Virginia Muzquiz Interviews Joe Apfelbaum 2025

Recording in progress. All right. Hey everybody, I'm super excited because I am here on LinkedIn with my great friend Joe Apfelbaum, who is just really, really my go-to guy for all things AI. And he's got, as many of you know, he's got his Evvy AI platform that a lot of us are just barely like touching the surface of what this tool can do. And then Joe goes and makes it better. So there's even more. So what I want to do, Joe, like I've, I've gone through sort of the surface level stuff, right? So I know how to connect it to my LinkedIn and I know it can help me make posts and I know it can help me comment and that sort of thing. But there's so much more that you actually do with it that like blows my mind when we're on meetings or in chat. So I just wanted to talk to you a little bit about why you started Evvy And then what beyond just the basics, what else is there in there for us?

So as you know, first of all, thank you for having me on LinkedIn Live. Really appreciate it. And as you know, I have a marketing agency that I've had for 17 years, and we were featured number 178 on the Inc. 500 as one of the fastest growing private companies in the United States. We were on the top of the list. And one of the things that I found is that a lot of people who are coaches, consultants, entrepreneur, or a lot of our clients that have sales teams, they need more leads. They need to have more conversations with their ideal clients. However, they don't necessarily have the resources to spend tons of money on advertising to do that. And so they want to use this concept that you're very familiar with called networking, building relationships.

Yes.

The best way to network and build relationships is always going to be in person. Like you're at a conference right now. It's always going to be in person. The second best thing, when you need to be at home, what we learned during COVID when there's a lockdown, is that we need to start leveraging technology more like Zoom. but also like LinkedIn. LinkedIn is owned by the largest company in the world, Microsoft. And it is, it has a billion members and it's a 24/7 conference and networking event. The challenge is that a lot of people don't even know how to use LinkedIn, let alone be able to leverage it for networking and relationship building. And so when the pandemic hit and our, and our marketing agency took a very big hit, I was still able to keep the marketing agency over 7 figures a year. And the way I was able to do that is by leveraging LinkedIn. And so people started asking me, hey, can you teach me how to use LinkedIn? And so I've trained over 1,000 companies and their employees on how to leverage LinkedIn. And one of the key things that I found is that people have problems with LinkedIn that they can't always resolve with throwing more humans at it. Sometimes you need to attach a technology to it.

Right.

So the main problems I found that people have are 3 problems. Number one is they don't have the creativity always to be able to know what to say at the right time, whether they're writing a post, they're replying to a post with a comment, or they're sending a message to somebody. They don't always have the right thing to do. And so I built a sales assistant that will help them be able to always have the right things to say in their own voice. 'Cause everybody hates just to have an AI writing in the AI's voice. But we have something called personas that we fine-tune the AI and train it to learn who you are, how you wanna speak, and how you don't wanna speak, and that it always sounds like you. That's the first problem that it solves. You know, it's, it's called, um, writer's block or—

Writer's block. Yeah.

Or not having time to like sit down and think about what to post. So we'll come up with the ideas, we'll write the posts. And also the other problem is they're not sure they're doing it the right way. When you're writing a post, in order for you to have a good post, you have to do things that align with the LinkedIn algorithm. So someone would rather not post than post in a way where they'll get no impressions on their post. So like, why am I even posting if no one's going to see it?

Right.

So we have all the best practices that I've been teaching that we installed in the AI. So it'll write things with a hook, with main points, with a call to action. It'll just use 3 hashtags instead of 70. It'll make sure not to include a link. and will do things the correct way. So that's number one, is around the content generation piece of LinkedIn, helping people not have writer's block, helping people save time and keep it in their voice, and helping people make sure that they're doing things that are aligned with the algorithm. The second component, which I went through your referral incubator, and I know that people have this problem, is the idea around getting organized within their network.

Yeah.

Like, who, who are you even connected to? Are they in lists?

Right.

