Joe Apfelbaum talks to Nina Froriep

If you look at my screen, it'll be— if you look at my live, my live doesn't show me. My live shows my screen and what I'm doing on my screen. I can, I can pull into my live. If you go to my profile and look at my recent activity, you'll see my live. And my live is going to be different than your live because my live is pulling from a different stream completely.

Right.

And my live is showing my full screen, which includes right now a picture of me and you. on one side, and then a picture of my screen, my, like, you know, what I'm browsing about on the other side. You see what I'm saying?

Whoa.

You see the way it's different?

Yeah.

Wow.

This is just like, this is so mind-blowing.

Yeah. And so I could, what I can do is I can have a variety of different things that are people watching, because I want people to watch the background of what I do while I'm talking to you. And as you can see, I see the activity here that comes in. And if I want to see the current activity, I just, instead of most relevant, I changed to most recent, and then I see the most recent activity here, and then I can like each person over here, and I can say thank you in real time, just like that. And this way I'm able to just communicate with people. You are the best. And this way I'm able to communicate with people and respond to them in real time if people are actually watching in real time and chatting in real time. So that's the idea.

That's awesome. I mean, I'm normally so focused on my conversation with my guests that I like to not like be distracted by anything else, but especially the ones where people are actively involved. It is, of course, crucial to get to see what is going on real time with this.

Sometimes somebody— and sometimes somebody says something and you want to reply to them instantly and you can't reply to them. And so the best way to do it is to go to the recent activity thing. I'm going to— I'm going to like my own recent activity. And what I also like to do is, as you can see, I'm using Evie AI on the side here as a side panel.

Yeah.

What I can also do is I can take the link to each thing and save it as a, as a, say, um, uh, uh, a template that I can use.

Mm-hmm.

And I can say something like, I am live right now. Feel free to join me.

Okay. Yeah.

So I'm saying I'm, I'm live right now. Feel free to join me. And I'm gonna say live. Now. And now I hit save template, and now I have a little template that says live now. So if I want to be able to take this template and send it to somebody, say as a message, I can easily go into any of these things. I already promoted this in all these little groups, but I can easily take this and inject it into this message over here with a click of a button. Do you see? I just press the up arrow here and then I press send, and now I'm able to just inject my other live. So I'm promoting both lives. I'm promoting your live and I'm promoting my live. And they're both, they both have different streams going out to different people. Isn't that interesting? And I'm also on Facebook, on Twitter, on YouTube and all the other places.

Yeah. I feel like a slacker right now.

Well, it is 11 o'clock, so we might as well get started.

Yes, absolutely. Um, so welcome everybody to, uh, LinkedIn Straight Talk for Coaches and Creators. under the banner of Nina Goes Live, which is kind of self-explanatory, which is how I like my titles. I don't like nifty titles because then we all forget them when we really need them. So today, very excited to have Joe Apfelbaum with me. And I've known Joe for quite a while from afar. I met you, Joe, the first time, I want to say, in '16 or '17. That is 2000. And You came on stage and you started rapping, and I was like, who is this dude? Um, and, uh, it was pretty— it was pretty memorable, let's put it that way. And then we did chat a little bit, and then I met you again at Landmark, and again, sort of always just in, in passing. But, um, here we are. I am now part of your community. And, um, with, with this live, I'd just like to invite people who are adjacent to what I do and sort of have things figured out really well. And you fit that to a T and then some. So just have a couple of questions for you. And of course, please take it away in whichever direction you want to, because if there's a master trainer on LinkedIn, I would, I would say that that is a title that befits you very, very well.

Thank you. And thank you for being in my life. And thank you for being an Evie AI Pro client and getting the bundle, um, in, in March. I appreciate that. And I love seeing what you're doing and the way that you're authentically connecting with people. So I'm honored to be interviewed here and I'm happy to answer any questions. And of course, I'll take it wherever it needs to go, wherever the, wherever the energy wants me to go. I'm just, we're just going to go to that place.

Exactly. You got it. So I have a really sort of very, very basic question, but it's a question I love asking everybody because the answers are so incredibly different. And that is why LinkedIn— why is it LinkedIn for you? You, like, like I, we're all in on LinkedIn. Why?

