Radio Broadcaster Talk with Jason Gregor

Today’s guest is Jason Gregor.

Here’s our Job Talk with a radio broadcaster.

Jason, how long did it take you to become? 100% comfortable with no nerves, broadcasting on air, do you think? Wooh, wow…

doing it for 20 years? Man, I got to it’s I don’t know if my memory’s good enough.

before I got into radio, I had a stretch of of a few years where I was like the emcee for six of my buddies weddings and including my sisters.

And that was before I was ever in media.

So I was never I never was kind of shy as far as public speaking goes.

But, you know, even now, when I emcee an event, there’s always a little bit of nerves.

But to me, if you’re not nervous, then that’s not good.

I like to be nervous and then it starts and then I’m fine.

So know looking back, it’s hard to remember how I felt when I did my first show, but I think it helped because I was on air kind of as a producer co-host for a bit with Jon Short first.

And so when I was ready, I wanted to host my own show.

So I don’t think I was really that nervous.

Maybe I was too naive to be nervous, so maybe that’s a good thing.

And like, I still have my tape of my first show and it’s, it’s definitely rough compared to, to how it is now.

But I don’t recall if I was necessarily that nervous, to be honest.

I was going to ask if there’s a difference between the nerves being in front of a live audience and an event, or just sitting in your studio broadcasting.

of a live audience and an event, or just sitting in your studio broadcasting.

Sometimes I find it harder, you know, if you’re in the studio, like, you know, you’re talking into a mic and there’s no one you’re looking at, right? So you’re just like, Is this thing on? Is anyone listening? And obviously there’s there’s people listening, but a live audience, I’d like to see the reaction of people.

I think I consider myself a people person.

So I like engagement, I like eye contact.

I think that’s you know, it’s live events like that.

You can really draw in people more when they see your facial expressions and you see theirs and how they react.

And obviously, what I do in live events for friends, you know, a lot of charity events, the you know, the emotion is very different than talking sports.

So but to me, I don’t I don’t find it much different at all, really.

You know, it’s I’m so used to just talking into the mic and, you know, obviously want to have a co-host, but, you know, now that I do my show from home, you know, a lot of times I’m just sitting here by myself and it’s like, hey, what’s happening? Well, that’s what’s fascinating to me.

The skill set of being able to talk to yourself for long stretches.

Do you find that you’re talking to yourself out loud around your house during your day to day? Yeah, my wife bugs me all the time.

I’ll have conversations, but I’ve always kind of done that.

It’s it’s one of those things, like, I’m like an opening monologue and that’s and that’s me, you know, everybody’s different.

I feel as if you’re going to be a talk host.

You got to be able to do a 15 minute monologue and just be able to do mine every day. No problem.

I just feel like, you know, people are tuning in to hear your opinion on stuff and then obviously you have guests and everybody else and co-host.

But I think part of the part of the gig should be you should be able to do a 15 minute monologue and just flow from one topic to the next.

Was this a natural progression that you ended up being a radio personality? What what kind of a student were you in high school? Where you outgoing or re shy? Yeah, I was pretty outgoing.

I was the class historian for I went to James Picard High School.

Yeah, we ended up our school split in grade 11.

The Francophones went to Maurice-Lavallée and so we had like 38 kids in our class and I got along with everybody.

I was always pretty social person.

I, you know, I had, I’ve always had close group of buddies, but I found I get along with most people for the most part.

So yeah, I was always outgoing, so but it was, it was far from a natural progression.

You know, like I, I graduated high school and you know, I was playing junior hockey b like junior B hockey, let’s be honest here.

I don’t ever I don’t ever try to glorify my sporting career, but, you know, was just for fun, having loads of fun.

But I worked in the oil field until I was 20, 26, almost 27, and then I went back to school, which just I wasn’t and I make good money in the oil field, but I was not emotionally or physically just I wasn’t mentally challenged at all.

It wasn’t what I wanted to do.

And luckily I wasn’t married, I didn’t have kids.

And so I could go back to school and not make any money for a few years and and be okay because, you know, I’d save some money up a little bit.

