Amal Kumar Interviews Joe Apfelbaum about how to be successful.

Welcome to Inside Z, which is brought to you by Xamarin Solutions. I'm your host, Amal Kumar, and today we have a special guest, Joe Apfelbaum, CEO of Ajax Union and founder of Evvy AI, the AI-powered networking assistant. He's a LinkedIn expert, author, and high-energy speaker helping businesses grow through smarter digital strategy. Let's get into it. So Joe, you've had a fascinating journey from tech to marketing. and also mindset coaching. What sparked your launch at Ajax Union?

You know what they say, if you build it, they will come. Do you ever hear of that, Amal?

Yeah, I have.

Well, it's not true. I've seen many people build their websites. Actually, people hired me to build websites. I, I was building websites just for fun, and many people hired me. I was building about 100 websites every single year, getting paid about $1,000 per website. And I would build websites for people and, you know, I would, I would say, wait, people will come, and nobody came. And so some people started complaining to me and they said, you told me if you build it, they will come. Nobody's coming to my website. What's the point of me having a website if nobody comes to it? So I did research and what I found was that you need to optimize your website for search engines so that people can find it. A search engine can't just find your website if it's not optimized. And so I got really, really good at this concept called SEO, search engine optimization, where you type in a keyword on Google and the website starts ranking really well. I became so good that people started throwing money at me. And I learned about the concept called recurring revenue. Because when I build websites for people, they would only pay me one time. I'd be done. But with SEO, people would pay me $1,000 a month instead of $1,000 one time. So now I pick up 100 clients, I'm making over $1 million in revenue. I pick up 200 clients, 300 clients, 400 clients. Before you know it, we're on the Inc. 500 as one of the fastest growing companies in America. I have 75 full-time employees. And I don't know what to do with myself because I haven't grown my mindset. I haven't grown myself. I was 100 pounds overweight. I was smoking cigarettes. I was in a terrible relationship, but I was plowing forward, making good money. But I had a hard time keeping employees. I had a hard time really getting past that mark. You know what they say? What got you there is not— what got you here is not gonna get you there. And so I started going on a little bit of a personal development journey. Google reached out to me in 2013 and they said, do you want to become a Google trainer? And I said, yes. I didn't know it meant that I would have to get in front of people and do talks. And so I started doing talks in front of people and I realized I was really afraid of that. So I had to do a lot of therapy and personal development. And I ended up starting to lose weight. And then I realized you can only grow your business as much as you grow yourself. Now, fortunately, I launched a piece of software that can help a million people. I can make a difference for the 1.2 billion people that are on LinkedIn right now. We're just a startup. We have 20,000 users in 37 countries around the world, but I can expect the business to have a million users soon. And we're working on it to be able to grow the business. Wow.

I mean, you're touching a lot of lives here. That's so cool. And it makes me wonder though, early on, did you imagine your career would be so— would it become entwined with leadership and growth and in LinkedIn? Because I know you said you're afraid doing all these talks and you got here. But, you know, could you have like predicted that? I don't, I don't know.

No, I think that when I was, when I was like in my 20s, there's no way I could have predicted that I would be speaking on stages. I used to actually hate coaches. I used to think to myself, a coach is a scammer because if they would be able to actually build a business, they wouldn't be coaching. They would actually be building a business. What I didn't realize is that there's a difference between success and fulfillment. And some people actually get deeply fulfilled by coaching other people. And that coaching itself could be a few hundred million dollar business. So like you could be very successful as a coach and you can get a lot of fulfillment. I had my ego intertwined and thinking to myself, I'm a CEO. I'm not a LinkedIn trainer. Now I not only write LinkedIn trainer, but on Father's Day I decided to change my pronoun on LinkedIn. You know, you can change your pronoun. My pronoun used to be a LinkedIn trainer. For some people it's he/him or whatever. I changed it to LinkedIn trainer. It's one of my 99 LinkedIn hacks. Because next to my name, instead of it saying the pronoun, I wanted to actually say my keyword so that it ranks better on LinkedIn because I'm an SEO expert. But now for Father's Day, I became LinkedIn Daddy. So I graduated from LinkedIn Trainer to LinkedIn Daddy.

I like that, the pronoun thing. I didn't really think about that. So basically, As Zamorans, we prioritize practical innovation. From your experience, what separates companies— what, sorry, what separates companies that grow online from those that don't?

