Transcript

Travis Bader: [00:00:00] I’m Travis Bader and this is The Silvercore Podcast. Join me as I discuss matters related to hunting, fishing, and outdoor pursuits with the people in businesses that comprise of the community. If you’re a new to Silvercore, be sure to check out our website, www.Silvercore.ca where you can learn more about courses, services, and products that we offer. As well as how you can join The Silvercore Club, which includes 10 million in North America wide liability insurance, to ensure you are properly covered during your outdoor adventures.

[00:00:39] This week I speak with April Vokey of Anchored Outdoors, Flygal and MeatEater fame. We discuss her humble beginnings growing up in the Lower Mainland of BC. And how she took her passion for fishing to become one of the most renowned authorities and celebrities in her field. Don’t forget to like comment and subscribe so that you don’t miss any of the exciting podcasts that we have lined up.

[00:01:06] So today I’m joined by a home grown Canadian fishing legend and proprietor of AnchoredOutdoors.com, April Vokey. 

April Vokey: [00:01:13] Hello!

Travis Bader: [00:01:14] Welcome to The Silvercore Podcast. 

April Vokey: [00:01:15] Thank you.

Travis Bader: [00:01:16] Now, I’m really excited to be chatting with you. I mean, we’ve known each other for a while, we text and chat back and forth, usually about work related things. And I figured that why not use this as an opportunity to get to know you a little bit better. 

April Vokey: [00:01:31] Yeah. Yeah. It’s, it’s long overdue and it’s so cool to see you in your recording studio right now. Cause I feel like I, I’ve been there. I’ve been in your guys’ home and I’ve seen all your cool toys. 

Travis Bader: [00:01:44] Well, you know, this whole recording studio is a work in progress, but yeah, if it wasn’t for COVID, I would’ve loved to been doing this face to face.

April Vokey: [00:01:50] Yeah. Well, it’ll happen. Again. 

Travis Bader: [00:01:52] It’ll happen. 

April Vokey: [00:01:53] Yeah. 

Travis Bader: [00:01:54] For the listeners sake, I’m just going to give a little bit of an intro here and then we’ll kind of get things rolling. So in what would seem like a relatively short period time you’ve been on the Steve Harvey show, you’ve been on 60 minutes with Bill Whitaker. You’ve had shows on the Outdoor Life Network on the Discovery Channel.

[00:02:12] You’ve hosted your own show, Shorelines, you’ve been involved with MeatEater, you’re a brand ambassador for Yeti and Patagonia. You’ve got over 125,000 people following your, every move on Instagram. And now you are running your burgeoning enterprise AnchoredOutdoors.com and it deals with fishing and hunting and foraging and homesteading.

[00:02:39] And I know you’ve done a lot of podcasts and shows and talked about the whole fishing side and as much as I’d love to talk about that, and I’m sure the listeners would be interested in that they can go to AnchoredOutdoors.com and they can learn about that. I mean, there’s even a Pacific Northwest Fishing course there that they can take it.

April Vokey: [00:02:57] There is.

Travis Bader: [00:02:57]If they are a member.

April Vokey: [00:02:59] Right? Look it up. 

Travis Bader: [00:03:02] I know,where they can learnall the tips and tricks. I guess what I’d like to really talk about is how you took your passion for the outdoors and for fishing and you’ve turned this into a burgeoning multimedia empire and community. 

April Vokey: [00:03:17] Yeah. Yeah, it’s really cool. I mean, we just live in February. The show has been active for six years now, but it was time to take it to the next level. And so it’s, you know, it’s, to me, it is a community. In so many more ways than just our members, but often, obviously also the contributors as well. It’s just been a long time coming and I’m very proud of it. 

Travis Bader: [00:03:39] When I’m looking at that community is a big word that stands out to me because I look at the people that are interacting. I look at the people that are learning on Anchored Outdoors, cause you’ve got your Masterclasses, which are really cool. And you’re right in there with them too. I mean, you’re learning alongside of the people in the community, how to use a bow drill and make a fire. And what’s the one that’s going on right now? You’re tanning. 

April Vokey: [00:04:02] Fish leather! Yeah. Yeah. 

Travis Bader: [00:04:04] That’s crazy.

April Vokey: [00:04:04] All these, all these skills, you know, it was like, okay, I could. I just got exhausted, trying to constantly find these classes. There’s you can go to Masterclass.com and they’ve got a million amazing classes on, on a number of different topics, but nothing that interested me, there were no hunter gatherer courses, outdoor classes.

[00:04:24] I mean, I think Tony Hawk and the gardening guy were probably the closest thing that appealed to me there. So I, I was, it was well to find a couple online courses here and there, but they were all in various websites and I thought, you know what, I’m going to I’m going to take all these classes and put them under one roof and really be the outdoor masterclass.com.

[00:04:43] And so that’s what AnchoredOutdoors.com is very quickly evolving into. 

Travis Bader: [00:04:48] And you got some big names on there, too. Some well talented people. Josh Niland. 

April Vokey: [00:04:52] Yeah.

Travis Bader: [00:04:53] There’s a big name. 

April Vokey: [00:04:54] They’ve got to be the best in that. And for anglers, sorry to cut you off, it’s just so exciting. Like even Steve Rajeff, the world casting.

Travis Bader: [00:05:02] Yeah.

April Vokey: [00:05:02] Distance champion, like he’s, he’s on board and right now. We’ve got a camera man up North doing BobClay, bamboo rod building masterclass. And it’s just, it’s really cool because everyone who, most of the instructors have been on the show. And so we’ve gotten to know them and I think this is what’s so special about it. Yes, we, they’re the best in the business, of course we want to know their skillset, but how cool is it to learn what they’re teaching after we’ve heard their story, where they were born and raised?

[00:05:32] Why are they like that? Why are they so ambitious? And really be able to have their voice resonate with us? Because we know who they are. It just to me, it’s a richer, it’s a real rich environment and it’s the community that I would want to be a part of and so that’s what we’re doing. 

Travis Bader: [00:05:48] So you built it. You said this is a community I want. Done. I’ll build, I’ll build it myself. 

April Vokey: [00:05:52] Yeah. 

Travis Bader: [00:05:53] So speaking about born and raised, you were born and raised in my hometown of Surrey, British Columbia.

April Vokey: [00:05:59] Wooo,Surrey, what!? 

Travis Bader: [00:06:04] See, I was Newton has more of a Newton guy.

April Vokey: [00:06:06] Well we were, we were Newton first. We were on 129th street, yeah, that’s right. 6336 129th street.  Actually, first we were Delta and then we went Newton and then we upgraded into, up into Fleetwood.

Travis Bader: [00:06:19] Right, okay. Yeah, so you were actually, I didn’t know that. You, you weren’t too far from me. 