LinkedIn is the world's largest professional social network, and it has more information on other people than any other platform. If you go to Instagram, all you see is a screen name about the person, maybe a little tiny about section. If you go to Twitter, you see less about the person. If you go to TikTok, you see nothing about people. You just see Big Betty 2475. So my question to you is, where do you get real, authentic, verified, validated, government ID-backed information that you can't get anywhere else? And the answer is LinkedIn. And in the world of AI, it's so important for you to be able to do research on people. And now with a click of a button, I can deploy an agent and I could automatically start researching people.

Yeah.

And this is the, the idea is like, where are you gonna get the information to research people with? Are you gonna use Twitter to research them? No. The answer is you're gonna use LinkedIn cuz it has everybody's first name, last name, company name, where they work, where they worked before, where they went to school. where they went to school before that, who recommended them, uh, who endorsed them, and also all the mutual connections you have with them and any certifications, any licenses, anything that you need to know, what languages the person speaks. You know so much about somebody when you just look at their LinkedIn profile that you get a PhD in the relationship, in the person. And people don't care how much you know until they know how much you care. And in order for you to care someone, you have to get to know them. People do business with other people that they know. They like and they trust.

Trust.

And in order for you to deeply get to know somebody and build that relationship, it's important for you to take a step back and to understand that LinkedIn is the greatest source of information for professionals to be able to build deep rapport with other people. And so I take LinkedIn seriously, not just because it's owned by the largest company in the world, Microsoft, by market cap. Microsoft's one of the biggest companies in the world. It was overtaken by Nvidia for a hot minute. Now Microsoft's bigger. But the idea is that LinkedIn makes $1 billion in profit a year and more millionaires on LinkedIn than any other platform. And if you're in business, you're a CEO, you're an executive, you're a business owner, or you're looking for a really good job, you're going to go to LinkedIn in order to do that. And that's why LinkedIn is so powerful. And also 38% of people actually pay to be on LinkedIn. So I always say that people that pay, pay attention. And so I want people with those gold icons to be my clients, and I wanna be able to add value to them. And I'd rather go to a place where people are actually paying for the platform, sometimes $1,000 a year in order to access the platform. That is extremely powerful.

Right. I mean, those are all great reasons and agree with all of them. I think also that, you know, I think unlike other platforms, the objective on LinkedIn is very clear. We're here to do business, right? We're not also here to see, you know, what grandma had for dinner and, you know, what, you know, cousin so-and-so's dance moves are. So it's a very, I think, a very clear proposition of why we're here, right?

And also getting to know people and building relationships and staying top of mind with them is extremely important. And most people don't realize the importance of connecting with people on a deep basis and staying top of mind with them between meetings. So think about it, you're part of a networking group, And you want to connect with somebody, and you want to you want to go deep with them. Well, you can only go so deep at a one-hour networking event. That's really the the idea. But if I want to be able to stay top of mind with someone on LinkedIn, all I have to do is drop a comment on their post, and now I'm top of mind with them, and people will email me, and they'll be like, Joe, my God, thank you so much for commenting on my post. You're literally the only one that commented. They don't know that I'm using an assistant to be. to help me comment with the click of a button, kind of like what I'm doing right now, because they don't need to know that. They just need to know that I care about them and that I am noticing what they're up to and seeing what they're doing and also giving them attention because I have 50,000 followers on LinkedIn. So when I comment on a post, many of my followers will then see that comment on the post. And so for me, it's more about getting to know people one-on-one, building those relationships, creating those connections with people. And if I could do that correctly, I'll be so happier because I won't just get clients, I'll get friends. That's the idea.

Yeah.

It's not just about getting clients, it's about getting friends. Also, like you said, yes, 100% correct. Like when I first connect with somebody and build a relationship with them, I'm going to deploy an agent and really get to know them. I'm literally going to go ahead and figure out, okay, what's the best way for me to really get to know somebody? is not for me to be spraying and praying and hoping for the best. A lot of people are out there just saying, okay, I'm gonna hope for the best. Hope is a great thing. It's just not the best strategy.

It's not.

So instead of hoping, what you wanna do is you wanna identify, okay, what are your goals? Who is your target market? What is the message that needs to go to your target market? How can you make sure that your LinkedIn actually says that in an organized fashion? And how are you using the right technology to help you be able to stay top of mind with people. And that's really the key. When I take a look at the technologies that are available today, my mind is completely blown. For example, this woman, Barbara Hopkins, you know her?

Nope.