I think it has to do with being able to take a risk. There's a lot of companies out there that are just not willing to take the risk it takes to market because 50% of your budget's going to go nowhere and you're going to get a lot of rejection. There are 3 different types of ways that you can grow your business. There's prospecting, networking, and marketing. Prospecting is when you're out there making calls and reaching out. Marketing is when you're putting stuff out there, waiting for people to come to you. And networking is about relationship building and getting referrals. So it's like a give and a take where you're giving, and then you're also getting. There are different strategies that work for each one of those— marketing, prospecting, and networking. There's different ways to do them. But the key is to be able to consistently take risk All 3 have some level of risk. When you're getting prospectors to call on your behalf, you're going to spend $50,000 and maybe you're not going to get any results. And then you're going to feel like you got burnt, but maybe your strategy was off. So the right strategy will help you mitigate your risk and make it a higher percentage of the time where you're going to get results. But realize you're going to have to test marketing, networking, and prospecting All require testing and they all require strategy and they all require a budget. A lot of business owners say they want to build a million-dollar business, but they're not willing to invest a few hundred thousand dollars to do it. They're like, oh, I will invest $100 a month and I want to build a million-dollar business. Really? Is that what you think is going to happen? Go play the lottery and try to get lucky. If you're really trying to get lucky, try to get lucky, but your life might end up being sucky. So instead of being stuck in the yucky, make sure you take a moment and you build the right strategy because the right strategy will save you a decade.

Yeah. And what you do is basically you, you go out there, you actually help build companies and get bigger. You know, I remember where Xamarin is from like this time, like last year, it wasn't as much where it is now this year. 'Cause you brought that to the table of like bringing people in, like having more exposure. And that's something that I really love about you.

Yeah, your mother who runs the company came over to me and said, I wanna use LinkedIn, but I don't know how. And by the way, she came over to us because of Mike Larkin, who's a client of ours, who came over to us because of another client of ours. So it was kind of like referral marketing on steroids. Your mother, she didn't know how to build her business, just like my mother didn't know how to build her business because your mother's an expert at technology. She's not necessarily an expert at marketing. And so we gave her our technology, Evy AI, that's evyai.com. And she signed up for the bundle. That's evyai.com/bundle. And as a result of her investing a few hundred, a few hundred dollars a year in her business, She now has tens of thousands of people that are looking at her content. She's having record conversations and she has many prospects that she would've never had and revenue she would've never had if not for being part of our community, getting our strategies that we teach. And your mother is not tech savvy. So this is for people who literally are not very tech savvy. It's not a bad thing. My mother is not either tech savvy. But she knows how to use the technology enough to be able to get exposure, build credibility, and book those meetings. I think you can get anything you want in life from the right relationships. So I'm a big believer in having 5 conversations every day. That's something I didn't really understand when I was your age. Just getting on 5 conversations a day, building those relationships, and try to think about How can you add value to other people's lives? Like Amal, deeply think about the people in your life and ask yourself, what can you do for them? Who do they want to meet? Do you really want to be a conduit of blessing for other people? Like really, do you really want to be the source of their blessing? And if you really, really want it, you have to find out what type of blessing they need. Because you can give a guy a blessing to make a lot of money and he might already be a billionaire and all he needs is for his children to get healed from the sickness that they have. So think about the type of blessing you can give somebody, because words are powerful and they can create worlds.

I never really thought about it like that. Um, I mean, I do my best to be, you know, to be a great son, great friend, you know, and, uh, be there for others. I'm always— again, I'm always there trying to do my best to—

But ask people what they're looking for. That's my key. Here's a question that you can write down and repeat often to everyone you know. How can I add value to your life? How can I add value to your life? What do you need? What are you looking for? Who do you want to meet? What problems do you want to solve? What do you need access to? What are you looking for right now? What challenge are you facing today? What problems are you dealing with? What are your goals? What are your dreams? What would make your life better right now? And sometimes it's a hug.

Yeah, it could be a hug. It could be many things, really. I mean—

Could be a hug, could be a kiss.

Yeah, just A little TLC, really.

A little T-L-double-C, T-L-double-D. Okay.

So, but with that said, you know, people live their lives, people do what they try to do to just, just to make it, you know, whatever their version of making it is. But there's also a lot of mistakes, you know, to be learned. Um, and that makes me want to know, what's one mistake you see enterprise teams teams making when it comes to digital marketing or visibility?

