Trust, Sales and Storytelling with Ken Gee

Trust, Sales and Storytelling with Ken Gee

Kelly Kennedy: Welcome to episode 248 of the Business Development Podcast, and today I'm joined by Ken Gee, an award-winning business development leader, master storyteller, and one of the best community builders. I know we're about to dive deep into the art of telling stories that actually grow your business. Stick with us.

You don't 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.

In 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 248 of the Business Development Podcast, and today it is my absolute pleasure to welcome back Ken Gee. Ken is an award-winning business development leader, respected community builder and master storyteller from Edmonton, Alberta, with Roots as a radio and TV broadcaster, and a proven track record as a serial entrepreneur.

Ken has spent decades connecting people and championing local businesses across Alberta and beyond. He built one of Edmonton's leading, commercial moving and logistics companies, formerly served as the head of member relations with the Edmonton Chamber of Commerce, and today continues to live out his lifelong passion as a horse racing announcer at multiple racetracks across Western Canada.

With his home track being the track on two in Lacombe, Alberta through his company, AK Media, Ken helps businesses craft and share their stories through compelling multimedia solutions that generate traction and build trust in a crowded market. Ken's warm, authentic approach has earned him deep networks across North America and a reputation as a true connector.

An early listener favorite on the Business development podcast, Ken first appeared way back on episode 22, major on the majors with Ken Gee, bringing his signature, wisdom, humor, and practical storytelling insights to business owners everywhere. Whether behind the mic or consulting through AK Media, Ken Gee remains dedicated to helping people focus on what matters most real connections and stories that stick.

Ken. Holy cow. I struggled with that one. Ken, it's a pleasure to have you back on the show.

Ken Gee: You did well, Kelly, I can imagine 200 episodes later, maybe it maybe it doesn't get even easier. I don't know. You sound great. You know what?

Kelly Kennedy: It it doesn't, and I'm actually fighting like a hair of a throat thing today, so it's one of those scratchy throat days.

I'm sure you understand it well, being announcer the body does not always cooperate.

Ken Gee: No, absolutely. And you've got the camera on, it's not like you can go clear your throat.

Kelly Kennedy: It's so funny, right? I look back to my, the beginning of my podcasting career, and I used to get so embarrassed when I jumble up the introductions and I'd just be like, oh my gosh, I'm such an idiot.

And now I'm just like, dude, that is so normal.

Ken Gee: And you've proved the test of time, my friend. Congratulations on a couple of hundred episodes. I can't believe that it's been so many already.

Kelly Kennedy: I can't either. It's absolutely unbelievable to me that we are recording, 248 today and that me and you talked way back on 22, and I have to give a gigantic thank you to, yourself and Amin Samji who really went out on a limb to help me in the beginning of this.

You guys used to call me weekly. Kelly, have you met this person? I think they'd be a great person for your show, and I wouldn't be here without the support that you guys did. And not to mention just the incredible community that, that the both of you built together. You did such an incredible job working at the Chamber.

And so thank you for everything, man. Really.

Ken Gee: Oh, I appreciate that. But you did the work, man, so congratulations to you.

Kelly Kennedy: No, it's been it's been incredible. But obviously, 20, episode 22 was a little while ago. You have an incredible story, an incredible journey. I don't necessarily need you to walk us through the whole thing.

For the people that are listening, episode 22, you can go back and listen to it, major on the majors with Ken Gee. He goes over his backstory completely, but. Please for the new listeners, Ken, lead us into who is Ken Gee? How did you end up on this incredible journey?

Ken Gee: Yeah just a background on myself in terms of I am born and raised in Edmonton, the son of immigrant parents learned how to work really hard with them in their family business.

It was really funny because somebody actually mentioned my family business last week in Historic Edmonton on Facebook. Wow. And it was wonderful to see all of the really kind comments that people had about my folks, and it just reminded me of how important it was to build community where they had their business and to be kind to people.

And and to be hardworking. And so that was that was really that was really touching to, to see those comments. But born and raised here in Edmonton began a professional announcing career at the age of 14 announcing sports. So while everybody else was working at the mall I did a stint at the mall as well.

I was out announcing sports and getting paid for getting to cut class. So that was the start of my broadcasting career, which was my childhood dream. I did that for a number of years as a radio and television broadcaster of the course of specialty and interviewing covered legislature, covered city hall, covered the crime beat you name it, I've.

Probably seen it, met a lot of really cool people in that process. And then eventually moved on to owning a commercial moving and logistics company to which I learned so much on that journey of being an entrepreneur and owning a business. And of course, in those days it wasn't as easy to access resources to run a business.

So I'm really proud of having powered through that. That's a story in itself on having that business started, which is a great story to tell these days. It's always fun. As an entrepreneur, you wish that you'll be able to look back on some of those stories and be able to tell them fondly, but while you're in the middle of it, you were drowning and wondering how you're going to get through it.

But trust me, if you persevere, you'll have a great story to tell other people. And then after that went to work back in the corporate sector. You mentioned working for the Edmonton Chamber of Commerce. Thoroughly enjoyed dealing with business people in the community while growing that organization for them.

And then of course my passion is horse racing. So I've been a horse racing fan since I was a little kid since the first time my dad took me to the track. My dream job. Is what I'm doing now announcing horse races and I get to do that every summer at the track on two in Lacombe have also called races elsewhere.

But I have a blast doing that every summer and that really is my passion. I get to live it. I get to call races. There's just nothing like the experience of doing that. And I wanna welcome everybody who's never been to the races or maybe you wanna come to the races. I always invite people to come out during the summers to visit at Track on Two.

Love to have you down there meet our horses, meet some of the people that are involved in racing the drivers and trainers, and then come up and watch much. We do some races. That, that's an absolute blast. And now as well starting up and very busy with my new business, AK Media, my platform to help market and tell the story about businesses and organizations in Edmonton, Calgary, and area.

And that is a snapshot of where I come from.

Kelly Kennedy: I absolutely love that. In the last in the last interview that we did, we really went deep on how you got into, journalism and broadcasting. We talked about that you were doing it at school and you worked your way into that space.

I don't think we ever touched on what it was that drew you to horse racing.

Ken Gee: Oh man. When, my, my mom and dad worked really hard at their business. They had a corner store. And I remember mom and dad putting in lots of long hours and I even remember that day really clearly, it was an afternoon on a weekend and my mom said to my dad, you need a break.