April Vokey: [00:06:24] Yeah.

Travis Bader: [00:06:24] I was about 132nd and number 10.

April Vokey: [00:06:26] Yeah.

Travis Bader: [00:06:26] That’s sort of where I grew up. When people look at your CV and I, and I only touched on a couple of things in there. There’s a lot of things that you’ve done. Coming from humble beginnings, how did you do that? You just said, Hey, I really like fishing, I know let’s just, let’s get 125,000 followers on Instagram and just start rolling. Like, where did it start? 

April Vokey: [00:06:48] Oh man. Where did it start? Well, it started with having to grow the passion. You know, and, and that was instilled in me at a really young age. You know, a lot of people have already heard the story about my, my parents don’t really fish, but we did a lot of, we did do some weekend trips out to Chilliwack or, you know, we would go into the interior and go on those old stinky boats and troll worms around. And up behind Panorama park actually, the elementary school back in the day.

[00:07:14] Just up into the right of our house. It used to be all before it was developed, it was all acreage in there and it was full of ponds and so I would go on my bike. This is back when you could let your kid do whatever they wanted, so I would take my mom’s nylons, the good old days, take my mom’s nylons and a hanger and go and catch frogs and salamanders, and then bring them back into our pool. 

[00:07:38] And that was really what got me excited, you know, catching all these slimy creatures and then obviously going fishing, seeing the salmon, learning that salmon can, they need to come through a river. That’s what, like 20 feet wide. Then surely we can intercept them, you know, the mathematics work and so that was where it really all started. 

[00:07:57] And then from there it was, you know, I’m gonna, I’ll skip past all the, the rigmarole that goes in between, so, you know, school in Surrey was, it got interesting. And I was rolling with rough, rough crowd.

Travis Bader: [00:08:11] Right, right.

April Vokey: [00:08:12] And so I would, choose to escape by going fishing. And it was able to give me that sense of wild and the rebellion that I really needed without sniffing, you know, starting cocaine or being promiscuous. And so when my friends, when my friends were going to party at night, I would party too. 

[00:08:29] But then, you know, I needed to get out of there at a decent hour cause I needed to A sleep or B get to the river before sun up. So fishing was really, I will forever acredit fishing or credit fishing, to being my saving grace and what kept me out of trouble growing up. 

Travis Bader: [00:08:44] You just had a passion for that, but I know a lot of people who’ve got a passion for what they do, making it into a business. I mean, you just jumped out and said, I know I’m going to start guiding now. I really like fishing, let me get, let me turn my passion to work. 

April Vokey: [00:08:59] Well, it was more than passion. You know, passion is really loving something like really loving something. Maybe you eat, sleep, breathe it for me, it was, it was the only thing that kept me grounded, but also I really attribute it to keeping me alive. I really, really do. So for me, it was just a necessity. I had to fish. 

[00:09:18] If I didn’t go fishing or just be outside, right, be out in, in the river and obviously if you’re out there, you may as well go fishing. I was not gonna, I was going to end up like my friends or ending up and, and a lot of them, it was in really bad places.

[00:09:30] So for me, it was like I need to be outside okay, but I also need to make money. And so I was, I guess at that point I was still, that’s right I was still busing tables at Olive Garden. Actually, it was started as busing tables at Earl’s and then it was, and then it was Red Robin, I was in Guilford and then it was.

Travis Bader: [00:09:48] Yeah.

April Vokey: [00:09:49] And then it was Olive Garden, that was when I became really, really sick in the head. And I guess it would have been before Olive Gar- sorry, I do it by, I had a high school boyfriend. And so at that point, yeah, that would have been still, really early days, just after Earl’s. So like, you know, 16, 17, 18 years old and going out to the river after, after work.

Travis Bader: [00:10:10] Okay. 

April Vokey: [00:10:11] And it became kind of, I was stuck between a rock and a hard place because eventually I would want to, you know, I’d want to work nights and I’d also want to go fishing in the day. And I was starting to get burnt out because I would end up basically not getting any sleep. You know, I pull over on the side of the road and I had sleep or I’d sleep in my car in the middle of a, of a fishing day.

[00:10:33] But long story short, I just needed to make a, I needed to cut something out. And I knew I didn’t want to be a busser or eventually a cocktail waitress forever.

Travis Bader: [00:10:42] Right.

April Vokey: [00:10:42] Which is, you know, what I ended up doing. And I thought, well, okay, what do I, what do I want to do? I’ve always wanted to be a businesswoman since I was like, two years old. Probably like, honestly like three or four years old, I wanted to be a business woman. 

[00:10:55] And the only thing I really loved was, was fishing and it was all I wanted to do. So I thought, well, I better make a business at fishing and how am I going to do that? Well, I need to be good. So how do you get good? You’ve got to do it all the time. And then how do you promote? Well, people need to know who you are and then it was all this amazing, perfect timing with social media.

[00:11:15] It was when you know, I was doing it before Facebook, but when Facebook came out, I saw an opportunity and I grabbed it, you know, right, wrong or otherwise. I mean, we’ve all made mistakes growing up and I’ve done some really stupid things and said a lot of stupid things. 

[00:11:28] And people who are from our hometown are listening right now and going, Oh, she was, she has got a mouth on her, you know, I’ve done, done and said a lot of stupid things. But at the end of the day, I use social media to help drive my career, and the rest is history. 

Travis Bader: [00:11:45] I got to imagine, today’s day and age, in the commercial guiding fishing world, you see a lot of women, not so much back when you were doing it. 

April Vokey: [00:11:56] Oh yeah, no. No. 

Travis Bader: [00:11:59] So that must’ve been, man that must’ve been difficult.

April Vokey: [00:12:03] Well, it was, and it wasn’t, I did it to myself in a lot of ways, you know. I, yes, like the number, there weren’t, there were no women. So, you know, Kathy Reddick was, was an OG. So Kathy was there, Denise Maxwell.

Travis Bader: [00:12:16] Right.

April Vokey: [00:12:16] A handful of, of other women, Adrienne Comeau, my best friend, she was, she was getting started at the time she was working at Michael and Young’s fly shop, but I was still cocktail waitressing every night at the casino in Langley.

[00:12:30] And, and for me that was a business, you know, I made my own hours, I went in. To me, it was like rented space, right? You’ve got you work as many hours as you want, you’ve got rented space. You hustle as hard as you need to, you go with a budget or a goal. I need to make 400 bucks in tips tonight. I’ve got to hustle, hustle, hustle.

[00:12:46] I need to be out of here by two or three, because I want to be first thing on the river, blah, blah, blah. And so I, to hustle, unfortunately, there’s a certain book that makes you more money. I mean, I feel like I was split, I was like split testing back at the casino, it was like A/B testing. Okay, so what’s going to get me more money.