The biggest mistake that enterprise teams make when it comes to digital marketing and visibility is that they don't take a strategic approach and they don't take enough action. What they're doing is maybe having a gut feeling about what their own experience is that might work or might not work, but they're not Really testing out their options. And as a result, they're leaving money on the table. Also, often they're not getting specific enough of who they're targeting. Teams need to get even more specific. And the more specific you can get, the more specific your messaging will be. Sometimes I hear from people is, we work with everyone. We're industry agnostic. We work with business owners. Just send us people. And then I send them a person. Who has a flip phone from Pakistan that wants you to help him with a $5 donation. And they're like, why are you sending me this person? This person's not an ideal client. You said you wanted people. Here you go. Here's a person. He has a flip phone. He's in Pakistan and he's looking for a $5 donation. Yeah, but you know what I mean. No, I don't. I don't know what you mean. You said you're industry agnostic. You're looking for people in nonprofit that are looking for donations. No, we're looking for people in business that have over 50 employees. So say that. What industry? We're industry agnostic. Okay. Do you— are you looking for like solar panels? No, no, we can't work with solar panel companies. Insurance? No, we can't work with insurance. Why are you making me have to learn what you want using a process of elimination? Instead, what you can do is be proactive. Look back and identify who's your ideal client based on who you worked with, who you want to work with, Who has a great ability to invest in the services that you're providing so that you can actually help them? And then based on that, you can look at the total addressable market, the TAM. You could look at industries that are growing. There's many ways for you to identify really good industries, but the key is to figure out your geographic, which is the area that you're targeting, your demographic, the type of people that you want to Figure out firmographic, the type of companies. And then if you can do that correctly, you're much more likely to be successful, especially if you tie in psychographic as well and how do they think.

So you're basically saying that they don't really know any better. They're saying things, but they're not being specific enough. And I feel like, I don't know if that's not really an egotistical thing, on their part, but—

It's lack of awareness. I think it's lack of awareness. They don't know better and they don't understand it. And then, you know, maybe they worked with an agency that didn't really understand it either, and that could be problematic as well.

Yeah, could be. So if— okay, if a government or a school facing companies like Xamarin's, like, and they want to attract decision-making online, what's the smart What's the smartest starting point?

The smartest starting point is have a list. Have a dream 100 list. Who are the dream 100 companies that you want to target? And who do you know within those companies? And have you had a conversation with them? I would say have at least 2 people within the company that can help you walk in the door that are your friends. So if you had 100 companies with a minimum of 2 contacts per company that were your friends, that would be 200 people in your world. Show me those 200 people. Show my network these 200 people. And let's see a way that you can get in the door. If you get in the door to 10% of those companies, you now have 10 of your Dream 100 clients that you closed. But do you have your Dream 100 list ready? Can I see it? And if the answer is no, start with a Dream 10 list. And if you don't have a Dream 10 list, start with a Dream 1 list. Put 1 company on the board, but work towards getting 100 companies on the board.

That's great advice. You know, just start off small and then get bigger. That's a great, great, great idea. I love that so much. So you've made LinkedIn your playground essentially. I mean, what are your top 2 or 3 ways, you know, professionals like should use it?

Well, number one is post. If I take a look at how often you post on LinkedIn, Most people are not posting enough. I can go ahead and check how often you're posting because LinkedIn shows you everything. How often do you post on LinkedIn?

Uh, well, not that much. I mean, I'm, I'm, I'm live right now, but I should be more consistent with it for sure.

Well, I found you very quickly on LinkedIn and I see the last time you posted was 2 days ago. Which is great. You posted that you're hosting an event 2 days ago, and that's fantastic. You have 5 comments, 1 repost, and 3 likes on it, which is unbelievable. And we'll actually— we're actually live right now on there, on that event page, which is awesome. And after the event, you probably want to put an image, maybe a screenshot of us, and then write, what we spoke about. You can use AI to help you do that. Evvy AI can easily help you do that. But making sure that you write a post about it is gonna be essential for you. And then making sure that you're posting every single day, 'cause the before, you posted 2 months ago and you actually didn't even post. You reposted something that somebody else posted about loving animals that are behind bars. So I recommend that you post once a day, every single day, or at least once a week. The other thing that I see a lot of people are missing is that they don't have enough connections. I see you have 219 connections. You can have 1,000 connections on LinkedIn relatively easy, and every connection becomes a follower. So if you want to know 2 things you should be doing every day is use Evvy AI to write a post every single day and add new connections. That's what I say. Those are the 2 things you should be doing every single day. Add more connections.

I wanna learn a little bit more about Evvy AI networking. What it's like when you, when you first started it or what was with it, what was like the problems that you had back then? And then is there any struggles now that you have with it now? Like, I wanna know the differences basically.

