Becoming a Thought Leader

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podcast, where every week, your hosts, Mark LaCour and Matt Bertram share proven strategies and real-world tactics to help you connect with customers and close more deals. Let's do this. Hey, welcome back everybody. Matt, where are you? You're not here in Houston. I'm in Breckenridge. Oh, that's such a horrible place. It's 70 and breezy right now. How is it in Houston? I don't want to freaking hear it. It's 100 degrees and not breezy, and it's 100% humidity.

It's just miserable. But glad you're in Colorado. It's a beautiful part of the world. Tell you what else is beautiful, Matt, is we got another review. Got a five-star review. Love the LinkedIn tips and fails. Oh, that's cool. Somebody likes those. The show is great, fast, moving, funny, and teaching me a lot of stuff I didn't know about both sales and marketing. And the LinkedIn tips and fails are prices. And this is from Cliff Hoffman from the United States. Thank you, Cliff Hoffman. If you'd like to be like Cliff Hoffman and get a shout out on the show,

leave us a review. We prefer five stars. But if you want to give us three or four stars and make suggestions to prove the show, we'll take that as well. And today's topic is going to be a blast. So today's topic is becoming a thought leader. So Matt, I'm going to let you kind of jump into this. Why would you want to be a thought leader if you're in sales and marketing? Man, there's an endless amount of reasons to be a thought leader. I think that that should be the goal. When I look at things, typically, when you go into a new role, sales, marketing,

whatever, clients talk down to you, right? They tell you what to do. The next like rung up is the peer to peer where you're working with them on an equal footing. When you become a thought leader, basically you're on the pedestal. And what you're saying, they just do, right? That's really the right fit. And so if you're adding value and you build yourself as a thought leader, you move beyond sales, you move beyond marketing, because you're a thought leader, you're a coach, you're a subject matter expert, like it changes the dynamic of how you interact with clients.

A hundred percent. And from a sales point of view, let me tell you people a couple of things. Number one, price doesn't matter anymore. You're the thought leader and you're going to command what you command. And price isn't important. Number two, and I do this with modal point, and I'm very transparent about this, is that when I bring on a new client and they want to meet with me and we start scoping a deal and they fly me out to wherever their offices are in the world, they pay me. They pay my travel and half my day rate. Well, when you're just a sales

guy, nobody's paying you to come to their office to sell them something. However, I literally get paid, plus my travel is covered, to go to their office and sell them something. And so it's just a wonderful place to be. It takes work to get there. It's not something you can do overnight. Matt, I'm going to let you kind of jump in here. If listeners want me to become a thought leader, what's some of the things they should think about doing? I should read my book. Absolutely, they should read your book. We need to make sure we put a link in the show notes for that.

It's called Build Your Brand Mania. I wrote it quite a few years ago. And it's all about becoming a thought leader and how to build your personal brand to do that in lay terms and using digital marketing and PR and podcasting and et cetera, et cetera. You know, I think where you have to go to become a thought leader is you need to understand first, where do you want to become a thought leader in, right? Because the term is, I think it was Dan, I can't think of his name, but basically he said riches are in the niches. Okay. Riches are in the niches and like oil and gas

is a niche, but not really. But when you're talking about midstream process, this, that, whatever, now you're talking about a niche. Same thing in the general sense of things. Small business, I focus on small business. That's not a niche, right? It's getting really, really specific on what your area expertise is because the deeper you can go, the more value you're going to create. If you're wide, you're the jack of all trades. You're not trying to become the jack of all trades. You're trying to become the ace, right? Yeah. So people, if you Google

oil and gas sales experts, you'll see me come up. That's my niche. I mean, I'm an expert at helping companies sell to the oil and gas industry. And it took me about 10 years of work to get there. I don't want to scare anybody away because during that 10 years, I was also raising a family and running a business and everything else, but it takes time. But Matt's absolutely right is you got to really niche and that niche needs to be something that you're passionate around. If you're not passionate around, you're going to burn out. Whereas if you're passionate around it, you want

to get up, you want to learn more, you want to go deeper, right? You want to interface with other people. Let's tactically kind of talk about some of the steps to become that thought leader, which by the way, I can't remember Malcolm's last name, but Malcolm McDowell. He said it takes about 50,000 hours to become a thought leader in your space. Gladwell, right? Yeah. Gladwell. That's right. Yeah. And if you do that work- Dan Kennedy. Dan Kennedy is who I was thinking about. Yeah. That's about five years of 40-hour work weeks to get there. But one of the things that I did

