Unlock 30% More Revenue with Email & SMS

If I told you that I've got a conversation coming up which would help you to find up to 30% extra revenue with really only fractional extra cost, I think you'd want to listen. And I think that my guest on this episode is amazing because he's helped to generate over $30 million worth of revenue for his clients using but the everyday email and SMS. And for me, all that data, to be honest, gets a little bit overwhelming and the import and the export and the connecting things. It can be very difficult, which is why we need an expert like the chap I'm going to speak to today. We're going all the way to Nashville, Tennessee in America. We're going to talk to Nikita Bakusharev, who is the CEO and founder of a company called Aspect. Nikita, welcome to the show.

Thank you, Jim James James. It's a pleasure to be on here. As a fellow listener, it's always nice to kind of meet my heroes and really excited to chat with you on all things email, SMS, entrepreneurship, et cetera.

Thank you. I'm flattered and honored that you've come on the show and, you know, thank you for the kind words as well. And I'm delighted that you're on the show because you're a subject matter expert, which is brilliant because For those of us that are running a business, all the disciplines that you have are ones that we maybe graze 5, 10%. So we're gonna talk today, I think, about email marketing, right? And SMS. And really, we're gonna talk about it at the top line about how it can impact the funnel and bringing people in and some of the challenges that people face and how to solve issues like your email not arriving and email bouncing and also about not actually getting the follow-through and getting customers to respond. So Nikita, brilliant. Tell us first of all about Aspect. You've had the business now for about 7, 8 years. So congratulations, you're through that first 2, 3-year hump. You're a successful entrepreneur now. Tell us a little bit about the business first before we then talk about the subject matter of email and SMS marketing.

Yeah, of course. And it's funny you mentioned that first 2 to 3 year hump because man, that was the most difficult part of the business. I mean, granted, I still have problems, issues, failures that I go through on a day, not a daily basis, but maybe like a weekly or monthly basis. But just like, it's almost like pushing a train, and now, like, the train's moving, and now we're just, you know, fixing all the things as it moves along. The— I started the business back in 2017, and back then it wasn't even Aspect. I guess it's just my overall years in entrepreneurship, uh, combined has, has been 7 years. I started in doing print-on-demand t-shirts. So basically, if someone— I would just create the design, and I'd have a fulfillment warehouse create the shirt and ship it out on my behalf. Pretty much dropshipping, but with clothing and garments. So started off in that, that kind of taught me the basic skills of how to run Facebook ads, Google ads, how to do email marketing, how to set up a website, conversion rate, all of the things that were like way back, back in the day, very simpler, simpler times. Now everything has got a metric to it and all that, and everything's being tracked. But back then, Did that, ran it for, I believe, a year and a half to 2 years, and then ended up pivoting into a full agency model. I was still doing the agency during like the, the print-on-demand days, but it was just like maybe helping friends and family out with like setting up their Facebook pixel or showing them how to run ads or creating ad creatives, something simple. But pretty much 2 years after that, I kind of went full into agency mode. Working on SEO, Google Ads, Facebook, email, pretty much the entire marketing stack that I knew. And then in about 2020, I pivoted into purely e-commerce, which kind of makes sense because that's where everyone was going to e-com because you never, you didn't know what was going to happen in the world. And that kind of stuck with that. Eventually ended up pivoting into just email and SMS about 3 years ago in 2021. A specialty. It was just hard to keep up all the different clients that we had and all the different services that we had at once. You know, it was just, it was leading to a lot of burnout. So we pivoted into just email and SMS and we've been doing that ever since.

You know, you raise a really interesting point there, Nikita, that it's become overwhelming, hasn't it? And it seems the pace of change since COVID has got faster and only getting faster. And do you think that's because of AI or metrics? What's driving that pace of change when it comes to sort of martech?

I don't think AI has much to do with it. I think we'd still be at that same pace of growth, everyone starting to work on an e-commerce business of sorts. I think it's just the fact, I think COVID has kind of like open people's eyes to what's possible and it helped people understand like, oh, I could do this myself. Number one. Number two, it brought in a lot more competition into the market. Okay, cool. If there's a lot more competition, then that's always going to breed creativity and evolution. And as more brands kind of figure out the, like, I don't know if meta, like the term meta as in like the new thing that works really, really well. As they discover the new meta of like, okay, here's how to run Facebook ads, here's how to run Google ads, here's how to run email marketing, then everyone kind of learns off each other, everyone grows and okay, now everyone's at the same level competing with each other and now we have to find the new meta and then try and evolve and so on and so forth. So I think there's just a lot more players in the game now and that's what's leading to a rapid evolution.