Well, the problems that I had back then was having to get the software built. When I started it, I didn't have software. I first sold it. I had 100 people pay for the software and I didn't even have the software. You know what I mean?

Yeah.

So having a— having no knowledge in building software and then going ahead to building the software, that's, that's a big deal, like going from zero to hero in that way. So I highly recommend people take a moment and step back in their life and ask themselves, What is your current problem? My problem was building software. Now what I want to do is I want a million new clients. So I'm going to start with 1,000. We already have 1,000. Now I'm going to help each one of our 1,000 clients help us get 1,000 clients. 1,000 times 1,000 is a million. And that's kind of like where I'm at.

I like that response. So How can organizations build better relationships with clients or stakeholders without, you know, sounding transactional?

I think get to know people. Like, do you like orange?

Yeah, I like orange.

It's very clear. You're wearing an orange shirt. Um, also your Full Sail University has an orange logo. You have orange on your profile. So orange is a beautiful color. It's a very positive color. Getting to know people, getting to know what their favorite colors are, their favorite foods, their family, everything about them. You're not really sharing much about you. You just write you're an audio engineer on your profile. I would share a little bit more about you. What's your favorite hobby? Do you like playing chess or Fortnite?

I mean, let's see. I mean, I guess like Fortnite, no No build or playing basketball with my buddies.

I would play Fortnite no build with you.

Yeah.

That would be fun.

Yeah, of course.

Get a few of your buddies together that own businesses, get a foursome together on Fortnite no build, get together and network while you're using Fortnite with our mics on. Mics on, baby, let's go! And then we're like riding around doing stuff, having a conversation, and then we're all talking about LinkedIn and business and You know, while we're hiding under a hut, we go on LinkedIn and we start commenting on people's posts, or we write a post, you know what I mean? While we wait the weather for people to come while we're in a bush, and then we see somebody come, we pull out a sniper and boom. You get what I'm saying?

Yeah, yeah, I get it.

Yeah, my point is building a real relationship with someone and doing stuff that are fun. I go— I, I get to know my kids through Fortnite. I play with them Fortnite and we have a good time connecting and building relationships.

Yeah, yeah.

So kids, right? 5 kids. Yeah.

Geez, that— wow. So you're doing all this while managing 5 kids. That's, that's quite a lot, actually.

That's true. That's true. It is a lot. But you know what? I love it. I love it. I really, really love my kids. I love working. I love helping people. I love making a difference for people. They say if you love what you do, you'll never work a day in your life.

And that requires a lot of energy. I know you're known for this high energy, right? So, and your brand is about high energy. Can you expand a little bit more on what that means in, you know, in the workplace or literally?

The only thing that really exists is energy. That's the only thing that really exists. So why not increase the vibration of your energy by having a higher level of energy? People that are depressed have low energy. People that are positive have high energy. So increase your vibration level, get to joy, get to gratitude, get to happiness, get to freedom, get to prosperity. That's where I want to go. I want to keep the energy very high. And that's the idea behind it.

Wow. So basically, just if you, if you're just in a better mood in general, doing things that you actually enjoy and like, I'm I mean, you'll attract more and you'll put out more with that.

Correct.

Yeah. So, your advice, or what is your advice on when you— sorry, let me rephrase this exactly. What advice do you have for leaders trying to boost motivation and team alignment, especially during growth and change?

Well, what I would say is, The number one thing for team alignment, for growth and change, is for people to really get to know each other personally, then professionally. Like, really get to know each other. I mean, team alignment doesn't happen in a vacuum. It doesn't happen randomly. It happens because people understand who you are as a human. And once people see the human side of you and they connect with you, it'll be much easier for them to do business with you. That's what I truly believe.

So all this is basically like the underline of just make sure you keep networking. And then you brought this up before, the word consistency, being consistent, you know, being posting once a day, all these things, just making sure you keep in touch. That's basically all it really is.

Keep in touch, find out how you can add value to people, make sure that you're on top of your game. I mean, I always had that in me. I just didn't understand I was networking. I always wanted to call my friends. I just didn't understand why I wanted to do that. Every time I went anywhere, I would make a list. I remember having a class list. I was the only one with the class list and everybody's phone number. Why did I have everyone's phone number? It was just like what I do. I just like being in touch with people. Like, I love the connectivity. I love staying in touch and building those relationships and being the bridge. It's something that I always did and that I always loved doing, and I think that we need connectors in our life. And you could be that conduit of blessing, and I think you can benefit tremendously from that. I believe the secret to living is giving.