And I was I, I found that I was always someone who I’m not a real materialistic person.

I was able to I look back now on what I used to make when I first started, and I was like, Man, I thought I was living a really good life.

And I was making like 26,000 bucks a year.

So, yeah, you know, and that was fine for me, but so no, it was far from a natural progression.

I to go back I had like as far as what kind of student I was, I wasn’t really I wasn’t committed enough in high school.

When I look back, I had to upgrade a few of my classes to get into my program and I really only needed to upgrade to English.

I had a 70 and they really wanted an 80, so but it was at 11:00 in the morning.

And so I was like, Well, I don’t want to waste the morning on one class.

So I ended up doing social and math and English three classes because I could do them all in the morning.

And just I was like, Hey, I might as well upgrade all my marks.

And still to this day, it bothers me because I got 99% in math because I got one wrong.

And the final test still annoys me to this day because, you know, 100% would have been pretty cool.

But once I was dedicated to school like I was older, school was much like when I did college prep, which is basically high school and it was easier, you know, I had more life experience, social studies.

I understood English, math, you know, you had three classes.

I had a picture on my wall in my home of of me working in the oil field.

And that was just my polite reminder of, you know, what, I have the ultimate respect for people in the oil fields.

I work there. It’s a great job for a lot of people.

Just wasn’t wasn’t satisfying for me at the end and I wanted to get out.

And you know what? I was I was really I was lucky because I had the owners of the of the company, Greg and Charlie at the time.

They were very supportive of me leaving.

I know there’s a lot of guys like, Oh, you’ll be back, you won’t get out.

And, and so I went to school and then in the summertime they let me come back and work part time, which was great, so I could make money again to go to school.

And then even at Christmas, when I had a three week break, I would go work in the shop over Christmas time because, you know, I was 28, I need to make some money.

And so I always I always remember Charlie and Greg and, you know, for anybody, you know, they they were as excited, I think, for me that I was getting out and going to try something that I wanted to do.

Yeah, a lot of people don’t get out and I have a lot of respect for the people that work in that industry because it’s not easy, especially with the weather that we have in in northern Alberta.

What was your first post-secondary experience? I guess, actually, where did you take your training to become a radio broadcaster? Well, my first post secondary experience wasn’t great.

I went to NAIT for a program, was called Health, Safety and Environment Technology.

It was a program literally I was working the oil field at the time and I saw it on TV and there was a program where they would pay you to go to school.

And I was like, I got to get into some sort of education.

And, you know, this is the time where they were getting into there’s a lot of safety stuff. There’s a real push for safety.

And like the early nineties or mid nineties, I guess it was.

And so I took this program and then I worked at Sperry Sun in the summertime as a, as a safety guy, like, you know, like menial stuff, like measuring the threads on the tires to make sure that they were thick enough, you know, and you had like, I don’t know how many 400 vehicles in that fleet and stuff.

So yeah, but you know, after, after like three weeks, I was like, jeez, I got nothing to do.

And I don’t think they had anything for me to do really.

So a lot of times I just played solitaire in my office. So, you know, I actually I true story.

I drove I actually got kicked out of that program in my in my second year.

So it turned out, you know what? I then went back to, to, to the oils.

I was 24, then I went back and that’s when I started at that premium oil field inspection.

And that was a real good kind of marriage.

23 But it was a really good stepping off because it was kind of like a wake up call for me, like, Hey, I got to get my, my ducks in a row here.

I got to be a little more responsible.

And so, yeah, my first experience in post-secondary wasn’t good.

But then when I went to to NAIT, I took the radio and television program and I really enjoyed it.

I had a lot of fun. I was ready to go to school.

I kind of knew it and I was very focused.

I knew what I wanted to do.

NAIT has a as a radio station NR92 and they want you to be like a disc jockey, right? …in the news.

I sucked. Like I had no interest.

I did not want to be a disc jockey.

I was I was going into radio and I was going to be John Short.

I wanted to be in sports talk radio. That was my thing.