Is it organized? So we have this organizational system that I've been teaching clients for a decade on exactly how to organize their contacts in a way where you can recognize, strategize, and prioritize, and you can segment your network into different lists. And taking some of your courses and programs and investing in what you're doing, I know that you're a big fan of identifying who are the people that are your allies and who are the people that are You know, you have certain terminology that you use within your framework, but over here you can implement that technology. Using technology, you can bucket people into those categories and then you can stay top of mind with them because with a click of a button, you can load up all their posts. So instead of wondering, did Alina Vincent, did she post on LinkedIn or not? You just go to the JVMM and then you click on Alina and it shows all of her posts. And then with a click of a button, you comment. And then you move on to the next thing and you're able to be top of mind with your whole BNI network or with your whole Marketers Cruise cohort, or with the people that you had a conversation with last month, because you can categorize it and organize it. That's the second thing that people have issues with around organization.

Right.

And then the third thing is in terms of saving time and being efficient. So for example, when I'm having a conversation with you, I can sit down and not pay attention to the conversation and start Googling you. Right? I can do that during the conversation. Now I'm not paying attention. I'm scouring through the web to try to find ways that we can build rapport. Or with Evvy AI Pro, which you have and you're a client of, Right. You click one button and it scours the web for you and it pulls up everything relevant about that person. And because we have templates also, and we teach you what templates to install into Evvy AI, you could push a button and prompt the AI. You could push another button and send the person all your contact information. You could push another button and send them your lead magnet. You could push another button and be able to have the right birthday message to send somebody or to have the perfect happy anniversary message or have whatever you need to send either as an email or any other way. You have it in your templates, you have your organization, and you have your content. So those are the 3 main issues that we help people with. We help them with their content, we help them with getting organized, and we help them with saving a ton of time.

I love that. And, you know, a couple of things that you pointed out. I have a, I have a LinkedIn newsletter that I'm just about ready to post. I was creating a download for it that, um, so I'm on this 25-email sprint and, um, I'm actually on day 27, right? So I've never actually been able to write a daily email because I get writer's block. So, you know, I loaded up my ChatGPT and then I started started sort of feeding it, and I started to realize that every— you can tell if somebody's written an email on ChatGPT because it goes like this: Hi Joe, I know you've been doing everything right. You've been posting, you've been this thing, you've been commenting, you've been whatevering, and nothing seems to be working. That's why I came up with this solution, and it'll do all these A, B, C, D, E, F, G things to solve your problem. Just click below, let's have a conversation. And like, I get 50 of those a day, and I want to slap half my network and say like, okay guys, like that's not how you work with ChatGPT. So I asked ChatGPT why it writes better emails for me. Like, what do I do? And it's really funny because it's like, well, you scold me when I do XYZ, and you told me you want it to be like this. And so, and the other thing I do is it writes me the email Gets me 80%. I rewrite the email, and then I put it back into GPT, and I say, this is what I wanted you to do. This is compared to what you gave me. Where did you go wrong? And then it tells me. And then I say, how will you fix it next time? And then it tells me. And then I say, write me a prompt. So it writes me the prompt. And so suddenly now I can— I'm a much better talker than I am a writer. So suddenly I can just grab my phone. I can talk at ChatGPT. We have a conversation, takes about 35, 40, 50 minutes, Joe, for me to really write an email to craft this with GPT. It used to take me a lot longer, but it's getting faster because it's starting to understand. And then, and then I can send it out. And so one of the things that I love that you talked about was this notion of a persona and training up a persona so that you sound like you. Not, not an AI. And number 2, for, for piddle's sake, you know, read what the AI wrote and decide if that's what you really wanna say.

Don't be lazy. Don't be— I always tell people, don't be lazy.

But you know, the beauty, don't be lazy.

The beauty is that we include with Evvy AI, with our side panel that sits on the side of your browser, we work on every website. We work on LinkedIn, Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, your email, ChatGPT. We work everywhere. And we assist you by having a little microphone on the side. So there's actually a physical microphone that you click a button and it will open up your mic and it'll start just typing everything you say. And then because we have a persona that you can train, you can then take what you said and organize it in any format that you want. So you can turn that into, say for example, if you have a CRM and you just had a networking conversation with someone, we have a networking conversation prompt that's built into the persona of Evvy AI's networking voice notes.