That's interesting and slightly reassuring. It's not about AI, it's sort of almost about collective learning. Isn't it, within the industry. And I think probably what has happened is the proliferation of platforms like YouTube, but also some of the learning platforms like, you know, either Coursera or Kajabi that are making structured content for learning also much, much more available. One of the things that I really want to chat with you about as well, Nikita, is the integration between SMS and email. But before we do that, just for those of us that really see email almost as a sort of a newsletter only, can you just take us through what role email could and should play as a strategic part of our marketing? Because on your website, which is aspectagency.com, and that's A-S-P-E-C-T agency, by the way, .com. You do show how you're generating significant revenue for, for companies through email. So let's just talk through and help us to understand, as you're the expert here, how should we think about email and SMS marketing as part of our— it sounds like marketing and sales strategy.

That's a fantastic question. And usually most of the sales conversations that I have with brands, email is kind of seen as like an ugly stepchild that no one wants to really take care of. But it's the complete inverse. Email is like, the way that I like to see it is like it's, it's one of the rails of modern day internet. So that is like the like it's the most common way to communicate with someone. Obviously you have Instagram DMs, Messenger, WhatsApp, et cetera. But in order to get to those, you still need to sign up with an email. It's almost like your home address. So just think of it like a way to get in front of people's eyes in a very cost-effective way that, you know, that are very open to hearing what you're saying, especially if they've subscribed to what you want. Or what you're selling. So I think it should be seen more as a channel that is complementary to everything else that you're doing on the marketing stack that still brings in a lot of revenue. It's not gonna be your main revenue driver. It's not gonna be your Facebook ads. It's not gonna be your Google ads. It's not gonna replace those because those have so much more reach that it only makes sense to pay for that reach and to reach those customers and prospects. But email is there to help educate as well as sell everything that maybe they haven't got, like they haven't figured out all these different unique selling points on the website, or maybe they didn't see that on an ad, but they subscribe to your newsletter and you can drip feed all of the great information that makes you as a company, as a brand, as a consultant, as an entrepreneur, whatever you're selling different than everyone else on the competition. It'll make them fall in love with you and then hopefully work with you.

So Nikita, I guess one thing we're talking about here is that you've got the ads out there that are, feel like, offsite, haven't you, that are part of your, if you like, uh, outreach. And then once you've acquired those customers, you've brought them into your platform, your email platform. Just help us to understand what's the most effective way of getting people from, if you like, offsite and into the email list, because that is an art in itself, isn't it? People come onto a webpage and I use Hotjar and I see people, you know, going across the page and it's almost like watching, you know, a rabbit and you're wondering, are they gonna go down in the burrow? And then they scamper off somewhere else. What's the secret to getting people into the, into the funnel?

Yeah, just keeping up with the bunny rabbit like theme. You kind of want to have some sort of incentive, uh, for them to go through that burrow, uh, whether it's a carrot or whatever. And in this case, it could be an incentive of free shipping, a discount on your product, a free consult with you if you're offering services, um, ebooks, anything to help educate them on what they need. So like if you're selling solar, it's like, oh, the things that you need to look out for before you get solar. Like things, I'm just thinking of things on the fly here, but something that the customer values, any kind of information that the customer values that they would want to know. And that is a really good way to kind of dangle that carrot in front of them for them to sign up with their email and phone number.

Right, so you've got to give them, as you say, a carrot. And I don't want to go on too long on my rabbit analogy, but, um, you give them something. So can you give us maybe a case study or an example of a, of a program that has been particularly successful with Aspect? Because I know you've had over 100 clients, you've generated over $30 million worth of revenue. Perhaps you could just draw out for us a case study for people to understand who, you know, most of us are not using email marketing other than as a newsletter. So can you take us through a case study?