So Barbara Hopkins left a comment 8 minutes ago on your post. So I want to learn, I want to learn more about Barbara. I see, I see Barbara A. Hopkins is, um, has a, um, has a LinkedIn premium account. I mean, she's paying for LinkedIn.

Yeah.

And I saved her into Evvy AI. And now what I can do is I can deploy an agent while I'm working with you right now. An agent could be scouring the internet, looking at everything about Barbara, telling me what she does for a living, who her target market is.

Yeah.

What is her message? What she needs, what, what type of business opportunities are between us? Because she has a robust background as a COO, board advisor, and M&A strategist. She, her target market is healthcare executives and boards, early stage companies and investors in M&A firms. I think there's business that we can do together. And I see exactly how she helps clients and what she does. And so this is extremely powerful for me to be able to have the conversation starters of sailing and leadership because she has experience in competitive sailing and she is also a woman's health advocate and she does AI in healthcare.

Right.

And so I understand all the business opportunities that I can have with her. So having this, you have access to this technology, And our, our viewers can also have access to this if they just send the word demo to 973-841-8868. They'll get a demo video. But what I want people to know is that using AI to help you be able to be more effective in your relationships and your communication is a major competitive advantage. And, you know, like often I'll find people's email addresses right on their profile, but sometimes I'm not gonna be able to find their email address and cell phone number on their profile. I can have AI find me all that. So that's extremely important. And you know, LinkedIn is the world's largest professional social network. So the context is there. Like if you're on LinkedIn, the reason you're on LinkedIn is because you want to network. Am I right about that?

100%, of course. Yeah.

So that's why they listen.

Of course that's something, right? And by the way, Barbara, sorry Barbara, because she married at the audacity of it and took, took, took a different name. So I know her by Karpinska. So yes, of course I know who Barbara is.

Oh, amazing.

Um, and, and that, by the way, with the verify, that, that is a whole other, uh, ballgame, but we won't go there. Um, so you've mentioned the, um, agent that you, uh, deployed. So, um, for clarity, um, Joe has developed this, um, amazing interface that sits on top of your LinkedIn, so there's no clashes with LinkedIn's terms and conditions of not being able to have plugins, etc. Um, and what it does is that you can feed the information of a LinkedIn um, profile that you're interested in, and it gives you all this amazing amount of information about that person by going on the internet and scouring everything. And you have it tied in with like a whole bunch of different, um, AI tools, not just like ChatGPT or Claude. Like, there's a whole long list, um, but it does so much more, right? It does— it helps with the commenting, it helps with, um, uh, posts even. And that's where I really wanted to sort of ask you about, because You know, there's this whole freakout, let's call it, on the interweb, on the internet about, you know, how much is anymore written by people themselves and how much is AI written. And then there's like the sort of, you know, consideration of, you know, how authentic are we anymore. I think you've found a good balance there and a good solution. Do you want to talk about that aspect a little bit with With your tool.

Absolutely. I, I did find a really good balance and a really good solution between using artificial intelligence and making sure that you are being authentic and yourself. And the concept is called personas.

Yeah.

So if you want to have the AI sound like you, you have to train the artificial intelligence to sound like you. It's not automatically just gonna sound like you because you want it to sound like you. Yeah. It's only gonna sound like you if you train it to sound like you. And so I tell people, your tool is only as good as the training that you give your tool to have, just like your assistant is only as good as the training your assistant has. And we have a sales assistant that will help people be able to be more successful on LinkedIn. And with this concept called personas, it actually sounds like you if you train it to sound like you.

Mm-hmm.

You know, the, the crazy thing is that people don't understand the power of AI, and it's not so much about it taking over and doing stuff instead of you. It's doing stuff to support you. You want to be able to have the support that you need in life.

Yep.

If they say, if you don't have an assistant, you are an assistant. And so why would you want to do all the assistant-related things if you can get your assistant to draft an email for you in your voice? Now, does that mean that you didn't write the email if your assistant drafted it for you? No, you wrote the email. You just had an assistant draft it. And by the way, when you speak, You think you're using your original words, or did you learn those words from somewhere else? So you trying to be authentic is really just about your ego trying to say, "I don't want to borrow from anybody else." Meanwhile, every word you learned was from somebody else. Every thought you have is from somebody else. There is nothing new under the sun. In Hebrew, it says there's "אין חדש תחת השמש." What does that mean? That means everything is regurgitated. Everything that whatever was able to be created was already created. Somebody who took AI. and created every possible song that will ever be able to be created. Every possible melody with AI to be able to prove that there's no such thing as copyright because you think you're copying it? No, we already created that song. Every possible mixture of every possible thing is already created. Every idea you have is a mixture of multiple other ideas combined into one and turned into one idea. So if you want to be so— and you'd be like, well, how am I supposed to be successful if I don't have a unique idea? Google didn't have a unique idea. It didn't have a unique idea. Um, Facebook was not a unique idea. There were social platforms before Facebook. Instagram wasn't— it wasn't a unique idea.

