get into advertising?" So I'm like, "Okay!" So, I literally put together a book -- and when I came back to Canada, the boy that I met was from Edmonton, cause I'm originally from Montreal. So I moved to Edmonton, my parents were not thrilled at all about that. Moved to Edmonton, I put together this book and I didn't know what I was doing. And I nearly went knocking on -- this is back in '92. So this is before Google, this is before cell phones, before the internet. I literally put together this paper book and went knocking on doors, went on the yellow pages... man, some of the younger listeners won't even know what those are. And the biggest, as for me, met the best and biggest companies. And I knocked on doors, and I went to this one agency and he hired me as a copywriter. And he told me after, "I hired you because you sold yourself, you know?" And I'm pretty persistent. So anyway, I worked in advertising. I worked there for a couple of years, then I moved to Calgary and I got a job at an agency here. And then I worked at a few pretty reputable ad agencies in Calgary as a copywriter. And I did well... I wasn't great at it. I mean, I did okay. And I'd wake up in the morning and I wasn't incredibly passionate about it. You know, I'd wake up and go to work, and I just thought, "Is this what I'm going to do for the rest of my life?" So I did that for six years and went to a few, I think it was at three different agencies. And then by the last agency, I was like, I need to make a change. So I went back to Montreal and I remember talking to my dad and didn't know what I want to be when I grow up. And now I think I was in my thirties. Give you a little idea of how old I am. And again, I didn't know what I wanted to do, but I came back to Calgary and I love people and I love networking. So I literally would talk to one person, have coffee and they would say, "You know, you should talk to so-and-so" and then I would talk to that person. And they would say, "You should talk to that person." And people were so helpful... never even heard of this industry. I didn't know much about it, like nothing. You don't know what you don't know until you're in it. And then you start seeing hats and logos everywhere, right? So I ended up just through networking -- someone recommended, then I talked to this person, and I did some research and I'm like, "Oh, that could be fun." So when I found an industry that I wanted to be in because people are like, "You should go in sales, you know, you're good with people." And then it's like, "Well, I don't want to sell cell phones, but I want to sell photocopiers what am I going to sell?" And so then, I learned about this industry and how much fun it is and how it's such a big industry that we really don't know. And then, I did the same thing... I went in the yellow pages, I looked at the biggest ads, who were the biggest as, and those were the company I was going to hit up. No experience again, and knocked on doors, and it was down to two companies. Two of the biggest at the time and best in my mind. And I was just persistent. And the reason I went with the company that I ended up with was that I didn't have a car yet, and they were closer to my house. I'm not kidding. And so then, he hired me. He was really generous because I had zero experience. But I was tenacious and persistent and I guess that's what you need in sales.
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