Neo Financial has accomplished a lot since its conception in 2019. This becomes especially apparent when compared to the hundreds-year-old financial institutions Neo is challenging in Canada. In the distinct and gridlocked Canadian banking Jeff Jeff Adamson Co-founder & Head of Partnerships and his Neo co-founders are making room for innovation and customer-first service - giving traditional financial institutions a run for their money.
Welcome to the The Voice of Retail , I’m your host Michael LeBlanc, and this podcast is brought to you in conjunction with Retail Council of Canada.
Neo Financial has accomplished a lot since its conception in 2019. This becomes especially apparent when compared to the hundreds-year-old financial institutions Neo is challenging in Canada.
In the distinct and gridlocked Canadian banking system, Jeff Adamson Co-founder & Head of Partnerships
and his Neo co-founders are making room for innovation and customer-first service - giving traditional financial institutions a run for their money.
In this episode of The Voice of Retail, I talk with Jeff about Neo Financial and the change that it’s bringing to both banking and retail space. As a former Olympic wrestler and a co-founder of Skip the Dishes, Jeff shares his unique insights on what it means to build a resilient business in Canada helping consumer and retailers alike see more value for their time and treasure.
Let’s listen in.
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Until next time, stay safe and have a great week!
Michael LeBlanc is the Founder & President of M.E. LeBlanc & Company Inc and a Senior Advisor to Retail Council of Canada as part of his advisory and consulting practice. He brings 25+ years of brand/retail/marketing & eCommerce leadership experience, and has been on the front lines of retail industry change for his entire career. Michael is the producer and host of a network of leading podcasts including Canada’s top retail industry podcast, The Voice of Retail, plus Global E-Commerce Tech Talks and The Food Professor with Dr. Sylvain Charlebois. You can learn more about Michael here or on LinkedIn.
Michael LeBlanc 00:04
Welcome to The Voice of Retail, I'm your host Michael LeBlanc. This podcast is brought to you in conjunction with Retail Council of Canada.
Michael LeBlanc 00:10
Neo Financial has accomplished a lot since its conception in 2019. This becomes especially apparent when compared to the hundreds-year-old financial institutions Neo is challenging in Canada.
Michael LeBlanc 00:20
In the distinct and gridlocked Canadian banking system. Jeff Adamson, Co-founder, and Head of Partnerships
Michael LeBlanc 00:26
and his Neo co-founders are making room for innovation and customer-first service - giving traditional financial institutions a run for their money.
Michael LeBlanc 00:34
In this episode of The Voice of Retail, I talk with Jeff about Neo Financial and the change that it’s bringing to both banking and retail space. As a former Olympic wrestler and a co-founder of Skip the Dishes, Jeff shares his unique insights on what it means to build a resilient business in Canada helping consumer and retailers alike see more value for their time and treasure.
Jeff Adamson 00:52
On the retail side, we actually partner up with some of the leading Canadian retailers and actually work with them to kind of get into financial technology. And they're able to leverage our platform to grow their sales and to really reach their customer goals, whether that be new customers, whether that be getting their current customers to spend more.
Michael LeBlanc 01:13
Let's listen in now.
Michael LeBlanc 01:15
Jeff, welcome to The Voice of Retail podcast. How are you doing this afternoon?
Jeff Adamson 01:18
Living the dream, Michael, thanks for having me.
Michael LeBlanc 01:20
Well, it's my pleasure. I mean, such an interesting background and interesting space. You're now in I got lots lots of questions. So, I'm really looking forward to this. And let's just jump right in. Tell us about yourself and, and your background and, and what you do at Neo Financial?
Jeff Adamson 01:37
Well, I'll try to keep it the abbreviated version, Michael, but I grew up in a middle-class family in Saskatchewan, just south of Saskatoon. And I'd say for the most part of my life, I think I identified as a high-performance athlete, I was really involved in sports as a kid was fortunate enough.
Michael LeBlanc 01:55
You were a wrestler I tho-, did I see wrestling was it?