What's it— Yeah, it's in the end, it's what you do with it.

It's execution. Uber wasn't the unique idea. Airbnb wasn't a unique idea. None of these things were unique ideas. It's just— and they weren't even the first to market either. There were other Uber tools before Uber. There were other Facebook tools before Facebook. The thing is How do you tell a story and how do you build a business around what you're trying to do and get out of that ego, but instead get into helping other people and making a difference for them? And so if I leave a comment for somebody, if the comment is not exactly in my voice, first of all, I can make it in my voice, but just because I didn't type it, it doesn't mean I didn't push a button to execute it. I deploy each thing manually. I read your post and then I left leave a comment and the comment was generated with AI, that's fine because I'm the one that generated it and I'm the one that read it and approved it. It's kind of like the president that says, I approve this message, or the senator.

Yeah.

They didn't necessarily say the message. Somebody else said a message and they said, oh, I approve this message. Does it make it less their message? No, it actually makes it more their message because they have social proof that somebody else said something and they said, yes, I approve that. I stand for that.

Yeah.

And so that's the idea behind AI. And also, by the way, Evvy AI, most of the stuff that we do with it is not even related to AI. We just called it Evvy AI 'cause it's a sexy name and initially our first 1,000 customers were just AI enthusiasts. But now we don't even use the word AI anymore. It's more of a sales assistant. It's more of like, let us use technology to help you. We use templates. I showed you earlier, I created a template and then I injected it into messages. Uh, we use voice to text where you talk into the AI and then it basically just types it up, but it's not AI-generated content. It's just your voice being typed up. It's AI-supported, but it's not AI-generated. And so now, now we have the ability to just speak into LinkedIn and leave a comment with our voice. Is that what's more, what's more authentic than the actual— than actually you saying something? So somebody's like, Joe, I saw your comment on LinkedIn and it was AI-generated. And I said, did you watch me on live leave the comment with my voice and say the comment?

Yeah.

And they're like, no, I didn't know you did that. I was like, go look at the video if you want. Spend 2 hours, because my lives sometimes are 2 hours long. Spend 2 hours, go back and watch that video of me leaving that comment that you accused me of being AI generated. And then they go back, they find it, they watch it, and they're like, holy shit, I was wrong. People are so confused and they think that everything is AI. Now they look at everything like, oh, it's all AI. Everything is AI. And they're all scared of AI. Stop being scared of AI. Start connecting with it. Learn how to use it properly. Learn when to use actual AI. Learn when to not use AI. Learn how to use artificial intelligence, not for it necessarily to generate, but to support you with ideas and research. I click a button. I know everything about you, Nina. Everything I need to know about you. I click the button. A guy called me up this morning and he said, Joe, can you help me with my nonprofit? I have a $100,000 budget. I said, of course I could help you with a nonprofit and your $100,000 budget. But first, let me spend 90 seconds learning about your business. I did deep research using deep research tools. It looked up 41 different sources in about 40 seconds, and then it pulled up a report, which took another 30 seconds. So within 90 seconds, I had an entire report on the guy's entire not-for-profit, and I told him of things about his nonprofit that he didn't even know himself about. And he's like, sold, come over, like, send me an SOW. I want to get started with you. Think about the opportunities that you can create. You know, people will hire you and trust you when you know more about them than they know about them. Think about that. Yeah, isn't that the ultimate turn-on when you meet somebody and they know more about you? They're like, oh, they know me better than I know myself.

I, I love when people, especially when I do interviews, of which I do a lot, and, and they ask me a question about something that I said like 5 years ago, right? It's like, whoa, somebody really dug deep and did their homework. It's impressive. Yes. And yeah, and sexy for sure, for sure. Talking of which, um, When I dug in, you know, around for you, I saw that you had the little thing that was the 3 things to do on LinkedIn. And I'm like, Joe, you're such a deep wealth of information. How could it possibly only be 3 things? So what are those 3 things that are top of mind for you?