Yeah, and I never, I never really thought about the word networking, you know, a few years ago as something— I always thought it was something bigger than what it is. But networking is just so, it's basic. You're just talking to people. You're not, you know, you're just connecting. That's basically it. You're just making friends. It's just, it's friends, but, you know, on a, I guess, slightly more professional level, but still friends. I, I like, that's how basically how I like to view it as.

Amazing.

Yeah. I mean, but you, you've done a lot, you know, you've, you studied emotional intelligence. And you even trained as a rabbi. How has that influenced you to lead today?

Well, I would say training as a rabbi influenced me by being able to really care about other people deeply and learn about the power of community. I would say those 2 things, really caring about people and leading with community. The aspects of like rules and all that stuff didn't really resonate with me, so I didn't really get that. But like the community aspect and the caring about other people and influence and all that stuff, that's the stuff that really stayed with me.

That's— wow. So that's a really great point of view. Like, I love That you said that. So I know we're nearing the end of this segment, this podcast, but it makes me want to think about the future. What's your most significant prediction about companies that need to show up online within the next 3 to 5 years?

I think it's all about personalization. I think we're at the end of just companies just hiding behind the logo. Nobody cares about your logo because AI is gonna be able to be a logo. You know, AI is gonna pop up businesses on its own. We're gonna care about human-to-human connection and knowing who you are and knowing your story. 'Cause AI doesn't really have a story. It's just a machine. But you have a story. You were born and you went through struggles and you had to achieve something. And so your story's beautiful and people wanna connect with your story and they wanna resonate with your story and they wanna vibrate with you. AI is not a vibration. You are. So connect with other human beings. There's something spiritual about that connectivity. And if you can tap into that, you can make this world a better place.

There's this thing where, I mean, it's kind of cliché, but I have this idea and this mindset of, you know, everybody lives their own little movies. You know, everybody has their ups and downs and own obstacles that they go through. And I love learning about other people. I love learning from you. I love learning from everybody that I've interacted with. You know, it's very fun.

It's really cool that you're interviewing people. I think it's a really smart way to go. I'd love to see your mother interview people and get over her fear of her, you know, sharing her voice. I think she would, she would be great at interviewing people, even short interviews. They could be 5-minute interviews. But I think interviewing people could be really powerful. Especially interviewing your ideal clients. There's a concept called prospect by interview. But, you know, I do sense that you still have a little bit of fear. And the way that you overcome your fear is look at the person as your friend. Look at the person as kind of like someone that's not more important than you, but that's very important. But it's your friend and you really want to get to know them. And you kind of have the confidence to just be yourself like you would be with your friends. Like with your friends, you're super different. than you are on this interview. You know what I mean? So if you can kind of tap into that and try to find a way where you can just show up fully and not worry about trying to impress the person or trying to impress the audience or any of that stuff, and just kind of just show up as you are, try to practice showing up as you are, even for a portion of the interview, just be yourself. Throw the script out the window and just be yourself. You could follow the guidelines, but kind of just like really follow your curiosities instead of just following the script. Like really follow who you are. Like what's the thing that you're most curious about? If you had no script and you really wanted to connect with me deeply, what would you want to tell me?

Well, let me think. Let me think about this real quick. I want to know, like, so you were born in Brooklyn, right? Right? You're born and raised in Brooklyn. Like, I want to know about your life outside of what you do, you know? Like, what did you do, you know, when you're in my— I'm 21. What did you do when you're—