[00:13:04] Does my hair, this colour work? I mean, I just, I made way more money as a blonde, to be totally honest and.

Travis Bader: [00:13:09] Really?

April Vokey: [00:13:10] Yeah, absolutely. And you know, and, and, and the dress code was we had to have nice hands and I was a really keen Sturgeon Fisher. And actually, even at that, at some point a guide and my hands were full of bait, crusty, you know, procure or just even like crusty stink bait. 

Travis Bader: [00:13:27] Right.

April Vokey: [00:13:27] And so I had to have, I had to cover them cause you’re dealing with chips right? Like I, even though I was cocktail serving, you’re still, people are handing you chips and you’re giving chips back. 

Travis Bader: [00:13:36] Right.

April Vokey: [00:13:37] And so the code dress code was you had to have nice, nicely manicured nails. And so for the only way for me to have nice hands was I had to have fake nails to cover my disgusting hands. And, and so then get off work at, you know, 3:30, 4:30. It depended on what shift I was on, but usually I worked the 10:30 to 4:30 shift, and then I go straight to the river. Well, I’m not going to take my, I don’t have time to take my makeup off, I gotta get to the river. I’m in a bloody, bloody hurry and. 

Travis Bader: [00:14:07] Yeah. 

April Vokey: [00:14:08] I still got my nylons on and my hair is all done and my nails all did, you know, so for, I just, I looked a certain way and, and for a lot of, you know, especially guiding my first year of guiding, I was so excited to guide for Sturgeon on the Fraser.

[00:14:23] And admittedly, I worked for a different company at the time and they kind of just threw me a jet boat and they were like, here, use this for guiding your boyfriend will train you at the time. My boyfriend didn’t train me. Shit. You know.

[00:14:36] Yeah. 

[00:14:37] When we were on the boat, we were fishing. We weren’t training me. And so I didn’t know how to run a boat very well. And my truck that I had bought for guiding season was a lemon and I didn’t know this. So when I brought it into Craftsman Collision in Chilliwack the owner, the owner there was like here, your frame’s bent, but I’ll tell you what you can use my Hummer for guiding, or like for whatever you need to do. And I needed something to.

Travis Bader: [00:15:03] Wow.

April Vokey: [00:15:04] That could tow a boat. Yeah. But it’s one of those new Hummers I’m still working because I would work all night and then guide all day. So I’m still going straight from the casino, now to the river for my, for my first guiding year, really in a jet boat with a Hummer. And of course my employee at the time has decked out the jet boat with like pink deckels right, or decals, with his company name. 

[00:15:26] Of course people are staring. And then I’m this complete dipshit who doesn’t know how to like, get, you ever been to island 22 in the morning, trying to back your boat up at 8:00 AM with the rest of the guys? All the clients are staring at you. All the guides are staring at you and you’re, you’re learning as you go.

Travis Bader: [00:15:42] Right.

April Vokey: [00:15:42] So, you know, and then of course it’s, you’re embarrassed and you’re insecure and you young, you’re young and you say stupid things and yeah, it was rough the first little bit. But, yeah, so anyway, all of that to bring back to your point about social media. Yeah, there were not a lot of women back then, and I’m sure that if I had looked a different way, I would probably have been better received.

[00:16:04] So who knows if the, what I was receiving was based on me being a woman, or just based on the fact that I looked very much out of place. 

Travis Bader: [00:16:15] Hmm. You mentioned being insecure when you’re learning through that process there. And that’s a word that I wouldn’t ascribe to you, in the entire time I’ve known you insecure is not one of those words. Is that something you just had to learn really quick to have a thick skin or have you been fairly headstrong most your life? 

April Vokey: [00:16:34] Yeah, no, I’ve definitely been head strong, strong all my life. And I wouldn’t say I am an insecure person, but I, I can be insecure about certain skills that I know that I have not put the time in to be good at.

[00:16:47] And in that case, or about certain, like I’m insecure right now about the size of my bum, like you’re allowed to be insecure about things and it doesn’t make you an insecure person. And so I, in my opinion, anyway, that’s how I justify it. 

Travis Bader: [00:17:02] No I agree .

April Vokey: [00:17:03] On the boat launch. I was really in secure for sure. And just really nervous, really, really nervous about all the eyes on me that I didn’t necessarily want. Like, I, I, I don’t know if I, I definitely didn’t want that much attention. That’s one thing if your shit hot, you know? 

Travis Bader: [00:17:20] Right.

April Vokey: [00:17:21] Yeah, look at me now! But when, when you’re just learning, you know, please just stop watching, please! You know, and everybody wants to come and offer an opinion and you’re like, yeah, but you just, you’re just making it worse. Like I just need figure it out. 

Travis Bader: [00:17:33] Just go away, I know. It’s, I’m sure everyone’s had that one. I think family guy had a good clip of Peter Griffin tried to back a boat into a boat launch. He basically just ends up running it back and forward. Good to go. 

April Vokey: [00:17:45] Yeah. I didn’t have any crazy, I had one stoop like I had, I’ve done. No, I take that back. I didn’t a couple of stupid things. I was not a great Sturgeon guide, but that, that actually was great for me to learn because. It wasn’t so much, even that I wasn’t a great Sturgeon guide, it was that I didn’t care to be a great Sturgeon guide. And that’s, that’s what it came down to for me, that was really the first step in being a business owner.

[00:18:08] So I always have believed that you need to do what you love and if it’s not in business than it is, it’s in life, but you need to be happy. That’s really important to me. And it’s the foremost, it leads my whole life and, and my business. And for me, it was like, okay, I did want a guide. I did. And I’m doing it because this is what guides do in the Fraser Valley right?

Travis Bader: [00:18:29] Right. 

April Vokey: [00:18:29] But then why do I not like it? And then I started doing Salmon trips and I was like, ah, I’m into this. I’m really into this. And then I started doing Steelhead trips and that was me, that was it. It was just, that was what I wanted to do. And there was a handful of Steelhead trips available through the company I was working for.

[00:18:51] And I just thought it was time to branch out to do my own thing. I wanted to do more Steelhead trips my way. So that’s exactly what I did, I started Flygal. I had had Flygal cause I was a sales rep at the time and I use Flygal as my business for write-offs and stuff, but ended up turning it into my guiding operation and really that life was never the same again.

Travis Bader: [00:19:13] So everything you’ve done is basically school of hard knocks. You didn’t have any business schooling behind you. 

April Vokey: [00:19:18] No, no, definitely not. My yes, school of hard knocks 110%, but my mom is a, is a very, very savvy business woman.

Travis Bader: [00:19:27] That helps. 