Jeff Adamson 01:58
Yeah, exactly.
Michael LeBlanc 01:59
Yeah, yeah.
Jeff Adamson 01:59
So, I did a bunch of different ones as a kid. And you know, I was really fortunate to have parents who were involved and kind of pushed me into, into sports and really fell in love with the sport of wrestling and was fortunate enough to represent Canada on the kind of world stage for a better part of a decade, and, and really traveled around the world got to see a lot of different things got to go to a lot of different countries. And that was really where I got a lot of that exposure to businesses in different countries and kind of was able to contrast those to what was happening in Canada. And it was right after the 2012 Olympic Games, I came back to Canada. And that was when I caught up with two brothers Josh and Chris somewhere and we thought, hey, maybe, maybe we could take a go at starting our own company. And we co-founded skip the dishes. And, and and then after skip we kind of a lot of the same team members and co-founded Neo Financial.
Michael LeBlanc 03:00
Well, I want to really get into Neo Financial, but a couple of quick questions. First, you're just on that, on that personal note, you know, as a high-performance athlete, what lessons did you kind of bring to the business world? What do you think was the most beneficial? Because it takes a tremendous amount of sacrifice of time, and a lot of other things, but, but do you find, would you advise anyone who has the opportunity or any way shape or form that you brought with you lessons from, from that experience?
Jeff Adamson 03:30
Absolutely. Michael, you know, I think there are so many similarities. And there are so many, we could have a whole podcast just about all the transferable skills between high-performance sport and business. I think the biggest ones, though, would be, you know, I think in order to be good at anything, especially if your goal is to be among the best in the world, it really takes like you mentioned, a lot of sacrifices, a lot of character. But I think more than anything, a ton of resilience.
Michael LeBlanc 04:01
Really, yeah, yeah.
Jeff Adamson 04:01
And I think there's been some people you've had on the podcast, they talk about some of the challenges that they've had, and all the times they've been knocked down and have to get up. That's basically I mean, no one does a sport and never loses.
Michael LeBlanc 04:15
Yeah.
Jeff Adamson 04:15
And, you know, I've had hundreds of losses in my, in my career, my slight athletic career.
Michael LeBlanc 04:15
Right on, yeah.
Jeff Adamson 04:21
And then, of course, you get into any business. You just get tons of roadblocks and failures and challenges and then you have to figure out, Okay, how do you get by them and then work with a team to overcome them.
Jeff Adamson 04:30
It's so interesting, my little personal perspective, my daughter is a high-performance athlete, and I can see.
Jeff Adamson 04:36
Oh, which sport?
Michael LeBlanc 04:37
She's soccer. She's a great soccer player. And, you know, it's interesting because it taught her how to lose.
Jeff Adamson 04:44
Absolutely.
Michael LeBlanc 04:45
because as you say, you know, you lose in some ways you lose, hopefully, you win more than you lose, but you certainly understand that there's a next and that there's a, you know, as you described your resilience and, and just that kind of, you know, understanding that with effort comes great results. So, anyway, thank you for that diversion.
Michael LeBlanc 05:02
Now, let's talk about Skip for a second. And we're here to talk about Neo. But I just, I can't help talk about Skip, because I think it, it for me informs me a little bit about your perspective about going in new and different paths. Talk about how you saw that coming. I mean, you certainly didn't see what's going on now with the COVID era coming, which is probably accelerated the need for things like skip, but how did you and your partners see that happening, was it something you saw internationally? And how did you get the gumption to form that, kind of, new thing that eventually you took it to scale and, and sold so very successful?
Jeff Adamson 05:36
Yeah, you know, I think it was, as I mentioned earlier, on the kind of traveling abroad and seeing how things were being done in different countries, my partner, actually Josh Sumair, he was actually working as a banker in, in downtown London. And that was where he kind of got, I think, first-hand exposure. And I'd seen it as well in a lot of other countries. But it was, really, Josh that said, "Hey, there's all these on-demand services in a lot of these large markets", and back home, we, I think Uber maybe had just launched in Canada, maybe one city, really no on-demand services of which to speak of, and people in these cities would use them to add more time to their day. And you would, you know, on-demand groceries, on-demand food, on-demand dry cleaning, dog walking, you name it.
