Update On The Business Side Of Rocks And Stocks News

As readers of my reports and viewers of my videos know, I love talking about metals, mining and exploration to drill for buried treasures. Part of the reason that I do this is because mainstream business media and brokerage house analysts abandoned the mining sector many years ago. So the role they used to play is now in the hands of market commentators like myself.

When I started my reporting on the sector in 2005, it was because I had worked with a fantastic group of geoscientists as a consultant to juniors since starting in the business in 1993. During my time as a consultant, I had built up a strong network of people in the mining business and a reputation for doing good homework on the markets and metals. 

One day I was walking down the street, on one of the street corners in Vancouver, there was a stock ticker, the NYSE and TSX were dropping hard, and I was watching the ticker in free fall. A reporter from one of the Vancouver newspapers walked up to me and asked a bunch of questions about what I thought was happening. I told him why I thought it looked to be trading high on misplaced fear and the reasons I thought it would change course rapidly. 

I walked away after speaking with the reporter thinking that was interesting. The next morning the market changed direction and came back with a vengeance. Then my phone started ringing and my friends in the business asked if I saw the newspaper. They told me I better go pick up the paper. 

Much to my surprise, when I opened up the paper, there was a big half page picture of me looking at the stock ticker. In the article below, there were a bunch of quotes about what I had mentioned to the reporter. 

My friends in the office and on the phone were joking around that I was famous. Afterward, when I was on the streets in Vancouver, or on the phone in my office, people in the business would stop me to ask for my opinion on the markets. It was very flattering and I loved talking about what I was seeing in the markets, with metals prices and in mining stocks so I had a blast doing it.

After a few years of doing this on the street commentary, Pat Bolland, who would later go on to be a key anchor at Report on Business which then became Business News Network, had a Saturday morning television show about the markets. After the show, there was an online forum that he, his guests and viewers would come on to talk about the market. This lasted for a few years and I enjoyed joining in on the forum and built a good relationship with Pat.

After his Saturday morning shows ended, he went on to be a host on one of the business news channels in the States and then was hired to be one of the key anchors on Report on Business in Canada. He and Amanda Lang were the two faces and voices on the channel that launched the channel onto television screens of Canadian investors and would run all day at every Canadian brokerage house.

Around this same time, I had worked for over a decade as a consultant and had been blessed to work with a talented group of experts in geophysics, geochemistry and geology. When I would see coverage of their work by newsletter writers and in the media, I didn’t think that their stories were being told very well. They were focused on the rocks and most investors and commentators were focused on the stocks. 

So, I decided to start my own report, the Allan Barry Report, with one report on metals and the other on Canadian diamond exploration. Eventually I merged them into one and then a few years ago switched the name of my reports to Rocks And Stocks News. Allan Barry Reports started as written reports that I would send out to my network of investors and people in the mining business via email. 

Pat Bolland and my path crossed again when I phoned him up when he got to the Report on Business and told him what I was doing with my reports and asked if he wanted to receive my reports. He immediately said he would love to so I added him to my email list. 

After around a year or so, one day I got a phone call from the producer of Pat’s show and she asked if I would be interested in coming on his show to discuss my reports. I was super nervous about doing this because my audience may not know this but I was a very shy person growing up, it took me a fair bit of time to open up to people and I was one of those kids that sat at the back of the class to avoid going up in front of the class to speak.

But, I told the producer that if Pat was okay with having a very nervous guest, I was game to do it. She arranged it for a few days later and my nervousness started to build right after accepting. So I decided to talk to my friends in the business that I thought were excellent public speakers. 

They gave me two pieces of advice that helped me build up my confidence before the interview. One was that I know my topic very well, which is why they invited me. The other was that once the camera started rolling and the questions came, I would be fine because I was well informed. 

The producer didn’t give me much in the way of pre-production other than Pat wanted me to come on to talk about my reports. That was all I had to go on to prepare for the interview.

The morning of the show I arrived early like they asked me to and I sat in the green room for a bit with my nerves shot and wondering if I made a mistake to accept the interview. Then they took me into the Vancouver studio, and hooked me up to a mic and earpiece while I sat in front of a bunch of lights and cameras. 

I was able to listen in to Pat Bolland and Amanda Lang doing their show and then during a commercial break, they started talking to me in the earpiece. They asked me how I was doing, I told them I was super nervous. They assured me that everything would be good and they wanted to talk about diamond exploration in Canada.