I was just, I was just super nerd. I was just super— I love computers. I took them apart. I built websites. Um, I had friends. We went, we chilled. I, I sold stuff on eBay. I was just basically trying to make money. I watched my mother suffer in the Lower East Side trying to build her business. And I was trying to say, okay, I don't want to take that approach. I want to, I want to be successful and I want to help other people be successful, but I also want to have fun doing it. And so I found I was just obsessed with computers. I was obsessed with the internet. I was just obsessed with web design. And I thought to myself, if I just built new skills, I would be able to be a total rock star if I just knew everything about computers and knew everything about web design. I was wrong. I was wrong. Knowing everything about computers and knowing everything about the internet is not going to help you make money. What's going to help you make money is knowing everything about yourself and being able to overcome your fears and building real relationships with people. I thought I can get away with building a business without building relationships because I was afraid of relationships. But I'm telling you right now, if you learn the relationship game, if you get really good at sales at this age, you'll be a total rockstar by the time you're 30. Like, if you invest time into becoming a super hard rockstar sales guy and you build— and a leader, you're going to do well in any industry doing anything because those soft skills are something that very few people have. Like knowing how to be able to speak to a stranger and knowing how to build those relationships, knowing, really getting to know people. That's something that very few people have. Imagine you were the rainmaker, the door opener. for any business, you would make the most money. You would be able to open up any business. So like knowing that and studying that and reading all the books you can about it, going to all the seminars you can, interviewing all the people you can about being a phenomenal rainmaker, having phenomenal confidence. There's a book called The 6 Pillars of Self-Esteem. Being humble still, I'm not talking about being arrogant, but like being humble and being a great communicator. Communication is the difference between a person that works at $15 an hour and a person that works at $1,500 an hour. Think about a lawyer. What do they know how to do better than an average person? They know how to speak. That's it. They know a couple laws, but now AI knows all the laws. So what's the difference? They know how to present. They know how to speak. They know how to be emotional. They know how to connect. So speaking is a very spiritual thing. That's why it's very, it's very expensive. You know, Gary Vaynerchuk charges $100,000 to have him speak. Tony Robbins charges $1 million. Why? Because speaking is a powerful thing. And so learning how to speak, learning how to connect, learning how to build relationships, learning how to have confidence, those are all skills, just like computers are skills. But you're already an audio engineer, become a human engineer, become a relationship engineer, and you'll be able to get into any door and do anything you want in your life. The best things in life come from relationships.

Thank you. I do want to learn a little bit more about one thing. So you're a very confident person. You know how to speak. You've done thousands of talks and all, like, you know, you talk to so many people, right? How did you build that confidence? Like, how did you even think about like, okay, I'm doing this, but I'm— how did you just gain that? I don't understand.

I didn't. I had to work through it. God came over to me and gave me a gift. They had Google reach out to me and ask me if I wanna become a certified Google trainer. I didn't even know I was afraid of public speaking. I didn't even know I was afraid of it. No one ever gave me that feedback. No one ever said, oh, you should write a book. No one ever says, oh, you should speak publicly. No one ever says, oh, you should get good at sales. Nobody ever told me any of that. No one ever told me anything like that. Everyone was just like wowed by how good I am at computers. But you walk into the subway in Manhattan, Or in Des Moines, Iowa, you walk into a supermarket. Walk over to 10 people and give me their phone numbers. Walk over to 10 people and get me their phone numbers. I want to see you do that. I'm not talking about dating. I'm talking about business. Walk over to 10 people and get me their phone numbers. Okay, you can't. You don't know how to do that. You're too scared. You're getting way too much rejection. Walk over to 10 people and get me their first names. Can you do that? Me walking over to a stranger and asking them for their first name, that's not the approach. That's not how you do it. Walk over to 10 people and change their lives. They're gonna pull their hand out and tell you their name. Take that approach. Now there's ways to do that, but you have to overcome your own like squeamish insecurities. of you not being able to do that. Yesterday, I was sitting in a bagel shop with my son, and I saw a mother with her 2 daughters. And I looked over, and I was like, wow, you're such a good mother. And she's like, why do you say that? And I made an observation about why she's a good mother. And she's like, thank you for seeing me. And then we had a few interactions, and it was so nice. And I just made her day. And then she told me her name, and I told her my name.

That's beautiful.

And we built a little relationship right there. Why? Because I'm the one that reached out. Because I'm the one that could have ignored her and instead acknowledged her existence. Same thing with the barista behind the counter. Same thing with the janitor that held the door open for me. I looked at him in his eyes, acknowledged him, and said, John, I appreciate you. Thank you. He's like, wow, I feel seen.

You're giving, you know.

You're giving your heart. Most people ignore everyone and they're just busy on a mission in life surviving. Start thriving. Be the king. Be the king of your experience. Be the king of your life. You see someone on LinkedIn, you have 219 souls you're connected to. Who are these people? What do you know about them? When is it their birthday? What's their cell phone number? Did you reach out to them? Who is the universe putting in front of you? Who commented on this post? Did you acknowledge them? Did you reach out to them? Did you connect with them?

Yeah, I know my mom's commenting and some other people right now, and I'm, I'm staying focused.

On this, but I'm not saying right now. I'm saying later you go back and you go see what's going on, and you're like, wow!

Yeah.

You know how well do you know your mom?

Pretty well. I mean, we—I mean, I try to spend a lot of time with her. She's always busy, you know. You know, with the company and stuff like that.

We watch movies and stuff like that. Like, amazing.

Other stuff, family-oriented.

What do you think your mom's biggest challenge is right now?

Well, I mean, I think she should sleep more. I mean, what, uh, probably— oh, I don't know. She's always working. She's always working hard, so it's just kind of hard to think about.