Why don't you take Ken and go do something? Yeah. And so we got in the car and my dad said I'm gonna go to watch the horse races. And I had never been, I was four years old and we ended up at the old Northlands Park and in the afternoon watching horse races. And I couldn't believe it. A city kid being around horses, that is just such a foreign thing, and I think a lot of people have never been around animals or like that very, very close. So my dad took me there for the afternoon and we watched the races and my dad said to me. You pick a horse, maybe I'll put a bet on a horse if you pick one. I remember that. Yeah. He said I said, pick that one and put $2 to win on that horse.

And sure enough, that horse won. And that's how it started. And then this is how it continued was my dad said it's $5 now from that two. Now what do you wanna do? And I said, that one and promptly lost that. So thus is the story of of betting on horses. But from that point on, I was in love with horse racing.

Just the excitement, the adrenaline rush that you get from watching a race from start to finish. And then as I got older, I got to see the strategies involved and everything that goes into running a horse. They're amazing animals treated so very well as professional equine athletes. I think people that have never been to the races need to come see that aspect of horse racing on on how these beautiful animals.

Train and work and love to run. And then at that point after having been a fan, a super fan for many years and attended a lot of big races around the continent I got the chance to be a horse owner. And I owned many thoroughbred race horses that raced across North America. Got to go oftentimes to go see them race.

But the thing that was always elusive was being a race horse announcer. So of course, as a kid being in love with horse racing and then being a broadcaster, being a horse racing announcer was the job that I wanted to do. There's only a few guys in the province that do it. I bet. So what were the chances of me ever being able to do it?

But hey, the power of networking and opening my mouth, I asked for the job and I got, it was the inaugural announcer at Century Mile, and the rest is history. Get to live my dream every summer.

Kelly Kennedy: Okay. Okay. Now I have to know, because obviously I've been to horse racing, I've heard those announcers go, man.

And we were talking about it briefly ahead of the show. You're like, as an announcer you're speaking faster than your mind can even like, put it all together. How do you keep it all together? How are you able to like to call a race in real time when things are happening? Fractions of a second at a time, and you have to know all of the people racing, all the horses out there and you have to be calling it as it's going.

How do you practice for that? Like how, I imagine like the first race, you're just sitting there thinking oh my God, how am I gonna do this?

Ken Gee: Yeah, absolutely. They say in the announcing world. That horse race announcing is the toughest play-by-play sport to call because you don't even have a second to think about what you're going to say.

And hats off to the guys who are really good at horse racing announcing. There are some guys that have photographic memories so they can literally walk in, pick up a program, look at it, and know names, numbers of horses, trainers, jockeys, drivers, as well as past performances. Wow, I'm not that good.

So I still need to read off the sheet, but a lot of people don't realize there is. A lot of prep work that goes into it, the night before or even a few days before. I'm reading a program highlighting, making notes, and the brain is such an amazing thing. And I learned this many years ago through some health experiences, but also through the process of learning how to announce races is that the brain is so amazing.

I do train a few weeks into approaching a season to get my mind working, to get my brain working and to get those synapses firing. But when I'm deep in the middle of racing season, I've told people this before, it's really amazing. When I'm on my game and I'm middle in the middle of the racing season, when I'm not announcing horse racing, I can go and have a conversation with multiple people and I will say things I.

I will not even remember where that came from outta my mouth. It just rolls off of my tongue. And sometimes I'll walk away from that conversation just thinking, wow, good thing I said the right thing. Because those things just come to mind very quickly. And I think that's a real lesson for when you're trying to network and be in business.

If you do it often enough, you'll get very good at it and it'll just roll off of your tongue. So for those of you who might be a little worried and don't like networking, it does take practice and you can get really good at it.

Kelly Kennedy: Yeah. Yeah. I know exactly what you mean. I've had plenty of meetings too, where like I left, I'm like, man, was I on fire?

I don't even know what I was doing that day. But you're absolutely right. It's like sometimes you can just get in the zone and when you're in, like it doesn't always make sense how you get there, but you can leave and recognize that's exactly what happened.

Ken Gee: Absolutely. And it's just practice, right?

It's practice makes perfect.

Kelly Kennedy: Yes. Yes. Man. Today, I'm really excited to just chat with you about storytelling. I think storytelling is super important. As a podcaster, these interviews don't work. If we don't outline a neat story. If you look at any interview, they start with something, they tend to have a path, and then they lead you into knowledge, and then they close, right?

We wanna talk about storytelling because specifically AK Media tells company stories. That's really what you do. And I wanna talk about that, Ken, because in 248 episodes, I've never had somebody come in and say, Hey, let's talk about how we tell a corporate story. And so I think for maybe a lot of the listeners today, maybe they've never even thought about their stories, I know that like I can see the path of my career.

I'm not sure that I've ever thought about what is the entire story, right? What is the entire story of Kelly Kennedy of capital business development of the Business development podcast? It's a lot. When you really dive deep into the whole trajectory of it, trying to put together the entire story can seem like an impossible challenge.

Ken Gee: Yeah, there is definitely an art to telling a story, and that's why I started AK Media was to be able to help people bring out the best features about their business or organization and really let people know what the story is. When I was a news reporter, I learned a number of things.

The first thing was how to properly ask a question. I remember first time being in scrums with other reporters who were so good at asking questions and were able to get those sound bites that they wanted, that were impactful and that were the money clips, and I always wondered how did they know to ask that Really good question.

Because the whole time I was in the scrum with them, I was just trying to think of what question can I ask next that makes me sound smart. Likewise, in a networking situation when you're meeting a person, I don't know anything about this person. How can I ask them a question that won't make me seem stupid or make me, make me sound dumb about my business. I think we get nervous about the impression we're gonna make on people. And same thing when I was a reporter was just, let me ask a good question. And so I picked up this book, I don't even know if it's still around anymore, but it was called How to Ask Questions, right?

I read that book and what it taught was that really when you are asking, when you're engaging in a conversation with a person, your questions, you shouldn't go necessarily in with a list of questions. Your questions should be derived from what somebody tells you. Yeah. And if you are really listening to them on what they're trying to tell you, that will help you come up with the next question in a, in a series, which will make which will make sense. And then as I was starting my business career. I also picked up another bunch of books and I've read a lot of books, a lot of personal growth books, a lot of self-help books. And one of the things I really struggled with when I first got into that reporting world, and sometimes we can be a bit dull as reporters and it be a little bit too serious, it was, how do I get people to engage with me?

How do you get people to like me and find me interesting. So I read a lot of self-help books and I can't remember who wrote it, but I remember one great author, it was either Zig Ziglar or one of the other greats. It said on there that imagine when you have a conversation with somebody, imagine on their forehead, there's a sign that says, make me feel important.