April Vokey: [00:19:27] Yeah. Yeah. She and, and not, I wouldn’t even, more in like the administrative side. Right? So like to this day, my mom helps me with, I’m all about numbers and crunching. So to this day, I’m like, mom, I’m having a really hard time with my spreadsheet. Can you please help me with my projections? And so she’s kind of been, always been my little, like my coder and it’s cool because we work together.

[00:19:51] So I have always really been in marketing and I remember my mom telling me when I was in high school, you are, you need to go into marketing. And I was just like, that’s just such a stupid name. Like what’s marketing. It sounds like you’re going shopping on a weekend. No, I just, I didn’t want to go into marketing. I should have, I guess I did end up going into marketing actually. 

Travis Bader: [00:20:11] You did go into marketing!

April Vokey: [00:20:12] I did go to marketing mom. Mothers know best. 

Travis Bader: [00:20:17] Yes. 

April Vokey: [00:20:17] Yeah and she, and so I, she would come home upset about things at work. She was the big buyer. She was in Langley, but now she was, she’s retired now, but she was the head buyer for the city of Chilliwack, or she was first head buyer at Langley, then Chilliwack.

[00:20:32] And she would come all upset from the guys at work because she also, she was the big wig and dealing with a lot of those guys, and gals. There was a lot of stuff that she had to go through. And so she’d sit down and together I would help her craft her emails. To go to her, whoever it is, who’s given her a difficult time.

[00:20:52] And so I learned a lot through business by helping my mom through her business. And then my mom would also help me with mine. So to this day we still do work together and, and I’m forever indebted to my mom. So yes, it was hard knocks, but it was hard knocks with the support of a wonderful family. 

Travis Bader: [00:21:09] That is so cool. That’s so cool. It’s good that you had that, but you know, even having all the support out there, you still have to take it upon yourself to accept that support and, and start pushing it forward. When we talk about marketing, you’ve been very, very successful in marketing yourself and marketing the brand.

[00:21:29] And you’ve done it, I mean, there’s a few ways that people can market themselves and you’ve done it in a way that’s very true to yourself. I think anyways, from, from, from my position, looking in, you can watch the Instagram posts of people and there’s surefire ways to get likes. And the entire process, from my perspective anyways, has been very honest. Like you’re basically, you’re, you’re laying it out there and it seems to have been really well received.

April Vokey: [00:21:59] Well to me I mean, integrity is everything, right? So if you’re not true to your word, then what have you got left? And I’ve, I really, really believe in that. And so you also need to remember when I started using social media and just Facebook, because Instagram was, I mean, we all were like Instagram, none of us were going to join Instagram, but Facebook, it was really provocative to post a grip and grim photo in a tight fitting cardigan.

[00:22:26] It was different back then. So even when I would go from the casino and I had like, I had this REI, or I guess mountain equipment co-op, thermal shirt that was bright fuchsia. And because I dare wore a pink scarf to stay warm on the Thompson that was provocative, or the fact that my hair looked combed. That was provocative. 

Travis Bader: [00:22:49] Right.

April Vokey: [00:22:49] It was different then. Now, it’s almost like it’s like watching movies and media, right? You have to just go more, more shock factor. 

Travis Bader: [00:22:57] Right.

April Vokey: [00:22:57] And I feel like social media now, everyone’s constantly trying to push the limit and for me, because that’s just never been in my DNA. It’s just not, like I was already made to feel really, not guilty, but aware of being provocative with a pink scarf. So the thought of even thinking to take my clothes off or do some of the ridiculous things that we’re seeing people do on Instagram now, that just doesn’t register with me. 

Travis Bader: [00:23:26] Right.

April Vokey: [00:23:26] Now, I’m not against it, in a lot of way, in a lot of ways I am, in a lot of ways I’m not. But you know, it’s funny. I give grief to people on my podcasts all the time, quietly, maybe subtly, just about being an influencer. But it hit me the other day. I was like, it really is no difference. I use my social media, to yes share my life and grow community for sure.

[00:23:51] And I’ve made some wonderful relationships, but I also use it to promote my business. Now, why do I want to promote my business? Because I genuinely believe in my product. And I genuinely believe that it helps people and builds better community. It’s so win, win, win, win. 

Travis Bader: [00:24:05] Right. 

April Vokey: [00:24:05] But, but is that any different to the person who’s using it to sell product as an influencer that they also believe will help people’s lives? So, you know, it’s a real sticky subject social media. I think the big thing, and my mom said to me the other day, she was like, how are you doing balancing your, showing your life versus your business on social.

Travis Bader: [00:24:28] Right.

April Vokey: [00:24:29] And, and she was like, do you not get any complaints that you’ve been promoting your business? And I was like, but mom the reality is like, I want to share my life, but I’m also not in the business of just, here look at how awesome my life is. Look at how great I am, look at how much fun I have. 

[00:24:44] And, and, and just because, you know what I mean, I’m in, I’m in, I’m in business. It’s like, of course I want you to follow me so that I can inspire you and we can get to know each other or we can take a course together, but I am not in the business of being like, look at how awesome I am. My life is just so wonderful. 

Travis Bader: [00:25:00] Well that just alienates people.

April Vokey: [00:25:02] Right.

Travis Bader: [00:25:03] It might be fun to look at, but over the longterm, I think that just alienates people.

April Vokey: [00:25:06] So I think staying real, as much as I want to be like, yes, I’m definitely authentic because I want everybody to feel real and authentic, at the end of the day I also believe it’s just part of business as being real. So it’s one in the same one in the same to me. 

Travis Bader: [00:25:21] Well, one of my, and it’s, I think it’s a lot of people quite liked this one post that you put out there. Do you want to talk about Martin? 

April Vokey: [00:25:30] Oh yeah. My cigarette ball

Travis Bader: [00:25:32] It’s got nothing to do with, with fishing. It’s got nothing to do with, but it has a lot to do. 

April Vokey: [00:25:40] Community.

Travis Bader: [00:25:40] With you.

April Vokey: [00:25:41] Yeah.

Travis Bader: [00:25:41] Well, it’s got a lot to do with tenacity as well and perseverance and dedication. Can you tell, tell us about Martin? 

[00:25:48] Yeah, 

April Vokey: [00:25:49] So I, I was always the girl in school when I, when I went to Ember Creek, that was where I did my. 10 11, 12, Ember Creek. I was a girl walking down the hallway and I I’m very proud to this day that I knew everybody. Like the guy, the Asian kid in the corner, Gavin, who didn’t speak to Mark in the band room, who people didn’t even think could speak English. Every single person in that school, I knew and, and really enjoyed watching everybody come together to do great. 

[00:26:23] And the teachers I’m sure I was paying in the ass. Like we didn’t have a female football league, so I rallied all the girls up and made it really difficult for them to say no. And I was the one trying to organize walkouts and, you know, I was that.