At that time, Canadian exploration for diamonds was a big thing, but there were only a few commentators doing reports on it. I was relieved because I knew that it wasn’t a well understood topic, but I had been working with some brilliant scientists in it and had been immersed in diamond exploration for several years. 

They told me that they would start the interview soon and that they had interviewed many nervous guests and would help me through it. I drank a bunch of water because it felt like I had cotton in my mouth. 

I thought, well it is too late to back out now and then I heard them introducing me in my earpiece. They got right into asking me about diamonds and diamond exploration in Canada. After leaving the studio I was happy I had accepted the offer and immediately thought about how great Pat Bolland and Amanda Lang were at being hosts that helped me get through my first public speaking engagement.

By this time, I had stopped working in Vancouver and started my own office in the suburbs of Vancouver not far from my home. I was still doing consulting work for publicly traded juniors and had launched a website for my reports. It had my reports on it and my email, phone number and a way for investors to join my email list.

On the drive back to my office, I couldn’t remember anything about the interview, it was all a blur. I was impressed with how Pat and Amanda helped me get through it, but had no idea how it went. I also thought about the advice of my friends I had asked about public speaking and that their advice also helped me a lot.

When I got back to my office and opened up my email, I was shocked to find that there were hundreds of people that had signed up to receive my reports. I was surprised because Pat and Amanda hadn’t mentioned anything about my website, they just gave viewers my name and the name of my report.

I thought wow, all these people did a Google search to find my website, and then signed up for my report so they had to be interested in what I had talked about during the interview. Then I saw that there were voicemails waiting on my phone. There were a bunch of messages thanking me for doing the interview, congratulating me for presenting a lot of great information and giving me their emails so they could receive my reports.

After dealing with all the emails and voicemails, I decided to watch the interview. I kind of chuckled at how nervous I looked and how my eyes were darting all over the open studio at people moving around and at the camera and the lights. But, I was happy that I did the interview and thought I talked about several interesting topics and that viewers liked it because they took the effort to look me up and signed up to receive my reports.

That interview helped me overcome my nervousness and shyness that had been with me since I was a young boy. Until then I had been pretty adept at hiding these issues It also helped me gain a bunch of new subscribers for my reports. I wasn’t sure what else would come of it.

I was glad that the production people at Report on Business that would become Business News Network (BNN) called me for more interviews. From around 2006 until 2012, I was a regular guest and it helped me get comfortable in front of the camera and gain a much larger audience for my reports. This was all happening during a fantastic bull market for gold and other metals.

Then in 2012 gold hit a wall and started to come down. Both Pat Bolland and Amanda Lang left BNN. The channel stopped covering juniors like they had been and changed all the production people. My phone stopped ringing to appear as a guest.

Over my career in the mining business since 1993, I found that when one door closed another opened. By the time BNN had stopped calling me to do interviews, I had started using Youtube to do my own interviews and video reports. 

By then, I was very comfortable in front of the camera and as a host asking questions of mining company executives to present their story to my audience. I love doing interviews and enjoy talking to executives about the rocks and their news. While also being mindful of the fact that most investors in mining stocks are not geologists and that I need to break down the highly technical information and explain it in a way so that it resonates with investors.

In Closing

This story about how I got started in reporting on the mining sector has been percolating in my mind for awhile now. Part of the reason is that my business model of having sponsors to fund my work has been broken for some time now.

For over a year, I have been working on ways to fix my business that has been going through a transition. I’m not going to stop having sponsors, although I have lost several over the past year or so, I have some great ones and will continue working with them.

I started in the mining business more than 30 years ago as a consultant to public companies. Over that time, I have worn several hats, including investor relations, digital marketing, corporate development, designing and running drill programs, and strategic planning. I love doing consulting work and over the past year have decided to revive that side of my business.  

I’m always looking for what things are needed in the sector.  One of the things I have identified and been focused on behind the scenes is that mining needs venture capital companies like the tech industry in Silicon Valley has. It is a dream of mine to start a mining venture capital company that brings together my reporting and consulting work.

Although I don’t have more details to present yet on my efforts to create a mining venture capital company that brings all my work under one umbrella. I can say that I am in advanced discussions to make this goal a reality. As things firm up I will present more details.

The bottom line is that I love reporting on metals and mining, and being an advocate that is relentless in putting out content for investors in the sector. Although my business is going through challenges, I am absolutely confident that my future business will be much stronger.

What won’t change is that I will continue to put out tons of content about metals and mining as well as interviews with executives of mining companies.

All the best,

Allan Barry Laboucan