Yes. And so people want to be heard. People want to be able to tell you about themselves. It's just that you need to give them the opportunity. So armed with those two things, what I have learned as an interviewer is that I. Really start to take an interest in people and not just try to think of the next question, or there's a time and place to tell people about yourself, but really people don't wanna hear about you.

They wanna be able to tell you about themselves. And the amazing thing when you get really good at it is you learn so many things about people in their amazing stories that you never would've known unless you asked. And so that's what I love about sitting down and meeting people at networking events is I ask a lot of questions and I love to find out what people's stories are and and then take those stories and tell them to the world.

For example, AK Media with the many platforms that we use, we can talk a little bit more about the business later, but really taking those really cool stories and experiences and things about people and sharing them. It does take skill to do that, but I'm I find that probably the best thing about my work is being able to tell the stories of other people.

Kelly Kennedy: I, I love that you touched on active listening for questions and I think in podcasting it's really important. You can always tell a show that has everything scripted versus one that's a little bit more organic and flowy and fun. And what I've learned along the way of podcasting is always come prepared.

I always show up with a list of questions and I call them my, get us back on track questions. So if we really start to go somewhere, way off in left field and I wanna bring us back, I have a set of, get us back on track questions, but I'm right there with you. You have to ask questions regarding the present conversation, what we're actually talking about right here in the moment, because that's really what keeps it more engaging, more flowy, and just frankly, a better conversation overall.

Ken Gee: I think especially in the business world, Kelly, conversations need to be intentional. I sometimes go to networking meetings and I meet people and I have no idea where the conversation is going with them. It's great. Don't get me wrong. It is great to hear some of the conversations that, that people have at networking meetings.

But especially if you're in business development and or in sales, right? You're here at an event. The end goal is I need to drive sales. I need to drive activity. And so to meet somebody and take that conversation and get to that point is a really strategic process. And I think a very intentional process as well.

With that in mind you're absolutely right, and this is where I was talking earlier about the brain working what rolls off of your tongue. I think that's the same thing too, is when you do that enough and you go to a networking meeting and learn that skill, you go to meetings with intention.

You go there knowing what it is you want to accomplish, and that's where your conversations get directed.

Kelly Kennedy: And for my business developers out there, dude, I used to suck. I used to really suck. And I think that kind of surprises a lot of people. And I think many people, when they get into sales or business development, nobody just starts out knowing everything.

And I used to go to meetings thinking, I need to ask all these questions. I need to be filling that space. I need to be like trying to talk to them and tell them how great my product and service is. I know as you of, as a former sales guy yourself, you totally get this. I didn't get good Ken until I just shut up.

I needed to shut up and stop talking and start asking great questions and listening. And to this day, it's one of the best skills. And I'm, by all means I still have work to do. I am by no means the best listener on planet earth, but I am a lot better than I was back then. And what I realized is that if you ask the right questions and you allow the space for somebody to fill it, most of the time they'll tell you everything.

They'll tell you about themselves, their family, what's going on in their life, what's going on in their business, what challenges they're facing. They'll give you everything, but you have to give them the space to do that.

Ken Gee: Yeah. And I, I have followed all of your episodes as as you've gone over the last couple years, and you have become a very good interviewer.

You are. I really noticed that when you said that about armed with your questions. But I think as you've grown and you know this as you develop that skill, it just becomes second nature to you. And what is that phrase that. People that I've read out of a book was people don't care what you know until they know that you care.

Yeah. And that's like when you have conversations with with people. I often have, WW will meet people and I'll say, hi, I'm Ken. What's your name? I'm Bob and this is my widget and this is what my widget does, and this is as a, oh, really? Okay, great. It's like there is no engagement there.

There is no reason for me to be interested. If I'm not interested in widgets, I wanna know about you. I don't wanna know about your widgets. And I find that if people know you, they like you, they will buy what you have. Yeah. Yeah. Or they'll refer you.

Kelly Kennedy: Yes. Yes. And the power of referrals is incredible.

That's something that's actually come up many times on the show. I recently interviewed an author Andrew Z. Brown, who wrote the book, Get Referred, and I was blown away at how powerful referrals can actually be. I don't think I'd ever put two and two together, Ken, at how much it had influenced my path and my track, but he really put me on the spot and he said, Kelly, I want you to look at every single big deal you've ever closed, whether it's for a client, whether it's for your own businesses.

How often was somebody else involved? How often did somebody vouch for you? And I was thinking initially, no, that can't be true. And when I really dove deep down every single one, every single big deal I've ever closed, somebody vouched for me.

Ken Gee: Absolutely. And I, I call that a cold lead versus a warm lead.

And this is a whole seminar in itself. But, I've have often talked with new business owners and they say, I've opened this beautiful store and I've got these doors open, or I handed out leaflets, or I've been cold calling and I just not getting any business. And I say to why don't you go to networking meeting?

Because if you go with your buddy who can vouch for you when you're meeting new people and they can tell this person like a testimonial, how great your business is, or what a great person you are that helps make a lead. Become from a cold lead to a warm lead. And that does you, your closing ratio is so much higher having those referrals and those testimonials and people vouching for you, whether they're directly or indirectly.

And again, that takes work, but most people aren't willing to do it.

Kelly Kennedy: And I would argue that you and Amin, if not are, were probably the best connectors in Edmonton, bar none, period. That is my endorsement. You guys were absolutely incredible. And I'd love to know, based on that time that you were with the Chamber many years, building community, bringing people together, what did that do for you personally?

Ken Gee: Amin's a wonderful connector of course, because who doesn't love Amin?

Kelly Kennedy: I know. I know.

Ken Gee: And he brings so many things to the table that I do not right. I think he has a, an instant likability that will get people to start engaging in the conversation. I'm a little bit more on the serious heavy side, I think.

I think?

Kelly Kennedy: Yeah.

Ken Gee: That's just my view anyways. And when you have someone who can start the conversation which he's great at it makes it very easy to engage in a conversation with somebody. So being part of a team that grew the organization, I think that's really where our strengths were.

And it was really funny because the first time that we ever got recognized in public was we were at a. I think we were at a baseball game or something. Yeah. And as we were walking out somebody walked by and yelled at us, Hey, it's the chamber guys, which was really funny and a minute.

And I looked at each other and said, wow, did that just happen? And from there it was the nickname that we had coined for us was the chamber guys. And having that recognizability made it also easier to go meet people and engage in start conversations. But yeah, for sure.

Any, everything is intentional though. Everything is learned and a skill, that has to be taken and and developed So. I'm glad to talk about that with people and often I do with AK Media. That's one of the things that we talk about is what is your goal? What is it you want to achieve?