at the very beginning was develop original content, right? I was not afraid to put my ideas and my thoughts out there to be authentic, to be myself. Sometimes that was a bit controversial. Now, I never did it to be controversial. What you see a lot of people now doing is they're intentionally trying to be controversial, but I was authentic, real and putting valuable content out there for free. And I think it's a great place to start if you want to position yourself as a thought leader. One of the things you said makes me want to take a step back and say, to be an expert in a space,

sometimes it's a moving target, and you got to stay up to date with the latest trends and you constantly be reading. That's what I do more than anything else with SEO, digital marketing. It's constantly changing. I'm always reading. I'm always learning. I'm always trying to grow. And really, you can't put out content, authentic content, valuable content, unless you have something valuable to say, right? So I think to become a thought leader in whatever area, become the best expert, right? The expert you can be in. And once you become that expert,

then the authority starts to come in when you start sharing that knowledge through different formats, podcasts, books, interviews, blogs, etc. Right? Yeah, good point. I think I might have mentioned this before, but each month in my calendar, I have eight hours blocked out to do nothing but learn. I take that seriously. I'm not using eight hours to go to cocktail events, hang out with my buds. I'm literally learning either in person or by doing research every month, because to Matt's point, no matter what you want to be a thought leader in, it's constantly

changing and evolving. You have to change and evolve with it. All right, so we talked a little bit about content and about putting out good content. The other thing is, Matt, when you think about thought leadership and you think about content, what platforms would you choose to put that content out there? Well, it depends who your target market is, right? So you got to fish where the fish are, if you will, right? And the thing that I can tell you is the more you niche down, it becomes absolutely clear what trade journals you need to be involved in, what,

you know, maybe websites you want to guest blog on, what interviews you want to do, what podcasts, etc. Like again, the more focused you are, and also the more expert on whatever the topic is, it becomes absolutely clear exactly where you need to go. That's what we've done a lot in workshops for clients when they're trying to map it out and they're kind of all over the place. You just keep getting more specialized, more specialized, and the options, right, become so much less. But I would tell you also different formats are really, really important. So a lot of people,

we're recording this video, but it's a podcast, most people listen to audio, right? Some people love that. Some people want to watch. Also, there's different kind of content creation for that. Some people like to read. I like to have AI read it to me because I get distracted sometimes when I'm reading. When it reads it to me and I follow along and it highlights the word, I have more retention, right? Everybody likes to watch videos. Some people are all over social media. I mean, different platforms for different ages. I mean, it really comes down to who your target market is

to figure out where you need to be. Yeah, I agree. And then even the platforms evolved, not that long ago, TikTok did not exist. And it's taken a big market share social, especially with younger people. Just a couple of years ago, I ignored TikTok completely. Now, I have a TikTok person on staff and we're getting ready to launch content on TikTok. Now, it's going to be different than the content like this, like the podcast, or different than the video. You're going to be dancing, Mark. I can't. No, I am not. I will not be on TikTok. I will not be

doing dance crazy on TikTok. But I do see the value, especially with the younger audiences out there. I do think podcasting is a great way to develop yourself as a thought leader. And there's a couple of different things. So the first thing you think of is doing your own podcast, which I would agree you should. But also being guest on other people's podcasts that are in your niche is a great way to build that thought leadership. And at the same time, you're making connections to help you learn, right? Because if you're on somebody else's podcast that's in your niche,

there's somebody you want to learn from and you can develop those relationships, which has helped you reach your goals even quicker. So one of the things we've talked about, I believe, if we haven't, I think it's good to bring up now, people do business with people, right? They know, like and trust, right? They do business with people they know, like and trust. And guess what? There's data that suggests the threshold, okay, of crossing that line from like dropping the handles of the professional to maybe more comfortable with the person is seven hours.

