Working from Home, The Ninja Edition

Welcome to the Oil and Gas Sales and Marketing 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. Welcome back. Matt and I took a little vacation.

Have you ever noticed? It's been a couple of weeks since an episode's dropped. We would have warned you, except we didn't think about it quite honestly. We had a couple of people right and wanting to make sure we're okay. We're okay. It just was time to do a little vacay stuff. How are you doing, Matt? Doing well. I am. I just got back from Massachusetts and the weather was fantastic up there. It's down here in Houston, not so much.

We're under high heat conditions. I will say this much. I love my people in Calgary, but Paige and I were in Calgary doing a mixer. Yeah, yeah. And they had high heat warnings by the government and Matt, it was 80 degrees Fahrenheit. No humidity, right? No humidity. But we had a great time, raised money for local charity. And we got a review. So we've got a five star view from,

it looks like ridiculous with note vowels. These guys are two of the best and let's listen to almost in the industry. This is from the US, so RDS, CLS. Thank you for the five star review. If you'd like to get a shout out, drop Matt and I a five star review. There's a link in the show. Let's make it very easy. And if you don't think we're worth a five star and you want to leave

us a two or three star, do it and let us know what you'd like us to change. All right. So whatever episodes in the past, you rattle off a bunch of wisdom like you always do. And I was frantically writing notes because everything you rattle off is topics for future episodes. That's where this came from. And so today we're going to talk about working from home, but the ninja edition. So everybody that went through the pandemic learned how to work from home.

I want to help you take it up to the next level and then from a sales point of view and a technology point of view and then Matt's going to help you take it up to the next level from a marketing point of view. You want me to start off first? Yeah, go for it. All right. So first thing, go ahead and spend the money. If you have it available to you to get both DSL and cable or fiber and cable or fiber and DSL,

get two internet connections at your house. If you work for a company and you working from home, they will give you a stipend usually to do that. And if not, you can write it off in your taxes, then go buy something called a dual WAN. That's WAN, dual WAN load balancing router. It's about a hundred bucks off Amazon. What that does is it takes your two internet connections, you connect it to the dual WAN load balancing router and then you connect that router to your Wi-Fi. What that does is give you redundancy. We've all been at home working from home,

getting ready to kick butt and take some names, make some money and we lose internet connectivity in your host. You either kind of try to use your hotspot on your phone or go to a local Starbucks or I've been so desperate for that I've driven around my neighborhood looking for somebody's open Wi-Fi just so I could check email. This way you have redundancy in your Wi-Fi connection, which is a must. This is taken up to the next level. That way, if you lose one of your internet connections, the dual WAN router will automatically route the traffic to the other one. And then in

real time, it's looking at both internet connections and it uses the one that's fastest all the time. So it's constantly switching back and forth. You'll see a noticeable improvement in your connectivity and like I said, you'll have that redundancy. Then you have to have a dedicated workspace. That does not mean you have to have a home office. If you're in an apartment or you're in a house that you have children or maybe a small house and you don't have an actual office, that's okay. Find a place where you can set your gear up and leave it set up. If you don't do this,

you spend too much time trying to get everything set up, tearing everything back down. It could be a corner in your kitchen for my podcast crew, Matt. Several of my podcasters record from their master closet. Now, that sounds weird, but it acoustically, all those clothes hanging in there, it keeps it super quiet. So you have to have a dedicated workspace. Then the next thing is you have to. I just add the router. Like I have like three of the same computer, right? And then I have everything on the cloud. And so just like your internet

goes out, if your computer poops on you, then you're out a day or more, right? So it's all about keeping that productivity up is what we're talking about. So you want to make sure anything you're using, you've got redundancy in that. Yeah, that's a great piece of advice. So I do the same thing. We're an office 365 shop. Everything that I do that I'm working on is in the office cloud. Even if it's sitting on my desktop, it's in the office cloud automatically. I don't have to think about it. And if I would lose a machine, I could literally borrow a machine from somebody, log into

my office 365 account and have everything there. That's actually really great. And if you're not an office shop, you can do the same thing on Google. There's other cloud providers that allow you the same redundancy and backup. I also am a bit paranoid, Matt, when I have to do a presentation. So not only do I have my presentation on my local machine that I'm carrying with me, usually a laptop, I have my presentation also in the cloud. And then I put it on a USB drive and I put it in my pocket and that has saved me more than once. So once you have your dedicated space,