She needs to be more strategic.

Yeah.

I think that might be the biggest, the biggest challenge for your mother is like, how can she use more leverage? And I think it's hiring an assistant. I think it's being more strategic. I think it's being more strategic. Leverage is the key. The name of the game is leverage. So if you're not sleeping enough— I slept a beautiful 9 hours last night. I needed it after having a whole weekend with my kids. I went to sleep early, woke up, meditated. How often do you meditate?

It's been years actually since I've meditated.

Dude, today, 20 minutes. Close your eyes, take a few deep breaths, set a timer for 20 minutes, and just focus on your breath and see how your life changes. Your life will accelerate. Your results will accelerate when you take a break. And then you're a little more strategic. Close your eyes, meditate, connect, build relationships, get to know people, slow down. Dude, I used to speak so fast. And I still talk a little fast, but I allow myself the space for silence. Confidence is about pausing and not needing to always talk or say um. Check how many times I said um during this entire presentation.

As I recall, I don't think you said um. Really at all. I don't think so.

An interesting way, an interesting observation.

You're very clear. Yeah.

Because I slow down by 25% methodically. And I'm okay with the silence. I'm okay saying the wrong thing and then slowing down and repeating what I just said the right way.

That's the thing, you know, it's always a— since I'm doing this, right, like I'm— it's a way of like, okay, sometimes I need to slow down, you know. I remember in past podcast interviews I've done, I was always speeding up, you know, I was doing my intro and stuff like that. And then I was kind of nervous, but the more I do it, because it's been a year, I've done several podcast interviews up until now. Every time I do it, I get more confident and I feel more comfortable. I'm getting better at it. Especially with you, the more that we're talking here today, the easier it's getting, the more fun I'm getting out of this, the more enjoyment. You're kind of getting me out of the element of, okay, try to steer away from the scripted stuff. I mean, I have the scripted stuff just to remind me of what I really wanted to ask, but— That's good.

Yeah, but once you got out of it, now you got comfortable. Once I said, get the F off the script, now all of a sudden the conversation starts. You start laughing, we start connecting, you start getting more comfortable. You're like, you know what, screw it. I'm not nervous anymore. I'm not trying to follow a script. Yes, I have checkpoints. I know what I want to ask. I'm looking at it every once in a while to make sure I ask them the questions and cover the details of the blah, blah, blah. But this conversation is not about you asking me all the things I already answered on 1,000 podcasts. This conversation is me and you connecting, getting to know each other. This conversation is setting up a time for us to play Fortnite together. This conversation is you signing up to Evvy AI and you getting your friends to start taking LinkedIn seriously. Who are the top 5 friends, the top 10 friends in your world out of the 100 friends that you have that need to start posting, engaging, and messaging on LinkedIn every day? Who are they? And if you're not sure who they are, let's figure that out together. Let's make a list of your 100 friends and figure out who are the ones that actually need to be using LinkedIn. And then let's teach them how to use LinkedIn. Let's bring them to the next webinar. Let's help them be able to generate $100,000 in new business. How happy would you be if you were able to make an additional $100,000 a year yourself?

I'd be very happy.

Yeah, that's what I teach people how to do. That's all I teach people how to do. That's all I teach people how to do— how to make $100,000 in profit per year.

Yeah, I want to elevate my friends' lives. They're, you know, they're doing okay. We're all, we're all at the same age, right? But we're still figuring things out, you know. I want to elevate. I've been trying. I've been— again, like I told you, I've been there for all my friends doing whatever they need me to do, or they've always had my back, always had their back. That's always been the thing. But I never had— I never took it to a level where it was more serious when it comes to professions. You get what I mean?

Yeah. And the way that you do that is get 10 of your friends together that all are serious about LinkedIn and have a conversation with them and say, guys, what if we all posted on LinkedIn for 10 days together? What if we did that?

Yeah, I remember, uh, so I was a little consistent at one point with, uh, LinkedIn, uh, we're doing comments and stuff like that, right? Uh, comment like every day for about like a week or so. And I remember, I remember my cousin, you know, I was like, what's going on? You know, I never seen you, I never seen you comment so much on LinkedIn. Well, like, what, Like, you good? I'm like, oh yeah, I'm fine, blah blah. And then I stopped. And then I don't know why I stopped, but—

Maybe because of the comment he made, it affected you somehow.

I don't know. It was— I don't know, I was putting effort in, you know, on the commenting and things like that.