Travis Bader: [00:26:36] Good for you. 

April Vokey: [00:26:36] I was that girl, but I loved community. And one of the things that very quickly became this communal, this communal thing was this, this I had started making named Martin. And so with back then it was this thing where like you could take cigarette tinfoil and I don’t smoke, so I don’t know if it’s the same, but you would, you know, today, but you would peel the paper off of the tinfoil and it would have this bit of adhesive on it.

[00:27:01] And so you would use your hands to roll it into a ball. And I had heard that you could sell it for 500 bucks. So I was very excited about making, I needed 500 bucks who doesn’t need 500 bucks. I mean, my car at the time was worth 500 bucks. So I was, I was set on getting this ball and, I can’t remember why he was named Martin. Oh, that’s right cause my dad plays guitars and he was all about the Martin. 

Travis Bader: [00:27:23] The Martin, yeah.

April Vokey: [00:27:25] And so we had Martin and everybody who smoked would start to bring me these tinfoil pieces. And I went to school every day with a, like the, you know, the street what’s that chocolate, it’s like the something streets, chocolates at Christmas. It’s like this, it looks like this. It’s this tall, big container of like.

Travis Bader: [00:27:45] Toblerone? 

April Vokey: [00:27:46] Well, it’s like quality chocolate that you get.

Travis Bader: [00:27:48] Okay.

April Vokey: [00:27:49] Anyway, that you get at Christmas time and so even the kids would even pass it around and be like, here, let me take it for lunch and they’d go and fill it up. And I would spend a bunch of time at lunch, out there in the field, picking up all these tinfoil bits and the teachers got to know Martin and the cafeteria tables had this kind of like an orange peel top.

[00:28:09] So I would, I would carry a spoon in my pocket and I would constantly be rolling cause I can’t sit still I’m, I, I just have I’m one of those people will drive you crazy cause I can’t stop. 

Travis Bader: [00:28:19] Yeah.

April Vokey: [00:28:19] And so in class I could stay moving by rolling Martin and then I would roll him on the cafeteria table and bang him down with my spoon and really compact him. And everybody was fascinated. I mean, I had teachers given me tinfoil, so, and Ember Creek is to blame for Martin who I didn’t end up selling and gave to my dad. And now he’s the size of. He’s like half the size of my face and.

Travis Bader: [00:28:42] That’s huge!

April Vokey: [00:28:42] Totally hard. He’s like fully hard, he’s like concrete. Yeah. 

Travis Bader: [00:28:46] Yeah. And if people want to see it, just go on the, on the Instagram account, check it out. It’s a, yeah, but to me that’s a lot of perseverance and the fact that you’re doing it to make $500, that’s much better. That’s that’s the entrepreneurial spirit right there. 

April Vokey: [00:29:02] Yeah. 

Travis Bader: [00:29:03] At a young age, I was told I had ADHD and a few other things and, you know, bouncing off the walls, always doing something. I can appreciate that. I don’t know if I got ADHD, but it was, maybe I do, maybe I don’t, I don’t know. But it is something that I’ve seen in other entrepreneurs, is this constant drive. This constant need to keep pushing forward.

[00:29:28] Is that something that you would attribute to your constant need to keep pushing forward? And do you get, do you get bored after a while and say, I got to do something completely different now. 

April Vokey: [00:29:37] Whoa. Well, I don’t know what the word board means, but yes, if I ever start feel like I may be getting what I assume is bored, then yes, I go and do something else. So there there’s nothing scarier to me than a human being board. 

Travis Bader: [00:29:51] Totally.

April Vokey: [00:29:52] I mean, we have books, this thing called books, right? Let’s be like, you can literally be quote unquote, board, and decide tomorrow to learn an entirely separate, like a new language.

Travis Bader: [00:30:04] Right.

April Vokey: [00:30:04] There is zero excuse to be bored. And you know, I don’t, I’m not a doctor. And I don’t know anything about ADD or ADHD, but it’s interesting in reading certain studies and people who are passionate about primitive skills and hunter gatherer skills, a lot of people will say that that is a genetic thing. 

[00:30:22] You know, something from our ancestry where we were, you needed to be constantly aware and not be able to focus on one thing necessarily, while out in the bush even just to stay alive. So there’s a lot of interesting theories on the whole ADHD thing. 

Travis Bader: [00:30:37] What about getting into something like, you really got into fly fishing and getting typecasted as, Hey, she’s the one that fly fishes, no gear for her. Or do you find it difficult to, to not get constrained by the business that you’re building?

[00:30:55] April Vokey: [00:30:55] Yeah, all the time. I’m constantly put in a box, which is hard because I did not start out fly fishing. I started out, I was a spoon angler, tenfold, you know, and, and I would be sitting there at night, procuring my bait and cutting up squid legs and constantly playing with different coloured cures and borax and all that stuff.

[00:31:15] And I’m still really into that, you know, I still like to live bait. I live part of the year in Australia, fish a bunch of soft plastics and live baits and all these other thing, lures and yeah, it’s hard for me to get out of that box. I know people really like to put me in a box and again, a lot of it’s self-inflicted, but you know, the one thing that’s nice about anchor dot doors is it’s not about April Vokey.

Travis Bader: [00:31:37] Right.

April Vokey: [00:31:38] Yeah. Which was a big, very cognitive decision years ago that I knew that I had to, I didn’t want to, I had made the mistake of building a business around myself and that was a dead end. And I knew that I needed to take the next step forward and, and to be an, I was just more fulfilled. I didn’t want it to be about me. I never wanted it to be all about me. 

Travis Bader: [00:31:58] Just like you, I never, so Silvercore, which is that the main business, named after my grandfather Silver Armano, my other grandfather, Cornelius Bader. I just took the silver and the core, put them together. One was a VPD detective, the other one was an entrepreneur, had a Bakery.

[00:32:17] And I thought, you know, I’ll, I’ll put these two things. What do they call it? A portmanteau, when you put them two together. But it was very conscious at that point, I didn’t want to call it Traviscore. I didn’t want to make it about me, because my thinking was, if I grow something and I put all this energy into it and it’s so deeply tied to me, how do I take that next step to do something else?

[00:32:38] If I, if I want to stop that or sell it, or so I never had that dilemma of having something named after me, but building the April Vokey brand, you look at that as a bit of a dead end did you or something that would be just too tied to you that you couldn’t grow pack? 

April Vokey: [00:32:54] It is a constant decision that I make every year, every single year, I sit down and decide, cause look, business is all about trends and trends change.

Travis Bader: [00:33:03] Sure. 

