Luke Jean-Louis Interviews Joe Apfelbaum about evyAI

Hello everyone, my name is Luke John-Louis, the host of the Deep Voice Band Show. Thank you for joining us today. We have a treat in store for you guys. Our guest is Joe Apfelbaum, and I apologize for mispronouncing his name. He is an author, speaker, LinkedIn expert and LinkedIn influencer, but he's also an AI expert. And, uh, he is the CEO and founder of the AI platform for LinkedIn called Evvy AI, which he's going to talk to us a lot about. So we're very fortunate to have him here with us today. I guess to start off, can you talk to us about your background and how you first gravitated towards what you do now?

Oh, thank you. First of all, thank you so much for having me on the show. I'm glad that we've been connected on LinkedIn since March 10th, 2020. I love looking at what you're up to, and I love that you call your show the Deep Voice Man Show. So, uh, thank you for introducing me to the show, um, and having me on your show. Uh, so for me, I started off— my father wanted me to be a rabbi growing up. I watched my mother suffer in the Lower East Side, try to build her business and then eventually go out of business. But my father really wanted me to focus being a rabbi. I knew that I needed to make money because I watched my mother trying to make money and she couldn't make money. But I had this conflict. It's like, okay, go spiritual mode, become a rabbi, or go be a business person and go make money. And I lived with that conflict for a long time. But I decided to follow my father's footsteps and become a rabbi. But then shortly after that, I realized I'm not going to make money being a rabbi. So I decided I'm going to get into business. And I went to my mother crying, saying, I didn't go to school to do business. I don't know what to do. And she said, get into the car. She drove me to the library, to the Brooklyn Public Library, and she said, go in there and you'll be able to learn everything that you want to learn. And she told me in Spanish, she said, self-education will make you a living. You'll be able to become a CPA or whatever. But form— she's— no, she said, formal education will make you a living. You'll be able to become a CPA or whatever, but self-education will make you a fortune. So go learn yourself what you want to do and go become wealthy. And so I went into the place, I gravitated to the computer section because computers were big in the '90s. They were coming out, people were excited about them, and they're like, oh, Windows 95, Windows 97, Windows 98's coming out, you know? And then I, um, I just, I just jumped in. I jumped in headfirst into web design, into computers. I became obsessed with it. I loved it very much. And, um, And then people started hiring me to build their websites. You know the famous saying, if you build it, they will come? Have you ever heard of that before? Yes, I have. Exactly, if you build it, they will come. I built many, many websites, but nobody came, dude. Nobody came. Nobody was coming. So I had to figure out, okay, how do I make people come? And then I realized, holy shit, I can do SEO. I can be number 1 on Google. I can do search engine optimization because I know how websites work. And so I started doing that for people and I ended up growing one of the fastest growing companies in America because SEO was hot in the 2000s. That's when it was super, super hot. And I was an expert at it. And so hundreds of companies were coming over and they were like, dude, we need to do this. And before you know it, I'm generating millions of dollars in revenue. And I'm like, oh my God, I'm a businessman. I built a business. This is crazy. And at one point I'm looking at myself thinking to myself, holy crap, I have 75 full-time employees. I have this company called Ajax Union, a marketing agency. We hit Inc. 5000, number 178, one of the fastest growing companies in America. And I was like, is this what I want to do? When you get to the top of the mountain or what feels like the top of the mountain and you look down and you're like, is this, is this what I want to do for the rest of my life? Right? And then Google reached out to me and Google was like, do you want to become a certified Google trainer? Is that what you want? And I was like, yeah, I want to teach Google's employees and Google's clients how to use Google and how to do SEO and all that. 'Cause I was a real big expert in it. So I got up on stage and I realized, holy crap, I am terrified of public speaking. Terrified, terrified. And I realized, oh my God, I have to like figure out why I'm so scared of this. And then I went on this personal development journey and learned a lot about myself. I realized I'm afraid of networking. I'm afraid of relationship building. I'm afraid of going deep. Um, and I had to find myself. And during my, my me finding myself, I also discovered that Microsoft paid $26.2 billion for LinkedIn. And so I started teaching people how to use LinkedIn because I was particularly good at it. And now that I already know how to teach people, teach people how to use Google, I can teach people how to use LinkedIn as well. And so I had this new skill. Um, and so that's basically what I did, build relationships, get to know people. And I built this new company that I taught people how to use LinkedIn. And then from that, uh, when ChatGPT came out a couple years ago, I decided I'm going to finally do what I've always dreamt of doing, which is building a software company. And so Evie AI is the birth of that software company that came as a result of me learning how to leverage LinkedIn, teaching it, but me overcoming my insecurities. And so Evie AI is a sales assistant that helps people be able to write comments. It helps people be able to write posts. It helps analyze profiles like about you. I found out That you are the creator and host of the Deep Voice Man Show, a podcast with listeners in all 50 states and more than 110 countries and 6 continents. And you position yourself as a personal development educator, voice actor, singer, life coach, and entrepreneur who uses content, podcasting, writing, and speaking to help others build authority and design a life outside the traditional 9 to 5. So I know a lot about you by just clicking one button. I'm able to see all that. I have conversation starters. that I can talk to you about. Like, for example, your 3P framework— people, productivity, personality— for leaving the 9 to 5. And, and I have, you know, I researched you all over, all over. I've— every podcast you've been on, every article you've written, everything is right in front of me at my fingertips. And, and that, that's available for all 1.2 billion people on LinkedIn. We make that available to anybody.