Okay, so, you know, that's why conferences were so valuable. You go to a conference, you spend a bunch of time with somebody over a couple of days, you can press that time, you build that relationship quicker, you have to physically be there, you're usually with a small group of people, you can't maximize your reach that way. Now, one to many through a podcast, you can reach a lot of people. And if you put out enough content, it's one of the easiest ways, right? Like through conversations, interviews, etc, for someone to get to know who you are,

right? To know, like and trust, you decide to do business with you. And once they reach that threshold, that kind of magic number that also works in like social dynamics and dating and stuff like that. But basically, there's seven hours where kind of a magic threshold is crossed and people feel more comfortable with you. And that opens up a lot of other options. Yeah, I love where you're with that. And we'll back you up a little bit, because you mentioned the content, the creation of the content. I think if you want to be seen as a thought leader,

you have to put effort in making sure the quality of your content is above normal. Now, when I say above normal, this is August of 2023. During the pandemic, almost three years ago, everybody and their cousin became a podcaster or a YouTuber. And the quality of both their video and audio, quite frankly, love it sucks. So I'm not saying that you need to spend a million dollars on editing, but I do think the quality of your content needs to be a step above everybody else if you want to be a thought leader. And that involves investing a little bit of money and

a little bit of time. You don't have to invest a lot of money. Right now, I'm talking on an $80 audio technical microphone. My camera is my iPhone that's bonded to my Mac, right? I do have some professional lighting done here. But the quality of our audio and our video is above the normal, which I think is something you need to spend a little bit of time on if you want to be seen as a thought leader. I agree with Mark. I certainly think, you know, his lighting and sound are much better than mine right now. I look up to him as a mentor in that area. What I will also tell you

is like video content, like whatever modality that like you're focused on, there's certain things that people expect, right? So I think that you need to be in the standard deviation of what that expectation is, right? Like I think that even goes with like, business dynamics, like how to interact with people, follow up, like courtesy, etiquette, all that sort of thing. You have to be in the standard deviation unless you're intentionally trying to peacock and be crazy. And that's your motif, I guess of who you are. You certainly

want to be inside that standard deviation because I have certainly seen that also, like YouTube, YouTube shorts, I think they're doing really, really well for business. Also, people are on YouTube to figure stuff out, right? People are on TikTok to get entertained. People are on YouTube that are like trying to learn or whatever. So YouTube shorts are really great, but like the quality of the video content, the after effects, putting things in the show notes, putting the little tags, like at the end, the buttons, like there's a lot of polish that needs

to happen. And personally, that's something I need to get better at. Sorry. I would say my mic. No, we have to laugh, Matt. We're talking about quality or content and you have all this background noise. It's just funny. In the audience, he's on vacation, so give him a break. You know, he's not back in his home studio. It's okay, Matt. But Godly, I will tell you, I find myself not wanting to watch like high quality video. I'll even tell you, Mark, this has been pretty crazy. My kids, okay, I have a two and a four year old boy, they watch more YouTube, okay, than any kind of

normal programming, which it is really programming. You got to like watch what it is. But you know what they like to watch more than anything else? Reality TV for kids. Yep. Crazy, right? Reality TV for adults is like number one hit, right? But for kids, they have it too. And then they have high quality. And then they put some after effects in there and they kind of keep it interesting. And you can watch it. Kids like to watch it. But if it was bad, they don't always enjoy it as well. So it's intuitive to us like early age to enjoy high quality stuff,

I guess. Yes, the video especially. So with podcasts with audio, I think you should have the best audio quality you can have. Just adds the experience. But video, people want it to be real. And some people overproduce. You see big companies overproduce their videos. And when I watch them at, I just immediately discount it. I know it was a big marketing budget. And I know they're trying to either sell me something or influence the way I think instead of educate me to your point. And often I could be wrong, but I don't know because I quit watching it because it's overproduced.

That's a good point. Like Blair Witch Project, I think was like the offshoot of like the home, whatever stuff. And the data says three times people will engage and watch. And they want to see like the genuine behind the scenes kind of stuff. They're three times more preferring of original content. But now if it's Blair Witch all over the place, there's the limit there. I've seen that original, but adding some after effects in there to just keep people engaged in the eye movements and stuff like that. And then I do think that there's a good mix when you're

talking about video of high quality professional videos for certain things. And then you have that really raw content on the other end. And then people can see the professional side throughout, I guess that spectrum, right? And I think that's also important. And again, we could go into a whole another podcast about. Well, we need to bring us back to the whole thought leadership point. Yeah, let's do that. One of the things that you mentioned that I think is super important is conferences for a bunch of different reasons. Number one, it's a great place to learn a lot,

right? Because you have all the experts, all the vendors there that are around whatever niche you're trying to develop. And you can spend time there, you can learn a lot. Number two, speaking at conferences is a way to position yourself as a thought leader. And quite frankly, from a sales and marketing point of view, if you speak on a subject at a conference that's in your niche, you're really having a sales and marketing conversation with 100, 300, 500, a thousand people at one time, not individually, right? And so I speak a lot. It's actually a