Yeah, of course. Um, I think the, the biggest case study we've had so far is, is with a brand called Mossy Oak. Um, you can find it on our website if you want to dive deeper into the details, but, um, Mossy Oak is an outdoors brand here in the US. They're pretty much like They were the pioneers of creating those realistic camos that you see that look like woods, like it looks like trees and foliage and all that. So they were pioneers of that. And the thing that worked really well for them as far as getting people to opt into that list was have— so during the US turkey hunting season is anywhere between late January, early February, March to April, May., and turkey hunting is a big sport here in the US, especially down here in the South where I'm from. And during that time, what we had run as a popup for their website was, and you can see one of the emails on the left there, is offering free turkey targets. So if you want to get practice, like if you want to shoot practice shots before you go hunting, um, obviously you'd go to Walmart here in the US, get some targets, or go to a gun range and get some targets. But we were offering free targets like a PDF of turkeys in different kind of color schemes that they can just download, print at home, and tack up wherever they're going to be shooting, whether it's at the range or in their backyard. I don't know if that's the most legal thing, uh, but they could do that. And that, uh, single opt-in has brought in, I think, like, I, I don't even know the, the specific number, but tens of thousands of people to sign up. But the conversion rate on it was about 50%. Meaning 1 out of every 2 people that went on the website submitted their email and SMS number for those turkey targets. And the best part is after they've submitted, they get redirected to our turkey collection and buy more stuff from there.

Nikita, that's lovely. So you've got a turkey target, and I've been also screen sharing. So if you do want to look at my YouTube channel, you'll see the The, uh, the Mossy Oak case study there. It's a Jim James. It's easy to find, uh, also in the show notes. So a relatively low cost, I guess, a PDF, but a creative idea that gave everybody something that they would like to have and maybe not even thought about getting from anywhere else. And you got them to sign up. Now you also mentioned in there that You got them to sign up with their email and their SMS or their mobile number. How important is it, Nikita, to get both the email and the SMS?

Uh, at this current moment in history, I think it's probably one of the most important things you can do. And even if you're not planning on sending out any SMS, even if it's for the next year, 2 years, I would still collect that phone number because when you do start to use SMS, you will have a very dry list and it'll take you another 1 to 2 years to build that list back up. So I highly, highly recommend setting up some sort of SMS capture so that way, if you're using SMS right now, fantastic. That's great. I'm glad you're, you're trying out this, I guess, new way of communicating with your customers and prospects.. But if you're not, it is crucial because there's been so many times where we've brought on a client and they're like, yeah, we wanna do email. Fantastic. We can help you. They're like, oh, we also wanna launch SMS. And we're like, okay, cool. How many SMS contacts do you have? They're like, we have like 75, like 75,000. They're like, no, no, 75. Like, oh, well that's a problem because even if we were to do everything for you at no cost and just pay for like the SMS send out fee, you're not gonna get any money back from this. You need volume in the SMS side, kind of with the email, like where you need volume, 2, 3, 4, 5, 10, 25, 30,000 people on your email list for it to actually work. The same thing you need for SMS where like I think at least 1,000 subscribers is where you're starting to see your money back on the SMS side.

Now here's a question for you because I have been trying to collect email and mobile numbers, because in Asia SMS was a very big thing until we got into WeChat, for example, or I guess now in, in Europe WhatsApp as well. What I struggle with is the integration between the email platforms and the SMS platforms, and at the risk of going too technical, Just perhaps you can help us to understand how is that done? Because, you know, you have a mailing list, but it seems as though platforms don't do both the email and the SMS. So can you help us, Nikita? How do you coordinate that? Because for most of us entrepreneurs, it's a lot of data in the first place, and it just gets to be technical overwhelm.

I can definitely see that, you know, being an issue if you're like just first signing into whatever you're using, whether it's MailChimp, GoHighLevel, ActiveCampaign, Klaviyo, any of the hundreds of sending tools. You're like, okay, cool, let's start sending out SMS messages. And it's like, well, there's like a whole like step-by-step process that you have to do in order to get not only verified, but also you have to get a phone number. You have to wait for your business to be verified. It's almost like you're filing for an LLC or a corporation document at this point. But there is a step-by-step process that you have to take. You first have to buy a phone number in your region or country that you're planning on sending out. If you're in the UK, UK number. If you're sending in the US, you need a US number, so on and so forth. So you have to do that. In order to get your phone number and be able to send SMS messages out, you have to be compliant in what you're sending out. So you have to actually write out in paragraphs of what you're planning on doing with your phone number, whether it's political campaigns or whether you're just following up with a customer. You have to write down what you're going to be doing, and you have to certify that everyone that you're sending out an SMS message is— well, is soliciting communications from you. So you can't send out unsolicited cold SMS messages. That is the quickest way to lose your phone number and not be able to send on that platform. So there's a lot of different steps to go through it. For the most part, once you've gone through that initial, like, buying the phone number and verification step, it'll take another 10 business days for you to get an actual working phone number. So that's another thing. Like, if you're not sending out right now and you plan on doing that in a couple months, do this step as soon as possible, because when you're all excited to send out your first SMS, you have to wait another 10 days before you even are able to do that.