So for me, the 3 most important things that you need to do on LinkedIn is posting, engaging, and messaging. Those are the only 3 things that you have to worry about when you're using LinkedIn. Posting, engaging, and messaging. Most people are not posting at all. Posting will get you exposure. Engaging will get you credibility. And then if you want to be able to have meetings, you need to be direct messaging people. That's how I book meetings is through the direct message. Those are the 3 most important components. The other 2 components is connecting and calling. And if you're not connecting and calling, you're not actually going to connect the dots. So you need to be connecting with 20 people a day and you need to be calling 20 people a day. If you're not doing those 2 things, you're not really connecting the dots. And you might say, well, why would I call somebody? It's because that's the way that you build real relationships, is by having conversations. Nina, did I call you today?

Uh, well, not only today, you've called me several times, and you're probably the only person who's not only called me once, but several times in years, right? I mean, sometimes when you get the phone rings and you're like, who the fuck calls, like, anymore nowadays, right? Um, but, um, there's something to be said about that. I mean, I'm, I'm terrible with calling. I'm great with connecting, but the calling thing, I'm a little nervous. Do you not get people who are like, you know, please book a call with me on my calendar?

I will, I will, I will get that. I will get that from people. I mean, about 50% of the people that I actually get through to will say, do you mind booking a meeting with me? I'd love to do that. And I'll be like, yes, send me your calendar invite. I just sent you a message. Can you send it to me right now while we're on the phone so we get it done? But 50% of people say, let's just talk now. And that is a powerful, powerful, powerful thing to be able to just get business done. I was born in the '70s, so I don't know about you, but I was born in the '70s, and in the '70s, we didn't have caller ID. All we had was, you know, my grandmother, I had to memorize her phone number. There wasn't even an area code back then.

Yeah.

But I would just memorize her phone number, I would just dial the phone number in, and she would pick up, and if she wouldn't pick up, it would keep ringing until she picked up. That was a thing back then.

Yeah.

So there was no call waiting, there was no caller ID. If she was busy on the phone, I would get a busy signal. And that's kind of like how things worked. And today, in day and age, I believe that we are just all vibration. That's what we are. And so in order for someone to connect with your vibration, text on a screen doesn't have a vibration.

Which is why we all use emojis, right? I'm a big fan of emojis to give some context. But when you— so when you are calling people, because— and sorry if I'm harping on this, because it's just to me fascinating. What is the conversation though? It's not a sales conversation, I assume, because it's your first call. So is it just a Hey, I'm that weird guy who's gonna call you rather than send you a message.

It's more about triggers. So like, for example, if I'm calling you because we're about to get on a live, it makes sense that I called you, right?

That makes sense. Yeah.

So the call needs to make sense. People do things for reasons. That's— people do things for reasons. And so if you're able to give them a good enough reason of why you called them, then and it makes sense to them, then they're not going to put you off or think that it's weird. Like if I, if I'm calling my kid's school for no reason, just to kind of sell them something, they're going to get annoyed.

Of course.

But if I call them because I need to pick up my son early from school, they're like, oh, it makes sense. He called because he has to pick up his kid. And you know, he'll, they'll stay on the phone as long as I need and blah, blah, blah. If I call the bank asking them for lollipops, they're going to think I'm weird. But if I call the bank, cause I want to find information about a wire transfer, that makes sense. Same thing on LinkedIn. If you see somebody on LinkedIn and you did research about them and you know everything about them, and I call you up because I have a trigger, for example, you looked at my profile, that's a trigger. For example, it's your birthday, that's a trigger. You just changed jobs, that's a trigger. You posted something on LinkedIn that touched my heart, that's a trigger. You commented on my post, that's a trigger. And we have hundreds of different triggers that we teach our students and clients on how to be able to detect those triggers, to have a reason for calling somebody. And as long as you have a good enough reason for doing something, Simon Sinek calls it a why. I call it a reason. As long as you have a good enough reason to call somebody, as a matter of fact, at that point you're like, why the hell didn't you call me?

Yeah.