Michael LeBlanc 06:22
Yeah.
Jeff Adamson 06:22
And they were able to kind of save so much time and then use th-, that extra time that they have to get better at whatever skill they wanted to or even just to spend time with family. And we looked back in Canada, and there, really, wasn't a ton. I think at the time, only about 5% of the restaurants in Canada offered delivery. And we thought well there’s probably.
Michael LeBlanc 06:42
Yeah, and they were all pizza parlors, right?
Jeff Adamson 06:43
Pizza, Chinese food, and yeah, and even the restaurants that did offer delivery, it was a real pain in the butt because it's logistics.
Michael LeBlanc 06:49
Yeah.
Jeff Adamson 06:49
It's a lot different. It's, it's a lot. It's like UPS trying to open up a restaurant. It's really a different skill set. So, maybe UPS will maybe try that. I don't think I recommend it.
Michael LeBlanc 07:01
Yeah, yeah. Who knows man, like, Listen, who knows. But
Jeff Adamson 07:05
But it was that. So, we saw that gap there, Michael. And I think the other piece was that Canada is really a net importer of consumer brands. And there hasn't been a lot of consumer brands that have reached a national scale. In the last couple decades. You know, you've got the breakout ones like Lululemon, I mean, Blackberry was one of them.
Michael LeBlanc 07:27
Yeah.
Jeff Adamson 07:27
But outside of that there really just wasn't one. And we thought, Well listen, if we don't do this, someone else is going to do it. And we have already seen how they were doing in other countries. And we thought that we were really proud Canadians, we wanted to be the ones that were going to be to build a brand that we thought could reach scale. And it's so we started up it was way harder than we thought. I think that that entrepreneur ignorance and you know, blissful ignorance, in the beginning, was kind of allowed us to start but
Michael LeBlanc 07:56
Right, on. Got you through Yeah, yeah.
Jeff Adamson 07:57
And so that was kind of the gap and the opportunity. And some of the motivation as well.
Michael LeBlanc 08:01
Interesting, and coming from the Prairies operating from Saskatchewan, I found, you know, uniformly, my friends from Saskatchewan, they're hard workers. I mean, you know, the value of, of work well done. So, it's, I also find it interesting that you stay put, stayed in Saskatchewan didn't move to a, you know, Vancouver, Montreal, or Toronto and the EU operated out generally out of the Prairies. Was that an advantage for you? Do you think it gave you a clear-eyed perspective on the rest of the nation?
Jeff Adamson 08:28
I think that there's a ton of merit to you know, and I don't, I don't actually think that Skip or even, even Neo, for that matter could exist anywhere else because of the type of people that we were able to bring together. And, you know, one of the I think the choruses that we sung quite a bit at, at Skip and again at Nio was really putting the Prairies on the map. And in the prairies, like, listen, you're gonna find some of the hardest working people that you've ever met.
Michael LeBlanc 08:55
Yeah.
Jeff Adamson 08:55
But at the same time, this down-to-earth mentality. That is, I don't know if it's a small town thing or what it is, but no one's, really, trying to prove that they're better than one another, they, really, just want something that is meaningful, that's going to have an impact, and that they can work hard towards. And I think that's what, that's what Skip has given people when we started it up. And then Neo, it's, really, this idea that, hey, we can build a multi-billion dollar brand anywhere. We can, but we want to do that here in the Prairies. We chose to do it here. And there's, obviously, a lot of pressure for us to go to San Francisco or Toronto,
Michael LeBlanc 09:34
Sure.
Jeff Adamson 09:34
or New York to do that. Because of you know, that's kind of the narrative that people know.
Michael LeBlanc 09:39
Interesting. All right, well, let's talk about Neo. What's, what is it and what's so disruptive about it? And why was that, that seems like a daunting task, to disrupt Canada's financial institutions, but tell me all about it.