Very, very interesting. So we do get into compliance, as you say, the— I think there's a FDIC or something in America, and in GDPR in Europe, it's A2P compliance here in the US for us. Okay, so, so as you say, you get into a level of regulatory environment which most of us are not tackling, uh, right? Because it's probably the, probably the only marketing activity that requires some kind of regulation, isn't it? Because if you advertise, you You don't need to do that. So Nikita, thank you for clarifying that. And that's, you know, cleared up. It hasn't necessarily made it easier, but it has made it clearer that we do that. And okay, so if we use email and SMS, we can presumably drive people to the same website and to the same calls to action. What's the view from you at Aspect and the way you counsel your clients in terms of sort of the sequencing? Because we're going through the lifecycle here where you've helped people to acquire those people who have signed up, for example, for the turkey shoot template. And then they're in the system, both SMS and email. You've got your system set up. Nikita, can you just help us to understand what would be, for example, the next steps in terms of sequence, or how does that work? Because I think for many of us that are maybe used to, for example, PR advertising, it's not a sequence. Quite often those are, you know, one item. But with email, I think it's more sophisticated than that. So Can you just help us to understand the approach to those people that we've got now into our system?

Yeah, so there's two different things that email and SMS are responsible for. So there's email and SMS campaigns, and then there's email and SMS automations. So those are two different ways to communicate with your customers, prospects, et cetera. Email campaigns or email and SMS campaigns are one-time blasts. To your entire list. So if you have a list of 10,000 people, um, and 2,000 SMS and you want to send out a campaign, uh, you set up an email, you set up an SMS, whatever messaging you need to do, and it gets delivered to all those 10,000 and 2,000 SMS numbers respectively. Automations, on the other hand, are different trigger-based, um, email flows that happen based off of like events that a customer is doing. So some of the main common automations that we set up, and this brings in about 60% of email revenue as a total, is like welcome automations, abandoned cart, abandoned checkout, post-purchase automations, cross-selling, win-back, sunset. If it's your first time listening to this and you have no idea what I'm talking about, um, all of these different automations play a key role in delivering the best customer service to the customer. Having multiple touch points without you even being involved after everything is all set up and done. So for example, like the welcome automation is just purely there to introduce what your brand is, what your brand does, how it's different from competitors, testimonials, and maybe throwing it like a little offer in there of 10% off or free audit or whatever you're, you're doing as a service. On the abandoned cart and abandoned checkout, if you've obviously gone in trying to look for like Nike shoes or something like that and you didn't finish checking out, those emails will be there to follow up with the customers. Like, hey, you left something in your cart, or hey, you didn't finish checking out. So those are transactional and sales related. And then you have post-purchase, which is there to thank them for the purchase, maybe show training material and tutorials on how to use the product or service, and basically ask for a review towards the end. Cross-sell is obviously if you have multiple different products in the same niche and category, you can cross-sell the two. So if you're selling toothpaste, you probably sell toothbrushes and floss. Um, win-back and sunset are mainly there for re-engaging with unengaged subscribers. So if maybe someone hasn't bought something in like 90 days or 120 days, win-back will be there to say like, hey, what's going on? You haven't purchased something in a while. Maybe not as direct, but it'll be there to follow up. And then sunset is there if someone isn't engaging at all with your email. So if they've opened 0 emails in the last like 90 or 120 days, sunset will be there to like just do a last check-in before we start to, you know, clean them off the list and not send them any more email communication.

Nikita Vakushev, is that how I'm hoping I'm pronouncing your surname correctly, who's the founder of the company called Aspect. Fascinating. There's a whole vocabulary, isn't there? And a whole set of, say, disciplines. And as you say, the difference between campaigns and automations, and I'd not really been aware of those two as differences. So that's really, really useful. Thank you so much for that guidance. And it just, in a way, coming back to your earlier point, you decided to focus in on one discipline. Listening to you now, I can really appreciate the depth of knowledge that you have.