point now, which Matt, people pay me to speak, and people would not pay me to speak if I wasn't seen as a thought leader. But it took me years to get there. So I think conferences should be on everybody's agenda if they're trying to position themselves as a thought leader for multiple reasons. Selling from the stage is probably the number one way to close new deals, right? You're talking, you're putting interesting and unique insights, perspective, maybe a solution. People line up after you get done talking because they want to come talk to you. And those are engaged buyers

that you're now at the absolute authority. I don't speak for money yet. I haven't been asked to speak for money, but I have been asked to speak at conferences and I do speaking in school and stuff like that. And I think it's a really great way to build your skill sets in talking to people and talking from the stage, certainly even on podcasts, being a good conversationalist. Those things are important to communicate information because that's really what you're doing as a thought leader is you're taking some complicated subject

and then you're packaging it in a way that they can easily retain it, absorb it and understand what you're saying. And then you can move the needle in whatever direction you need to through that clear and concise communication, I guess. Yeah, let me give the audience a real example. I got hundreds of them. This one is one of my early ones is Microsoft paid me to talk about how to sell to the oil and gas industry in a technology conference. So it wasn't Microsoft conference. They were one of the vendors there. But in order to attract people to their booth,

they paid me to talk about how to sell to the oil and gas industry. Now, the only people that came to listen to me were other vendors who were interested in selling to the oil and gas industry. I had about 35 people in that room that listened to me. Of those 35 people, Matt, 21 of them reached out to me and started sales conversations and I closed 18 deals. So think about what I did. I got paid to talk to other vendors that became my clients, right? And I'm being very transparent here. I didn't do anything wrong, anything unethical. Microsoft got good value for the money,

right? But you can see how that will work because of the subject of whatever you're talking about, the people that come have an interest in that subject. And if you're the thought leader on that subject, they're naturally going to engage with you. And it's an easy way to get in front of a lot of businesses that could work with you if they choose to. One of the things that's really big too is getting sponsors, right? Or having sponsors. Certainly another podcast that I'm on, we have had sponsors in the past. It actually benefits them, you know, if we use the product and believe

in the product, but it also benefits us because we're pre-vetted, right? So Mark, in that example, Microsoft hired you, okay? That sends all kinds of social signals already, right? That he has been pre-vetted by Microsoft to speak as an authority on this topic. And then you say things that resonate with them. And you're also on stage above them. Like there's so many factors that play into authority building. And then, okay, you video that, right? You repurpose that video of you on stage for social media and other formats. I mean, yeah. Speaking and writing books, right? And I guess going on the news

are the traditional ways to do that. And then there's a lot of like filler. And one of the things too that I don't think we've discussed yet is how important consistency is to stay in front of people consistently because, well, you know, if you're not in front of people, you lose relevance rather quickly with all the other noise that's going on, all the other experts that's going on. And so having consistency with your community or in your space and consistently publishing content and being out there is super important. I see it too. Like if I go quiet on social media for a while, I'll have

people message me and be like, Hey, what's going on? Are you okay? Yeah. Okay. Like is everything all right? Like, you know, if we don't do a podcast, like every week, Hey, are you still doing the podcast? Like what's going on? Like, because they expect it and you're their expert in that space. However, they have it structured in their time and their day or their week or whatever. And if you're not there, guess what? They'll probably move somebody else into that slot rather quickly. And so you need to stay in front of people. Yeah. You know, one of the ways that I did that very

early on, now I did it horribly because I had no idea what I was doing. I wish I would have known Matt back then is starting a newsletter. It's the easy way to stay in front of each people, whether you want to do it weekly or monthly. In my case, I did it monthly. The biggest mistake I made Matt is when I started my newsletter for MotelPoint is I only asked for their first name, their email address, because I read that the less forms you had, the more people will sign up. Well, fast forward. Now, 15 years later, I have this enormous list. I don't know who these freaking

people are. What I should have had is at least one form with what company they work for, or at least answer their last name, something, right? So if anybody's listening to this, you start a newsletter, don't make that mistake because you regret it later. But that newsletter puts your content in front of them on a regular basis. It's a good way to use technology to stay in front of these people so that you're positioned as a thought leader without actually having to do all that work every day to stay in front of them. When you talk about email marketing, quick tangent, but really quick,