Usually when you don't have 10 friends doing it along with you, then you stop doing it after a while. That's usually what happens. So if you had all your friends there, then you'd be curious about what they're doing and then you would keep doing it.

Yeah, 'cause I think I'm one of the only friend people out of my whole friend group that actually is on LinkedIn.

Get, get them on LinkedIn, get them on LinkedIn. The ones that need to be on, teach them how to use it. They don't even know how to use it. Guys your age have no idea how to use it. It's sad 'cause they're all gonna need it. So if they invest in it now, in 10 years from now, they're gonna each have over 1,000 connections. And the right connections and relationships, and you're gonna be the one that got them all onto it.

And I feel like, you know, we're with my target audience where I'm trying to reach. I know I'm doing things with Xamarin right now. This is about, you know, Xamarin solutions and stuff like that. But, you know, as an audio engineer, you know, beatmaker, producer, you know—

Are you using Ableton Live?

I will— I can use Ableton Live.

I use Pro Logic X. Yeah.

And I can use FL too, but like stuff like that.

You like those Fruity Loops?

Fruity Loops is pretty cool. I mean, it's pretty convenient, things like that. But I've been using— I started off with GarageBand and then moved on to Logic because basically the same thing as GarageBand.

Are you using Suno?

Hmm?

Are you using Suno?

Suno? Uh, no.

Start immediately.

Okay.

Suno, dude. Suno is an AI, uh, music maker. Um, you can make songs in seconds. It makes the entire song with the vocals and everything. Beautifully done. Yeah. And it sounds amazing. But as an audio engineer, you would know how to prompt it.

Of course.

So that you get all the right stuff.

The thing is though, like, I like the creative process. I like to create. I like to—

But could you imagine being able to take a song and take it apart and take it to the next level and get inspiration from AI? And you can create so much faster things that you've never thought of doing when AI helps you with the, with getting 80% there. And also you take that, put the music in, you change all the different things and tear it apart. You're like, holy crap. You get the instrumental version of it and then you do your own vocals or you get someone else to do vocals. I love, I love music. I love engineering music. Love, love, love, love, love. It's one of the most powerful things.

It's a very, it's a very fun thing, you know. I've been incorporating, well, a little bit of AI within my music in terms of like stemming stuff out. I've been remastering samples, you know, like from like the '80s and stuff like that. And I mean, after I remaster it in my own way, and then I'd, then I would actually be able to use it in an easier way, like sample. Okay, I like how this sounds. Cool. Done. Bam. It's a fun process. So, I mean, I'll look into that. The Suno, the Suno, Sumo, or Suno? S-U-N-O?

S-U-N-O, yeah.

Okay. I'll look into that for sure. Um, but where we are today, you know, we, AI is really a big, really a big thing going, going on. And also it's, it's very convenient. It helps a lot, you know.

It does.

Um, it helps everybody's everyday lives, is what I, what I think, you know. It makes more efficient things happen. Um, but, uh, I'm, I'm sorry if I'm rambling off here.

No need to apologize. You're rambling off, you're good. We can always end it. It's fine.

Yeah, but I just wanted to know, is there anything else you would like to say? Uh, to the audience out there, any advice?

My advice is have a strategy, get your community, and use the right technology. Those are the 3 things I would give as advice. Make sure you have your 10 people that are your posses that are on your platform that you want to be on. Who are the 10 most important people on LinkedIn to you? Make sure that you're checking to see if they're posting. Make sure to comment on their posts and then, and then move on. Get the right strategy. Make sure you know who you're targeting with the right messages. Make sure you understand how much revenue you want to generate and how you're going to generate that revenue. And then just start driving forward.

So be con—

sorry, be strategic and basically have a community and use the right technology and use Evy AI.

Evy AI. You heard it. Yeah.

There you go. Evyai.com, baby.

Yeah. Yep. Audience, make sure you heard that right there. IVAI. So yeah, thank you so much for being here on Inside Z, brought to you by Xamarin Solutions. I had a great, great time, and you definitely brought some sort of element out of me today that I've never really got to experience before, which is a pretty cool, pretty cool thing. And I really want to thank you for that.

So it's my pleasure. The only request that I have is if you really enjoyed our conversation, go to my LinkedIn profile, click the More button, and click Recommend and then say Joe Apfelbaum was the best podcast guest I've ever had in my life. He is amazing. He changed my life forever. And I look forward to telling everybody about Evvii AI or something, or whatever you want to say from your heart. But I just gave you an idea, a seed, and you will be my 515th LinkedIn recommendation.

I'll make sure to do it right away.

Let's go. Let's go, baby. All right. Well,