My phone call with the Premier of Ontario
Quite the random but eventful week with a fun phone call
Happy Monday folks,
A pretty random but fun story from my last week in business.
Let’s jump in:
Story: My quick chat with the head honcho of our province
A pretty surreal experience this week as I had a quick chat with Doug Ford who is the Premier of Ontario.
For those of you who live in the US, or really any country other than Canada, the Premier is basically the top government official of my province (Ontario). So kind of like talking to the governor of your state in the US.
Here’s how it went down:
There was a big change in the Canadian immigration industry last week as the government put a cap on the number of international students that can come to Canada this year. There were some other changes too and I wanted to try and chat with one of the education ministers to see if it’s something we (Visto) could work on or help with.
So of course, I start looking up key players at the ministry, calling in, leaving voicemails, sending emails, etc.
Crickets…
Then on Thursday I remember that my dad, 3 weeks prior, happened to meet the Premier of Ontario in Florida and got his cellphone number. Now I’m sure there are many opinions out there about our Premier, Doug Ford, but he was friendly with my dad and even said to “text him anytime”.
Well, my dad sent me his contact info and I figured “what the heck”, let’s give this a try!
So I wrote up a short text asking if their education ministry needed any help and hit send on my phone: the lovely blue text went through and I saw the patented iPhone “Delivered” go through.
I put my phone down and went back to work, not expecting much.
Within ten minutes my phone starts ringing from an unknown number. I picked up:
“Hi Josh, this is Doug Ford speaking, how are you?”
Completely shocked, I proceeded to jumble my words and get out a response. After all, I wasn’t expecting ANY response, let alone a callback within 10 minutes.
It was a quick, friendly call and he said he was passing along my info and message to the absolute key minister I wanted to chat with.
Wow, not too shabby.
And even though I didn’t expect that to pan out either, she actually did call me, from her personal cellphone, the very next day!
Now again, I don’t really want to bring politics into this as it’s not the focus of this newsletter, but I have to give it to Doug - he hooked me up bigtime.
And I just wanted to share the story because it’s not every day I get to talk to the Premier and a Minister of Ontario all within 24 hours…
Key takeaway: ABN, and shoot your shot
Always, be, networking.
That story never would’ve happened if my dad, God bless him, wasn’t a pretty good shmoozer (far better than I am). So my first takeaway is to always be networking as you never know who you’ll meet, when you’ll meet them and how those relationships can play out down the road.
And second, never be afraid to shoot your shot. I’ve been cold calling for years so I never thought twice about sending that text, but you might be one call, text, email, or whatever, away from that next big hit, opportunity, sale, job, you name it.
Shoot your shot enough times and you’ll get a lucky bounce or two along the way.
Content for the week:
Book(s): I finished Onward: How Starbucks Fought for Its Life without Losing Its Soul, and really enjoyed it. It’s written by Howard Schultz, founder of Starbucks, but focused on a very narrow period in time from around 2007 to 2010, where he came back as CEO of Starbucks to try and rescue it from a very rough patch.
If you’re interested in topics like business recoveries, navigating tough times, business leadership and strategy, managing people and just business biographies in general, I think you’ll enjoy it. I certainly did and learned a lot along the way.
Next up: Iacocca: An Autobiography by Lee Iacocca and William Novak about the former president of Ford and rescuer of Chrysler. I’m about 20 pages in and liking it so far. Stay tuned…
Tiktok: my most viewed Tiktok vid from last week was this clip about one of the harsh realities of building businesses.
Thanks as always for following along on my journey and have an awesome week,
- Josh Schachnow
Canadian immigration lawyer, CEO at Visto.ai
If you’re looking for more of my help, you can check out:
My immigration tech platform, Visto, that helps Canadian immigration firms prep and file applications much quicker.
Make sure you’re subscribed on Youtube where I post the weekly vlog and am also posting shorter snippets of my tips/advice as Youtube Shorts!