I was very focused and I’m not sure that’s the best advice, but I knew what I wanted to do and I didn’t really deviate from it.

I ended up doing play by play for the hockey games and stuff like that, just because that’s what I wanted to do and I had to do the radio stuff.

But you know, I look back on it, I didn’t I didn’t put much effort and it wasn’t really good.

Like, you know, it’s a different skill set of being a a jock, as they call it on the radio where you got 2 minutes and you come in and say, Hey, good afternoon, how are you? And then you know, who are what, where you go and and then that was that was not for me.

And thankfully I never had to do that.

Yeah.

I remember an episode on Seinfeld when George was talking to Jerry and he was throwing out the idea of becoming a.

Sports play by play, play by play.

Color analysts and Jerry thought he looked at him incredulously.

So when you graduated from radio and television at the northern Northern Alberta Institute of Technology, you’re about to 27-28 years old.

Do you know of people that transitioned as an older person into radio? Yeah, well, I technically I started working.

My father passed away in 2000.

I had just been I just turned 28 right after he passed away.

And then in that and that January was my third semester, I actually started working part time for John Short, the easiest interview I ever did, and just asked me sports questions.

So for me, that was pretty simple.

And you know, I got a great learning curve.

Like John was the guy I grew up listening to. For me, he was like a legend.

I was like, Man, I’m working for him. It’s great.

And then I ended up doing my practicum for him and he gave me rope, like whatever I wanted to try, I could do.

Is it an old, young person’s game? Probably.

But I will say this I don’t necessarily believe it’s great for 19 year olds if I’m being honest.

Like, you know, I saw so many kids take that program at 18 and 19 and they never go anywhere.

I know to talk on the radio, you need some life experience.

You got to be able to relate to the young people in that and have enough insight that the people in their thirties and forties can be like, Oh, okay, this person isn’t completely clueless.

Right? And so to me, I, I would always recommend, you know, wait until you’re at least 20 to take the program.

Yeah, I think you’ll have a much better chance of success coming out.

That’s just me.

Maybe I’m completely wrong, but having seen the people in my class and, you know, seeing the success rate of the people that come out, I think those who are a few years older, like I was obviously I was a little bit older for sure at 26 or seven when I started, but I didn’t feel I was old in life by any stretch of the imagination.

I was 28 and the advantage I had when I was 28, when I went into to sports terms, I wasn’t intimidated. I didn’t.

I didn’t. They’re just athletes to me.

Yeah, yeah.

My father and mother taught me, hey, everybody puts their pants on one leg at a time.

And, you know, my brother played minor pro, you know, one of my good buddies being drafted the second round.

So maybe I just I wasn’t really intimidated by them as as people.

They were really good athletes.

So doesn’t make him a better human than me.

And so I actually think that earned me a lot of respect from players over the years just because I didn’t I never I never put them on a pedestal.

But I don’t do that for anybody.

Like, I don’t I don’t feel like we can have a whole conversation about the unhealthiness of of how people really in celebrity stuff and how they do.

Oh, he’s a celebrity. Oh, I’ll listen to them about my health.

What? Yeah, I don’t know anything about that.

So I think at times were a little bit too, you know, wide eyed in and of celebrities.

And luckily I didn’t have that.

And I think that really helped me when I had to go interview people.

Yeah.

You mentioned John Short and our listeners should do a Google search on John Short because he is absolutely a legend and I’m so happy to hear that he was a mentor for you and helped you out.

So you worked with John for a short period of time, couple of years, do you think? Know I worked with John when I started right out for for a few years.

And then in 2005, I’d been working for John.

A very unique situation, something I didn’t even know.

So we never really worked for the radio station.

Jon rented the airtime and we were kind of a group and we rented the airtime and then we went out and got our own advertisers.

And so I had started doing at this time my show was 11 p.m.

to 1 a.m.

and if you can sell 11PM to 1AM and you can sell any time.

And so I did that for a few years and but I realized after a while I was like, man, like the money’s going into the pot, but I’m really not.

I’m not making enough money here.