Jeff Adamson 09:52
Yeah, I think that to understand, Neo, you really have to take a step back and understand the context and to understand really how Canada is so different than in many other places in the world, Canada is actually one of the only places in the world where five companies have over 90% of the banking market share. So, it's just dominated by these, you know, kind of an oligarch, group of companies. And whenever you have a situation where you have a couple companies dominating, generally, the consumer is not the one that wins. And on top of that, Canadians pay some of the highest fees in the developed world. So, you know, if we were paying lots of fees, it would be, you know, one thing, but are we getting more value out of it, and, you know, we, we pay some of the highest fees, but we also get next to no savings rate on our deposits. There's lots of strings attached and hidden fees. And a lot of the banking system is built on this 1950s coding language called Cobalt, and it's just not designed for, I'd say, the modern consumer.
Jeff Adamson 10:59
So, what we're trying to do is, really, provide a banking system that is more fair, it's more inclusive, it's more transparent, that's more modern, something that people will actually enjoy using. So, we really, we operate, currently, two products for consumers, and that is a next-generation MasterCard that gives Canadians some of the highest cashback in the country, so really allows them to stretch their dollar and get more bang for their buck. We also have one of the leading high-interest savings accounts with really no strings attached. So, I think at the moment, it's about 1.3%, you know, roughly 2030 times higher than the Big Five banks, and really making it easy for people to interact with us. So, it's a lot of modern tools to, to manage their money. And that really ties into a marketplace of personalized offers, where the more people actually use their Neo card, the more personalized cashback they get. That's the consumer side is Michael. And then on the, on the retail side, we actually partner up with some of the leading Canadian retailers and actually work with them to kind of get into financial technology. And they're able to leverage our platform to grow their sales and to really reach their customer goals, whether that be new customers, whether that be getting their current customers to spend more, or even to retain the customers that they have.
Michael LeBlanc 12:26
Well, you certainly burst onto my radar screen and onto the scene with the, with your deal with Hudson's Bay. And as a former Hudson's Bay executive, and I know how important the credit card is to Hudson's Bay and to retailers I actually launched a credit card at the Shopping Channel. How, how did you break through how did a basically a startup from the Prairies come through? And, and what, what are these partners seeing in you? What, what did you offer them that was different? And tell me how you displace their existing partner, give me, give me a sense of the history of that one. It's pretty interesting.
Jeff Adamson 13:00
Yeah, well, and I'm not going to, I'm not going to speak for HBC you have to have Ian Nairn on to share his side. But, but I think that what we're hearing, Michael, from a lot of the retailers that we're working with is that, and this actually goes back to when we were at Skip, we had a lot of retailers, specifically restaurants, of course, that would come to us and these are the big ones. These are, the, some of the biggest brands in the world and, you know, I was expecting them to actually know a lot more about their customers than we did. And a lot of the questions we were getting asked from these brands were, "Hey, we want to know, we want to know what our customers’ frequency is, or where else are they shopping, and we want to be able to increase their loyalty and what, what share of wallet do we have with them.", and I kind of just assumed that they had this information.
Jeff Adamson 13:48
And what we realized was that a lot of the data that a brand would need in order to really understand our customer was trapped within the financial system is really out of reach for them. So, part of the strategy here at Neo is really partnering up with these retailers and helping them form stronger relationships with their customers. So, from day one, we didn't build Neo, with the thought of partnering up with retailers like Hudson's Bay, as an afterthought. We really built Neo, specifically to partner up with retailers so that they can, you know, acquire new customers or build financial relationships with their customers gain better data and understand them a lot better grow their share of the customers’ wallet. So, all the integrations, all the technology that we built, all the personalization has all been built from day one from the ground up completely in-house. I think we have about 95% of our technology is built in-house.
Michael LeBlanc 14:47
Wow, wow.
Jeff Adamson 14:48
And that has been built specifically for a brand like Hudson's Bay who really uses their, their card portfolio to build a deeper relationship with their customers.