Yeah. I want to get more customers. I wanna meet new people. How do I do that? Let's talk about the different services that we offer to help you do that.

Kelly Kennedy: Okay. Okay. Let's use that as the segue into storytelling, right? How does a business tell their story? Obviously, in 2025, we know that social media is bigger than ever, right?

I think most business owners are on LinkedIn. If they're not leveraging LinkedIn pretty heavily at this point, but, you're competing as well with just a ton of content, right? Every time you hop on Facebook, LinkedIn, whatever it is, it's just video, after video, or post, after post.

How do you I think maybe the power of storytelling, and I want you to maybe elaborate on this, but storytelling can maybe help you stand out above all that noise.

Ken Gee: O of course. Perception is reality, right? And I really, I'm fascinated by social media. I use it a lot. I come from a generation where, you bought advertising and that's how you told people about your business.

But here's the really amazing thing about the capacity to do things. Young people these days, which are predominantly the ones that are on Instagram or other social media, they really know how to self promote themselves, right? Yeah. Don't they really, I wanna be an Instagram model, or I wanna be an Instagram influencer is the word.

Why can't we all be influencers, right? Yeah. It just takes a little bit of studying. I, that's what I did a lot when social media came up was I watched a lot and I'm still on social media a lot. I find it more entertaining than watching tv to be honest with you. People will often ask me, oh, did you see this series?

I'm like, no. I was watching TikTok or I was watching Instagram

because I have very short attention span, but I really find like the power of what you can do with your phone. We used to have rooms full of equipment when I was in broadcasting to produce some of these amazing videos that people are making on their phones.

Kelly Kennedy: Yeah.

Ken Gee: In terms of the power of storytelling, I think social media has been a real eye-opener on the capacity of what we can do. We're only limited by our creativity and imagination. So in terms of telling the story corporately, how does that work? Here's the first thing I would do, is I would ask people if you are maybe a traditional you're a business that has used traditional methods to promote your business, maybe start looking at social media and you can't ignore it.

It is. A super important part of marketing these days. And if you're not on it, you are missing an audience, but take the time to watch to see what a reel is or how people use stills versus videos. How they use interviews versus I don't know, just panning the crowd at an event. Learn about all of those techniques and what you like.

But here's the main thing is write down on a piece of paper, what is it that your business is looking for? What is it that your business needs? We don't just produce videos for people or do appearances for them, just for the sake of doing them. There's always a strategy behind it. So what is your goal?

What is it you're trying to achieve? I ask this oftentimes of clients and they say, I want more business. Okay. That's a good answer, but how do you what's your metric? How do you quantify that? I don't know. What should I be using? Okay, you have to pay your bills. You have to make money.

Maybe that's the first metric we start with is how many new clients do you need? Or bottom line, how much money do you wanna bring in? What is it that you're trying to achieve? Yeah. Then let's break it down from that goal. How many new clients do you need? How many new widgets do you need to sell?

What is special about your widget? Then here's the other thing about storytelling. Once you've got your goal what is it? Tell me about your business and as a storyteller in the broadcasting world as a news reporter, when I was in a scrum or I was at a news conference, I had to listen to an hour or two hours of what somebody was telling me and then really pick out the story.

What is the story from this news conference? What is the real story out of this scandal that is developing? And learn how to pick that thing out that is special about your business, make you different, and find a way to tell that story. And that's where my specialty comes in, is tell me your story. Let me find out what's special about you and what I think people will really enjoy hearing about you.

And then package that in a way that is impactful and that draws interest. And I think a lot of people don't give themselves enough credit. Doesn't matter what kind of business organization you have, there is something special and unique about your story that will blow people away and draw them to wanna find out more about you and even maybe to the point of using your business or your services.

That is an important part about corporate story storytelling.

Kelly Kennedy: Yeah. Wow. There was a lot to unpack there. I'm gonna start maybe at the beginning when you were talking about utilizing social media, and you specifically talked about utilizing not just one form, but many forms, using obviously stories from people, using pictures, using video.

Do they have to use all of these things to tell the whole story? Do you find that for a company to truly tell their whole story, they need to leverage multiple forms of media written content pictures and video in order to structure it properly?

Ken Gee: That is a really good question, Kelly. Like I even find with and of course I'm, I am still based in Edmonton as well as in Calgary.

I split my time now between the two cities. 'Cause I heard a rumor that people were telling people I'd move to Calgary and can't have that. Then I was afraid to leave my apartment. I didn't want people thinking that I had changed hockey allegiances or something. But I find that there's such a difference even in the two markets, right?

As, as far as what works in Edmonton versus what works in Calgary. And so those are some of the things that we talk about with my clients at AK Media. But no, again, it is exactly about what it is your business or organization wants to achieve. And then we sit down and find out how to achieve those goals for you.

For some people what works really well is, linkedIn, promoting their business on LinkedIn. On the other end of the spectrum, sometimes it's people that we work on with a strategy is having me appear at a place. Yeah. And not because like I am this great guy. I, it's because of the people that I know that will want to come out and get my take on things.

Knowing what my record is in the work that I've done before. So those are some different kinds of strategies that we really look at in terms of what will work best for an organization. And no it's not about having to be on all the platforms. I think there's a platform for different purposes and to understand how that factors in.

I think that's really on an individual basis for each business. Yeah. On knowing is your business. Are you gonna get some traction outta this social media or whatever strategy it's gonna use? It's not a blanket thing. And I think this is where the difference is between successful marketers and not successful marketers is if you're a marketer who thinks, if I make beautiful slides, if I make beautiful reels, that's marketing.

Yeah. I disagree. That is not marketing. That is being able to design some great things, but taking those after you determine what the client's goals are, that's marketing. Yeah. Yeah. Is it important who tells the story? Absolutely it is. I sometimes get requests from people to that say to me, Hey, will you do a sit down one-on-one with me and do an interview with me?

Because I like the look of you asking me questions and me answering them. And quite honestly, it's you don't need me in the picture. You need. You are a great speaker. You can tell the story. You've just never had anybody ask you the right questions before. So oftentimes that's what I will do, is I will extract myself from that and I'll be the one asking the questions.

You'll never see me in the video or hear me, but it allows people a chance, who I know are able to tell the story better than I could and let them shine and let them have the opportunity to do that. That was one of the things I really found when I was working with businesses at the Chamber, I met so many people that had amazing stories and could tell me face to face what the great things that were about their businesses.