I’m now, I’m now I’m like in my thirties, right? And I’m like, I got to sink or swim here. So I had to make a decision.

So I talked to John and I went and talked to Marty Forbes and Karl Stark, who were who were running the red station at the time.

And I said, Hey, guys, you know, I want to separate from Jon, and I just I’ll buy my airtime.

Are you guys okay with that? And they were like, Yeah, sure.

So in March of 2005, I started my own company, Just a Game Productions.

The name of my show was just a game, so we just came up with just a game productions and I literally I sat down with like, I have no business background.

I sat down with an Excel spreadsheet, I’m good at math, and I had a few columns and one said, Okay, this is how much advertising money I’m going to need because I’ve got to pay the station.

I got to pay Will, my producer and obviously I got to pay myself.

And then this is how much money I’m going to need to get there.

And the best thing that ever happened to me early in my business was I met Paul Hockey, who at the time was coaching the the UofA Ringette club, and he was also a chartered accountant.

And so so Paul for the first like we would he would he hired me to emcee his event a few times and and that’s one thing I always recommend people never say no early in your career, say yes to a lot of things.

You’ll never know who you meet. And that allowed me to meet Paul.

And having a good accountant was like the saving grace.

He helped set up my company properly.

I didn’t know what I was doing.

One of my good buddies, Scott, he had his MBA, so he’d sent me like an invoice sheet on a, like a, basically an empty one and say, here, this is what you sent to your clients.

And I was like, okay.

And, and anyway, I went and I just kind of did everything right, like Paul gave me, This is what I want you to do.

Like keep track of your gas mileage.

Keep track of this, keep track of that.

Like, I was writing down everything for the first years, like, okay, 28 kilometers here.

Like, it was it was ridiculous.

But you know what? After six months, because we didn’t incorporate my company right away, I had a goal of what I wanted to make.

And he’s like, okay, you don’t need incorporate.

And then after six months, he’s like, You got incorporated, you know, my company, it went it went way better than I thought.

And that was that was kind of the sticking point.

So yeah, I worked with John for about four years total from from 2001 until March 1st, 2005.

And now I still saw John around, but by then I was kind of on my own.

You’re now an entrepreneur.

When you go into that, you’re not just a radio broadcaster.

Are you a risk taker? A little bit, yeah.

I mean, I’m not scared.

You know, I was lucky.

You don’t realize it till you’re an adult.

The biggest advantage I had was I grew up in a loving household.

And you don’t realize that when your parents love you, it just gives you confidence that you don’t even know that you have.

It’s like, wow, if I fail, you know what? I’m not going to die.

And, you know, like I remember I had to borrow $5,000 from my mom to to start my company.

And I was like, Hey, mom, I’ll pay you back in like six months or whatever.

She’s like, Sure, I paid her back in two months, is very excited about that.

But it was it was just her believing like she didn’t question me.

She’s like, okay.

And my mom is my mom is one of the most well-read, most educated people I know.

And so it was funny, but she never gave put pressure on me to go to school.

Even though she has her master’s, she actually got her doctorate in our in her sixties.

Like, she’s a very smart woman and she’s written three books now.

And so she’s you know, any time I think I’m working hard, I see my mom and I got to work harder because she’s work.

And so I’m a little bit of a risk.

I’m not I’m not afraid. I don’t I think I’m more of a I always am a glass half full person.

I will look at the potential of what can happen rather than the negative of what possibly could go wrong.

And and that, I think, is as it doesn’t mean that you’re not I’m not aware of potential failure, but I was never really scared.

But I was like, okay, I can start this company.

Like, it can’t be that hard.

And it’s turned out to be, you know, infinitely better than I ever could imagine.

And it led me into lots of other businesses.

Now, 17 years later.

For our listeners that don’t live in the Edmonton market or Canada, could you tell us a little bit about your show and the market that you’re in? So my show is on TSN 1260.

It’s a it’s an all sports radio station.

My show is Monday to Friday from two in the afternoon until six in the drive show.

Luckily a really good slot.