super valuable. When you put together, like, touch points to your community, your network, your database, whatever, think about how you want to be positioned in their mind, right? If you do something quarterly because people are like, I don't want to bug people and I want to spam people, whatever. If you do it quarterly, you're going to like your acquaintance. They might even forget who you are. They might even forget that they signed up for your newsletter. Certainly monthly is a good staple, staying in touch with people monthly, building your network, your community,

people you want to stay in touch with monthly. Now, when you move to like weekly or daily, you're wanting a different relationship with your audience, right? Like, so if you're talking to somebody weekly, like they're like somebody you're working with or family, if it's personal, if you're talking to someone daily, they're like your best friend. Now, I've seen it work that daily works the best because you are like inside their circle of trust, like you are their go-to person and they rely on it. Now, that is an incredible amount of content creation that you

have to do to stay on top of it and stay consistent. But man, for people that do that, they crush it. Yeah. I'm actually glad you went down this tangent a little bit because I want to kind of circle around with that. So when you think about newsletters, most people immediately think is spam. And the reason they think of spam is the newsletters that they're thinking of are not valuable. However, if you create good quality content that is useful, that is valuable, then people love it. So for me with modal point, for years, I put out content for free about how to sell to Exxon.

What happens if you lose an RFP? What's the best way to stay in touch with the client when they change jobs? I mean, very specific useful bits of information that people still compliment me on today. And because I put it out there for free, but it was valuable, people didn't see it as spam. They actually look forward to it. And I've literally had people a decade later say they still use some of the techniques they learned from me in 2009 that I put out in my monthly newsletter. So offering value for free. And a lot of people are like,

hey, I don't want to give away my most valuable stuff. And to your point, I hear it over and over and over again, you want to give away your best stuff for free. You absolutely want people to see value because they're going to go, oh my gosh, this is amazing. I want more of this. Also, you don't have to really worry like the data says 10% of people even take action, right, without accountability. And that's why like with coaching the follow up and accountability is so important. So put it out there. And here's the thing, there are some very, very unique perspectives

out there. But usually, it's your interpretation of certain things, or you can provide additional color to how to execute something better. And when you're giving it away for free, there are people, there are certain types of people that are do it yourself or is that will do it themselves, figure it out, go find the information, go get it somehow, some way, they'll get a copy of that somebody else paid for of your book or your like course or whatever, like, there's those people out there. You are not trying to sell to those people. You are not trying to market to those people.

What you're trying to do is you're trying to get the people that say, Hey, I have a problem. This person has an answer. This guy sounds knowledgeable. I believe he can help. I want to hire him so he can take it, check the box. I don't have to worry about it. I want to trade my money for time or results, right? And those are the people you're trying to reach. 100%. The other thing is, whatever you have, even if you think it's secret IP stuff that nobody should know about, somebody else has probably already thought about it and done it. The magic

is you. The magic is not your PowerPoint deck. When I speak, people ask my PowerPoint deck all the time, and I've seen other speakers refuse to do it. I'm happy to give you my PowerPoint deck. Now, when I speak, my PowerPoint deck is only pictures. There is no text. And those pictures help me tell whatever story I'm wanting to tell when I'm on stage. But giving it stuff away for free to Matt's point, the people that are not going to spend money with you, that are going to try to take that and use it themselves, that's going to happen anyway. And if they don't take it from

you, they'll take it from somebody else. However, you're trying to get the people that want to work with you to see that you're a thought leader so they engage with you. And so 100% Matt, it's giving that stuff away for free is way, way more valuable than trying to sell it or do something Now, that doesn't mean that you have to give away everything for free. You mentioned a course. You know, if you're seen as a thought leader and you put together a course or whatever you're an expert at, you damn well should monetize that. It's a good way to make money. You develop that

content once and you sell it over and over again. That's just business, right? That's different than what we're talking about here. And what I want to do too is flip this around on the other end of the spectrum and say, if you have a reasonable amount of knowledge in a certain area, you probably have more knowledge than a layperson. I find out all the time when I'm talking about digital marketing in conversation, like Mark, I was having a conversation with somebody earlier today that's on my team and they were like, Matt, like you're giving away all these SEO secrets.