But when they got into a social setting, sometimes they were a little nervous or they didn't have a platform where they could do that and tell their story and, that was a little bit of my role there was being able to tell their story, but in terms of giving them business advice and all that stuff really wasn't my role, although I could.

And so being able to have AK Media and now offer that to people on what I was doing except on a bigger scale has really been an exciting time for myself to hear their stories and being able to share them very openly now. As well as, being able to give people that opportunity to use us to tell their story.

Kelly Kennedy: Yeah, it's people find this really surprising when I tell them that I really struggle with personal video. And they're like Kelly, you have hundreds of podcast episodes. We see you live on Authentic Hustle every week. We see you in the clips all the time. And I'm like, no, but it's not the same. Yeah.

And it's like there's something completely different about this conversation we are having right now, even though we are gonna share some clips from this, even though there will be some video content from this conversation. It is, it has a completely different feel than when I pick up my cell phone and I'm shooting a video like I did this morning.

I honestly can I've been struggling quite a bit with the personal video side, even though I know how critical and important it is here in 2025, but I've been pushing myself, you may have noticed over the past month, I'm starting to pick up my phone more, shoot some more personal videos, throw them up on LinkedIn, and I'm getting better with each one of them, but man, it still feels, it, honestly, it feels like my brain just goes blank when the phone comes up, it's I'll have this great idea.

I'll know exactly what I want to talk about, what story I wanna tell, but the moment I hit record on that damn phone and I'm looking into it. I don't know, man. I struggle with it. Is that something that you see with a lot of the people you work with?

Ken Gee: Absolutely. And I I'm not as much anymore, but when I started out, even in a career in broadcasting, here's me who wants to be a public voice self-conscious all of the time.

And that was something that I've really had to get over because I think I'm a pretty good communicator, but I think as far as being self-conscious about how I am, I appear on video and things like that. Yeah, for sure. Those are things that we all need to get over and just get to the task at hand.

And that's really something that we can take into any kind of task that we're nervous about. Whether or not we don't feel comfortable being on camera. We don't feel comfortable going to networking meetings or talk to somebody you know what? When the bills pile up and you gotta pay a bill and you gotta go make money, I think you get over the discomfort very quickly to make, to drive your business And.

Sadly, sometimes that's what I see. Sometimes I see people who are not willing to get uncomfortable in their businesses, and that terminates the business.

Yeah.

You gotta do what it takes to make your business go.

Kelly Kennedy: Yeah, it's been it's been a personal struggle. I'm not gonna lie. I really have struggled with the video aspect.

And the funny thing is, Ken, it's obviously I know better, right? I've interviewed so many people. I've been public in this way for a couple of years now. And I think that's what's funny is that. I think most people know, but they really struggle to take that step. And, as somebody who's been, a, a broadcaster who's been in the public eye for a long time, was there anything that helped you get over that fear other than the fact that you gotta pay the bills?

Ken Gee: That was eating, that was a pretty big motivator. Owning a business and having two little kids at home staring at you. Yeah. That was a pretty big motivator. No, you know what it was just doing it, doing something over and over again repeated. It's just like too I don't know.

I, I am always amazed when I watch TV and I see a reporter or a sports commentator doing a standup. In front of like the throngs of fans that they're reporting at and they have to talk. A standup is, at the end of a news story when a reporter appears, or when they cut to a shot at a sporting event and the commentator's talking, that always blows me away because I would be so self-conscious about doing that.

Unfortunately, when I call races, yes, maybe in some days there are hundreds or thousands of people that are viewing. They're doing it online. So I never see them, so I never have to be self-conscious about that. But I think it's just repetition. It's like anything you do, I think a lot of people get self-conscious when they go to networking meetings.

I have people that refuse to go to networking meetings because they are so self-conscious about meeting people, not knowing what to say. And I used to be that way as well. So here's hope for you guys. If I can do this stuff, you can do it too. Because I was always at that same place where I was always self-conscious about meeting new people or having to get up to speak.

It's just that I've done it so many times that I'm used to it now. And by the way, Kelly, I would never know that about you, about being self-conscious with the camera. 'cause you're everywhere and we always see you everywhere. But that's the power, that's the power of using social media and cameras is you can do that take a hundred times and get the best one and post it.

People will never know that you struggled with it.

Kelly Kennedy: Yeah that's it. And I have a harder time doing that with the phone because with the phone, I honestly, I just can't really edit very well on the damn phone between me and you and everyone listening. So the phone is the one when you guys see me shooting from the phone, that might be three takes.

Like that. Like for me, I'm one of those people and recovering perfectionist. Yeah. Yeah. I'm one of those people that'll shoot the same thing three damn times until I don't mush mouth. But it's funny because we even started this episode and I had to have a good laugh with Ken because I think I miss said our introduction multiple times.

I had to restart it and I'm like, dude, I'm sorry. Hey, no one will ever know. But I'm sorry.

Ken Gee: The thing that's always thing that's always amazing about being self-conscious is people will go to the gym and work out. And that's one of the things that I'm self-conscious about going out, going to the gym.

Another thing is I. Are you married? Yeah. You were not self-conscious. Self-consciousness didn't stop you from asking for that first date, right? Yeah. Something about it, we do things that we are that maybe we know what the prize is, right? Maybe that's what it is. We need to focus on what the prize is.

That helps us get over being self-conscious. And obviously you've got a thriving business and a thriving podcast, and that's come from your personal appearances I think.

Kelly Kennedy: It's come from bravery. Exactly. I wouldn't, I don't think I'd have anything that I have today had I not taken that bravery and just decided to turn the mic on and start talking to my wall in the basement.

Like even at, even way back when we had our first interview. I remember being just like very afraid to even ask people to come on the show. 'cause I was just thinking like, they're gonna be like, who is this idiot? Like I was literally feeling that self-conscious about it at the moment.

Yeah. But it's crazy now to think back that now you know, I have to actually turn down people because I can't record everybody. Yeah. But back then I was so afraid to ask, even you, Ken, to come on the show. And so I just think that it's a journey for all of us. Yeah. That's incredible. What story to tell.

It's a good one. I, one day, one day, AK b I'll have to come and tell it. You betcha. I want to I wanna ask you about the type or the way to tell the story specifically, because obviously we're seeing with the advent of social media, the Kelly's of the world, picking up their cell phone and just shooting that video, that raw video every single day.

Are you seeing maybe a difference in the way that people are receiving professional video versus just self shot made at home videos?

Ken Gee: I think of course, like if you've, you're an organization that has a huge budget, I'd love to talk with you. No. If you've got, if you've got a huge budget versus you are maybe an individual in your own business, right?