Just, it's been an amazing journey for you. Yeah. And, uh, you know, so from your sense of interest in computers, we've come a long way from Windows 95, I would say.

100%. We've come a long, long way to the world of artificial intelligence. Absolutely.

Yes. Yeah, because I love what your mother said, obviously, that, uh, when you get the formal education, right, you You can, you can do good, but when you get the self-education, you can make a fortune. And, you know, that's a great quote in and of itself. And of course, you sort of are being like a rabbi because a rabbi is like a teacher.

Yeah.

Provides guidance, provides education, mentoring, coaching. And so you are sort of doing that, and maybe not in the religious sense.

Yeah.

You learned those in-demand skills, what people wanted, and you gave them that.

Yeah.

It's a key principle in marketing. So you earned millions, my goodness, from your humble roots to getting to that level so fast. And, but you were still sort of introverted. You know, it's interesting, I actually read your book a while ago on, I think it was called High Energy Networking.

Yes, High Energy Networking, baby.

Yes, yes. And I actually love the book. I was turned on to the book because I met a woman named—

her name was Tina Folsom. Oh, yeah. Tina Larson from the Folsom Group.

Yes, yes. Sorry, I screwed up the name. But she— so essentially, she— I think I met her through some connection. And she mentioned you in the book. And I read it. And I thought it was amazing. Talked about networking and authenticity. It's a great book on networking. And so you're very big on this idea of building relationships and whatnot. And you also try to strengthen your weaknesses when you realize you needed to get better at public speaking. And so, and also, but LinkedIn to me is like a 24/7 networking event, right?

Yeah.

It never turns off. You can meet anyone you want to meet, and the podcast is a great way to do it. Yeah. And that's why I have it, so I can, you know, build relationships, start relationships by providing value.

Yeah.

Which is so important. And so, but you know a lot about technology and you've kind of grown with it, with the AI.

Yeah.

Which is amazing. I'm curious where you see things currently, um, in the tech world. Particularly with LinkedIn influencing and AI currently, of course, and, and where do you see it heading the next maybe 10, 50 years and where do you see yourself in that future?

I think that people are gonna value more in-person stuff moving forward. Using LinkedIn as a conduit to stay top of mind and build relationships is super important. You know, like using LinkedIn as a place like between meetings to kind of see each other. LinkedIn's growing at a rate of 3 new members every second. It's growing really, really fast. Most people don't realize how fast LinkedIn is growing, but it's growing really, really fast. And so if you, if you learn how to use it, really important, more and more people are going to join it and you need education to train people on how to leverage LinkedIn. So we provide education to anyone that uses our software. We provide them intense education on how to use LinkedIn, how to network, how to build relationships, how to leverage the platform. People need to learn how to use it. But it's really going to be about offline. That's— offline is the new killer app. Getting to know somebody face-to-face, actually having a phone conversation with someone. What a novelty. Phone calls. Phone calls is the new novelty. You know what I mean? Like, oh my God, you can make— you can have a phone call with someone. Is that a thing? You can actually call somebody and build a relationship with them on the phone with emotion. I mean, that's why podcasts came back. Podcasts were like all hot and then videos became hot and then people were like, Son, we got to get on a podcast. We got to get back to the audio concept where people can still walk around, do their thing, live their life, and tune into a podcast like this one. There was a guy that told me yesterday, I was at a networking event in person in Manhattan, and we're having a conversation. He's like, dude, I pulled up one of your LinkedIn Lives and I was just listening to it while you were talking to the Harvard Business Women's Association. And let me tell you, dude, that was epic. That was incredible. You had so much wisdom to share and I was just listening and I couldn't stop listening. He wasn't even watching the video. He was literally just listening. That's what he was doing. So if you think about it, that's such a powerful thing that people don't even realize how powerful it is. to be able to put yourself out there. You know, on LinkedIn, there's many features like a LinkedIn newsletter. Have you heard of the LinkedIn newsletter concept?