And basically I, I lease the airtime from the station, so I rent it from them and then I have my company and I go out and solicit all my advertisers and they pay my company and then that allows me to pay myself.

And my co-host, Jason Strudwick, a former NHL player, Connor, my producer, and then a few regular scheduled guests that I have and pay all my taxes.

You know how it works.

Yeah.

And so I’ve had that since 2005.

I’ve been in the drive show slot because I started at 11 until one and then I went nine to midnight and then in 2008 I moved into the afternoon.

So I’ve been there for 14 years in the drive time slot and it’s it’s been a great partnership with with Bell Media.

They, they don’t kick me out.

They still we actually just had to sign a new three year extension.

So, so that’s nice.

And yeah, that’s kind of that’s that’s kind of how it goes.

And then I do a lot of writing at oilersnation.com and dailyfaceoff.com we kind of got into the internet and again just meeting people and you know I met to two guys who who approached me to write back in 2008 for OilersNation, the website back when the internet was you know sports sites are starting to grow.

And and I was at that point I was like, well, I don’t want to just be an employee for someone.

So I said, well, I’ll write for you, but can I buy in? Yeah. And they were like, What am I gonna. I’ll buy it.

So I bought it at 20% and learned a lot about the Internet.

Like the Internet’s a different beast, man. It’s a very different animal.

And then I’m definitely not the tech guy on it at all.

So it’s got a more charge content.

And, you know, every now and then the three of us had to we need some advertising money to keep this thing going.

So then we’d go get some advertisers and now it builds itself up.

And luckily we actually sold that company to Play Maker in this past November, which was amazing.

So wow. Yeah, that’s that’s one of the things I do.

We are I’m a I’m a partner and small partner In Oodle Noodle.

Noodle.

There are 16 stores in the Edmonton area, so I kind of dabble in a few things now for fun.

A serial entrepreneur.

I love it.

How, how has social media affected your industry? Is it helped or does it hurt? Do you think it was better when we didn’t have social media and you guys were the source for information? No, I don’t.

I don’t I wouldn’t I wouldn’t say so.

I think it’s like anything.

If you want to find stupidity and false stuff, you’ll find it right.

If you want if you want to challenge yourself and read it and question what you read.

I was always taught from my mom that, you know, you can read something but read with it and then it’s okay to question say, well, hey, why is this and why is that so? No, I think the you know, the Internet like for me, the big reason why I wanted to write was because in radio at the time there wasn’t podcasts and they weren’t even archiving shows.

So if people missed your show, they missed it, right? And so I found there was a lot of ideas I had two days later someone would write about it. I was like, Hey, wait a second. I really like that.

So I think the Internet’s help.

Social media. Social media is like anything.

What you put in is what you get out.

If you want to follow a lot of caustic, negative people, then you’re going to get a lot of caustic negativity if you want to follow people.

And I also don’t think if you only follow people you agree with, well, then that’s pretty stupid too, because you always no one knows everything.

We can always learn stuff.

It’s a trust me, it’s not easy to to have to be like, Oh geez, I was wrong on that one.

None of us like that.

But I always there’s some people that I follow purposely because I know they think and view things different than me and it makes me say, Hmm, okay, I haven’t looked at it that way.

And so that’s what I find.

But I, it helps the industry, you know, like you can promote stuff, you know, hey, coming up on the show today and then different things like that for sure.

So but you know, social media it to me, you got to kind of take it for what it is if if you want to follow mindless stuff and that’s all you want.

Awesome.

If you only want sunshine and lollipops and rainbows, well, that’s prob that’s not the real world.

But I also I try to ignore people that are anonymous because when you’re anonymous, you can say whatever you want.

It’s gutless.

It doesn’t take a lot of courage.

So the mute button is fantastic.

One that I’ve learned to use on Twitter.

I probably wish I would have used it earlier because there’s just there’s I don’t I don’t like unnecessary negativity.

Now, if you want to question something I wrote, did you present in a right way? We can have a healthy debate and I can disagree with people.

And it doesn’t mean we don’t have to agree.