I think there's different ways to shoot things. If you're working on your own and you want to appeal to a crowd that needs to see a bigger business there's ways that you can do that. But I think that there's a lot of charm in shooting. Maybe very unprofessional video and posting it, but the same thing applies whether it's a very professionally shot video or you being on your own is it's gotta tell a story.

It's gotta be intentional. And some of the greatest reels that you see on social media are people that have just shot stuff on the fly and they decided, oh, there, there was actually something in that I can post. And those become very beloved videos and viral videos. I don't think necessarily it has to be slick.

I think though that yeah, a better video definitely does get more attention a better quality of video. But again, it's all about what is the story and what are you trying to show people.

Kelly Kennedy: Yeah. Yeah. I actually had had a really great conversation with another leader in Edmonton who's been struggling with the video aspect and has been taking a lot of pictures.

And I had a great conversation and I said, Hey I think you should really just start leveraging video. And the reason being is that the pictures are not showing his personality. The pictures are not showing his smile his excitement, the way that he talks about something, his knowledge. There's just so much that's conveyed in a video that I think, I know we're all afraid to do it, but you're missing out on so much if all you're doing is typing things up and attaching pictures.

Ken Gee: Oh, absolutely. I think the adv advent of having videos and social media reels is getting people to see what you're like, like they a relatability, right? Because isn't that the first thing about sales? Yeah. And business development is relatability. If your client, you have the best product, but your clients don't relate to you, they probably are not going to wanna do business with you, right?

People wanna do business with who they relate with, that feel that they can understand you and that they like.

Kelly Kennedy: Yes. And body language is so much of communication, right? Half of communication isn't the words coming outta your mouth. Isn't the smile on their face, isn't the picture? It's what are you doing with your body and you miss that completely if you aren't willing to do the video aspect of it.

I know that I feel more connected to people when I can see and hear them.

Ken Gee: Oh, absolutely. And, these days, like in, in the day when we used to pick up the phone and do cold calls, I know some of you still do, but in the day, picking up and making cold calls, you didn't have necessarily a chance to show your personality or to show No.

Why somebody should choose you over the other person. And I think these days, if you're not taking advantage of that fast forward to 20, 30 years later that I've been in, in business development, like that is a huge virtual calling card that you can use to let people know what you're all about and who you are.

Kelly Kennedy: Yeah. Yeah. What are, as somebody who understands video, who understands how to put together a story, is there something that you're seeing on social media where you're like, man, I wish that they would do that differently? Are you seeing business owners making some serious mistakes with the way that they're communicating with the public?

Ken Gee: That's really interesting because it's only wrong if it doesn't work right.

I think if it's just to po posting something just to post something. Again, it's intentionality. What is it that you're trying to achieve with an, again I keep hitting on that, but I just find going out and just snapping pictures of us eating lunch at an event like that necessarily is not a very strong post.

Yeah. That doesn't tell the story about anything unless it's pictures of something that happened at the event or the people that you're associating with or the people that are part of that organization. I think that's really important. But I think just posting to post a really strong preamble as well on the posts is important.

What is it that I'm looking at? If you take snapping a picture of somebody eating lunch. Maybe that's all you've got from the event, but as long as you've got a really strong preamble in your post and letting know people people know what that whole thing was about, I think that's important. Also, letting people in that preamble know about where they can get more information.

One of the things that drives me crazy on social media these days by companies that actually are professional social media managers is I see a picture of a, of this delicious tasting food. It looks amazing. They say the name of the restaurant, but they don't even tell me the name of the city or their address or how to see their business.

That drives me nuts. I wanna go there. I wanna eat your food, but if I have to struggle to go through your post and go back to find out where you're located, or even if you're in my city, I'm not going, I'm not spending any time on that.

Kelly Kennedy: Yeah. You're not making the customer journey easy.

Ken Gee: No.

To not even show the city. That's the one thing that really blows me away. 'cause I travel a lot for my business. I need to know which city you're in.

Kelly Kennedy: Yes. No it's interesting and I guess the reason that I asked you about the effectiveness of it is, and I, and this has just been my experience.

I've been doing this for quite a while, and one of the things that I realized is that influence. Can make selling easier for you, but you still have to take that step. I think so many people just think I'm gonna put a video out there talking about my company, and people will come. They will just come to us and they will buy our stuff.

Yeah. And that has just, and maybe I'm an outlier, but I doubt it. That has not been my experience. You still have to reach out to these people, make connection with them, introduce yourself, say you'd love to meet them, right? You still have to take that step. And I think there's a misconception with putting yourself out there on the internet with a, with putting yourself out there, with media, doing video, stuff like that.

Yes. It's really great for building connection in my experience, for brand awareness, in my experience, for making it much easier when I reach out to someone and say, Hey, have you heard about me? I'm Kelly Kennedy. I work in business development. If you need some support in that, I can probably help you. It makes that easier, but that doesn't negate my need from having to reach out and make that connection.

Ken Gee: You still have to lead the horses to the barn. There's no difference between producing a really slick video about what you do and and the old days knocking on doors or handing out leaflets. I call those the same things. I think that sometimes people think that they've got beautiful brick and mortar and they open the doors that people will show up and given, I think that's how retail.

Still operates and that's how it's always operated. But look at the state of a lot of retail these days. Sure. People aren't coming. And so Hudsons Bay, I think that having, and I always said this too i, when I started my moving company was, I would know guys that I worked with who were super fantastic moving guys.

They were great workers. And they'd go spend $150,000 on a tricked out truck and trailer. And then they would just say, I'm open for business now, how come I've got no business? And a couple years later, they're selling that truck 'cause the wheels aren't turning. And it's just because you've got the most beautiful truck does not mean.

People are gonna come see you. And same thing is, I have the most beautiful retail outlet, or I have the most beautiful whatever it is. People are not gonna come use your business until you lead them to your business and actually put them in the horses in the barn, as I always tell people, right?

You've gotta tell that story about what you're doing. You've gotta invite people. Even I even had recently somebody ask me about their struggling restaurant and bar. How come people aren't coming? What would you do different? We've got, great food, we've got this great place, and we have bands that play, but no one's showing up.

And I said how often are you out in the community? Are you at your local Chamber of Commerce lunch and telling people about your bar? No. How often are you going out and telling people about what it is that you have to offer? We post it on socials. Yeah, but who, where's your audience?

You have no audience.

Kelly Kennedy: For sure.

And that's the other thing too, and I talk to a lot of people about it when I'm doing my coaching, I explain if you're only posting things on your page, you're reaching the same people over and over again who know who you are and what you do, you have to really expand that reach.