April Vokey: [00:33:04] And you know, 15 years ago it, it paid to be corporate or to appear to be corporate, you know, to be responding to us or like we’re responding as our, us, we. You didn’t want to look like you were a single man business. You want it to look big, we’re the big guys.

Travis Bader: [00:33:21] Right.

April Vokey: [00:33:21] Now it feels, and again, it changes every year, but now it feels like it is advantageous to have your face behind it, people want to know who they’re dealing with. They want to hear your story. And so even with Anchored Outdoors, which is recently branded, you know, it went live in February and I was going to leave myself off of it entirely and had, you know, I spoke to a couple of people I respect and they were like, you have to include your story because people want to know the face behind it.

[00:33:49] And, and so it is a constant ever-changing trend. It’s something that, but with, with my brand anyway, or with our brand, with Anchored Outdoors, it works to have kind of the face behind it. But the focus, like at least, you know, the face behind it, but I want the focus to be on all the people with all of those incredible skills. And I think that that’s, that, that I’m doing a good, I, we, cause it’s not just me now, but.

Travis Bader: [00:34:16] Right.

April Vokey: [00:34:16] Myself, Tom, Jackie, the team, I feel like we do a good job of doing that in, in bringing the focus to other people, even though people know it’s my company. 

Travis Bader: [00:34:24] I think that’s important. I think there’s like you say, there is that fine line between making something that’s so detached from you that you can easily replicate it or something that’s so close to you that you’ll, you’ll be confined by it so that’s.

April Vokey: [00:34:39] Right.

Travis Bader: [00:34:39] You know, I don’t know if I ever told you, I got to meet Bear Grylls. 

April Vokey: [00:34:42] Right.

Travis Bader: [00:34:42] So Bear Grylls has a family life and the business side and he calls it BG and Bear Grylls right. So that’s, that’s BG over there, that’s the whole Hollywood TV stuff. And this is Bear Grylls over here.

April Vokey: [00:34:56] That’s so funny because when I do my projections, cause every, and I’ve done this now for well, since 2007. I’m all about budgets and projections and goal setting. And I split my business, cause I, especially a few years back, I own more than one company. And I, if you look at my projections, it’s like I had, I would have one company here, one company there, and the other company was AV. 

Travis Bader: [00:35:17] Yeah.

April Vokey: [00:35:19] And that was April Vokey, it was the brand. Like she, okay so, and I literally, to this day I sit down and I’m like, okay, that needs to make that much money. That needs to make that much money, she needs to make that much money. Like, I don’t even look at myself like me, it’s that, that’s part of the company that needs to make a certain amount of income to make something work. 

Travis Bader: [00:35:36] That’s funny. What about if we just switch gears just a little bit? In that whole building of brand, you’ve made the very conscious decision to include your family in that. So you’ve got your daughter, your husband, that’s gotta be tough. 

April Vokey: [00:35:52] Well, it’s a mistake. It’s a mistake. You know, no one’s called me out on this yet, but that’s a mistake. So I, very much when I gave birth, even if you read my first post, it says you will never see a photo of my daughter because, because I respect her wishes and she might not want to blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

[00:36:14] You know, especially with the internet. I don’t want her to have all these document. I’m such a bad mom. I don’t want her to have all these documented photos when she’s older and, and I just am too proud of her. So it’s an Achilles heel. I have to draw, pull my head in sometimes and be like, are you sure? Are you sure if it’s like, Oh, but she’s just so cute. Like I just.

Travis Bader: [00:36:34] She is cute!

April Vokey: [00:36:36] But yeah, it’s an error and a mistake. And in, it’s probably one of the things I shouldn’t be doing, but I can’t help myself. 

Travis Bader: [00:36:47] So we haven’t talked about how you made that jump. There you are guiding on the river and you said, I know I want to be on TV. I mean, come on. How’d that jump happen?

April Vokey: [00:36:59] Well, you know, I got to keep it real and honest. You know, admittedly yeah, I mean, I always wanted to be on TV when I was younger. Like who, who, who doesn’t back then grow up wanting.

Travis Bader: [00:37:09] Sure.

April Vokey: [00:37:09] To be on TV. It was your at, at that point, it was your only outlet. 

Travis Bader: [00:37:13] Right, yeah. 

April Vokey: [00:37:13] You know, there was, there was no internet you had just, if you wanted to have your voice heard you went onto television. And, and so when I was younger, I wanted to be on television, but as I grew up and evolved and had more opportunity with the internet, that slowly dissipated. But the television series happened because of what we were talking about earlier with this fear of boredom. Well, there’s a number of ways that, I’ll take you down two different roads here. So.

Travis Bader: [00:37:37] Okay.

April Vokey: [00:37:37] The television series happened because I was already starting to write a book and the television network had said, we want to show, they’d been wasting my time for years of like, we want you to do a bikini show on a boat. We want you to do this show in that, like, it was all just ridiculous nonsense.

[00:37:53] Travis Bader: [00:37:53] Right.

[00:37:53] April Vokey: [00:37:53] Finally, it must’ve got desperate again. Television is very much, time’s changed by the seasons. Sometimes the execs want someone who’s gun heavy, sometimes the execs want a woman host, sometimes they want it, it changes everyday but.

[00:38:06] Travis Bader: [00:38:06] Right.

April Vokey: [00:38:07] They must’ve been desperate, they said, we’ll take whatever you’ve got and I said, well, I am subsidizing, I need my book to be subsidized. So why don’t we do a television series by book? And they said yes. And so I got to writing the series QuickSmart and wrote them this television series teamed up with Nick Vujicic at VP Media House in Ontario, and the show was picked up. 

[00:38:28] And from there I was still guiding and then in my off season I was filming the show. And in, while I was, while I was guiding, it was able to keep my brain spinning because I was writing my series while I was guiding. 

Travis Bader: [00:38:41] Right. 

April Vokey: [00:38:41] But then the show was over and we’d done all of our filming. And I was really disappointed with editing that I’d had all these rich interviews and only two minutes of them were being used in the series. So I’m guiding on the Dea,n doing the usual thing, but now I’m not writing my television series and I start to get bored. Yeah. 

[00:39:04] And that for me was like, okay, I’m not doing boredom. So I got this idea about doing a podcast and I had told everyone I would guide for 10 years. And I meant that, I always said I would only ever guide for 10 years. I’ve said that from the beginning and put in my 10th year and immediately went to work on a podcast.

Travis Bader: [00:39:21] Just like that?

April Vokey: [00:39:22] Just like that. 

Travis Bader: [00:39:23] You just picked up a microphone and a recorder, and you just said, let’s just start talking into this with other people, or like, what was that? Was there a big research? How do I start a podcast?