Yes.

Most people don't have a LinkedIn newsletter on their profile. And so I have 4 separate LinkedIn newsletters on my profile. Most people are not organizing their connections in a meaningful way. I organized you as a podcast host within my Evvy AI, and then I could look you up everywhere. I could open up your profile. I can Google you. I can research you with 7 different AI agents. I can, you know, now you're organized. If we had a conversation, I tag you conversation 2026, boom, now you're tagged. My AI knows that we had a conversation now. I can see everything that you have going on on your profile. I can see that you don't have a newsletter yet and you would really benefit from getting a newsletter, but you need newsletter training on the best way to create a newsletter and how to guarantee that you're gonna have 1,000 subscribers within the first 2 weeks. I'll teach you how to do that. I'll teach you how to build a relationship to make sure that you actually get comments. Your last post from a day ago and from 2 days ago didn't really get any engagement, very little. It should be getting a lot more engagement, but you're doing LinkedIn wrong. It's not your fault. You didn't get training on it. So if you're doing LinkedIn wrong and I can teach you how to do LinkedIn right, I have a responsibility to do that. That's how I view myself. It's like, I have a responsibility. to help save you from getting banned from LinkedIn because you're, you have the word podcaster on your name, which is against LinkedIn's terms. So somebody can complain about you and boom, you get banned from LinkedIn because your name is not podcaster. You know what I mean? And so technically speaking, you still got verified, which is cool. But technically speaking, if you go to LinkedIn's terms, the only thing you're allowed to put in there is like official designations, like doctor, MBA, or whatever. And you have the word podcaster in there. You sneaked it in there, which is fine. But it's against LinkedIn's terms. So you gotta be careful with doing those things because if they look at you, they might get upset. Also, like your podcaster show doesn't have a company page. It's free and it takes 2 seconds to make a company page with a logo. And if you need a logo, Evvy AI can design your logo for you. So like, it's like, it's like a no-brainer for you to use the right technology to help you look much better on LinkedIn. But more importantly, what I ask people is like, how are you making money on LinkedIn? That's like the real question. You're like, how are you actually driving revenue on LinkedIn. And if you're not driving revenue for yourself, for your business, I can show you how I do it. That's my passion. I want to be able to teach people how to create $100,000 in profit in their business from even just having a few hundred connections. It's not rocket science, but if you do it correctly, you're much more likely to be successful. What do you think of that?

Uh, I think that's beyond amazing. Thank you so much for the free tips.

You might have to, you might have to reverify once you do that, just FYI.

All right, I'm gonna have to take note of that. But you know, you touched on a lot of great things here that obviously you can have the high tech, but you still need the high touch, and that the importance of audio, because my show is audio only.

Yeah. And people also could— people could also be multitasking while they're doing— while they're doing it as well. Like, you know, while they're— like, if I'm talking to you and I want to be able to leave some comments on people's posts on LinkedIn, why not give me the ability to do that? You know what I mean? Yeah.

Yeah, absolutely. And I loved how you talked about the importance of networking. And also how LinkedIn's getting bigger and bigger and how you're able to do research on folks.

Yeah.

Technology that you have and, and, and the importance of organic outreach, uh, when you post something to get that, to do things right, to get proper feedback and whatnot. Because, you know, I always tell people there's 2 types of networks: the direct network, people that know you and you know them, and then the indirect network that Large audience, right? It could be on social media, email lists, or whatnot. And so you tend— you seem to me to be the masters of how to grow both, so to speak, the direct and indirect network. And I always tell people that the harder you network, the luckier you get.

Yeah, I mean, the more conversations you have. I think it's more about how many conversations are you having with your ideal target market. That's really the idea. Like, you can count Your network from today till tomorrow and how many connections you have and all that. But if you're not actually having conversations, I love that you're having conversations and you're recording them because that's powerful. You can go back to this conversation and you can learn a lot about me by history, who I am, what I'm about. I mean, we actually spoke and you asked me all these amazing questions and you have more questions to ask me. But like what I always tell people is like, how many conversations are you having? If you have 7,000 connections, how many of them have you, have you spoken to? Even for 5 minutes, even for 10 minutes, how many of them have you actually spoken to? You know what I mean?

Yeah. Yeah. And I'm learning so much from you. As you talk, I'm jotting down notes and whatnot. And so there is something to that when you network, you have to do it with intention, right?