Lately I've been trying to convince people to post more in groups because at least then you're reaching maybe hundreds of thousands or millions of people who don't know who you are, which is more valuable at some point than just posting on your same page. And I've heard, I'm not sure how true it is, Ken, but I've heard that corporate pages on LinkedIn are really struggling to grow.

Ken Gee: That's a whole other discussion, I agree. I would agree with that. I think that, the first step is letting people know who you are. That's a really important thing that is actually part of the strategy at AK Media is when I find out what a client is trying to achieve, it's kinda tell me about the best parts of you, because I want to be able to let people know what that is too.

'cause if people believe in you and they like who you are and what you represent they might wanna do business with you. And that's the first step, right? That's not handing out the leaflet at the door, like in the old days it's more of here's my world. Let me tell you about you and how I'm gonna help you out.

And I think corporate pages maybe don't necessarily do that, although I have seen some really wonderful ones that do a great job. I think that they do exist. But for sure, I and one of the things you asked about community building with Amin and I was, I. We, we built that organization one at a time.

Of the 500 new members that I had brought it into the organization in two years, every one of them, I personally had a phone conversation or met in person. I. Wow. That just is are you prepared to put the time in to that? If you're not, yeah. Then maybe you don't get the reward.

What are you willing to do to get the business?

Kelly Kennedy: There's no replacement for the work. And I think everyone wants the easy button. They want things to happen tomorrow. And in my experience in podcasting, in business, nothing happens tomorrow. And it almost always takes 30% longer than you planned.

Ken Gee: And I get that because that's human nature is we all love to shortcut, myself included.

I'm always looking for ways. You always hear that phrase work smarter, not harder. And I totally agree with that. But I think one thing that will never change will be the fact that if we want something to grow for an organization or business to grow, we really need to do the one-on-one contact until we're in a position to be able to do the mass.

Contact. And I think that's, you're hit, you're hitting that Exactly right. You have to do the work. There's no avoiding it. Here's a lesson for everybody. You can't avoid doing the work.

Kelly Kennedy: Yeah. Yeah. On that note, lead us into AK Media and it's funny that we're talking about this specifically because when I asked you before we started today, does, do you even have a logo yet for AK Media?

You said? No, Kelly, I'm actually too busy to get the logo right now.

Ken Gee: Yeah. And so if any of you out there wanna help me with that I'd be glad to. But no, i've o often had side hustles, right? And these, this is something that I've been working on with people for about the last six years, is working with them on how to promote their business or organization.

So I was really excited to be able to do this full-time now and business has taken off on me. So I'm really excited about that and very thankful for the folks that have decided to give AK Media a chance. But no, AK Media is my exclusive marketing platform for businesses and organizations to tell their story.

And we use a mix of social media, high impact videos, web enhancements, and even the personal appearances that I talked about to get the word out about what they have to offer. And it's about them. So we match their needs first to our range of exclusive services. And if that is helping them develop a presence online with an impactful video, or maybe it's about me.

Connecting them with somebody I know, excuse me, that they can do business with. That's a really important feature of what I do. And I think is my niche, is my niche is interviewing because I think I'm able to get the best outta people and help them tell their story about what it is they've been wanting to tell people.

That was something that I always, when I was working with businesses couple thousand businesses, always the thing that people when they called me was, my business is suffering right now. Help me. How can you help me get the word out about my business? Yeah. It was always the same thing, right? It was like you tell me what a special about your business.

Maybe we should have lunch and we should talk about this so that I can hear your story. I'm all ears, and then you tell me what you're prepared to do and we'll put a strategy together for you. So really what we wanna do at AK Media is match what people want to achieve to our range of services and, yeah, there's an exploratory process there. I tell clients as well, I'm a snoop. I wanna know everything. I want you to tell me I'm here to listen. Tell me everything about your business, what has worked, what hasn't worked? What is it that you're trying to sell? What is it that you need to achieve?

Maybe it's even the numbers. And then we'll look at what is the right piece here to help put that together. But yeah, this has taken a number of years for me to develop a winning strategy as far as how to to take what people tell me and find out what works. And yes, it's been awfully busy.

I pick up, I'm on a webpage trying to figure out how to develop a website for myself. And boom, somebody calls me and says they need help with this. And it's a great, it's a great problem to have. I am humbled and I'm extremely thankful. But I will one day get that page set up, so.

Kelly Kennedy: It's a testament to the community you built. And I think maybe that's maybe the highlight for today's show is just talking about if you're willing to put yourself out there, if you're willing to help people, if you're willing to be a community builder, the community will build you too.

Ken Gee: Absolutely. And you know what? That's the power of the power of building community is being able to take that and do some really great things. And I really wanna plug the great work that they're doing over at Jasper Place Wellness Center that I've been helping with with affordable housing and homeless.

And a couple of years ago I don't know if. Everybody knows the story about this, but a couple of years ago, I really wanted to do something impactful for a cause or for a charity through the, what I was doing building community at the Chamber. And I thought, I would love to take an event at Christmas and really leave that in the minds of people to help make a difference in our community.

And that's how the Declaration Committee to end the affordable housing crisis was born. My good friend, Murray Soroka, who is started Jasper Place Wellness Center, a lot of initiatives in this community to house the homeless as well as work through things like their addictions, as well as getting people who were discharged, homeless from the discharged from the hospital, have got nowhere to go to get them off the streets.

I partnered with him in 2010. And from his vision of building Alberta's first transitional housing apartment, which we did in 2010 and is housed has had 30 apartments in that building since that time. And hundreds of people and thousands of people's lives have been impacted from that one vision.

We started the Declaration Committee and that all came from an idea that let's get Edmonton business together. People that I know who are caring, who want to help make a difference in this community. We brought them together at an event. My Debbie was great. She came up with the concept of help people understand that this is a commitment to help.

And she came up with the idea of having a declaration for Edmonton businesses, a sign. Put your commitment where your mouth is, sign off on that. That has grown to a point where now in just two years, our committee was able to, Show the results as we worked quietly. We had a lot of really well placed people on our committee.

And now we are. At four houses that have already been built. Wow. That house 12 people at any one time. And so as a result I think it's almost 500 people now have been through that in the last two years. And a lot of them have been placed in permanent now are able to be in a position to have permanent residences.

This has also been great because bringing partners together was my goal. It seemed that everybody cared, but nobody knew the first place to start. And so they would go do their own things, right? They would go and hand out sandwiches or they would go do the things that they thought were really important and that was really great.

