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Fresh Perspective Interview with Tom Drake

Written by Aaron Pinkston, Mon, Feb 22 2010
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I don’t know about you, but I’d rather start my week off with a positive viewpoint that maybe I didn’t have before. That’s why I find and interview interesting folks and publish our conversation here on Mondays. Hopefully, this interview series gives you the kick start your week needs too.

This week, I managed to catch up with Tom Drake, creator of Canadian Finance Blog. As we discuss, he is such a likeable guy and his content is so practical and useful he has built a loyal international audience. Hop on over there if you like what you see.

AP: So you're a financial analyst for a major retailer in Canada. That's a pretty technical job. How did you get involved writing about personal finance.

TD: I've had an interest in all aspects of finance for some time now. Many of the same skills apply to both corporate and personal finances. When I started Canadian Finance Blog, I was just recently married and we were expecting our first child and looking to buy a house. With all these major events happening within a one-year span, I had quite a few ideas on what we should do with our personal finances and thought I should write them down and share them with others that might be in similar situations.

AP: Okay, but how does your experience and training as a financial analyst help you with writing about personal finance?

TD: Some might think first of investing, with experience in reading financial statements and spotting trends, but it carries over in more ways that that. I spend my day budgeting, reporting bottom line results and then look for opportunities to improve them. This same mindset carries over to my own finances and resulted in people often asking me for advice before I ever started Canadian Finance Blog.

AP: One of your more popular ongoing series of articles is Insurance You Can Do Without. How did you come up with that idea? And why do you hate insurance so much?

TD: I don't hate all insurance, some products like term life insurance, disability insurance and critical illness insurance are all a great way to protect your most valuable financial asset... your ability to earn future income. The reason I started the Insurance You Can Do Without series was to shed light on some of the policies that are either overpriced when better alternatives exist, or even worse, some are completely unnecessary and are sold based on purely emotion decisions.

AP: You just started your website about a year ago, yet you've had a great amount of success in terms of exposure, links, and so on. You've even stolen the hearts and minds of a lot of American readers. How do you account for your success?

TD: There are many personal finance sites with some awesome writers. The trick is to help people find your site in the first place. After I write a post in the evening, I work on anything from replying to emails and networking on Twitter to improving SEO and submitting to blog carnivals. Then I go to sleep and as soon as I wake up I'm submitting that day's post to ten social media sites before getting ready for work.

When I was thinking about starting a personal finance site, I wrestled with whether I should keep the site more generic or go after a Canadian niche. I'm glad I made the choice I did. While I could be writing articles about 401ks, it wouldn't feel genuine and I don't think I would be adding any value when readers can find that information from better sources. I'm glad that American readers look past the site title and still enjoy the posts. While I may write about RRSPs and TFSAs, other articles about ways to save money or how to improve your career and income can hopefully benefit anyone.

AP: What's next for you and Canadian Finance Blog?

TD: Well, I just brought in a second writer. Alan is a great writer that really puts the personal aspect into his personal finance articles. I've had a steady increase in visitors and hope to continue that. I figure that if I ever hit a plateau in traffic, then I'm not doing something right. While I love getting traffic from other finance sites, I'm also trying to hook readers that have never even read a personal finance blog before.

AP: Thanks Tom, I hope you had fun answering these questions.

TD: Thanks for interviewing me!


Last week, I talked with Greg Summers, also known as the Lean Life Coach, about applying lean management skills to your personal life daily. Check it out.