April Vokey: [00:39:31] No, no, no. My first episode was with Lonnie Waller and so I had interviewed him at my home or at my camp in Northern BC and was really disappointed that his interview, which is spectacular, had been cut down. And so I asked the TV show guys for the, all that audio. And then I converted that audio into my first episode.

[00:39:53] And then from there got off to launched that one in December, I think, six years ago, and then got myself the same, well, it’s a different snowball mic, but just a little USB mic and started going around and sitting down with people. It was tough because I only ever did, did my podcast in person and really worked hard to have a beat just the top of the top of the top industry leaders.

[00:40:15] So it was difficult getting to a lot of them, but, but managed, yeah. And I didn’t do a bunch of research, I kind of just went for it. 

Travis Bader: [00:40:23] Just jumped right in. 

April Vokey: [00:40:24] Yep. 

Travis Bader: [00:40:25] Well, it’s definitely worked out well. And then you did some time with, with MeatEater. 

April Vokey: [00:40:30] Yeah, yeah. So MeatEater came into my life two years ago. When did I meet you guys? 

Travis Bader: [00:40:35] About, about that, yeah, a couple of years ago.

April Vokey: [00:40:37] Yes. Yep, and that went great. And then, you know, as things do contracts expired and I could either stay on and not own my, well own my content, but not have control over it in a lot of, in a lot of ways. 

Travis Bader: [00:40:50] Right. 

April Vokey: [00:40:50] Or go independent and take Anchored Outdoors to what it is now. And that’s obviously the route that I chose to go. 

Travis Bader: [00:40:56] Right. And so you’ve got the podcast Anchored and you decided let’s, let’s make this community, let’s make this, the Masterclasses and the, the, the website of Anchored Outdoors. And that’s gotta be one heck of a learning curve, cause you went in from nothing, right?

April Vokey: [00:41:14] Yeah. Yeah. Well, you know, it’s funny. I just wanted to build what I was craving.

Travis Bader: [00:41:19] Right.

April Vokey: [00:41:20] And I felt like what was missing out there, I’m a new hunter. And, and I’m a sustenance hunter and I’m not, and who enjoys killing. I enjoy hunting, looking for animals, I enjoy eating. I don’t enjoy the killing and I really don’t enjoy bro vibes.

Travis Bader: [00:41:36] Right.

April Vokey: [00:41:37] I just, I get it, I respect it, I am all about manly men. I think that it’s okay for manly men to be bloodthirsty and talk about it, blah, blah, blah. 

Travis Bader: [00:41:46] Sure. 

April Vokey: [00:41:46] It’s just not what I am interested in listening to. 

Travis Bader: [00:41:50] Right. 

April Vokey: [00:41:51] And so I wanted to create a platform of, you know, a community of people and conversation that was appealing, selfishly to me, and hope that other people felt the same way. And wouldn’t, you know, there’s a whole market of people out there who feel like that’s been missing. And so that’s really where the membership started to pickup was, you know, are these people who felt like maybe that what’s the word I’m looking for? Tambour of voices missing. 

Travis Bader: [00:42:18] Right, okay. Good word. 

April Vokey: [00:42:21] Thanks.

Travis Bader: [00:42:23] So now, February, you launched Anchored Outdoors, we are going to be coming up on a year in a little bit here. What do you see in the future for Anchored? 

April Vokey: [00:42:35] Yeah. Great question. More community, way more community. I started the Facebook page pretty late into the business. Like the Facebook group’s only been around for a while and I’m just constantly in awe of the people on there and the community that builds totally, it’s got nothing to do with me, it’s just everybody networking, getting to know each other. They trust each other, but they also trust they, they, they speak same language. Right. It’s just.

Travis Bader: [00:43:04] Right.

April Vokey: [00:43:05] It’s just, everyone’s kind of on the same page. Everyone’s different, but they all have the same values as I think what I’m probably looking for. And I’d like to really take that to the next level. So the Masterclasses will always be probably front and centre because they are extremely interesting and well worth the money.

Travis Bader: [00:43:23] And they’re beautiful. 

April Vokey: [00:43:24] Thanks.

Travis Bader: [00:43:24] They’re well-produced are well put together. They’re really nice. 

April Vokey: [00:43:27] Yeah. You know, it was important to me that my, that our instructors would be proud of what they were putting out. And I think it’s safe to say that we’ve done that, you know.

Travis Bader: [00:43:37] I’d say so.

April Vokey: [00:43:38] It’s not me, it’s it’s the whole team, right. Is Tom is our homestead coordinator Jackie’s our hunt, our hunt coordinator. It’s the videographers, there’s a bunch of videographers involved. It’s every, everybody as a team and everybody is proud. Every instructor is proud of what they’ve put out. And the next step is going to be interactive courses, so being able to do the courses together. 

Travis Bader: [00:43:58] Cool. 

April Vokey: [00:43:59] Yeah. That’s important. You know, a membership is no good if people don’t use is.

Travis Bader: [00:44:03] Totally. 

April Vokey: [00:44:04] So it’s important that we, you know, if it takes a team to do it together and, and it gets everyone inspired and excited, then why not right? 

Travis Bader: [00:44:12] Totally. And then, I mean, I think like anything I look at, from my perspective, looking at that business model, that community is the biggest thing that, that, the most valuable thing that you can grow there, I think. 

April Vokey: [00:44:24] Yeah. And it’s so much fun. Like we just started every, once a month we do, mon, so we do members only fly tying nights and they’re interactive and it’s so cool that I’ll have a hundred people. Cause you know, it can only have a hundred in the, in a meeting and about a hundred people on my screen. 

[00:44:38] And while the guest instructor is speaking, I can go through, and teaching how to tie, I can go through and look at everybody’s video and then be like, Tom, just real quick, you know, tighten that hackle. You know, Laura makes sure that, let me know if you need help with the whip finish later, and then they’re chatting to me and you know, it’s just this real, you walk away from it feeling so fulfilled and so happy just to spend just time with, you know, special people. I love it. I’ve never been so happy. 

Travis Bader: [00:45:06] That’s fantastic. That’s really, that’s really cool to hear. I mean, some people get into business for all the wrong reasons. And my, my personal thinking on it is, and I’ve said it before. If you’re looking at it to get into business, to make money, you’re always going to be chasing the money. You’re always going to be behind it. 

[00:45:23] But as you getting into it, because you want to be able to offer something of, that you feel will be a value to others, that you enjoy, money is just a natural byproduct of the hard work and effort that you put in. And I always like to see other people who have similar business ideas and they do it because it’s something that they feel will be a value to others.

[00:45:42] No doubt in my mind that Anchored is going to grow into a even far more successful than, than where it is right now. 

April Vokey: [00:45:49] Thanks. Yeah. No, it’s, it’s looking good. Things are looking really good.