It goes deeper than this, man. It goes way deeper.

Yeah. And that's why people can then come and look for you, Nikita. And of course, Nikita actually is going to give you an offer at the end of the show. So do stick around. But Nikita, that's why you're there, right? I mean, my goal really is to uncover top-line concepts so that my fellow unnoticed entrepreneurs can know where to go and, and the questions to ask without necessarily trying to become subject matter experts, because we're all trying to run the whole business rather than trying to become, you know, a subject matter expert. Nikita, you are also an entrepreneur and you've been running your business. As we said, you've got across those first few years when you're You're building things and you're trying to get clients and you're trying to get cash in the door and build things. And those early days are pretty tough, but you've got through that. So fantastic, you're with us. How have you managed to get ASPECT, which again is with a K rather than the CT, how have you managed to get the business noticed?

There's a lot. There's a lot of things that I do to do, or to, I guess, put the, put the name, uh, in the forefront. So, um, we talked a little bit about this off the show, but doing other people's podcasts is a great one. That's another reason why I'm here. Um, but doing other people's shows— I've ran my own podcast. Uh, we get, uh, a lot, a decent amount of views on YouTube. So I put out videos on YouTube every week. That's a really good top of funnel of running ads. Upwork is another good channel of getting clients. Good referral partners, doing masterminds. I've talked at Affiliate World before, that has brought in a few clients. It's like speaking gigs, I guess. Twitter and LinkedIn content has worked really well in the past. I've done cold email and cold messaging, but it's hit or miss. So yeah, there's about probably like 10 different things that I do on like a monthly basis to get more business.

That's interesting. Interesting, as you say, that you've been across many, many channels and the education work you're doing on YouTube, I can see, is really, really valuable. It sounds like you're sharing a lot of wisdom first. You did mention about the podcast. Do you want to just talk to us about that? Because Many people are sort of recommending that entrepreneurs have podcasts, so I'd love to hear your experience.

Yeah, it was, it was a great way to connect with other business owners because there was a lot of like business-focused, marketing-focused, e-com-focused. So it was great to get like a foot in the door of like, hey, you can come on my podcast, we can chat and all that. Um, but at the end of the day, it wasn't really bringing in any revenue. If anything, it was like a very— like we were pretty cash-strapped when we were trying to run it last year and like a year and a half ago. And I just thought it was like another easy channel to run, but similar to every other content channel that you run, no matter how simple it looks, there is a lot more to it. And there's like a level of professionalism that goes into running a podcast. And it kind of consumed a lot of my life. And I had to hire an editor and all of that. So it was just a lot of money being spent and not much of a return. It was fun, but I think it was a pretty good experiment that I ran for like a year. And then I'm like, okay, then I think we're good. I don't think we need to continue with this.

Yeah. Thanks for sharing that. I think that my view is that most people should be guests because you've got a business to run.

That's what I kept running into.

Yeah. Yeah. And so that's kind of you to share honestly, you know, your experience there. And I'm sure you're a great host, but it is, as you said with your email and SMS, the deeper you go, the more you find that there is to still do to make it successful. So exactly. But you have been successful. So what would be a a tip that you would like to share, Nikita, um, with us before you, you make an offer, which you're kind of going to offer to people? What would be a tip as an entrepreneur that you'd, you'd share? Because you've succeeded, your, your business is growing, which is great.

I would say never take your foot off the gas when it comes to sales. Like, the only times where I've like been You know, it's one of those things of like, I've been poor and I've been rich and I'd rather be poor. Or no, wait, shoot, got that wrong. I'd rather be rich. Um, uh, anytime you take the foot off your gas, the foot off the gas when it comes to sales, you're losing momentum as a business. No matter how long-term your clients are staying with you, there, there will always be churn. Um, it's not an if, it's a when question. So Keeping your foot on the gas just helps bring more opportunities through the door. It helps bring in a lot more cash. Cash solves a lot of problems. You know, if you have too much business, okay, cool. Time to hire, help fulfill for that business. And you kind of do that all, you rinse and repeat basically. But even during those periods of like, okay, cool, we have to optimize everything. You still have to keep your foot on the gas and you still have to take sales calls. Like one of the things that we've experienced before and we're kind of experiencing now where it's like, it's hard to take on sales meetings if you think you don't have the capacity to fulfill for that client. So that's like toeing the line. It's like, okay, cool. If we're at capacity, what do we need to do next if I lock in this client? Or how do we get creative by solving this problem and still being able to bring in that revenue? So it's just one of those things where it's a, it's a, it's an easier problem to solve operations than it is sales. So I'd always stick to Fixing sales first and then operations.