Michael LeBlanc 15:01
Well, I was gonna say, it's interesting because, you know, again, having been behind the scenes at Hudson's Bay, a decade or two ago, I know how complex their payment systems are. And of course, it's mission-critical. And it's interesting to hear you talk about building from the ground up integration with their systems. And it's not just Hudson's Bay, of course, every retailer has complex POS systems, is that a strength? Is that a strength for you, because I'm, I'm so intrigued by the fact that they would choose someone who wasn't built on a common platform, for example, like riding on the rails of something else. Tell me a bit about that.
Jeff Adamson 15:35
Well, I mean, the nice thing is that I mean, we're on the MasterCard rails, so virtually every retailer is also on those rails. So, that makes getting going with a retailer very, very easy. Now, when you want to get into deeper integrations, that's actually a real strength of ours, because of our company, we've got over 450 employees, virtually half of that is engineers, product designers, there's not many financial institutions, or FinTechs, that are in this space that are really composed the same way we are. If you look at a company, like take Plaid, for example, one of the reasons why Plaid is actually so difficult to compete with, that they've scaled the long tail of all these banking integrations they've integrated with so many banks globally. And that is really our strength, as well as that we're able to integrate quite quickly, with very little work needed from the retail side. And really, and then start kind of pulling back the layers and figuring out okay, "how can we actually drive a higher share of wallet, from your customers?", "How are we able to leverage, you know, out of store spend to really create more value for the consumer?", because ultimately, that's really what most consumers want is they want to be able to engage with the brand, but they want to get more value and by understanding,
Michael LeBlanc 16:53
It's about relevance, right, it's about relevance from the, I used to have these long discussions about the communications. And we tried, we had pretty good, you know, back in HBC, when we had HBC Rewards and millions and millions of members. And so, we thought the cross-pollenization, cross-shop, cross-sell, but it was really "How do we make the message more relevant?" and relevance means generally success, right? Talk to me about something that's right, that's relevant to me, right?
Jeff Adamson 17:18
Well, in that financial data, Michael is so informative in understanding the motivations of the person. And I think that's really what has been a struggle for a lot of retailers is that this data has always been kind of, out of reach for them. It's always been difficult to, to use and to access and leverage and, you know, the Bay, among many other retailers, they don't want data for the sake of data, they want to be able to leverage this.
Michael LeBlanc 17:44
Yeah, yeah, right on.
Jeff Adamson 17:44
and actually, have a great conversation with their customers and be relevant create value and, and really have a position when it comes to a payment strategy, which a lot of retailers in Canada are just starting to wake up to, because they've seen the success of, of Loblaws. And Triangle, Walmart has really reinvented their program. And so, we're really making it easy for everyone else here in Canada to get in on that action.
Michael LeBlanc 18:10
So, it basically provides the insights that, for example, some retailers get from third-party coalition programs put together, right I mean, because you can get that kind of data with a second license plate, so to speak at the transaction level, right. But one and done is pretty, pretty seamless. Yeah.
Jeff Adamson 18:27
Yeah, well, even, even just think for a moment, Michael, about the, the moment the transaction occurs at any retailer, it really is this transfer of value away from wherever you're spending your money, to whatever points program that you're a member of. So, let's just say that you have an AirMiles card, for example, if you go and spend money at your favorite local grocery store, the interchange fees that those retailers are getting charged is getting converted into a currency that generally speaking, can't be redeemed back at the store, you purchase that so as that retailer, that moment that transaction occurred was really a value transfer away from them to someone else. And not even really to the consumer because it gets converted to generally a currency that can't be used as cash. So, I think there is really I think people are waking up to this now and that's why more and more retailers are contacting us and saying, "Hey Jeff, like how can we actually create a payment strategy?", and that, and that's where we really start getting involved in helping them out.