If we all agreed, life would be more right.

But you can disagree with people and like I stand up for myself.

I don’t I don’t have any. Like every now and then I’ll just ramp.

If somebody beats off at me, I don’t back down.

I have like why so some and I honestly, I don’t I don’t go to bed thinking about it either.

Like, I don’t why would I worry about what? James 2734 thinks? I don’t know what he is. I don’t know if he’s an expert.

Like when they try to give me advice on my show, like, Oh, you should do this.

I’m always like, okay, well give me your background on like the best advice I got once from a teacher was don’t take criticism from someone that you won’t take advice from.

Yeah, I think they could alleviate a lot of the poison that’s on Twitter if they removed the ability to be anonymous on Twitter.

I don’t know why they haven’t done that.

How do you navigate what you hear from people and what you can share with your listeners without crossing the line? I guess that’s maybe an ethics question or an integrity question because I imagine you have a lot of people coming at you when you’re not on the show with rumors and innuendos.

A few.

I made a conscious decision when I first started that I wouldn’t I wouldn’t be like a TMZ.

I wasn’t going to report on personal stuff of of players off of the ice unless it directly impacted what they did on the ice.

And so, like, if some guy was out at the bar, 2am, I like, I’m not talking about that because I was out of the bar too.

Am too like whatever.

That’s you know, what if he plays poorly, I’ll talk about what what a poor performance he had.

But I’m all connected to him or her being out.

That’s and that’s my own personal one everybody else is going to have.

So you have to find what your moral compass is and try not to to sway from it too much.

And so I’ve never really had a big like I’ve had a few people.

Like if somebody tells me something off the record, then to me it’s off the record.

And I now I like I’m in sports.

Like, it’s not like, you know, we’re we’re making life altering decisions for people, right? I think if if you were in politics, it would be very different because, you know, that stuff that can directly impact people’s income and their health and education like that’s real stuff.

I get to play in like the sandbox of fun.

So you know what? If I hear a rumor, hey, so-and-so might get traded.

Well, they might get trade. Like you hear so many rumors.

Like I think people would probably be surprised how often in sports managers will discuss a certain player, Hey, maybe we should trade him.

And the other team has interest and then never happens, right? That that probably happens way more than people think.

But luckily for me, I don’t like I don’t claim to be an inside guy.

I don’t break a ton of stories that like that’s really hard work.

You got to be on your phone all the time.

That’s not my personality. Like, you got to be a dog and a bone.

You got to be texting agents games all the time and I’m just that’s that’s not my that’s not my personality.

That’s not my skill set.

So I kind of realized early on where I fit and what I wanted to do and what I wanted to be good at and I like talking to a lot of different sports.

That’s why I like I have a radio show we can talk, not just hockey.

I talk basketball and football.

And I did play by play for lacrosse for ten years.

And I did junior football play by play.

So I like all sports. So to me that’s good.

And to be an insider in one sport, you got to really focus on it.

And I don’t know if I have the personality to do it and and B, I just didn’t have the interest to do it.

You mentioned you were a sports fan, but there’s no cheering in the press box, so you almost remove something you’re passionate about to become the broadcaster that reports on it.

How have you found the transition of not being able to be a fan anymore? I remember vividly the first time in the press box and sitting by John Short and he just looked at me and goes, Hey, just so you know, there’s no cheering in the press box.

And I was like, What is I got I’m like, All right.

And I said, Well, John said So I guess not.

And yeah, it was for a long time.

It kind of, you know, you you sit there and it kind of takes the enjoyment of sports out for sure.

I’m lucky here.

The last years my nephew plays for the San Jose Sharks, and that’s really allowed me when I go to watch it.

When he plays a game that I’m in the building, I don’t sit in the press box, I go sit in the crowd.

And I was lucky enough to see him score a goal alive.

And I haven’t stood up and cheer at a game in a long time.

And it was it was awesome.

I truly enjoyed it.

It’s nice to be a fan for specific things like that, like family, you know, if anyone’s like, Oh, you’re in the media, like that’s my, it’s my family.