Yeah. Yeah. Once you've got the cash, you can always find a solution, right? It's trying to find solutions without cash. That is the test of your resourcefulness, isn't it?

Yeah. When you can do both, then you're a very profitable business.

Well, and I think we're all aspiring to that. And it sounds as though we could find up to 30% extra revenue by leveraging the kind of skills that you've got, Nikita, over at Aspect. So that's welcome, welcome news for us all. Now, what about a podcast or a book, Nikita, that you have enjoyed or find inspirational?

Um, I really like— I've been reading through, um, Charlie Munger's Almanac lately, which has been really interesting. And like, it's like the most basic, like, Oh, it's almost like common sense with like the way that he talks about money and business and all things in life where it's like, okay, why aren't we— why didn't I learn this before? So I really like Charlie Munger's Almanac, or I think it's Little Charlie's Almanac, whatever the book is. It's like this thick, but fantastic. Worth, I think, $100. I think that is what it is. Podcast-wise, honestly, I don't I don't really listen to business podcasts that often in my personal time. It's mostly like if I'm doing some work, like My First Million is really good. I like them. But on the entertainment side, I usually listen to like Tim Dillon or something like that.

Yeah, sounds like you're busy, Nikita, more than busy. So Nikita, you've kindly got an offer for my listeners. Would you like to share what that is?

Yeah, yeah. Typically when we bring on audit projects, we usually charge like a $300 to $400 fee, but for anyone that comes in from, you know, the Unnoticed Entrepreneur podcast, we'll do it free of charge. We'll look through your entire email system and SMS system and see if there's any room for improvement there.

Wonderful. And Nikita, if you want to take, you know, take you up on that and find you, where can they do that?

Yeah, so just go to aspectagency.com, aspectagency.com/audit, or just click the top nav bar. It just says email audit. Click there, fill out all the questions just to help us understand more about your email system. And then where it says, where'd you hear about us? Just say, I know, I noticed Entrepreneur, and I'll make sure to not send the invoice.

Nikita, don't send me the invoice. That would then, I'd be bankrupted. Nikita Vakushin. Andrey, if people want to get a hold of you personally, where would you direct them to?

Instagram, just my first and last name, is a good one. YouTube, if you want to learn new email marketing tips, tricks, etc., on a weekly basis, that's a good place. And then LinkedIn. I think those are like my main active channels. I used to be on Twitter, not anymore.

I think most of us are leaving, I think, for lots of different reasons. But you're going to be leaving us, but not without having given us a huge amount of great information. Nikita Bakushrev, help me, have I pronounced your surname correctly?

Bakushrev.

Bakushrev. So, uh, for those of you that don't know how to spell that, I will put that in the show notes because it's not easy, uh, to pronounce or to spell, but it's well worth the effort. Nikita, thank you for joining me on the show today.

Appreciate you, Jim. Thanks for having me on.

Well, thank you. And You know, we've learned how little— well, I've learned how little I know about email and SMS marketing. Slightly embarrassing after so many years in business. Um, but one of the reasons I wanted to have Nikita on the show was because I know that this is an area that all of us have low-hanging fruit. Because when I do my business consulting with clients, the email marketing is often a newsletter once a month, and it's handled maybe by a junior member of staff. But what Nikita has shown us not least with the, with the Mossy case study, is that you can drive a great deal of lead acquisition with some smart SMS and email marketing, and you can get a great uplift in your sales. And because email and SMS are probably some of the cheapest forms of marketing, and you own the list of both the emails and the SMS, you have both the sweet spot of you're in control and it's cost-effective. So I hope you find this episode of use. If you have, of course, please share it with an unnoticed entrepreneur and leave a review, because that also helps me to understand what you need to know from me and my guests. And until we meet again, I just encourage you to keep on communicating.