Mm-hmm.

So you can have a voice note of the conversation you have. You press submit and it'll put it against that persona and type in perfect notes for your CRM that you can then paste into EvAI's notes section. Because we have a notes section in EvAI for each one of your LinkedIn connections.

Mm-hmm.

And you can also inject that into your regular CRM if you're using HubSpot or Salesforce or GoHighLevel or anything that you're using. We're compatible with it because we can just easily push a button and it goes right into your CRM. And it's just really beautiful to be able to have this type of technology as your ally sitting right next to your browser and helping you out anywhere you are online.

So Joe, you know, one of the interesting things about this is, and I've had clients, you know, I have clients that are, that I have clients that are working with you now. And one of their biggest like early challenges, right? So they get really excited 'cause you're a master at getting people excited. So they get really excited and then they jump into the tool and they get confused and overwhelmed and they don't know what to do. And then they, they panic and they call me and they're all in a panic. And I'm like, did you get on a call? Like, have you watched the video? There's training. Yeah.

Literally my cell phone is on my LinkedIn. I have 50,000 followers on LinkedIn and my cell phone number's on my LinkedIn. A lot of people are afraid to share their cell. I just messaged a woman with 100 followers. And I said, what's your cell? And she's like, I don't share my cell. That's literally what she said. She's, I don't share my cell. I said, good luck to you. Disconnect. Have a good day. I'm not interested in not talking to people and having to like DM people back and forth just to be able to have a conversation with somebody. There's enough people in the world that are willing to actually have an emotional, connected, spiritual conversation that I don't have to deal with someone and have to like send voice notes back and forth because they're afraid of sharing their cell phone number as if I'm going to call them and sell them something. So what I tell people is, if you're having trouble with a tool, come to our onboarding sessions that we have every single week. Come to the accountability sessions on Tuesdays at 5 PM. Come to a posting party. Come to a webinar. Come to some training. In anything that you do in life, even walking, you need to get some type of training in order to learn how to do it. Sure, you can spend a year trying to figure it out on your own, but we provide you with 10 $1,000 worth of training at no additional cost. So we have literally events almost every day. Come to one of our events. And we have 1,000 engaged LinkedIn users in our community. Call any of them. They all put their cell phone number in the community. They all put their Calendly link in the community. Book a meeting with Rick, with Evan, with Latha. You don't like me? You think I talk too fast like I'm in Brooklyn? Pick somebody from Austin, Texas. Pick someone from Australia, from New Zealand. We're in 37 countries around the world. You want someone with an English accent? We have over 150 customers in London right now that are willing to get on the phone with you and have a conversation with an English accent. And they could even say things like, Noah, I'm Maine. And that's it. Noah, I'm Maine. But that's the point.

I love it.

Yeah, it's not just about me, Virginia. It's not just about me.

And I think— well, I know, obviously. And the thing that I really want to say is 10 years ago when I got into the whole— I started, you know, wanting to learn how to market online back in the day when you had like— there was MailChimp and then that API integrated to something blue.

Bluehost.

Something. I can't remember what it was. No, it wasn't Bluehost. It was a— it was an autoresponder. Like, that was the email CRM.

Oh, like AWeber or something?