Michael LeBlanc 19:32
Well, you said the magic word or some kind of word fees certainly prominent on the minds of retailers even pre-pandemic in the before time was, was fees that they had to pay for credit card and it's certainly now even more so with the great acceleration more e-commerce means, you know, more, as well more cashless transactions. So, what role does this Neo play? It's a huge issue. Is there a solution that you have for retailers that, that can help them manage their fees and the complexity of cards?
Jeff Adamson 20:06
I think if I were a retailer, I would also be upset at having to pay out, you know, potentially millions and millions of dollars in credit card fees, and really not getting any value in return for that, not getting any data to better understand your customers and their behaviors and motivations. So, I actually very understandably, I'd say empathize with a lot of the retailers that Skip the Dishes, we paid millions of dollars in credit card fees and fraud chargebacks. And,
Michael LeBlanc 20:36
Yeah.
Jeff Adamson 20:38
And I think that the frustration is over the fact that no one wants to be paying for something where they don't really get any value back. And the, I think credit cards have become commoditized. For the most part, they're very undifferentiated decide from a different loyalty program attached to it, but the card acceptance is virtually universal at this point. So, it really comes down to, you know, is there a way of avoiding the fees, I mean, that, that I don't know, it comes out of how do you get more value out of the fees that you're paying. And for us, we're able to use that transaction, to power personalized marketing for brands, we’re able to use it to give data back to the brands that we work with.
Jeff Adamson 21:23
And so, if you think about it, from a, from a customer perspective, if you're a Neo cardholder, the more they use Neo, the more personalized offers that they get. And those offers are generated in US partnering up with these retail brands. And the retail brands are happy, because they're able to generate incremental sales that come from all the cardholders’ spend. And the cardholders are happy because they're getting, you know, 4 or 5% cashback and they otherwise wouldn't have gotten before. So, it's really creating that, that win/win relationship between the customer and the retailer, that is really powered on the credit card rails. And, and again, like we, we really work with small businesses, we work with about 5000 brands across Canada from coast to coast. Some of them are Mom & Pop shops, local grocery stores, some of them are as large as Hudson's Bay or even larger. So, there's a common problem. I think that we're solving this pain point, that we're solving across the whole spectrum, across all retail categories, grocery gas, you know, alcohol, sales, retail, clothing, as well as small local brands and all the way up to Hudson's Bay.
Michael LeBlanc 22:37
Well, you've accomplished a lot, in not a lot of time, relative to this, you know, the hundreds-year-old financial institutions what, what's next? You know, it's a funny question for such an organization who's already fast-paced and, and making big moves International, you you mentioned earlier on where and how you made decisions about where to be based, and what's next, what's next for you?
Jeff Adamson 23:02
So, I think for us, you know, we want to fix the relationship that Canadians have with their money, we want to include retailers more into the financial relationship with customers and really cut them into the system. You know, heading into the pandemic, Michael, close to, I think it was over 50%, actually, of Canadians are actually in a state of debt, hopelessness, you know, they were actually had given up on servicing their debts. And at the same time, the big five Canadian banks, I think, have almost doubled their profits, year over year, during that same period of time. So, we really want to bring some balance back to this system. And so, we've got 450, folks here, in our Calgary office, we just announced we're hiring 300 people in our Winnipeg office. And we really want to become a one-stop shop for really any type of financial service that a Canadian would want. And to really help retailers build these stronger relationships with their customers to grow their own sales. By, by using the, the type of fin-, financial technology that we've created. You know, it's very early days, and you're saying, like,
Michael LeBlanc 24:14
Yeah.
Jeff Adamson 24:14
you've done, done a lot. I mean, it feels like just yesterday, it was just, you know, me and a couple other people here working on this.
Michael LeBlanc 24:21
Yeah.
Jeff Adamson 24:21
But, you know, it's a pretty ambitious goal. But we're fortunate that we've got such a great team that we're doing it with, and we're excited that, that we were on this journey with a lot of great brands as well.
Michael LeBlanc 24:33
Well, you've got the pedigree of cracking the code with skip so you certainly you've got success in then in the DNA, I would say where do we, where can listeners go to learn a bit more or get in touch with you if they want to learn a bit more either mostly as a, as a retailer, but perhaps even as a consumer themselves?