Like, give me a break. So I don’t, I don’t think anyone complained.

But there’s times where, where I miss it for sure, like my son at home when we watch sports and he gets fired up and he’s kind of like, Dad, you never really get excited.

And I’m like, Yeah.

So that’s that’s probably a little bit of a negative, but like, I can share, like I had teams in other sports if I’m not covering the league directly, like I don’t, I don’t live in an NFL city.

So you know, if I cheer for an NFL team, it doesn’t really impact my credibility.

I don’t believe so because I’m not covering that league.

But, you know, the NHL and the CFL and stuff like that directly, you know, now the CEBL and stuff like that.

Yeah. You know, you just you kind of get used to it.

It’s, it’s there’s lots of perks to my job and I’d say way more perks than negatives.

I guess that that would be one where you kind of remove the emotion from the game.

Yeah.

What do you love most about what you’re doing? That every day is different.

I’m I get bored pretty quickly.

So, you know every even though it’s the same as far as like shows all at the same time, the topics are different.

There’s always different trades or stories, different angles you can do.

I like interviewing people.

We have some long form interviews in my show story time where I just kind of find out about their life.

All right, enjoy that.

The other thing I’ve learned that I kind of stumbled into is I have a platform that can really I try to use it for positively influencing people, specifically for philanthropy.

I do a lot of charity work and stuff like that and that that really to quote a book from my son that fills my bucket a lot and and I really enjoy that.

What advice could you give somebody considering becoming a radio broadcaster? Well, number one, be flexible, be open minded when you start.

Like I know I said earlier, like I knew what I wanted to do, which was true, but I ended up doing like I had to do sales.

I never do sales.

I would watch sales.

Like, I still don’t to this day, don’t think I’m a good salesman, but I do it because I have to, because that’s the owner of my company and I’m basically the only salesman.

So if if Jason Gregor the salesman isn’t doing good, then Jason Gregor, the host, is not on air. So, you know, be flexible though, and don’t say no.

And you’d be surprised at how many different people you’ll meet in the industry or just that are out of the industry, that sales or stuff that have become really good friends or entrepreneurs, different business people that have opened up different doors and avenues.

For me.

And so that would be my big one is but make sure you’re passionate about it and don’t go into to media to be famous or to make a lot of money because you probably you’ll miss the enjoyment of the ride.

And you might never get either one of those too.

Yeah, I don’t like to call them failures, but looking over your career, maybe you’ve made some mistakes that you’ve learned from.

Because I think you learn more from the mistakes than you make than from the overwhelming success. Can you think of any mistakes that you made that you that you really learned from.

A lot of them? I don’t ever more so just gain experience, you know, early on is not being as good of an interviewer as I am now.

Right.

But that just comes from and the only way you get doing that, you need mic time.

I don’t care who you are till my Malcolm Gladwell 10,000 hour rule again.

You know, I was lucky I never had to leave Edmonton, but I.

I did my show when it first started on a Christian radio station, 11 p.m.

It was a Christian station. Then there were sports.

Trust me, it wasn’t a big market, even though I was in Edmonton.

So it was like I was in a small market.

But I got to cover pro teams, which was, which is great.

But so you know what I never like I mentioned earlier, I lucked out meeting Paul and having a proper account.

And so from a business standpoint, you know, behind the scenes and paying taxes and everything on time, that’s just the stuff that no one ever talks about.

But I’m telling you, that’s going to alleviate a lot of your stress.

Pay your quarterly taxes.

It makes a huge difference. I’m I didn’t you know, I probably made some mistakes and not following through in sales early on a little bit like I wasn’t you know, if I call someone a few times, yeah, yeah.

Get back to me.

And I, you know, I never really wanted to like I wasn’t like a hound dog, really.

Maybe at times I could have been a little bit more assertive.

But you know, that just I was doing okay.

So I didn’t like any time we needed sales, whether it’s on my show or on the Internet, that I would clamp down and I would pound on as many doors as I had to, but like, cold calling sucks, man.