Travis Bader: [00:45:53] Before we wrap everything up here, do you have any advice to anybody else who’s got a passion and would like to build it into their business or follow in the footsteps of the great April Vokey?

April Vokey: [00:46:07] Oh, don’t say that. It’s not me, I’m just the, I’m just Oz. I’m just pulling strings while everyone else is doing amazing things. Just.

Travis Bader: [00:46:13] How about the great AV.

April Vokey: [00:46:14] The AV, the AV, right. 

Travis Bader: [00:46:15] There ya go.

April Vokey: [00:46:16] My advice is, you know, It’s very easy today with internet and with ego, to paint ourselves into a corner. And I just think it’s important that, you know, aspiring, a lot of these people now, right now, who might be listening, may be creating their own personal brand online. And that’s important. You need that, for that spreadsheet that you can have your initials as, you know, part of your business. 

[00:46:46] But it is, I believe in having a diverse portfolio, like when I invest my money, I have a very diverse port, like my money is spread out everywhere. I would never just put it on real estate or just put it all in stocks it’s everywhere. And I think business should be looked at in some way, you know, in a lot of ways, the same way. And so it’s nice to not back yourself in a corner because you won’t always be young, you won’t always be hot, you know, for a lot of these young people. 

Travis Bader: [00:47:15] Sure.

April Vokey: [00:47:15] And I don’t just mean appealing from a, from an attractive stance. I mean, you, you won’t always be the hottest angler. You won’t always be there hottest guide or the hottest man or whatever it is that you’re hot at. You won’t always be the best. So it’s a good idea just to have a backup plan. And I think there are a lot of people who are business owners at heart and they might not know it. 

[00:47:36] And I would urge you, anyone listening right now, to really take a deep dive into yourself and look at things that you did maybe when you were younger. Like for me, I was the kid selling lemonade on the side of the road. 

[00:47:48] I was the kid, when we would go to the barn, I was four years, like literally four years old, collecting horse tails, you know, the plant, the plant, crushing them up and trying to bottle and like mixing it with water, trying to bottle and sell perfume to my mom’s friends. 

[00:48:06] I remember taking paper and putting it all my friends were outside playing, I remember Tyler and Cameron Kerr and all the kids playing in the cul-de-sac and I was inside with my paper. I’m taping it together and gluing pennies down it, making it look like a skirt that I could sell. You know, all of these little things when I was younger, I just wanted to be a bloody business woman.

[00:48:27] That’s what I wanted to do, but I didn’t know. I didn’t, I didn’t, I mean I knew, but I didn’t know. And maybe, I mean, the sal- like, yeah, I guess I, wasn’t going to start a big sale, scale company when I was 10. And so, I mean, I guess it all happened in due time, but pay attention to those things, you know, if you’re out there and, and you were the kid wanting to sell things or have a garage sale. I mean, who doesn’t love selling at garage sales or say.

Travis Bader: [00:48:50] Totally.

April Vokey: [00:48:50] You love going to Mexico cause you love to barter, I mean, maybe being a business owner is for you. And the other thing, Travis, I think people, you hit the nail on the head when you were saying you like to speak to other business owners who are passionate about what they sell.

[00:49:02] I don’t even think that that’s an option. Like if you don’t love what you sell, to me, it’s not even that you’re a businessman, you’re a sales or woman, you’re a salesperson, you know, you’re.

Travis Bader: [00:49:12] Right.

April Vokey: [00:49:12] Selling and, and I, that’s just not, it’s not sustainable. How long can you stay selling something that you don’t believe in? So I really believe that for a lot of people, this thing, who might be unsure if they’re business owners, if they just find something that they believe in and pay attention to the little things that their past, they might decide, they might figure out that they’re more of a business person than they think they are.

[00:49:35] You know, the other thing I would say to people who are thinking about getting into business, this is really important times have changed, right? Like I was just telling my husband this morning, I was like, you know, if I would have known 15 years ago that the world would have all these, like things like automations and the analytics and tracking, it’s just a different world than it was back then.

[00:49:53] So for a lot of people in their thirties, who are like myself, you know, late thirties things have, have changed. There is a lot, there are a lot of ways to make business easier these days. But one of the things that I really want to be a takeaway for people is staying right now is, you don’t need to get it perfect, you just need to get it going. 

[00:50:12] And a lot of the people I listened to in business, this is an ongoing theme. You know, you don’t need to get it perfect. You just need to get it going. And like I had mentioned to you when we were off record at another point, you know, fall forward, fail fast, fall forward. Figure it out.

[00:50:28] It’s, you know, one of the, one of the first books I read on business when I was, I think I was 20, as I read, Think and Grow Rich. You know, he makes a real clear, there is no failure. Like every time that you think you fail, you just figure it out what you need to do differently next time. And just because something doesn’t work one way, switch it around, don’t redo everything.

[00:50:46] That’s the first time you put something out, whatever it is, the success of that is, is just your, your first attempt and now you just need to tweak it. And you know, it can be something as simple as a sentence here or, timing there. And, and you know, this thing called split testing, A/B testing, run tests, try things, see what works and what doesn’t.

[00:51:06] So my, I guess what I’m saying is don’t give up before you’ve at least tried and don’t, please, this is the number one thing I see people do, don’t wait to get it perfect. Just throw it on the wall and see what sticks, it’s never going to be the same anyway. Everyone is like, Oh, but I don’t know exactly what my business is.

[00:51:23] I don’t know what my business is going to be next year. I mean, you ch, it evolves, and you never know how it will evolve if you don’t at least put some legs on the damn thing. 

Travis Bader: [00:51:33] Well said, well said. I think, you know, there’s a few things you just took right out of my, my head it felt like and better articulated it. There’s a very successful Canadian fellow who says done is better than perfect. 

April Vokey: [00:51:47] That’s right. Absolutely because it’s, it’s never, it’s never going to be, it’s always going to change and you won’t know until you get the response and you get the community and you get the ideas and you get the criticisms. I mean, one of, I used to be terrified of criticism, who wants to be criticized? Now, that’s some of my, my best building blocks are based off of criticism. 

Travis Bader: [00:52:08] Do you buy into the praise? I mean, like if you give praise value, that means you probably give criticism value. 

April Vokey: [00:52:15] I gave it all. I give all feedback value. Anybody who takes the time to communicate to me, provided that it’s done with mutual respect, because I don’t just walk up to people randomly and slap them in the face. I would hope that they don’t do the same thing to me either. You know, all criticism and feedback and praise is listened to and appreciated too. I mean, how else do you grow right? If you’re not, if your ears aren’t open. 

Travis Bader: [00:52:38] So inspirational. April, thank you very much for taking the time to be on The Silvercore Podcast, always enjoy talking with you.

April Vokey: [00:52:45] Likewise. Thank you.