But we thought if we could work together and achieve things together what an impact we could make. So we had somebody who was an emergency room doctor. We had a hospital foundation. We've got a number of business people in the community. We've got a mental health therapist, myself. We all got, and some benefactors of philanthropists, we got those people all together and said, this is the vision.

Let's do this together. Eventually we got levels of government to jump on board. I was really proud of Jasper Place Wellness Center a few weeks ago being asked to be the host of the provinces announcement of a $30 million commitment to affordable housing. Wow. And that helped us build another house, which was amazing.

So getting everybody to buy on board, how did that start? It started with just a vision and talking to people. And it was really funny because one of our corporate partners that has come on board and has now helped us to the tune of hundreds of thousands of dollars was just somebody I met at an event and I said, Hey, did you hear about the homelessness initiative we're working on?

No. Tell me about it. And from that, there was a vision that was shared and they're on board now and I'm so thankful to them that they. Took the time to listen, but how did that happen? It was just my opening my mouth and talking to people. So great things can happen. And really cool thing about networking.

As Kelly is when you network. The, it's almost always the person you talk to is never the person you end up doing business with.

Kelly Kennedy: No. Yeah. It's always

Ken Gee: who they lead you to and it's, that's right. It's fun. It is so fun to watch where contacts and leads take you to, so.

Kelly Kennedy: It's like entrepreneurship in general, you can start off with an idea, but it's pretty rare that, that, that initial idea is where you end up because greater opportunities come, and I always say the secret to success in entrepreneurship isn't having the best idea. It's being around long enough to say yes when that idea walks through your front door.

Yes. When I look at coaching, coaching was never on the plan for Capital Business Development or Kelly Kennedy. I'd never even really thought or heard much about it until I got into the podcast side of it. Right now we do group coaching, we do one-on-one coaching. We've created the Catalyst Club community where we do coaching and build people up and support them.

1. None of these initiatives were on plan one. So they just, they the opportunity walked through the front door and said, do you want to try this? And I was like, yeah, let's do it.

Ken Gee: Yeah. And, And as entrepreneurs, I think we have to always be open. We have to be prepared, for opportunities that will come to us. And when you're not prepared and those opportunities come you, if you're not looking for them or you're not aware of them sometimes they don't happen. Yeah. And just to tag onto that about working with the homeless as, as well as working with affordable housing, we are always looking for people in the community that wanna make a difference to help us with that.

We can't do it by ourselves. And part of being an entrepreneur and a leader is knowing that you are limited. On what you can achieve without other people. So yeah, for sure. If you have an interest in helping you, just wanna find out what we've been doing over the last year and a half, two years since I started this, I'd be glad to give you a tour.

Be glad to give you an update. 'cause you know what? We can all help in some way. And a lot of people, I don't have money. I don't, I'm not a philanthropist. You can be a philanthropist in a lot of other ways. Maybe you know somebody or you can use your influence to help us make some contacts where we can where we can do that, make a difference in our community.

And just imagine what we could all do if we were working all on the same page, right? Making an IM impact in that community. 'cause we all wanna see our bus or we all wanna see our community thrive. And we don't wanna see the things that we're seeing right now out there. And I think the state that it's gotten to it's getting worse.

And if we don't do something, I, we don't even recognize our community. Yeah, so for those of us that have grown up here, so.

Kelly Kennedy: Yeah. Yeah. My commitment then to that is if you can give me some details on that, I will make sure that I push that out to everybody who follows me on LinkedIn, some of the groups that I'm a part of, and we'll try and spread the word for you, Ken.

Also, for the people that are listening, where can people get ahold of you? I know you're pretty strong on LinkedIn, but is there a phone number, an email where people can reach out to you if they wanna hire you for AK Media or if they want to support any of your initiatives?

Ken Gee: Yeah, thanks Kelly.

Whether it's homelessness, you wanna talk about or you wanna find out ways to make an impact with your business, with our services. Pretty simple. Announcer ken@gmail.com. I'm on Instagram, I am on LinkedIn just as Ken g. You can reach me on Facebook Messenger. You can call me if you want. Seven eight zero nine oh nine seven two three one one day.

I will get that website set up, but drop me a message and I appreciate that, Kelly. That's great. The more that we can get the word out about what we're doing on some of these philanthropic aspects, that would be great. But in terms of being able to help people with their businesses, I am all ears.

And probably, the biggest way that I meet people besides them contacting me electronically is just meeting at an event. If you see me at an event that I'm at, come up and talk to me. I'd love to meet you and find out about what it is that you're doing in the community.

Kelly Kennedy: I think I introduced you the first time as a local celebrity, so I think pretty well everybody in Alberta knows who Ken Gee is at this point.

But what about for the people that are outside of Alberta? Do you still provide services across Canada, or are you really located to Alberta?

Ken Gee: That's pretty funny. I'm a local celebrity. That's if, that's if going to every event that you can possibly get your hands on a ticket, that's what that makes you, then that's me.

But no, absolutely. Doing had gone down to the US to do some, to work and meet with some people earlier this year. So no. We are not limited. There's no borders when you're doing business anymore. So if you've got an organization or a business anywhere around the world, and one of the things that I bring to the table is having owned a business in the past that was a global business doing global logistics.

I know what's involved with that. So that is something that I am definitely able to help you with. If you're watching this podcast from anywhere that you're at, glad to provide those services for you. But again, announcerken@gmail.com, that is my handle for horse racing. That is my handle on Instagram for business.

Pretty simple to remember.

Kelly Kennedy: Amazing. And it'll also be tagged in every post that we have for this show and in the show notes. So if you're looking for Ken, he'll be easy to find. And also just follow him on LinkedIn. He is always doing a thousand things. He's fun to follow. So again, it's been a pleasure, man.

Ken Gee: Me too. It's a real honor to have been invited back, Kelly, and so happy for your success. I know that you'd be great. I knew that you'd be great at this when you first started, so.

Kelly Kennedy: I would not be here. And I can say that wholeheartedly without the support of our incredible business community, yourself and Amin Samji and just frankly the Edmonton business community in general, who has really gotten behind the show, rallied for it.

It's pretty cool. We're a worldwide show now, but. I don't forget my roots and I don't forget where I came from. And at the end of the day community is everything. And the Edmonton business community, I love each and every one of you. I would not be here without you. I still feature many Edmontonian businesses because I love our city.

And I just wanted to say from the bottom of my heart, thank you so much for believing in me.

Ken Gee: It wasn't hard to Kelly. You've done a great job.

Kelly Kennedy: Until next time you've been listening to the Business Development Podcast, and we will 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.