You know, it was Mother's Day on Sunday. I just called all the mothers I know. And some mothers I called up and I said, happy Mother's Day. And she's like, I'm not even a mother. I was like, not that you know of. I always say I'm not a father either, but not that I know of. And then they start laughing and we make it into a joke and we talk about whatever it is that we want to talk about. It's all about building rapport and connecting with the person and getting to know them. But if somebody doesn't know you from AWOL, it's hard for you to build rapport with someone that doesn't know you at all. But if you know a lot about them, then they feel like they have to stay on the phone with you because you know so much about them. So think if I called you up as Nina and I was a complete stranger and I said, Nina, I did tons of research on you. I know everything about you. You know, you know very little about me, but I'm sure you're going to want to get to know me after—

I might be freaked out.

Yeah, you might be freaked out initially. But if you say, if you say, by the way, don't be freaked out because I just commented on your post and you can see that I'm a pretty influential person. And if you have 3 minutes for me to tell you why I called you, I think it'll be worth your time.

Yep.

And you're probably gonna wanna make those 3 minutes because this is probably the most important call that you got. I called up a CFO of a company that has more than 1,000 employees. And I called him up once, I called him up twice, and I called him up 3 times. 3 times and the guy didn't pick up the phone. Then I sent him a text. I said, are you really a CFO? And then I left him a comment on his recent post. So I did those 5 actions, called him 3 times, sent him an InMail through Sales Navigator, and then left him a message on his— left him a comment. The guy called me back 24 hours later and became a client of mine.

Yeah.

He became a client of mine. Why? It wasn't because when I picked up the phone and I saw him calling that I was weird about it and said, what do you want? Or I just didn't pick up the phone. It's because he's like, I noticed you called me 3 times yesterday. I was at a networking event. I couldn't pick up. What's going on? I said, my name is Joe Apfelbaum. He's like, I know. I saw you on LinkedIn. And I was like, I saw a major opportunity for you, but I don't know what your goals are yet. And I want to learn a little bit about your goals before I tell you the alleged opportunity that I have for you.

Sure.

Do you mind speaking with me now for 5 minutes so I could learn, ask you 2 or 3 questions, and then I can tell you why I called and what the opportunity is? And he's like, sure. And he tells me his goals and what he wants to do and blah, blah, blah. And we ended up just having a nice relationship. And then before you know it, he became a client and now he's our newest client. And by the way, I did all the activities that I told you that I did in front of 100 of our students. So if you want to watch a replay of me doing that, You didn't see the fruit of the labor while I was doing the activities. So while I was doing it, it just looked like I was getting rejected. The guy didn't pick up once. The guy didn't pick up twice. The guy didn't pick up 3 times. The guy didn't answer my InMail. The guy didn't answer my comment or acknowledge me. All that just looks like a lot of rejection and people are not able to handle rejection. That's a very big problem. People are not able to handle rejection as a result of not being able to handle— by the way, guys, let me know if this resonates in the comments. If you're watching this live or the replay, go ahead. And let me know if this resonates. Just write, this resonates very much. I'm curious to know what you guys are getting out of this as well, because I'm always curious to know what people are getting out of this. But does it resonate with you, Nina?

I mean, totally. And I mean, being afraid of rejection, you know, 100,000% yes. And even after doing Landmark.

Ahem, ahem, ahem. You should know better, right?

I should know better. Even ILP, and I still have, you know, my stories around that. But, um, yeah, it's— and I mean, this is what you hear all the time, is, right, that deals are made, um, on the following up of the following up of the following up, right? And I think it's the stories in our heads where we're like, ooh, I couldn't possibly call that person. I don't want to be pushy. I don't want to be this. I don't want to be that. And I mean, watching you, I've only watched one of your 2-hour thingamajigs, uh, last week, and I, I, I can't do the whole thing because I have a standing other call, but By the way, when we went on and you voiced the fact that people had requested that you go slower, I'm like, why would anybody go slower? And then I watched you in action. I'm like, I now understand why people— it was like boom, boom, boom, boom, boom. It was just coming at you every which way.

Yeah.

Anyway, to get back to the question is I think that, you know, just being able to do it in front of an audience and call and And be that in action is just mind-blowing. And we do need to— I mean, for me, it's always like, how many more times can I beat a dead horse? But to your point, it's not a dead horse. It's a horse that was in a networking event and couldn't pick up the phone, right? And then was probably traveling home and then called you or reacted once they were finally home, right?

100%.

So it's the stories that we have in our head about why people don't, um, why people seemingly reject us, right?

100%. 100%. And me seeing that you are, um, an Emmy Award-winning producer, visual storyteller, and, uh, the founder of Clockwise Productions, I, I could understand why you would fear a little bit of rejection. Like, it makes sense that you would fear rejection because you have— you're such an important person. Like you've done so much working with business coaches, service-based entrepreneurs, visual artists, and offering them video marketing strategy and content creation coaching as a coach, as a strategist, as a facilitator, training workshops on effective video telling and all that stuff. I can see why you would wanna be like the expert that everyone chases versus you having to call someone and look weak that way.

Oh, yes.

But actually, as a matter of fact, Brené Brown says that vulnerability is actually power. And so if you can tap into that vulnerability of actually making the call and actually building the muscle, doing it 20 times a day and just literally calling 20 people a day. Oh my God. Especially first thing in the morning, as Brian Tracy says, eat that frog. And if you can make 20 calls every single day, most of the people that you call are not even gonna pick up, which is fine. But you could use tools to automatically drop voicemails. So you don't have to actually say your voicemail every single time. I have one called Apollo. I push a button, the voicemail gets dropped. So if I called you right now and you didn't pick up your phone, I can drop a voicemail with a click of a button without having to actually say it. I could actually make a list of cell phone numbers and just have an AI just go drop voicemails on everybody's voicemail. And I could be in my voice and I can drop a different voicemail on each people, in each person, depending on who they are in our relationship.

Yep.

Automatically with my voice without me saying anything using ElevenLabs. So that's, that's, that's a very powerful concept and idea, but I think it takes a little bit of awareness, a little bit of practice, and a little bit of like mindset shift around, around the idea of, I'm here to add tremendous value. And if I don't pick up the phone and call you, I'm actually the one missing out and you're— I'm doing you a disservice. Like, that's the—

Yeah.

That's how, how how much of a perspective change needs to happen because there's a belief there that many people have is that like, I'm the important guy and I'm not willing to make the call. And as a result of that, you're not following up and the fortune's in the follow-up. And you have so much information on LinkedIn that can help you be able to build rapport. It makes it so much easier to make the call. That's why I say connecting and calling is really important.

Yeah.

But the exposure, credibility, and meetings is where it happens. So building those relationships, getting to know people, extremely important. But if you're not connecting and calling, you're not really going to get the whole, the whole picture.

Yeah. Yeah. I mean, that's, that's a lesson to be learned. So posting, engaging. What was the third one? Commenting?

Messaging.

Messaging.

Engaging is a form of commenting. Yeah.

Commenting. Yeah. And engaging was, uh, what was the last one again? I'm sorry. Posting, engaging, messaging, connecting, calling.

Yeah.

Yeah, definitely, definitely. Messages. So, um, what is your biggest LinkedIn pet peeve?

My biggest LinkedIn pet peeve is when people are thoughtless and mindless and they are just sending information and just care more about them than anybody else. Yeah, that's a huge problem that people have in general, but people are not treating LinkedIn as a 24/7 networking event. Instead, they're treating it like a sales call. LinkedIn is not a sales call. LinkedIn is a networking platform where people come to build real relationships with other people, to get to know them. And if you shove your business card in someone's face, Nina, that's not going to work. Just shoving your business card doesn't work. So what does work? Putting in the work and really getting to know someone. So Somebody sends me a message, Joe, do you need SEO? Do you need social media? Do you need web design? They don't know that I have a marketing agency for 17 years.

Right.

'Cause they didn't take the time to even read my profile.

Right.

So I'll often reply to them and say, what's your favorite color? And they'll be like, what are you talking about? Like, what does my favorite color have to do with you needing SEO? Like, do you need SEO or not? I was like, I didn't come to your bodega to go shopping for a pack of cigarettes. I didn't walk in and ask you for a potato chips bag or if you carry deodorant. I didn't ask you that. I asked you what your favorite color is. And they're like, I don't get it. I was like, if you don't get it, watch this 4-hour video. You want me to do something? You do something. Watch a 4-hour video and take some notes and get back to me if you really want to do business with me.

Yeah.

And people are not going to do that. They're just going to ignore me because they're like, oh, this is not a guy that I can just take for SEO, that I can just take, take, take, take. Instead of taking, start giving. I believe that the secret to living is giving, not faking and taking. Maybe waking and baking, but not faking and taking. The secret to living is giving and being there for other people, connecting with other people, getting to know other people, and realize that every connection is actually a person. There's a person behind it. You might think it's a robot, but it's not. It's, it's a person. And if you can really get to know the humanity of, of LinkedIn, Mm-hmm. if you really tap into like knowing that every profile, there's a person behind it and there are the little piece of God in each person and you really learn who they are and what they need. and you're there for them. Don't make it about you, make it about them. And you network with them. That's how you're going to get real referrals. People send referrals to who? To other random strangers that are spamming them? No.

No.

So my pet peeve on LinkedIn is being mindless, being thoughtless, not paying attention to your own professional brand and just spraying and praying or ignoring it completely. It's another pet peeve that I have is that people don't understand the value of actually showing up in the way that you want to show up. Instead, they're saying, I'd rather have No banner, no, no image, no, no information on my profile. And it comes up number 1 on Google when the Google people Google your name. Like it's an embarrassment to society. What are you doing? You're showing up naked in pajamas into a networking event?

That's what I call it. The naked profiles. Yeah, exactly.

It's an embarrassment. So instead of doing that, what you can do is you can invest 5 minutes, get Evvy AI, and then it'll rewrite your whole profile and help you out with everything that you need. But most people just don't even know that that's an option.

No, no, very true. Very true. I mean, for all I care, just put a color in your, in your, in your banner and your—

A little bit of color can go a long way.

Exactly. Just, just a single color will do. Anything but that gray-green, whatever that's supposed to be. Yeah. Yeah, for sure. Um, is there anything that I haven't asked you, Joe, that you would love to talk about?

Um, well, I would love that. Yeah, we're almost at time. I just want to let people know that even if you're not tech savvy, even if you don't have patience, even if you're not sure how to take the right approach, the shortcut to success is by tapping into 3 things. Number 1 is the right strategy. Number 2 is the right community. And number 3 is the right technology. If you can combine those 3 things, the right strategy, so you work smarter, the right community, so you're supported and you get what you need, whether it's accountability or whether you need actual support and referrals.

Mm-hmm.

And the right technology so you save a ton of time and you're more efficient. If you can do those 3 things, smarter, better, and then more connected and being more efficient, then you'll get anywhere that you want to go because success leaves clues. You can accomplish anything you want in life with the right relationship, even have kids. So the key is, if you want to build a business, remember that you can only build your business as much as you build yourself. And if you build yourself enough, you'll realize that the right strategy will save you a decade. That the right people will get you where you need to go and the right technology will make it easier.

Boom. Yep. Boom. And that was gonna be my last question for you and you answered it all by yourself.

And if anybody wants a demo of Evvii AI, just send the word demo to 973-841-8868 or go to evvii.com. You can start for free. If you want the bundle, we do have a special deal. If you go to evvii.com/bundle, ask Nina for her link because she is an affiliate and she'll benefit financially if you use her link. Or let me know that you came through Nina somehow. And appreciate you very much.

Absolutely. Thank you so much. And I think also on your profile, there is a short AVI, a EVAI demo, the first video in your featured section, right?

Yes. If you go to joelinkedin.com, it'll take you to my LinkedIn profile because I bought a domain, joelinkedin.com. And I always say that when I'm doing podcasts so people can easily remember me if they're on the go driving the car, they want to remember joelinkedin.com.

Nice.

If you go to joelinkedin.com and you scroll down to my featured posts, which is right on top of my activity, you're going to see 3 main posts that are featured there. You'll see my video that has a demo of Evvy AI. You'll see a business networking one-sheet, which I recommend all of our clients get a business networking one-sheet and we help you create one. And then the third thing is a LinkedIn newsletter that has lots of LinkedIn tips. In that LinkedIn newsletter, we have an article that I wrote called LinkedIn 101, all the basics of LinkedIn that you need to know. It's 100 questions that people ask when they're not really sure how to use LinkedIn. So I recommend checking out the newsletter, but that demo video is available there and it's really easy to access.

Yeah. Excellent. Joe, thank you so much. Thank you for myriad of information. And please, Check him out on LinkedIn. It's, it's, uh, it's, it's, it's a whole other level of LinkedIn training, um, that comes at you there that is highly inspirational and very effective. So thank you for all you do for the LinkedIn community, and thank you for coming on the show, Nina Goes Live.

My pleasure. Thank you for having me, Nina. If you guys are watching this live, make sure to hit that repost button so more people can see it, and I'll see you guys very soon. Boom.

Absolutely. And I will be back in a