And I'm like, these are just the best practices. This is like standard stuff. Like the new team member, you know, the difference is you, okay? People want to buy from you. They want to do business with people they know I can trust. You are that differentiating factor. You're going to deliver that information and look at that differently. And they're buying you people do business with people, right? And certainly courses and high quality content, all that stuff. I would even say start messy, start ugly, right? A buddy of mine that runs PodFest, he has a book, I think

it's called Start Ugly, something like that. Like if you want to become a thought leader, everything doesn't have to be perfect. And you probably have more knowledge than like lay people. Like if you're trying to become a thought leader, you should have some level of knowledge above like common people have. And you got to remember that that is valuable and not everybody has that information. So share that information, provide your valuable insights or your personal insights on that because you're unique. And then get started. I think getting started

is like where the fear is of, Oh, I got to edit this. I got to do this. So this is not perfect. Like everybody has trouble with their own brand. I mean, I had to get over it. I had to just like do it. Like that was actually our rule. When we started podcasting, we're not editing it. Like it is what it is, right? Like it's so real. And I'm not saying that that's right for everybody, but I think getting started is super important and just getting going. You know, Matt, that's a good place to end this. So hopefully people we've kind of talked to do

on how to become a thought leader, whether you're in sales or marketing, it's something I think you should strive for, for a bunch of reasons. One is you can actually help more people forget the business side of it, but being seen as a thought leader can help more people. And it's fun. This is the part of show where we typically do a product review. We don't have a product review this week. Matt, we have spy pins coming. We had a company reach out to me and they're sending us two spy pins. Listen to what they told me. They go, it's great for when you do business in other

countries where you don't trust who you're doing business with. Well, you know, in Texas, one person has to know that it's being recorded. And I actually recently had a situation where we were meeting with a client and it wasn't memorialized and it wasn't recorded. And there was two different interpretations of what the COO said and what my team member thought was happening. And then what transpired after that, like, was two different interpretations. And really, it's like a, he said, she said situation. So like, I haven't really thought

through that, but recording things are not necessarily a bad thing to just keep everybody honest, right? Yeah. So audience, we'll let you know, we get the spy pins in Matt and I will review. Who are the people listening to the show, Mark, like a spy pin company? This is awesome. Like if there isn't any prepper companies out there, I'd love to like talk to some of them, get some crazy stuff. Yeah. And companies, if you want to send us a product review, we'd prefer it to be Gadgety's some short, although Matt is right. We can review almost anything

if you want us to review. You know what I want to do? I want to go, Mark, to like one of those luxury bombshell bunkers that or whatever. And I would love for them to like take us out there and like, we could do a podcast and like a missile bunker. Hey, I'm up for that. If we've got any preppers out there that have facilities, let Matt and I know, I would love to do something like that. And actually any facility, anybody out there wants us to come do a podcast. If it makes sense, we'll absolutely do it. We actually have a restaurant, a local restaurant that we're going to do a

podcast from pretty soon. Awesome. Anyway, all of Matt and I's social links are in the show notes. It's time for the LinkedIn fail or tip of the week. Do you have one, Matt? LinkedIn. Yeah. Yeah. I have a fail for myself. Okay. So we're talking about saying consistent. We're saying out there, staying in front of people. Certainly I've been starting to write a book about SEO and then certainly I've been traveling a lot this summer and I haven't been as active. I got on LinkedIn last night and from OTC. Okay. I had two people reach out to me. I had

a oil and gas company. I had a couple other people in other industries for other stuff. I had probably six people that said, Hey, I want to do business with you. And I haven't responded to them in over like 11 days. Like it was like posts from 10, 15 days ago. And I wasn't checking it, right? Like I just assume LinkedIn's like mostly spam, right? But you've built these general relationships. You put out content. You need to make sure you're checking all your channels. If you say contact you on LinkedIn and they do it, like you need to be there, right? So it's a big fail

for myself. So anybody listening out there that I didn't respond to, I did respond last night. I've been on vacation, but you need to check like those messages. And I would tell you too, when you're reaching out to people, if you're doing that genuine, thoughtful kind of message, I think people are seeing it. I think people mostly are looking at emails. They're looking at spam. And you only have a couple seconds, right, to grab their attention. But more likely than not, they are seeing it. And the fail is if you're not looking at it, you could miss great things like

referrals or people want to do business with you. So I'm guilty of that myself on Facebook Messenger. It's aggravating. So I have it cut off all the notifications and I check it once a month. And to Matt's point, every month, there's at least one business opportunity that I let sit there for 30 days just because I don't check it. So that's a great tip. All right, time to get out of here, Matt. Remember, folks, make a difference and not a sale. Check us out next week for another enriching and cheeky episode of oil and gas sales and

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