Yeah.

You want to reach out to people who could be potential referral partners or prospects, and you want to pay attention. And if they don't buy from you right away, at least you can, you know, uh, pick their brains, you know, do research and whatnot, and they could buy from you later on.

Yeah.

After consuming some of your emails and content. And you talked about the importance of writing, and writing is such a key skill.

Yeah.

When it comes to the internet, because so much comes from writing. Even let's say if you wanted to do a solo podcast, right?

Or yeah.

Do a blog or if you wanted to do ads like copywriting or SEO, that, that involves a lot of writing that includes keywords. Yeah. The list goes on and on and on when it comes to, uh, writing. My understanding is that even with, uh, with Twitter or, or X, right, they, they allow long-form writing now.

They do. They do.

They do.

They allow long-form writing and it's, it's actually a really powerful thing to be able to realize that you're actually feeding the LLM when you're doing that. Think about that. Think about how you're feeding an LLM and how, you ever heard of answer engine optimization? That I'm not familiar with, unfortunately.

Oh, no worries.

It's called AEO. I'm sure you heard of SEO, right?

Yes.

So SEO stands for search engine optimization. The new thing that people are doing is people are not typing in keywords right now into search engines. They're not doing that. You know what people are doing instead?

Um, I, I'm not entirely sure of it, but I'm gonna learn from you.

Of course.

They're doing—

when you go to ChatGPT, do you type in, you know, um, LinkedIn strategy? No, you don't do that. What you do instead is you type in something like, like what? You type in like, tell me who's the best at LinkedIn strategy. Or tell me, yeah, or tell me what I need to know in order for me to be successful on LinkedIn strategy. You know what I mean?

Yeah.

That's much more powerful. That's much, much more powerful than just writing LinkedIn strategy in Google and seeing what websites come up for that. So you're actually asking a question, in other words, a prompt, and you're looking for an answer to your prompt. Do you get what I'm saying?

Yes.

So the way that you need to be marketing now is for people that are asking questions and you're actually answering those questions for those people. So somebody in an LLM, even in LinkedIn, if you ask LinkedIn a question now, you can actually ask LinkedIn a question and have LinkedIn answer the question for you. Like, tell me all my connections that are podcasters that I would be likely that they would want me on the podcast when I wanna talk about LinkedIn strategy. And then the AI will present to you people that are podcasters that you're currently connected to on LinkedIn. And then you might say, show me all the people that I'm not connected to on LinkedIn that are podcasters that would want to host me to talk about LinkedIn strategy. So that's the concept of answer engine optimization, where you need to train the AI using a very specific method now. For you to rank within ChatGPT. I get customers from ChatGPT. How crazy is that? I get customers from Gemini. I get customers, I see them coming to my website. I see them buying my products and services. I speak to them like, what did you search? He's like, oh, I went to Perplexity, I asked it a question and it told me that you're the guy. What? What? I'm the guy? Why? The reason I'm the guy is because I trained the AI To consider me the guy. I trained the AI to consider me the guy. Did you train the AI using answer engine optimization methods? If you haven't, that's a huge missed opportunity for you. You know what I mean?

Right. Yeah. I'm learning so much from you. This is called AEO.

AEO. Yeah, AEO.

Yeah. And now that I think about it, that I do put questions, and usually when I'm doing searches, and usually what happens is the AI will, uh, I think with Google they'll aggregate all the answers from, you know, the blogs, the YouTube videos, and whatnot. And I usually just read what it says, the summary, the bullet points, and it's usually my searches are zero-click. Yeah, I think that's common now. Again, usually when you put in keywords or whatnot, it's usually long tail. It's not like one or two words, right? It's so— no, I totally get that. And, um, so, so it's so interesting that, you know, I have to essentially be there when people have those questions. Yeah, so that is so critical. I'm curious now Um, yeah, you— I'm very fascinated by you because you are a networking expert, uh, when it comes to online and offline. And so many people want to build strong networks because there's so much value. And then, you know, the saying goes, your, your network equals your net worth.

Yeah.

It's corny but true.

Yeah.

What key advice would you give to people when it comes to building a network and also an audience, building Well, I would say number one is who is your ideal client and who's your center of influence?

Do you know what a center of influence is?

A person who's a big connector who knows a lot of people and could bridge that gap between you and someone else.

I would say for me and my business, a center of influence, they don't have to know a lot of people, but they have to know the right people. You know what I mean? They have to know the people that are in the position to refer business to me. So I could have somebody that only knows— I have somebody that only knows a specific amount of people. Let's just say I know a guy who only knows 25 CEOs of manufacturing companies in Orlando. That's all he knows. He's not a big connector, but I only work with CEOs in manufacturing companies in Orlando. So this guy's my center of influence, even though he only knows 25 people in the whole wide world.

Right.

Do you get what I'm saying? So for me, it doesn't mean that they're a big connector. It means that they're the right connector. So if I just need to meet one person, that guy becomes my center of influence if that guy can connect me with that one person. Let's say the only person I need to meet is Mark Zuckerberg. And I know one person who works for Mark Zuckerberg and his whole life is Mark Zuckerberg. Who's my center of influence? The person who only knows one person named Mark Zuckerberg. He's not my direct client necessarily. I'm not gonna be able to do business with him directly, but what can he do for me? He could walk me in the door to my ideal client, which is such a beautiful and powerful thing that most people don't realize. Most people don't realize that the right strategy Will save you a decade. And I learned this from watching my mother eventually go out of business after trying for year after year, working 16 hours every single day, but eventually going out of business. This is such a powerful thing when you realize like, oh my God, and I built one of the fastest growing companies in America. I built one of the fastest growing companies in America. And a lot of it had to do with the right strategy because the right strategy will save you a decade. And so that's why I write it in all my books. That's why I tell people all the time, have a strategy, have a prompting strategy, have an AEO strategy, have a LinkedIn strategy, have a networking strategy. Heck, if you're single, have a dating strategy, have a strategy to keep your marriage together, have a strategy to win at life. Tony Robbins says, "I'm not a life coach; I'm a life strategist." That room.

You know, it's funny because I always tell people that it's not about how hard you work, right? You know, I think John D. Rockefeller once said that he who works all day has no time to make money, right? Because there's no real leverage, right?

Yeah.

It's not just about your hard work as one person. It just doesn't correlate that way. You know, it reminds me of a movie I was watching about the Williams sisters, right? And growing up, they had a dad who was sort of like a taskmaster. And he came to the conclusion that there were women playing tennis who made more money in a tournament, right, playing a few games than he made all year. You know, doing backbreaking work, and he thought to himself, what the hell, you know? So it's just— there's just really no correlation between hard work and staying in business.

Yeah.

All the time. And you know, money loves speed, right?

Yeah.

Yeah. And you mentioned how you can use the strategy to not just when it comes to, to earning profit or whatnot, but also dating, right? And also finding a job as well. Networking really plays a big role in that. Yeah. And, um, so it's interesting because I, I try to do this myself, uh, with, with the books that I write, right? I, I use it to, uh, to sell, because that book can sell for me, uh, while I'm asleep. Yeah.

3 o'clock in the morning, right?

And the podcast as well. Anyone could listen to it while I'm doing something else. And so that podcast and book strategy together, we do that.

You have IP. You literally have— you have intellectual property. Guys, write this down if you're listening to this on the podcast. Write down, I need IP. Yo, I need IP. I need IP. We're 2 peas in a pod. We need IP. That's what we need. And, and I have a deep appreciation for rap as well, just so you know. I love to like put on a beat and just go for it and just enjoy flowing. I like improv. I like improvising. I love having fun. I love being playful. And so for me, like, that's, that's a powerful way to be in life. You got to just go from thing to thing and not worry about people's opinions of you. I say that if you, when you're playing the game of life, you're going to have a lot of fans in the game of life. And your fans sometimes are going to like you and your fans are sometimes going to hate you, but your fans in the game of life, they're not playing the game. What are they doing? They're spectating your life. You're playing the game and the opinions of the fans, you need training to allow you to keep going. Even if the opinions of the fans are swaying left and right, you need to keep winning the game and you decide what winning is. You decide what success is in your life. And so I know you're a student of personal development, and I know that you're a big fan of probably Jim Rohn. Have you heard of him? Yes, of course. So like, he says that you define your own success in life. Success is something that you define. No one defines success for you. So if you can define your own success, Other people's opinions don't really matter at the end of the day. But if you make them matter, then you just become one of the fans and you're spectating a ghost because the ghost doesn't exist. So I want you to actually be the player instead of the spectator, jump into the game. Let's play. Let's have a good time. Let's enjoy life and let's make a difference for other people. Let's invite some people. I always tell people, who did you invite on LinkedIn to a conversation, to an event? To a thought, to an idea, to answer a question. Invite people. Think about that. You have 7,000 connections on LinkedIn. How many of them did you message today inviting them to a conversation with you, to build a relationship with you, to ask them a question, a simple question? I'm going to Orlando next week and I'm doing a little event and I'm doing a little, a little test to see I did the event last minute. I put together an event last minute and I'm going to message 100 people. And I'm going to see out of those 100 people, how many of them are actually going to show up to my event? I'm going to message 100 people and say, I'm hosting an event in Orlando, March 14th, March 19th at 6:00 PM, blah, blah, blah. I'm going to be teaching about LinkedIn. I have only room for 44 people. I have some spots, some spots left. If you'd like to come, please let me know. I'm happy to send you more details about it. And I will message 100 people using that template. Evie AI has the ability to have templates. And so I just save the template with a keyboard shortcut and then boom, I just dropped that template into 100 DMs. How long do you think it's going to take me? 20 minutes, 30 minutes, whatever it is. But I'm, I'm out. I sent 100 DMs in 30 minutes. I touched every single person. And I also looked through each DM because I opened up each DM just to see our last conversation. And I recognize some opportunities there in the DM. Do you get what I'm saying?

Right, absolutely. And, um, and it seems like this is a very powerful tool that I'd love to know more about. And you touched on so many great things that resonate with me. Obviously, folks need to live true to themselves and be authentic. And then people love authenticity. There's no doubt about it. That's how you find You get your true fans and you repel everyone else.

Yeah.

And, you know, it's funny because I was reading a book and the basic reason why people end up dying, folks, is that they lived a life that other people wanted them to live and not the life they wanted. And so folks want to, you know, avoid that fate.

Yeah.

So important. And you mentioned Jim Rohn, who's the mentor to Tony Robbins.

Yeah.

He says all— I think there was a famous quote that he said that you're the combination of the 4 or 5 people you hang out with the most.

Yeah.

So it's— so you have to be aware and proactive and intentional about who you reach out to and whatnot. It's not about who you know, but it's about who you know who knows someone you want to get in touch with, right?

Yeah, yeah.

That's so key. I'm curious, I always give this question to folks. Who do you normally work with? Like, what would I have to hear from someone in order to refer them to you?

I'm looking to have more conversations with my target market. If somebody says that, I'm looking to have more conversations with my target market. I'm looking to learn how to leverage LinkedIn because I'm not sure how it works. I'm looking to get out there more and I want to meet more people. I want to be able to have 5 conversations a day. If somebody wants to meet more people, if somebody wants to build more relationships, if somebody wants to learn how to network, if somebody wants to always have somebody to speak to 24/7, anytime, anywhere, I can teach you how to do that on LinkedIn because LinkedIn's a global platform. You know, we have clients in 40 countries around the world. I can go on LinkedIn Live any time of the day or night and somebody will tune in and watch my LinkedIn Live. Somebody will, you know, I have 110 people in Orlando that are connected to me and I already messaged them all today on LinkedIn. I messaged every single one of them, 110 people, and people are already responding that they're interested in coming. I also have Sales Navigator. I messaged 150 people. in the past 24 hours in Sales Navigator. I take LinkedIn very, very seriously, very seriously. And the reason I take it seriously is because it's a pretty serious platform. It's a pretty serious platform.

Yeah, it definitely is. And you touched on how the internet is global.

Yeah.

You know, the internet has done so much. I tell people the internet is the great equalizer, the great democratizer. And if you've ever read, I think it was Thomas Friedman's book called, I believe it was The World Is Flat, right? It came out a while ago and it talked about how the internet has sort of leveled the playing field, so to speak.

Yeah.

Parallel communication and access that just didn't exist for the average person prior to the advent of the internet. So it's done so much. The technology obviously is continuing to evolve now that you have AI.

Yeah.

Which you are, of course, availing yourself of with this Epi AI.

Yeah.

In terms of giving all— so all these DMs are given to people Uh, and they're personalized.

Yeah.

Simultaneous.

Yeah.

Yeah. Would you call that automation or no, that's not automation?

No, it's human-in-the-loop automation. That means I, I'm not automating anything. I'm complying with LinkedIn's terms and conditions, and I'm manually going through and replying to everybody, but I'm using AI or I'm using templates and processes to help me go faster. So if I want to send 150 messages to people on Sales Navigator, and I can show you how, um, you know, I'm, I'm more than happy to show you like, hey dude, look, I just sent 150 messages. Like I could share my screen. Most people are not willing to share their screen with like the behind the scenes conversations. You know what I mean? Most people are not willing to do that. But I, I just, you know, if you come to my webinar today, if you go to evviai.com/webinar, And we have these all the time. evyai.com/webinar. I'm going to teach how to get more qualified leads from LinkedIn without paid ads. I say, have you ever spent time on LinkedIn posting, connecting, and engaging, but the leads that come in are just not the right fit? The truth is most professionals don't have a lead problem. They have a qualification problem. When you rely on random inbound interest or inconsistent outreach, your pipeline becomes unpredictable. So in the webinar, I'm going to show you how to attract the right qualified leads on LinkedIn organically without spending money on ads. You'll learn how to position yourself with the right people in the right hands and engage with your content and start conversations that actually turn into opportunities. So I say, if you want LinkedIn to become a consistent source of high-quality leads instead of random connections, this session will give you a practical system that you could use immediately. And then I basically say, sign up for it and there's no cost. That's the crazy part. There's literally no cost to this. So I want, I want people to register for this, sign up for it. And if they come, they're going to get a ton of value from it. And if they don't come, then they're going to miss out on an opportunity to learn about how to be able to leverage LinkedIn. Now I can easily post this on Facebook, on Instagram, on Twitter, on LinkedIn. I could post this everywhere, but most people are not posting at all. They're not posting ever. And if I post regularly, I'm going to get a lot of action from people. Like if I get one person, let's say you post on Facebook and one person comes to my class and that person ends up spending $30,000 or they end up spending $29. I don't care, but I just took 2 seconds to post that on LinkedIn. I already have the asset. I took 2 seconds to post it on Facebook. I already have the asset. Why not post? And so that's, that's what I believe. I believe that, that most people are not top of mind. I say if you're out of sight, you're out of mind. And if you're out of sight, you're out of your mind. You're missing an opportunity to be able to feed your family. For what? A guy told me, he's like, I don't have money for rent. I said, how many conversations did you have in the past 30 days? He's like, none. This is the only conversation I'm having. I was like, why are we having a conversation? He's like, because you reached out to me. I was like, holy shit. I'm like, holy shit. Unbelievable, right? People are just unbelievable.

Yeah, yeah. It's interesting. You know, it's like there's so much opportunity out there and people tend to sort of be blind to it.

Yeah.

It's so weird. And it's great that you give that webinar essentially for free.

Yeah.

For no cost, and you offer so much value to folks. I find this to be a commonality among many teachers and content creators is that they push, they promote, and they provide, and they offer so much free education.

Yeah.

And some people think it's crazy to put out all this free knowledge, but in essence, you're not trying to Bring on board a do-it-yourselfer, right? You're trying to bring on board your ideal customer who needs help, who needs that, perhaps that customized, tailored advice specific to them, not just something in a webinar that may be meant for a general group or whatnot.

Yeah.

And that's the key difference, right, between the free and the not free.

Yeah, yeah, I mean, you get the training, you get the support, you get the handholding. We meet with our clients every day, twice a day. Every single day, twice a day. That's what we do. You know that I have 1,500 people waiting to connect with me on LinkedIn right now? Did you know that?

No, I did not know that. Wow, that's amazing.

Yeah.

That's incredible. And you use Sales Navigator, which is, I believe, the most expensive.

I do.

Yeah. And because I'm on the free version of LinkedIn, but you're on the highest, most expensive tier of LinkedIn.

People that pay, people pay that people that pay pay attention.

That's true. You know, when you pay more, you take it more seriously. Something I guess when it's free, people just don't respect it.

People don't respect it as much. But you know what, LinkedIn has something called the commercial use limit. You're only allowed to send a certain amount of messages to people. that you're, you're only allowed to be able to view a certain amount of profiles if you don't pay for LinkedIn. LinkedIn actually wants you to pay for LinkedIn. That's what they want you to do. They actually want you to pay for LinkedIn. And if you don't pay, they kick you off the platform. You know, I have a guy in my community, his name is Rick Clody. He's always commenting on my posts, always. And I'm always commenting on his posts. Imagine if you had a group of people, let's just say 10 people, that you took the time every week to comment on their posts and they took the time every week to comment on your posts. Wouldn't that be valuable instead of having zero comments on your post to have a dozen with people that know you, like you, and trust you and respect you and you're top of mind with each other like a little forum? It's not an engagement group. It's people that you actually know. People that actually know you, people that actually like you, people that actually build relationships with you, they get to know you. Wouldn't you want that? Wouldn't you want that at least once a week you have somebody go through your posts, make sure they didn't miss anything, make sure they catch up with all your content, make sure they see what you're doing? Wouldn't you want that? Everyone would want that. So that's what we provide to our clients. We plug you into a community of 1,700 people that want that, of 1,700 people that want to be better, that want to be creators, that want to build relationships. And so you find your 10 there, you find your 20, you find your group, and you do events within our community. If you become an EvAI Pro client, which is $3,600 a year, and we have deals for people now going on, but if you become an EvAI Pro client, not only do you get $10,000 worth of training, but you also get access to our community. You also get access to AI research. You get tons and tons of access. So I love connecting with people and building relationships and getting to know them. But you have to know who your people are. You have to know who the people that know you, like you, and trust you are. You have to know who the people are that are in the position to refer business to you. That's key.

Yeah, absolutely. And having a strong network is so important. You know, you probably I don't know if you're familiar with the story of Joe Girardi, who was a car salesman who had beyond phenomenal results. I believe he had the Guinness World Book of Records, uh, when it came to being a salesman.

Yeah.

And he did it because he had a strong network. And this was before the internet, but he sent out letters to people saying happy birthday, and they appreciated it.

Yeah.

So there's something to this when you have a strong community and a strong network of people who know you. So when you have a strong network, any one of them, uh, needed to buy a car, they went right to him. Or if they knew someone who needed to purchase a vehicle, they sent them to him.

Yeah.

And it shows you the strength of a network.

Yeah.

You know, and, uh, but my understanding with LinkedIn is you do have to be careful because you can't do a complete total whole pitch or something.

I mean, you, you could sell, but it doesn't work because networking is not about selling. Networking is about relationship building. So if you're going to go sell somebody at a networking event, you're going to get ignored. You don't want to be selling. You want to be relationship building. That's the key. That's the most important part of the whole game. You want to be relationship building. And if you're not relationship building, you're not going to win. If you're not connecting with people, you're not going to win.

Yeah, it reminds me of Bob Burg's books on The Go-Giver. And he also wrote another book called Endless Referrals.

I read both. I read both. I mean, I have a selfie with Bob Burg. I went down to Florida to do a selfie with him. I was like, dude, can we do a selfie together? And he's like, yes. And I flew down to Florida. We did a selfie. It was epic. We had such a good time connecting and building relationships and getting to know each other. Yeah, it's good. It's good. It's really, really good stuff. Yeah, mutually beneficial win-win relationships. I remember when I read he said that, I was like, damn, son, I love that. I love mutually beneficial win-win relationships. He inspired me a lot.

These symbiotic relationships, you know, the bees get their nectar and the flowers get their pollen, right?

Yeah, yeah, we're all connected and we're all connected. And when I help you, you help me, we help each other. That's, that's, that's a powerful way to be.

Yeah, you know, and that is how we've always been, right? With the— yeah, before there was paper currency, we had the barter system.

Yeah. Let's scratch each other's back. Let's just not make each other bleed.

Yeah.

Yeah. Thank you. Thank you for having you with me. I appreciate it. Yeah.

And I'd love to have you back on it in the future, of course. And so if you can, can you Go into all the ways that people can reach out and connect with you?

Yeah. So if you guys want, you can go to joelinkedin.com. That's J-O-E-LinkedIn.com. And you can easily find me there. joelinkedin.com is my LinkedIn. If you're in Orlando and you want to send the word Orlando to 973-841-8868, I'll send you the next event that we're hosting in Orlando. And if you want to see a demo of Evvii AI, send the word demo to 973-841-8868. You can write that down, 973-841-8868. Send the word demo. I'll send you a demonstration video of Evvii AI. And I'd love for you to come to our next webinar. If you go to businessnetworkingworkshop.com, you can check out my next webinar. And, or you can go to evvii.com/webinar.

Excellent. Thank you so much for that. Just so you know, all that information will be in the show notes. It'll be readable, clickable, and people will be able to just hop, skip over there. So again, I wanted to thank you for coming on the show as a guest. I know you're a very busy man. You have to carve out some time in your busy schedule to sit down and have a chat with me. And this has been a phenomenal and amazing conversation. Do you want Do you want to leave us with any last words?

Yeah, I truly believe that your network is your net worth. And so invest in your network, build relationships with people, get to know them, and actually take the time to have a conversation and learn about their life. And when you do that, you're going to start seeing so many more blessings in your life. You're going to start connecting with people in such a deeper way, because you'll actually, you'll actually get to know them. You'll actually get to like them and build relationships with them. People do business with other people that they know. They like, and they trust. And if you could really go deep into the world of getting to know, like, and trust people, the chances of you being successful in business, doing anything, is really, really powerful. So here's what I tell everyone as my final thing. Find 10 people in your world that you can truly make a difference for and go make a difference for them. Go build those relationships, go get to know them, and that will change your life. life. Thank you very much.

Thank you for sharing and imparting your profound, vast wisdom and knowledge with us. And I want to thank the audience for listening all the way to the end. I'll be seeing you guys in the next episode. Everyone have a great day and have a great year.