And, um, and some— it was before that. It was before AWeber. Okay. It was just an email tool. And then it was just, um, you know, mail. It was Mailchimp. And then there was like a— this other thing anyway. So your CRM didn't do mail. You had to API integrate that, and then you had to API integrate something else. And so in order to get anything done, you had to understand API integration, which was know, 15 years ago, completely freaking overwhelming for a 45-year-old mother of 2 that was trying to figure it out. That even though I grew up with technology, it was hard, right? But I decided that declaring myself technophobic was actually going to cripple me down the road because technology wasn't going to go away. I just realized it's not going anywhere. So then I would get— I would try it and I would try it on my own, and I would become what I called techno furious. Like, I'd be like, screw this, it totally doesn't work. I, I would F-bomb a lot more than that, right? Um, and then finally I was like, you know, if I just approach this with a modicum of curiosity, instead of saying this doesn't work, to say, how does this work? How does this— how did the, how did the developer think? What were they thinking about it? What is, what did they— what is the UX like? Because my expectations aren't of what the user experience should be, isn't intuitive. Okay, that just means Joe doesn't think like Virginia. So if I can understand how Joe thinks, the tool becomes infinitely more simple to use. And the really great thing is like, that just takes hanging out with the people who are the brains behind the thing. So you understand the user experience that they've mapped out. And I think that's one of the things that You know, especially, I gotta say, you know, I'm 60. People my age, we like to press a button and it works. That's cuz that's how it, you know, it used to be one button. You know, you didn't have— when my mom got a microwave, when, when my mom got a microwave, you twisted a handle, you opened it up, you put a thing in there, you closed it, you turned a little dial to the time, and that was all you had to do. You didn't have to figure out like, does it boil water or popcorn or warm or microwave? It wasn't all these choices. And then the go and the— you didn't program a microwave. So I think one of the things that, that I love— no, I know one of the things that I love about you is that, yeah, there's a platform, but when you, when you sign up for the platform, and I highly recommend that everybody join the Pro Community because at the end of the day, otherwise you're just, you're gonna, you're trying to save a couple hundred bucks and not getting the support that will make it not only easier but far more leveraged. 'Cause this tool does a lot of stuff that streamlines business and streamlines processes. Uh, and I love that about, about the tool. And it's why I, you know, I don't shut up about it. I love, I love Evvy AI and I'm just scratching the surface myself.

So think about it, even just the feature of templates. You said you talked about the microwave where you push one button. Think about anything that you need to do on LinkedIn or any other platform. Imagine you had all the different templates for everything that you need to do, all the communication that you need ready, done with all your links. Somebody says, when's your next event? Somebody says, what's your demo? Well, somebody says, I would like to refer you. What's your affiliate program? Somebody says, what's your contact information? You're on a Zoom and you have all the templates available on the side of your browser or in your cell phone. And all those templates are done already and they're in the system. You never have to create a template again. You just push a button and it injects into the website, into the form, into school, into—

Yeah.

Into your email, into wherever you're going. It just injects it in there. Or you could press copy and paste wherever you want. Just a click of a button, you can do that, which is— it's that feature alone saves me so much time. The ability to push a button.

You're not copy and pasting, copy and pasting, copy and pasting. It just goes there.

Insert. You press the insert button and then you have it and it's really, really powerful. And so I always tell people, make sure that you find ways to save time and then build those relationships. And what will end up happening is You're gonna get more bang for your buck with everything that you're doing. Because as Stephen Covey writes in his book, The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, he says, if you had 9 hours to cut down a tree, spend at least 15 minutes sharpening the saw. So spend a few minutes learning how to use it.

Right. And I was gonna say, you know, this is, this using the Evvy AI tool. So think of, if you think of Evvy as a partner, Right? A business partner. Well, when I bring on a referral partner, what did you and I do as, as referral partners? We decided we wanted to go deep. We wanted to understand. We wanted to be able to promote and connect and refer one another more capably. So we got together at 10 o'clock on a, you know, on a Friday morning, and we spent 6 hours together with 1 hour for lunch, right? We spent the time, that front-loaded time. Now I have a big long list. And I have a plan with you, and I know who I can introduce you to, and it's effortless. So on Tuesday morning, I wake up and I go, what am I going to do for Joe today? Because Tuesday morning is my Joe Apfelbaum day. So Tuesday morning, I get up and I do something for Joe, and I don't have to think about it because it's on the to-do list already. It's on the piece of paper. And then when I run out of that to-do list, I can go back and be like, hey Joe, now I'm on this part of it. What do we do about this? And it'll take us 20 minutes. In a conversation, and, and I— you've got another 3 months of Virginia working for you on autopilot, but it's effortless for me. And so I think it's along those same lines, the same way that people just wanna go to a chamber or go to a meeting or go to a trade show, pick up a couple of business cards and hope and pray that shit happens. It doesn't happen that way. You need a process. We have to spend some time. You need a process, and you have to spend some time. But the cool— like, Evy AI is just like a referral partner. Joe, I trained you once, you train me once, we check in once in a while for a little maintenance. If you spend 3, 4, 5 hours over the course of a week just really digging into Evy AI and really learning how to use it and to build those templates, and then once a week you take 15 minutes, build a template, use a thing, try a new feature, by the end of the year you're going to have this massive AI partner That's saving you way more time than you ever invested in it and getting you better results than if you were doing it manually. But most people don't wanna slow down enough to, to do the front-end work because they feel like they're losing something. Like, I, I can't afford 5 hours to learn how to use a tool. Well, what if that was gonna double your income and save you 100 hours?

That's the key right there. That's the key.

Why wouldn't you do it?

And also, how long did it take you to learn Gmail? How long did it take you to learn how to use your cell phone? It didn't— you didn't just open up Gmail and knew how to use it. I avoided Gmail like the plague for the first few years that Gmail came out because I was like, conversation view? Conversation view? B— I don't understand how this works. I don't want to use it. And I kind of fought with Gmail. I just wanted to stick with Outlook until Outlook was crashing my computer. And then one day I just decided I'm going Gmail and I'm figuring it out. And boom, and I did it and I did the hard work and I learned Gmail. And one day you had to do that as well.

Right.

So every new technology that's gonna make your life easier, you're gonna have to learn how to use. And the learning curve of Evvy AI is not rocket science. There's only 3 main features. It's creating content, organizing profiles, and using templates. That's it. There's nothing else you need to do besides learning what personas you need to create and installing them. Which is very, very easy. You just press new persona and you put in the persona that we give you, and we have them all created in our community. Come to our sessions, learn how to use it, and it'll save you hours every day.

You know, that's the other thing. So like, I, I switched all of my, all of my CRM tech and all of that over to GoHighLevel, right? And that thing is a behemoth compared to Evie AI. Like, there's so much in there, and every day I just I just go and learn a new thing. But here's the thing. Do you know how I have to learn it, Joe? I got to go on YouTube. I got to figure it out, or I got to click on the little button and be like, hey, I'm having trouble figuring out how this affiliate function works. Can you walk me through it? Can you look at it and tell me why? So I'm like in a chat room with somebody in India or Costa Rica or wherever trying to get it figured out. It's not that there isn't support, but it's not like I'm getting on a call or I'm not calling someone and saying, can we get on Zoom and can I show you this? It's I'm getting the support. Don't get me wrong, I'm getting support, but it's not the same kind of support that you offer in your community to get this done. And here's the other part of it, man. And, and I'm kicking myself right now. So you have my commitment that I'm going to do better at this. You got 1,000 engaged users in your community. How many of them know people that I need to know? How many of them have a client sitting in the sidelines right now that's like, I wish I knew what I need to know what Virginia knows, but they don't even know who I am, so they can't even promote 100%. You know, so this is a— this is— and for the, for the less than $1,000, okay, so for what you charge for Evie AI, and there's 1,000 users that I have access to here in my BNI network, people pay that same amount to network with 1,000 people in the St. Louis market. It's the same price to have that, to have that. And then if you know how to leverage those relationships, if you add a little of the Business by Referral Blueprint and the collaboration code stuff to that community and to Evvii, you have a winning combination to make, to make a lot of connections that make a lot of money.

Powerful. Thank you for having me on the show. Appreciate it. It's always a pleasure, Virginia. If anybody wants to check out the demonstration video, just send the word demo to 973-841-8868. You send the word demo to 973-841-8868, and my technology will reply With a quick demonstration video of how Evie AI works. And of course, mention Virginia, that you saw this interview, that Virginia sent you this video so that she can get credit because we do have an affiliate program where we pay our affiliates a commission for sending us business. Thank you very much for watching this. Thank you for having me. And it's always a pleasure being a friend and a relationship and a fellow cruiser.

Yay, thanks so much, Joe. Great to visit with you today, and thanks for going a little deeper on Heavy AI.

And, uh, have a safe trip.