I don’t care who you are. Like, it’s it’s not fun and sales.

But that’s just that’s part of the job. So you got to do it sometimes.

But I don’t know anybody who’s like who call in today.

Yeah, this is a great day.

Like, it’s not it’s not a fun thing to do, but it’s it’s a necessity of the job.

But I don’t I don’t have, like, any… like maybe some interactions on, on social media early on is probably what I would take back.

I probably got too emotional at times.

Those are definitely ones where you’re like, Yeah, probably shouldn’t respond to that way.

This question might be a little bit out of sequence, but when you’re interviewing someone and they’re not that talkative, does does that ever happen to you? And you kind of have to carry the interview? Well, in radio, if I find that it’s not going great, I just my.

All right. Thanks, man was great having you on.

It’s a five or six minute interview and then, boom, we’re out because there’s no I don’t need to have a 12 minute interview. Right.

It doesn’t need to be 15 minutes.

If they’re if it’s not working.

Right.

Or, you know, somebody gives you a lot of short answers, then, you know, you move on, right.

Like I did early on, sometimes try to stretch it out.

I’m my cheese. This is painful. So I learn. I’m like, Hey, man, cut bait.

If it’s not working like you, you get some people that aren’t comfortable.

And sometimes maybe the interview is an interview.

Maybe I ask a terrible question. I’m sure it’s happened a lot.

So yeah, the person’s all of a sudden like, Nah, I’m not liking that.

So I’ll just be like, All right, here we go.

It doesn’t happen a ton, but there are a few times when when I have had people where it’s just not going well and, and I’ve learned to just be like, okay, you know, abandon ship.

All right. Thanks for joining us.

Really appreciate it. Boom. And then you just move out.

You don’t say anything like I’m not going on record.

I was terrible. I’ll just be like, all right.

You know, I don’t think there’s there’s not much juice to squeeze out of that orange anymore.

So, you know, I don’t need to put I don’t need to put the rind in my mouth and try to suck every drop out of it.

I’ll just move on.

What are you most proud of over your career, do you think? I’m I’m probably proud that that my career has lasted this long so far, that I’ve that I’ve evolved with the times and been able to change and do different things.

I haven’t.

I haven’t had that many people that are tired of me.

There’s always some.

And, you know, the best advice I got from Ron Durda was who was my instructor in school? And he said, If you have a talk show and everybody likes your talk show, it’s not a good show because you’ve got to say things that are not everybody’s views, things.

It’s like, look at the political spectrum, right? The sporting spectrum hopefully doesn’t have the extreme sides right now, but, you know, not everybody is going to agree with you, which is great.

And if everybody always is, then you’re you’re probably not you’re not you’re not having a strong enough opinion.

This is what he said.

And so but I think the thing I’m probably maybe most proud of is, is the amount of money we’ve raised on my show to help out various charities over the years.

And then I started my own foundation in 2013 and Gregor’s grads, where we supply suits and shirts and ties and shoes for high school boys who can’t afford it for their graduation.

And I’m telling you, man, every year when I see those kids in that fitting room and they walk out for the first time like proof, it’s I’m kind of a crier, naturally.

And man, there’s lots of times where I have to I have to turn away because it’s when you can give somebody a feeling of pride.

It’s it’s an immensely powerful thing. Yeah.

I encourage our listeners to do a Google search on you and take a look at some of your your charities that you’ve started.

And Jason, I’ve seen how involved you are in the community and I’ve heard behind the scenes stories where you’re not out there putting your face in front of some of the great things that you do.

And I just want to thank you for that.

And that includes coming on this very modest podcast.

So thanks for your today.

I really appreciate it.

Kim Thanks for having me, man. You’re great interview.

Honestly, that was something that was really good.

That was easy.

It flowed really well.

So I’m happy to have and happy to come on and thanks for the kind words I appreciate it… awesome – thank you.

Thank you for tuning in to the Job Talk Podcast.

For more information, please visit us at thejobtalk.com

Our podcast music was created by our friend Mike Malone in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada.