

And yeah, I loved it. I absolutely loved it. It was great.

Kelly Kennedy: No, I like that. I bet. And, you know, let's, like, let's touch back on that a little bit because I do think like education is really weird that way. I don't think that anybody at 18 is even remotely prepared to choose like university what university course they want to do.

Totally. Like I man, and, and I don't know how you feel about this. The older I get, I think that people should wait. I think that people totally almost need that, like, that like life experience. Like when you're 18, I would say graduate and maybe don't rush into University. Don't rush into college. Go and get some life experience because you don't know what you don't know.

And I know at 18 you think you know everything. But dude, there's so much learning that is done between like 18 and 25. It's massive.

Nathan Plumb: A hundred percent like that up to 25 is so critical. It's so critical. It's like another life. Like you look back at your life before 25, it's like that is another person.

That's another life.

That's right. There, there's a risk with that too though. Like you don't want to wait and do nothing either. Sure. Like you can't just, for my kids, like if they're like not going to university and they have a really good reason because they're like, I'm doing this and this and this, and they have it laid on, they, they explain it to me and I'm like, okay, I can kind of get behind that.

But if they're just like, I'm just gonna keep living in the basement. That's probably not gonna fly either. So there's a bit of like a, a pressure to do something and like, I felt that too. And I, at the end of the day, I'm very grateful for my university experience. And I think I in some ways lucked out the path I took.

'cause it did, again, the, being a teacher, I was, I was dropped into some situations where you have to become such a good planner. And that's like at the core of being a good teacher, it's being organized and knowing how to plan long, medium, and short term. And that skillset it's what makes me in my mind, good at what I do today.

It's that ability to organize and plan and execute off of that.

Kelly Kennedy: Yeah. Yeah. No, it's dude, our kids are gonna be living with us till they're like 30. I hope not. I hope not. I am not, like, I'm not even remotely planning to have them gone at this point, at the cost of housing in Canada. Like, my God, by the time they're like, you know, 15 years goes by, oh no, we're in trouble.

Nathan Plumb: Yeah, that's a whole other situation's. That's a whole other situation for sure.

Kelly Kennedy: Yeah, no, it's it's funny man. I went into business because I didn't know what I wanted to do and you know, it turned out to be the perfectly right choice, ironically. But you know, I think at the time I was just like, I don't know what, I don't know.

I never saw business development being part of my career, to be honest with you, Nathan. Mm-hmm. Business development wasn't even taught when I went to business school. Totally. It was like, you have sales, you have marketing, you have operations. This is business. Like figure it out. And it's so funny 'cause I remember being offered my business development job.

And I had to Google it, what is business development? Because nobody had ever told me. So I'm this like huge believer now that you don't know what's coming, you can't see the opportunities coming your way. So it's like we try so hard to plan everything. We try so hard to have all the answers. And yet I'll tell you the best clients I've ever had, the best sponsors I ever had, the best opportunities like business development, I never saw them coming.

They came outta left field. And the cool thing was, I was just ready to say, yeah, that sounds awesome. Let's do it.

Nathan Plumb: Yeah. Yeah. I can relate to that too, like we'll get into it a bit later. But yeah, you just get some key clients or key people coming into your life at times and you do just have to jump at those opportunities.

Yeah, and it can it's funny, and I'm sure there's studies done on this, or maybe it's like part of that like 80 20 kind of principle, but. Yeah, like it seems like my business also kind of takes those Yeah, there's a steady progress always. Yes. But there might be these big leaps that also happen.

And so at times in our, in my career, I've had these leaps sort of sparked by these external factors, so I totally relate to that.

Kelly Kennedy: Yeah, I agree. I agree. So much of being successful in business is just being around, right? You have to be around. When those leaps come, it's kinda like, you know what they teach you about stocks, right?

You want to invest, invest, invest, and just be there because you don't know when those massive jumps are coming. You just know eventually they're probably coming. I think business. It's really the exact same principle. So much of business is just don't die, be there, show up. That little consistent progress over time.

Yes. But you're absolutely right. Every once in a while, something incredible is gonna walk through your door that you didn't see coming that's gonna 10 x your business overnight. But the key is you just have to be there.

Nathan Plumb: Yeah. And it's, it's an interesting one because you're so right. Like you just have to be part of the game and of course you have to deliver a product that is, is viable and you, your business also has to be viable while you're in that position.

You can't be, you can't be like, hemorrhaging money or, or whatever it might be. And I can, I can definitely relate to that in a lot of ways too. And there's a counter to that too. It's like even if you fail totally and you do have to get out, like getting back in is also just staying in there as well.

Yeah, I think failures are, are totally legitimate and totally fine as well in that sort of analogy you were making there.

Yeah. And actually just like the stock market too, like Yeah. You could like bottom out and like, you gotta just kind of like.

Kelly Kennedy: Sometimes you lose your money. It is what it is, man.

I don't, I don't even, I don't even want to admit how much money I've lost investing in stocks before COVID. Oh my God. We're not even gonna go there today. That's a whole nother show. Yeah. But no, man, I've had so many incredible entrepreneurs on this show who built back multimillion dollar companies from a bankruptcy.

It, it isn't the end unless you make it the end unless you say, yeah, I'm never doing that again. Right. But the ones that were brave enough to try it again, most of them came out the other end in a pretty good way.

Nathan Plumb: Yeah. I think that failure is so important. Failures as a learning experience. And this is also something I take back from my teaching career, not as, not necessarily failures that I experienced as a teacher, but even just teaching children that making mistakes is normal.

And learning from those mistakes is, is the most important lesson really. And like in business as well, making a mistake is totally fine. What did you learn from it? How can you do better next time? I think Edmonton as a business community, it fosters that idea. So well, like I love Edmonton's business community from the standpoint of failures are so normalized in a positive way and not look back as, oh, that person failed a business 10 years ago.

Why would I do business with them now? That's just not how Ledon operates, and I love that. By extension Alberta. I think Alberta in general is like that.

Kelly Kennedy: I think so. I I think we got a Pat Calgary on the back too. They're doing a pretty good job as well. Of course. Yeah. Yeah.

Nathan Plumb: I think, I think it's an Alberta thing.

It's a, it's a Western Canadian thing.

Kelly Kennedy: We can't alienate our brothers ex except for in hockey.

Nathan Plumb: Yeah. You know, Calgary, Calgary is also very much that same way. Like it's Oh, that's right. Yeah.

Kelly Kennedy: We we're blessed man, and I talk about it all the time on this show. I am so proud to be part of the Edmonton business community.

I I can't believe half the stuff that's going on here. We talked about it when we met, but like when I got into this show, I had never really experienced the Edmonton tech sector, so I had like zero, zero exposure to it. It hadn't really come up. I'd been in industrial work for like my entire career and I got introduced really with this show.

And my God, the cool stuff that is happening right in Edmonton. The fact that Edmonton is the fastest growing tech sector in the world, I think is absolutely incredible. And I, you know, I wanted to talk to you. I've talked with so many amazing amazing tech companies in the city. I've talked with the cool startup companies like startup, TNT, who talked about everything going on.

But you know, what is it, what has your experience been working in Edmonton in a tech company? Talk to me about that.

Nathan Plumb: Well, I think it's awesome. I think one, it does really feel like a growing community and the opportunities are everywhere because Edmonton and Alberta, I mean, I think we gotta include Alberta as in this whole equation.

I mean, Alberta entrepreneurs will always directly influence the Alberta technology sector. And so the fact that we have. Such a strong entrepreneurial spirit, and we have these businesses that are not necessarily in tech at the start, but need to utilize tech. And not just they, they've recognized the value in investments in technology.

That is why we're doing so well.

Kelly Kennedy: Yeah. Yeah. You know, you've been an entrepreneur a long time, so I want you to take us on the journey, man. Like were you always entrepreneurial driven, even as a kid? Did you come from an entrepreneurial family? Take me back, who is Nathan Plumb? How did you end up on this path?

Nathan Plumb: Oh, I mean my, I think both my parents are very creative in different ways, which is really interesting. And I think I got the best of both of those creative sides. My mother, she's more typically artistically creative. And so her, she's more like abstractly creative. Whereas my, my, my dad, he is technically so creative.

If that's if that's not an oxymoron for you, but I mean, if you've met these kind, like, engineers can also be creative. You know what I mean?

Kelly Kennedy: Yes. Very much so.

Nathan Plumb: And so I come from like two very creative parents. And so I would, I would, I would say I've, I've always been a creative person, or at least I like to I, I don't, I have an imagination that's pretty, pretty malleable and pretty flexible and that, and that lets me see things I think really abstractly and also very technically.

And so, that's where I would say I got my, as a child. Yeah, I, I'd have to think back and you probably to ask my parents more, but I'd say they, they would say I was creative for sure, for sure. And entrepreneurial. I don't know what that, like, I wasn't like hustling on the school yard kind of thing.

But I was definitely creative.

Kelly Kennedy: So lead me in, obviously we know that you eventually went to school for teaching. You eventually went overseas to teach teaching and take, talk to me about that experience, man. Like that's incredible. You're the first person that I've really had on the show. Actually, that's not true.

I might have had one other person who went to China to do, to teach English, but the reality is that it's slim. The amount of people that I've talked to who have, who left Canada to teach is very, very small. Talk to me about that experience. What was that like for you?

Nathan Plumb: Again, wonderful experience. Yeah.

So I got my teaching degree. I went to England and I taught in their their equivalent to their state school, so their public education system. And that was again an incredible wake up call to me. Just coming out of university, I'm like so young and I'm teaching the, in. A relatively rough, rough environment, honestly.

And you just have to find a way to succeed. And it was so positive and so wonderful, and the kids were as rough as they might have appeared at the start, like by the end of that two years, it was just so rewarding. And from there I used that experience to teach at an international school in Shanghai, in China and this school, totally opposite of my experience in England, where in England it's very underfunded, very chaotic, very fend for yourself kind of thing.

And then in, in my school in Shanghai, it's just like this, this dream school with the international kids that are so well behaved. And my class size is like 10. And if you can believe that, and wow, my like amount of prep time is, this is like significant compared to my teaching time. And that was so wonderful because I was actually able to get into some leadership positions.

And so in, in England, I'm just te I'm almost in survival mode where I'm just managing my, my classes myself. But in China, I'm actually able to do department level planning multi-year planning. So really looking at learning objectives in, in a long-term, from a long-term lens. And that was also just super rewarding, super wonderful.

And yeah, at the end of that I was, you, it's funny because I, I mentioned earlier, like, I chose that career path because I wanted to explore the world and, and see the world. And at the end of that time, you know, you, you have this almost this cognitive dissonance where you're like trying to exist in two places at once.

And you have your, your current location, but then you also are still my, my whole family, my, a lot of my really good friends were in Edmonton. Mm-hmm. It just, I don't know. I, I wanted to just come home in a way. Yeah. And whether that would be permanent or not I don't know. It was more of a, I was just ready for a bit of, a bit of that come home and, because at the, I, and I'd seen it with my international colleagues too, the pe, the people who had stayed international for so long, they didn't really go home.

Like they, they were, they kind of had that, it's a cut, a cutoff happened at some point for them. And I just don't think I was ready to just cut outta my, my Canadian life. So I came home and I taught for a little bit in, in St. Albert, but then I had an opportunity with with Ken and Drew who were the, or also the, the founders of, of my company.

And they had a little tech startup that they were doing and. It's if it didn't go anywhere, really, like we gave it a good run for, for, I don't know, like six months to a year. And there were some reasons why I didn't go too far. But from that I dunno how much you want me to get into what the product actually was, but basically it was like a way to promote small businesses through social media.

Yeah. And use QR codes. This was like over 10 years ago. So like, these things I'm saying now, you're Yeah, that would pretty.

Kelly Kennedy: QR codes are pretty high tech. 10 years ago.

Nathan Plumb: No, you know, it's funny, it's so funny. 10 years ago they were hated. Nobody wanted to do 'em. It's so funny, like you put out these QR codes and people are like, nobody will, nobody's gonna wanna scan.

And like, it's true. It was just like nobody wanted to engage with QR codes back then the phones didn't even have this automated like scanner. Yeah. QR code scanner. And so you have to like download this like QR code scanner. So. Yeah. Anyway, like that was like a huge hurdle. And then there were there were some other aspects of, like Facebook at the time was the big social media platform and it changed halfway through like the course of our product.

It changed a few things and it just kind of sewed our, our product at the same time. So it was not gonna go like the we saw the writing on the wall and we wrapped up that product. But the really interesting thing is I was meeting these businesses through the course of me trying to sell this, this product.

And some of them would be like, ah, yeah, I don't think I could use this thing. But like, look at this other thing I have. I am using Excel spreadsheets to like, manage my business and I can't, like, I need something else to like manage my inventory or I need something else to manage my my like orders or whatever it might be.

And it was funny because I was selling this little SaaS product and I started getting business for just application development. Yeah. 'cause there was such a need for that type of product. And so yeah, we wrap up this SaaS that we were selling and, but at the end of it, we forgetting these like great clients for just building custom software and just kind of snowballed from there.

Kelly Kennedy: Wow. Wow. I wanna lead back into something that you said, because I do wonder like how that's influenced you as a leader, in a perseverance sort of way. You mentioned that when you taught in London, and keep in mind too, you spent, what, two years at each location, right? Two years in London, two years in China.

Yeah. So you spent two years there. You're working with, public school kids. You know, I was a public school kid. We're not exactly easy on our teachers. Man. Like how, okay, so here's the thing. You mentioned that during teaching you need to, you still need to accomplish a goal. You still need to teach some kids, yet they're rough kids.

It's tough. It's not exactly like their pump to learn the subject matter. Talk to me a little bit about what does it take to succeed when essentially your clients are fighting you the whole way. Yeah. And how did that translate into business for you later?

Nathan Plumb: Yeah. It really translates into a leadership style in a few key ways.

One, you learn very quickly, like you can't lose your cool, like these kids, the, the only thing these kids are wanting to do is get a reaction of you. Yeah, you lose it, you're done. You can't lose it once, like, you're, like you can't raise your voice. Even if you are like inside, you're just tear your hair up.

So that's one, like you always have to present. Calm and like you are that like sturdy. I'm not sure what the best comparison is, but you have to be that you're the rock, you're the mountain stable factor. Yeah. You're the mountain. Yeah. And it's so interesting because in, in England, these kids, they were churning through like I think one of my classes had four or five different teachers for, for English in one.

Wow. In one year, like the year before I was there, they went through four or five teachers and like who knows how many substitutes in that, in that timeframe as well. And so after the first few months, what I realized is they were just like, they were testing me as well. They're like, when is he going to leave?

And that was what they, as soon as they knew, as soon as I told them, I said, I'm not going anywhere. Like we are in this together. The behavior stopped and it was just go time from there because they also have some very key exams. At certain points like the English, English system, it's, it's much more about like assessments and standardized assessments.

And so as soon as they realized that our goals are aligned yeah, it was, it was go time.

Kelly Kennedy: So talk to me about, 'cause to me there seems to be some lessons there, right? You know, a lot of times if we're lucky in business, our clients are really working with us. I think most of the time that's the, that's the synergy that we're hoping for.

But me and you both know, there's a lot of hiccups that can happen, especially in a development project.

Nathan Plumb: Well, you know, it's funny though. Wait, sorry. I'm gonna correct you on one thing though. These kids, they to me, aren't my clients. They are my, they're my team. They are my work. They're my staff. That's the lesson I took from it.

So it's not about, it's not as much me. Communicating to them as if they're clients, they're my staff. The comparison would be the client in that situation would, in a weird way be their parents. And so the lessons I learned in how to communicate to their parents Yeah. Would translate to how I communicate to clients today.

But the way I treated the kids in a way, they're part of my team. Yeah. And so creating that team dynamic is also so critical to my, to the way I want my staff to to view me and to work with me. It's not a client. So I think that's one little correction I'm gonna make. There is like these kids, they're, they're my staff and that's the amazing, that's the leadership I want with my staff.

Kelly Kennedy: Perfect. Well, me and you both know, leadership ain't easy. It takes skill, it takes a leader, somebody who's strong. How do you unify? A whole bunch of unruly kids. 'cause I think if we can talk about how do we unify unruly kids, it'll translate fairly well into how do we unify our teams for the business goals that we're trying to accomplish.

Talk to me about the lessons you learned on unification.

Nathan Plumb: Yeah. And, and I think I still learn those lessons all the time too with staff as well. But really it's about for us it's this idea of servant leadership is so critical to this. In teaching as much as in business, you have to demonstrate that you're willing to work as hard, if not harder than your staff.

And when you're a teacher, you have to show that you are working just as hard as those kids. So servant leadership, I think was a huge lesson I learned. Then, although I didn't define it as servant leadership, I had no idea what that concept even meant. It wasn't until I started to be a business leader that I.

Found that term and it resonated with, with what I wanted to continue to, to do.

Kelly Kennedy: Nathan, that's the first time that term has come up on the show. Can you can you explain it for us?

Nathan Plumb: Oh yeah. That's interesting. Yeah. I guess 'cause you're more focused on BD than yeah, I'll I, I totally get that. The servant leadership, it's basically where the leadership position like you are, you focus on the, the term is a little bit interesting 'cause you're like, of course, you're not like doing whatever your team says, but your goal is to ensure that your team is working as best they can.

And so your goal is to provide that support that your team needs to succeed,

Kelly Kennedy: essentially. You know, I mean, they, you're, they can rely on you, you, you will be part of the team. You're not afraid to get your hands dirty.

Nathan Plumb: So it's, it's the opposite of like, top down leadership style in a way. Like you're trying to be much more integrated into that team and you are giving them the tools they need to succeed.

You're giving them the support they need to succeed. You're giving them the structures they need to succeed. And so that's what servant leadership is, and that's like the best teachers are that way too. And so I think there's a really cool alignment there.

Kelly Kennedy: Yeah. No, absolutely. Absolutely. And I, and I'm seeing a lot of leadership happening that way now.

A lot, a lot more people getting down on the level, getting a little more human right. We're getting off our pedestals a little bit and we're integrating with the teams, which I think you're right. It's like, how can you lead if you're not willing to do the work too? I, I think I've struggled with that my whole life.

Nathan Plumb: For sure.

Kelly Kennedy: Nathan, take me into today. Obviously a transition happened, a really cool one. You mentioned before that, you know, you kind of hooked up with some friends, but like there wasn't a part of you that was like business. I never signed up for business, I just wanted to teach. Talk to me about that, about that choice to make that switch and then were there any challenges in making that jump for you?

Was it like a, a massive learning curve or did you feel like you were well prepared for business?

Nathan Plumb: I dunno if it was like a well prepared, like I, I'm sure the imposter syndrome hit me pretty hard for however many years when I was just starting out. I was, it was, I would say as you kind of mentioned earlier too, it's like a bit of a timing thing because at that point in my life I had very little risk.

I didn't have a family, I didn't have really anything. I had no assets. I was just back, like less than a year from overseas. The risk was super, super small from a, from the standpoint of, am I gonna get into trouble here? Like the worst case scenario is my business ventures failed and I would have to go back to teaching.

Yeah. And like, is that so I guess my experience was not this horribly like do or die situation. It was pretty cushioned. And that's fine too. I mean, not everyone can have this rags to riches story of, it was a relatively smooth entry for me. From a risk standpoint. I think from a learning standpoint, of course it was like, yeah, having to just to learn on the fly Yeah.

Was, was really interesting. And I'm sure I would change a million things back then if I were to do it all over again.

Kelly Kennedy: It's a, it's a wake up call, I think when you realize that. You're always learning, right? Like especially in business now is shifting so fast. I've never seen anything quite like it.

You wait a year, things can be completely different at like, just the rate of change in this time. Yeah, and I think, you know, any, any good business person, any good leader realizes holy crap, I may have been an expert in what I did, but I was only an expert until yesterday, today, and tomorrow is a brand new day.

And so for me, you know what I mean? I, I'll say I'm an expert in bd, but really only until yesterday, because guess what? Things are shifting so quickly that if I don't keep up with it, I'm very quickly gonna be left behind. And I think we almost have to have that frame shift. There was a time when I used to think that, oh, when you learn to skill, you learn to skill.

It's like snowboarding, right? You can snowboard, you know how to snowboard. You're probably, you could, you could hop back on a bike or a snowboard, you know, 10 years later and probably still know how to snowboard. Whereas I think leadership business. It really isn't that way. There's so much learning that is ongoing all the time, upgrading of skills, new understandings that unless you kind of have that I need to learn or I need to catch up, or I need to figure out what's next.

Yeah, it's tough. It's like you have to keep learning. That's, that's the, the secret that I've learned in business thus far.

Nathan Plumb: Oh, for sure. And like for, for me right now, it's when you go from three people to 20 people, it's a huge, the things you have to learn also are things of necessity that you also wouldn't have wanted, have to think about, like hr, et cetera, like that stuff.

Now you're having to learn that side of the business as well. And it's just, it never stops. And as you say, it's yeah, you, you can't really take your foot off the gas in terms of, of learning the, the new things.

Kelly Kennedy: And especially in software development, man, like, you know what I mean? I don't, I'm no software developer by any means, but I understand that industry is changing very rapidly, very quickly.

There's lots of stuff going on. You know, at least I know from like web development side of things, there's like a completely new way to do websites every couple of years, every five years at least, right? Like if you have a website from five years ago, it is probably hitting that outdated stage and needs to be looked at and revamped.

I imagine that's relatively the same even with apps and software. Is that correct?

Nathan Plumb: Yeah, I think that is totally correct. I think the biggest thing that people don't realize is just this impact of that problem right now with really large institutional level legacy software products. So these are companies that are potentially like multi-billion dollar companies that are operating on legacy software that is.

So fundamentals to their business, but they built this software 20 years ago. Yeah. 20 even more. Even more in some cases. And the cost to replace it and the timeline to replace it is so astronomical that it's almost not feasible. And like the amount of legacy software infrastructure running right now is insane.

And because software is changing so fast yeah. Those projects, they're just massive projects that I, I'm so curious how, how it happens, how those shifts happen in those really key areas.

Kelly Kennedy: To me, if somebody's using a legacy software from 20 years ago, my God, what is the cost and efficiency?

Nathan Plumb: Well, I dunno. Can't even, maybe, should, maybe, should ask some of our, some of our big banks some of our large large retailers. You know, like it's, it's really interesting when you, this the, that's why also there's so much opportunities for all entrepreneurs and businesses that, that are at a point where they're ready to take off because they're able to create these systems right now and they're not having to migrate 20 years of chaos.

So that's why you're gonna have disruptors happening. That yeah, I don't know how, how much we wanna get into like, specifics, but like even a company like Wealth Simple yeah. Like they're able to do things that some of these big institutions aren't able to do because they are able to start from ground, one ground, ground level.

They're not like 20 years behind.

Kelly Kennedy: What does it take, I guess like what are the, what are the indicators that have to happen almost for a company, let's call it a big bank, let's call it a major Canadian bank to make that jump and say, holy crap. Like, okay, I think we need to make this investment, you know, in our 20-year-old legacy software.

Right? Like, you almost need somebody who's willing to shake up the boat pretty hard.

Nathan Plumb: I'm sure they are, and I'm probably not the company to do it either. My 20 person team is probably not gonna get hired by one of the big banks. I, so what would it take? Massive investment and some sort of transition plan that is probably pretty intense.

Kelly Kennedy: Yeah.

Nathan Plumb: What I'm more interested in is the companies that aren't that big yet but wanna maybe get bigger. So companies that are they, maybe they're running just. There's, they, they just wanna expand and they're not able to expand because they're also in some ways facing that same problem. But theirs is more of, they're running their business through Excel.

Yeah. Or through some sort of simple like Google folder structure or whatever it might be. And they're like, we're so busy, we're managing we're over capacity 'cause we're having to manage all these, these things through our Excel spreadsheets, or we're having to hire more admin people to do their, to do this, this work.

That's what interests me because those have the potential to compete with these big slow entities that are operating off systems that just are not optimal.

Kelly Kennedy: I love that. I love that. And I just have to ask right now because I think there is a massive opportunity. For small businesses right now to essentially 10 x their position simply by integrating modern day technology.

And I just wanted to ask you, what advantages are there right now for a small business to take advantage of all the tech that is available today to situate themselves for a better future? Like is it a massive advantage or is it, just a small advantage?

Nathan Plumb: I think it's a massive advantage because you have these large behemoths that they have to scale usually through, through staffing 'cause their processes are so cumbersome that they need to hire more people.

But if you can have a smaller business that can create some sort of automated digital process and instead of having to hire four people, they maybe have to hire one person and that one person does the same amount of work, they're gonna be able to compete so much better. And so like, I think there's huge opportunity.

They just have to be willing to sort of take that leap.

Kelly Kennedy: Where does a business enter into that, that discussion? Nathan? You know, I think a lot of small businesses, cash is tight. They're trying to figure out how the hell do I continue to grow but, you know, perform my service at the same time. And so you and me both know making any type of financial decision at a certain cost percentage in software ain't cheap.

It just is what it is. Business Development isn't cheap either. So if you're, if you're kind of taking those leaps, sometimes it can be a hard pill to swallow. How can they know that they're making a good decision? You know, what is the indicators that it's time to invest in a software solution?

Nathan Plumb: So that's, so a couple of things to unpack there.

One is like the timing of it. I think they know if they're spending too much time just like running their business rather than. I don't know, doing, like, if they're spending three or four hours doing admin tasks, that's there's time that it's time to switch. And I think in terms of when does it, or why does it make sense?

The why is because you need to recognize the opportunity for derived value in your business. So derived value is, is the difference between derived value and value. Not sure if I need to define this or not, but value can be determined through like the investment that's been made into a company.

But derived value is truly the output. So I always operate on derived value being the key for entrepreneurs. So you have to see that opportunity for, for an increased derived value. And we always. Look at it through, there's five ways that you can drive value in a business. That's, this is my take. You have an opportunity to make more money, spend less money, spend less time you can improve your brand or reputation.

And there's, maybe this is less of a fun one, but you might need to do regulatory or risk compliance. That's also a form of value too.

Kelly Kennedy: Showing value is really hard for pretty much all companies. I would say like the biggest struggle that almost any company has is how do we truly show value in our products and services?

And early on in this show, I actually did a series of, I called it Proposal Playbook. And I was talking about how can we show value in our proposals? And what I kind of came down to Nathan, you've broken it down into quite a few. I really just kind of separated it into about two. And you know, in all fairness, at the time I was talking more towards services.

But what I kind of said in this was, you need to show a company how you're either going to make them money or save them money with your product or service because these are the two metrics that companies are measuring to make decisions. 'cause they need to know if I'm going to invest X, Y, Z in this product and service, that it is going to either save me X, Y, z or make me back, exponentially more than that cost over time.

You know, like I said, I I, I might have simplified it to try to get it through, but, you know, what are your thoughts on that?

Nathan Plumb: I, I would say you didn't simplify it. You sort of just gave a, gave a, a unit to my five my five value areas so you can make more money. That's the easy one. 'cause you're gonna translate that into dollar figure.

And same with spend less money. That's also dollar figure. But you can, you can do the same thing for spend less time. That can translate to a dollar figure as well. Yeah. However you wanna do it. Regulatory risk compliance, that can also translate to a dollar figure because if you're not complying with whatever regulation, what are you gonna get fined or what's that gonna impact?

The improving of brand or reputation. That's a little bit harder to put into a dollar figure, but at times you can do it. I think most businesses that we deal with, they probably, and entrepreneurs, they wanna translate everything to a dollar figure. Yeah. So that totally makes sense. Like what you're, what you were proposing.

It totally makes sense. I would say yeah, like 90% of entrepreneurs care about that dollar figure. Sometimes maybe presenting, you might be able to put a, a step before that though, right? Which is like, this is where you're gonna send save the money or spend less money or, so the time and the, the compliance and the brand I think they could fit really nicely into that structure you, you were talking about.

Kelly Kennedy: I think it's just a hard lesson learned by anybody in business. Right. You know, I mean, it took me a really long time to get decent at creating proposals that made sense. And it's not because I'm an idiot maybe a little bit sometimes, but honestly, I just didn't have enough experience in business to know what matters.

If you can understand what matters to your client and then speak to them in that language, I think a lot of people have way more success. I think most businesses are struggling because it's like their clients are speaking French and they're speaking English, and, you know, the, the translation is not translating.

I think a lot of times people create a product, they create a service. They're like, oh, this product and service is great. They understand. They understand why they need it. Right. I don't need to spell it out. But I think most businesses speak in numbers, right? Like we understand dollars and cents and almost every business decision is made with dollars and cents in mind.

It's just our companies don't operate on goodwill. Unfortunately, many of them don't anyway. And so if you can learn to speak to an organization in a language that they understand, your success rate goes up exponentially

Nathan Plumb: for sure. And I think that's, like, you kind of touched on it really well there, it's how do you sometimes communicate that in a proposal though?

It's like, that's really hard, especially when depending on the proposal you're writing, like, you don't always know the client's, not al or the potential customer's not always communicating the full picture to you. That's for us anyway, like we don't always know where one of these five value opportunities is the customer really looking for.

Because they might not always wanna, wanna reveal that necessarily. Mm-hmm. Because the best case scenario is they're like, I am spending four hours of my own time every evening doing work that I don't wanna be doing. That should be done somewhere else. Well, you can easily figure out the cost of that per year and you can say, well, if we were to automate this process, it would cost 40% of that equivalency.

But sometimes the customer is not always willing to give you the their side of that equation.

Kelly Kennedy: Yeah.

Nathan Plumb: And so all you're then doing is presenting this cost and they maybe aren't even aware of that opportunity 'cause they just see that number instead of seeing, oh, but actually if I do this, I'm gonna be saving this much money.

Kelly Kennedy: Yet you've had incredible success with fabled solutions and you've gotten really, really good at this value proposition process. Talk to me like what are the secrets here? How are you able to. Find a way to communicate the value in a way that the customer is receptive to. You guys have had been incredibly successful with it.

What is the secret?

Nathan Plumb: Yeah, I, I guess I haven't unpacked that too much. Again, I'm you're, I, that's why I'd love to talk to you more and, and go for coffee again with you because you are so good at BD compared to me. BD is not my forte at all. I think what I always try to do is, is communicate that we are about value delivery.

Even if we're not able to demonstrate that clear value proposition in their proposal, because for whatever reason, we don't have all the, all the information, but we really wanna emphasize we're about value delivery. And so in some ways what I would say is just being honest to that goal is, is very helpful as well.

And there's also two sides to value delivery, right? There's one, which is that value. Which is what we just talked about. It's like, well, what is value? Yeah. But then there's also this delivery component as well. And so even if you're unable to communicate that value in a really, really nice, clean way, because you don't have all the information, you should be able to communicate that delivery and your philosophy on value delivery.

And so we always do this in all of our proposals. We explain why or how we deliver that value, not just what the value might be.

Kelly Kennedy: Yeah. Like you're being essentially transparent about the process so that there's no confusion.

Nathan Plumb: Yeah, for sure. And yeah, and I think you lay it out there and there and it resonates with clients as well, even if the, the numbers aren't always matching exactly what you would want them to be.

Kelly Kennedy: You know what? I think one of the big challenges that almost every individual has right now in this digital age. Is establishing trust ahead of the proposal. I think that's the missing piece. And I've talked about it multiple times on this show. Now I am, I'm working personally to be more out there, more authentic, to be able to share, you know, who is Kelly Kennedy?

I'm, I'm taking on the video world a little bit, even though it scares the bejesus side of me I'm doing my best to be as authentic as possible. I actually wrote a post a couple weeks ago. I literally put in it, look, ma no Hands. I'm using no AI in this post because I'm trying to be as genuine and, and authentic as possible.

And I think we live in this time now where it's kind of a bit of a missing piece because, you know, don't get me wrong, we all love using ai. AI is incredible. If I could use AI and create the connection I wanted to create, I would damn well do it. 'cause it's, it's amazing. But unfortunately, in a sea of now everybody using ai, you're no longer standing out.

Your message is just getting glazed over because it looks like every other message out there. And I think all businesses need to figure out. How can I get back to authenticity? How can I bring humanity and, and, and humanness back into this conversation, back into this relationship because mm-hmm. I think we're basically, people are trying to sell to us before there's any kind of trust established.

And without that trust, that like missing key component, it makes it really, really hard. And so I think, and, and I wanted to like commend you actually, because when we met you were so authentic, like you are so trustworthy. Literally, the moment I sat down with you, we had that one meeting, I was like, you know what?

I really like Nathan. He's a good dude. He is. You were authentic, you were honest, you were open. And I think that is part of what has made you so successful because your ability to connect as a person in like a trustworthy way is next level.

Nathan Plumb: Well thank you so much for that. And. I'll go back to it too.

I feel that is an Albertan thing. Like I really do feel that way. When I interact with like companies that are doing, I don't know, I shouldn't disparage the east too much, but like Toronto does things different. They're about that sale. And you can't survive as an Alberta business on a sale, sale, sale.

You need relationships. And not to mention Alberta is small. At East, there's Yeah, exactly. Like we don't have the benefit of never, like we're a small community. You everyone knows everyone. Yeah. Really it comes down to that. Whereas in some of these bigger markets, you can do whatever you want at a hundred times over, or even the global market, like businesses that are trying to get your, like businesses that are approaching you and they're from.

Who knows where, like there doesn't have to be any trust. They don't need, there's no risk to them if they ghost you after the sale. But here, oh it's a massive repercussion. Like you, your reputation is so important in Alberta that you have to be authentic.

Kelly Kennedy: Yeah, I would agree.

And I would actually say that the world is shrinking. Yeah. So like, I think your reputation at this point, you need to be thinking about it not just in Alberta, but frankly worldwide. 'cause I think business, it's going worldwide. You know, the internet has shrunk things so much that I can coach in here, I can coach in Thailand, I can coach in the United States.

I can coach in Australia, I can coach in the uk. There's no place on planet Earth for the most part that I can't coach as long as there's an internet connection. And I think business in general is going that way. The reality is you could develop software for any country on earth if they needed it.

Nathan Plumb: For sure.

And we'd be happy to. And I, I think these, I think this like Alberta value of Alberta value of, seems like I'm just boosting Alberta the whole podcast. But I guess that's, guess that's fine too. Yeah, like we're Albertas are good at that too. Like that's why, like that it's, we're, we understand that importance of a relationship and the projects we do it is so, it's, it really lends itself to that idea.

We, the first thing we say is we are not looking for a one-off sale. We are looking for a relationship because the thing we're gonna build for you, we, a year or after we release it, you're gonna want more things on it. You're gonna want it to change, you're gonna want it to adapt as your business adapts, as the world adapts.

And we wanna be your partner in that whole journey. We're not here just to give you a product and then say, see you later and, and never talk again. Like, we're gonna be with you for this whole thing. So be ready for that. Make sure we're the, we're the right one for you to do that. Because that's our mindset.

Kelly Kennedy: Yeah. Yeah. And that's the thing, right? Like at the end of the day, sure, you guys are creating apps and software and doing amazing things, but really what you're actually doing is solving a massive problem that your customer has a really big one that's holding their businesses back, that's holding their revenues back.

Right? Like, it's funny because we look at the thing you do as, as the thing, but it's really not, it's a tool to accomplish a thing.

Nathan Plumb: Yes. I mean, that's one thing that also probably sets us apart from some competitors is we are not just programmers like we are we are experts in process automation, like value streams.

Like we understand these things. And that's why I also love my job so much is like I get to learn about so many interesting businesses. And I've also learned about so many businesses in, in the last decade that even if you're. I dunno, you're operating in whatever industry. I might be able to suggest things that I've learned from completely different sectors and it might work so well.

So I think it's really, really interesting how, yes, businesses are all different, but there's also some really interesting similarities that you can, you can pull on.

Kelly Kennedy: Absolutely. Absolutely. Yeah, you're absolutely correct. Lead us into Fabled Solutions. First off, amazing name. We talked about this before. I was a huge fan of the video game Fable.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. So I love it. I'm automatically there. I'm a bit of a nerd. I got board games behind me. We're good. Yeah. But take me into it, man. Fable Solutions. What is it? Who are your ideal customers?

Nathan Plumb: Okay, so first off, Fabled Solutions is, is actually a, a new name. We ha we were previously Pedera Consulting, which was just one of the early products we'd built and.

Anyway it's like, it as a, as a name Padera was not great 'cause it's hard to spell. I have to, I have to spell it all the time. Hard to like search all these things. There's, there's so many reasons why it just wasn't working. So we rebranded about two or three years ago. Yeah. And changing the name of the company These days, it's not easy.

There are few names left fewer domains left. So you do have to search Wong and Hard, unless you're gonna make up some totally random name. But again, I, I wanted something that people could actually spell this time. Yeah, yeah. Anyway, so yeah. Fable Solutions, what do we do? We're, we build customs custom software otherwise known as web applications or mobile applications that the term software and application, it's, they're pretty synonymous.

There are some technical differences, but. We'll use the, we'll use the term interchangeably.

Kelly Kennedy: Amazing. Talk to me about some of the projects you've done. Talk to me about some of the applications you've created.

Nathan Plumb: Sure. So we do everything from, so we've so I guess we have a few, a few different avenues.

We do legacy software replacement. We kind of touched on legacy software, so we'll, we'll go into businesses that have existing software, but that software has hit, hit a wall and they need to update it or get to the next level. So we'll replace their existing software systems for them, update them, and then give them more of a flexible base to, to continue development.

So that's one, one area. The other would be our, it's more of our startup space. So that's where somebody has no existing software. Maybe they have some Excel spreadsheets, or they're just starting a business, or they have an idea. We'll go in and, we'll, we'll start with a minimum viable product build and carry on from there, depending on what they need from there.

And then the third is similar to, similar to both of these, but it'd be more of a software as a service creation. So we would actually create a software product that the client, that our client would then go and distribute and sell to other, other people, or essentially they would then license that out and scale it up that way.

So there's the three amazing three streams.

Kelly Kennedy: Okay. Okay. And like, what are, what does an ideal customer look like? Do you have like an ideal customer profile?

Nathan Plumb: We don't have a specific sector or industry. 'cause we've worked in everything from like insurance group benefits storage logistics.

So like, it really runs the gamut of our clientele. So there's no sector or industry that specifically aligns with us. But what I would say is they all have in common that the off the shelf just isn't cutting it. There's, we like to use the, the comparison like maybe you're using off the shelf, but there's like 10% of your business that just won't work in that off the shelf product.

And that 10% is so critical. So a lot of that, that comes to us where it just, there is no existing product up there. And often these businesses are somewhat niche or have something unique about them that there's not some product that they're able to just purchase a license for.

Kelly Kennedy: Okay. Amazing. I love that.

Because, you know, I mean, I find, especially with the software that I've used, it's like that all the time, right? If you're buying off the shelf software, it might meet the need or it might meet 50% or 80% of the need, but almost there's always. A little bit left where like a custom software would make a huge, huge difference.

We talked about it ahead of the show where though you can end up with a custom software where you know, sure it's good for five years, 10 years, and then it starts to get outdated. Talk to me a little bit about the the customer care after the service. Is it possible to then kind of keep that software up to date for them or to modernize it for them as time goes on?

Nathan Plumb: Yeah, for sure. And I mean, it depends also on like the appetite for of the customer to continue that, that that process. But we have clients that have been with us for like 10 years. And yeah, their software has to, of course, update and the platform updates. But these are just incredible systems over the course of like 10 years where you're able to customize over time and it's able to adapt as your business changes.

And so, yeah, I think like the. That. And also, like what I said said earlier too, like, we're all about that relationship. That's what we love to see. I have some clients, like they are, they've become friends too. Like we're, we're part of their team and we love that.

Kelly Kennedy: We're recording this episode right now in the late 2024.

It's actually releasing at actually around the same time in 2025. So we're, we're heading into 2026 at the release of this episode. And I know it's hard for you to see that far into the future, but I guess one of the questions that I have for you is, are you seeing any new trends in software development come the end of 2024 that you think might still be relevant around the same time?

Or maybe we're a full swing into them?

Nathan Plumb: Well, I think in terms of tech trends, I think the AI is gonna plateau a little bit. I think we have this generative AI that is sort of hitting its peak and it's great that we have that. But I think some of the, actual machine learning items might be tapering off a little bit in terms of their, their capabilities.

That being said, it's probably gonna still, still be relevant in a year. I think the concept of integration is going to continue to be so critical in a business's software space. So instead of having one behemoth system that does everything Yeah, like some massive ERP system, yeah, you're probably going to have the need to tie in multiple systems together.

We're seeing this all the time now, even like, the most common example is like integrating into accounting platforms. Why build an accounting platform if you have these really viable cloud accounting platforms that everyone's using? So integration and making integration as seamless and easy as possible, I think is gonna be super relevant still in one year, if not even more so.

Kelly Kennedy: I love that. And specifically with the ERP side, I've had, you know, experience with ERP using business development software CRMs specifically. Yeah. And the CRMs in an ERP I've found have always been lackluster. And it's almost like they're thrown in as an afterthought. Like, oh shit. Totally. I need a CRM.

Nathan Plumb: Yeah.

Kelly Kennedy: Right?

Nathan Plumb: Totally. And like, those are actually, it's, it's funny you say that, coach. So there's two, there's two things we rarely build in our applications, and that's CRMs and like full scale CRMs, you know, like roll out and have like some sort of client database, but like a full scale CRM and an accounting portion, because those are done really well.

There's a lot of options that are very integration friendly.

Kelly Kennedy: Yeah.

Nathan Plumb: And why would we build it for our customer when they're already operating off of QuickBooks Online, for example? Like, yeah, why would we build them? That functionality in our system, like no point. So we can integrate with them really nicely and it's very seamless.

And so I think that's one area where our business, like we keep finding that we're able to fit these little niches in a business without having to say to them, we're gonna replace everything you've got.

Kelly Kennedy: Yeah. Yeah. No, I agree. I agree. I am, I'm almost always recommending third party CRMs even to companies are using ERP and I'm like, Hey, just use the ERP when they're the client.

In the meantime, use this like high horsepower outsource CRM.

Nathan Plumb: Totally. And like why not? Right? Like, yeah, it doesn't make sense to, yeah. So that's I think that's gonna be really relevant in a year, probably even more so. I think that just as systems become better at integrated with each other we're gonna get this much more dynamic flow of flow of data between a businesses systems.

So I, I guess the business owner, they just have to come to terms. Paying multiple licenses or having these different silos, and they have to really see the benefit of that.

Kelly Kennedy: Well, that's the world we live in, right? Like unfortunately, that's the world we live in. It's at this point, even for this show, probably sitting in somewhere in the neighborhood of five to 10 subscriptions to produce the show on a regular basis and get every single feature that I want it to have.

And yeah, none of the, like, you know, almost every one of those apps on a certain level has something that another app has, but there's like one thing that they don't have that I still need. And so either way I'm paying those down subscriptions, but you know, they meet the need.

Nathan Plumb: Yeah. And that's, that's an interesting thing too because you, in your experience here, you, you, where there's pain for the business owner in that experience is like where you have to do redundancy.

Where you are spending, if you have all these subscription and you have to enter Nathan into all five of them, that's painful. You know, like it's, it's much nicer when it just flows through. Or you have one bridge that sort of acts to dis distribute that data appropriately.

Kelly Kennedy: Yeah. Yeah. But you know, we have to talk about it though, because the reason that subscription models work so well is, you know, let's take the ERP system in, whenever you create an all-in-one solution, there's almost always something that's a little lackluster because that's not the prime thing that that company's great at.

I think ERPs are a perfect example of it. Sure. On the outset, something that does everything sounds great, but I think in the actual utilization there's almost always a little bit left to be desired. Or it's like a jack of all trades, master of none.

Nathan Plumb: Yeah. And I mean, that's the risk with like a generic off the shelf ERP system as well.

Yeah. That's why like for us, we'll we will have people that. Also ERPs are not cheap either. No. Like the licensing fees are pretty crazy on those. So sometimes like, you could almost, because you're, you have all that bloat, right? You're paying for features you don't want even if they say you're not, like, you're still having to offset like their costs to like have all their other modules.

So sometimes building what you want is able to be as, as cheap as like an expensive ERP license because you're able to get rid of the bloat.

Kelly Kennedy: That's perfect. Let's just lead right into it. Nathan. How do people get ahold of you if they potentially want to get a quote on something like that?

Nathan Plumb: Oh, we we come to our website, give us a call.

We're around. I, I like to be in as involved as possible when I am talking to people for, about their ideas for sure. And we have a few other team members that are, are really ready to jump in and assist on anyone. That wants to get in touch. So yeah, our, our website fable solutions.com and yes, send us a message.

Love to hear from you.

Kelly Kennedy: Amazing. Amazing. And what's the phone number?

Nathan Plumb: Best phone number to reach us at would be 7 8 0 7 0 2 2 5 8 3.

Kelly Kennedy: Amazing. And are you on LinkedIn, Nathan?

Nathan Plumb: I am on LinkedIn, yes. Am I as active as I should be? Probably not. We've talked about this before, Kelly. It's just so, it's so hard for me to you're doing it so well, like you're, as you talked about, like you're going through the whole process.

But for me, I am on LinkedIn. You can message me for sure. But I'm probably not checking it every day as I should.

Kelly Kennedy: That's all good, man. There's to connect though. There's room for improvement, right? We're learning all the time. I can tell you right now, man I'm very introverted. I'm probably like, probably, it's weird that I ended up in bd, let's just call it that.

It's, I had to learn a lot of skills.

Nathan Plumb: It's not so weird though, because you're better at listening and like, listening is so important in BD too, like knowing when to just let the other person talk. And that was a big lesson for me in bd. It's like I used to just talk talk. I probably still do too much.

Yeah. But you got just like, okay, no talking. Let them talk. And then with that extra information, you can, you can say something actually impactful.

Kelly Kennedy: Yes. I would nervous talk in the beginning.

Nathan Plumb: Well, I, I can relate man.

Kelly Kennedy: Yeah. Yeah. No, it's funny, man. Almost everything on this front, on this, like this out there front for me is work.

I'm having to learn it. I'm having to put myself out there. The podcast almost died on episode three because I was just like, oh my God, is anybody even to listen to this? Or am I willing to like, put myself out there on this level or not? Right? But, I did it. We're now at like 280 some episodes in this recording, and if I can do it, so can anybody listening just like understand that if I can do this, so can every single one of you.

Nathan Plumb: Oh, yeah. And I think like the podcast is such an example of you set as you said, like that authenticity. Like it's so clear when you're, when you're listening to the podcast. It's just wonderful. Like there's it's not a surprise to me that you are at 200 and as you say, like you're already tracking into probably 2026.

That's amazing. It's just such an accomplishment. Kelly. I love it.

Kelly Kennedy: Thank you, Nathan. I, I appreciate that greatly. It's been a, it's been a labor of love for sure, and it continues to be. Until next time. This has been episode 288 of the Business Development Podcast. We've been graced with Nathan Plumb, the managing director of Fabled Solutions.

It's been an honor Nathan.

Nathan Plumb: Thanks so much, Kelly.

Kelly Kennedy: Until next time, 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.