Jeff Adamson 24:52
Yeah, so, if I was a consumer or even a retailer, I would, I would go to NeoFinancial.com and check us out there. We've got, we've got some information. I would also follow us on Instagram as well, we actually do, we create a ton of beautiful content with a lot of the brands that we partner with. We've got an in-house studio, so we'll send crews out and we'll, we'll, kind of, shoot beautiful video, still photography. And we feature that on our Instagram and, and so, there's also a blog as well for Canadians who are looking for more information about just how to, how to better manage their wealth. So, it's, it's really, those are the places I would go and again, just if you have any questions we've got a form you can fill out and, and learn a little bit more.
Michael LeBlanc 25:34
Well, fantastic. And, you surprised me there Instagram wasn't what I thought you were gonna say. I do hear that a lot from retailers but I don't hear, I don't hear much, that, from financial institutions. So, that's,
Jeff Adamson 25:45
Are you on Instagram, Michael?
Michael LeBlanc 25:46
I am on Instagram, so I'm gonna have to follow you and.
Jeff Adamson 25:50
I will say that Neo Financials Instagram is a lot more eventful than mine. I don't know about yours, though, Michael. Maybe, yours is really, really exciting.
Michael LeBlanc 25:58
Well, it's, I, you know, it's pretty exciting. I, I'd like it to be a bit more, it's, it's getting more exciting now that I can get out and start shopping willfully more because I am right now. It's a bunch of pictures of people that I interview, which of course is exciting, but I'd love to get out
Jeff Adamson 26:11
A lot of food photos too, Michael?
Michael LeBlanc 26:13
I have a lot of food photos, yeah, yeah. A lot of food photos and then more to come. Since I'm starting a barbecue YouTube channel. There's a little, there's a little for.
Jeff Adamson 26:22
Get out of here.
Michael LeBlanc 26:22
Eh, it's true. Last Request Barbecue. Launching later this week.
Jeff Adamson 26:25
Tell me you're grilling with charcoal.
Michael LeBlanc 26:27
I've got five different grills and I grill five different ways. So, you know, I had to justify all that hardware somehow. Anyway,
Jeff Adamson 26:35
Next time, next time I'm out east, I'm coming over, just I'm inviting myself over right now, Michael, so.
Michael LeBlanc 26:40
Fantastic. I love guests, I love guests. All right, listen. Well, enough about me.
Michael LeBlanc 26:45
Thanks so much for joining me on The Voice of Retail podcast.
Jeff Adamson 26:48
Great, yeah.
Michael LeBlanc 26:48
Great. Great to hear the story and, and exciting and wish you continued success and look forward to meeting you in person soon.
Jeff Adamson 26:57
And Michael, I mean, thanks for doing this too. I think giving retailers a voice I think is important, before, I think it's even more important now. I mean, consumer brands have such an important impact on the, the cultural fabric of Canada. And, I think what you're doing is really important, important, and I'm really grateful to be on here with you.
Michael LeBlanc 27:13
Well, thanks, Jeff. I really appreciate that.
Michael LeBlanc 27:16
Thanks for tuning in to today's episode of The Voice of Retail. Be sure to follow the podcast on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you enjoy podcasts so you don't miss out on the latest episodes, industry news, and insights. If you enjoyed this episode, please consider leaving a rating and review as it really helps us grow so that we continue to get amazing guests onto the show.
Michael LeBlanc 27:35
I'm your host Michael LeBlanc, President of M.E. LeBlanc & Company Inc. and if you're looking for more content or want to chat, follow me on LinkedIn or visit my website at meleblanc.co
Michael LeBlanc 27:45
Until next time, stay safe and have a great week!
SUMMARY KEYWORDS
retailers, Neo, Canada, Michael, customers, prairies, people, brands, Saskatchewan, consumer, partner, Hudson, skip, financial, integrations, retail, build, cashback, fees, podcast