you have to have a comfortable working environment. Don't be a cheapskate. Do not buy the $19 chair at Walmart, right? You cannot sit in that for hours and be comfortable. Not necessarily saying you need to spend $3,000 on an ex-chair, but go ahead and spend a couple of hundred bucks on a chair that fits your body. Make sure it has armrests that are adjustable so that you can get into a place where it's comfortable for you to stay in front of a keypad for a while. I've actually, because I'm at a computer like all the time, I have a gaming chair

and then I'm in like a regular work chair. I alternate back and forth because of like my head angle. It helps with like neck and back pain to not be at that same angle all the time, that same chair, just you want to have redundancy and chairs, I guess, but different kinds of chairs and different heights and stuff. So yeah, I'm actually glad you brought that up. So everything about the rattle-off that we're talking through, the gamers figured it out before we did, go look at the gaming world, look at the cameras they use, the lights they use, the microphones they use,

all that sort of stuff. The gaming chairs are incredibly comfortable compared to an office chair. That was great. I'm glad you brought that up. So where were we? Furniture. Don't be a cheapskate on furniture either. The standing desk thing, I don't know what your opinion is on that, Matt. I've tried it and quite frankly, it doesn't work for me. I'm more productive if I sit and so what I do, and if the standing desk works for you, that's great. I love the idea. I've even seen the standing desk on treadmills. That is actually annoying when people are on meetings and they're

like heads are bobbing. I understand it and I wish I could do it, but it is kind of annoying for, or like distracting, not annoying for other people. I have seen something like underneath the table that I had been thinking about to get a little exercise in, but I'm not a standing desk person, so I can't speak to that. So Paige Wilson, a host of all the S industry leaders, she has one of those exercise bikes on her desk and she routinely puts in three miles a day while she's working and it works. So that's actually a good thought. Now back to your desk. Spend money

on a desk that you have enough room and one of the things I've seen that I haven't implemented, but I've seen several people when they buy a new desk is they'll go buy the 3M whiteboard that you can stick to your wall, but they put it on your desk. So they cover the desktop with the whiteboard and this way when you want to take notes and everything, you're not looking for a sticky note. You can just write it on your desk and wipe it off. I think that's super cool. We used to do that at our office, like at our big conference room table. It was actually like a

board you could write on. It was nice. Yeah. So the big part of working from home is going to be your video conferencing, your video calls. This is where you really need to step up your A game. Number one, don't use the camera on your laptop or desktop. It typically sucks. Same way with the microphone. Go ahead and buy an external microphone. Matt and I are both using Audio Technica 2005. They're usually $80. I actually saw them this week, Matt, on Amazon Prime. They're down to $39. So I bought six of them just because they were so cheap, but it's an easy microphone.

Stick it on the boom arm. You get good audio. Your camera, you have several choices. I'm using, if you're a Mac person, you can pair your iPhone to your Mac desktop or laptop. That's what I'm using right now. My video quality is fantastic. The video quality on modern smartphones are amazing. You can also buy a mirrorless DSLR camera and use that. You can buy a webcam, but like I said earlier, if you go buy a webcam, which is better than what's built into your monitor, your laptop, buy a gaming webcam. And no matter what camera you use, you're going to need lights. You can buy

an inexpensive ring light on Amazon for about $25. That makes all the difference in the world. I'm using a little bit better light that has color correction into it with an app, so I can change it on the go. The other thing, Matt, is that I have multiple cameras. You may not know this because you and I have never played around with this, but if I wanted to show something like an overhead shot, if I'm doing something that I needed to show an overhead shot, you're trying to get it to work. See, and I do a lot of podcasting as well. It's just usually in person,

but man, I got my game too. I am using a gaming computer though because of the graphics card, so you don't have a lot of lag. That helps as well. So while we're sitting here, I'm trying to change my camera so I can show Matt the difference and it's not working. So there's another thing, make sure your technology works before you jump on a call. But I have basically multiple cameras and I have two monitors. And so if I'm on a web call and I'm doing a presentation, I can see the presentation on one monitor and I can have my lighting and my face on the other monitor,

so it looks like I'm talking to them directly, although I'm looking at the information on a different one. And then I have several cameras that I can switch to, one of which is an overhead camera. So if I could make it work, which I can't, I can, when I switch to that camera, you can see a heads down shot. So if I'm showing something like that I'm typing, or I want to show a product or something in my hands, it just looks very professional. So two monitors, the data is 30% more productive. And then so I have a monitor and then a bigger

curved screen monitor that you can actually like make it look like two monitors. So it's like three different monitors. And then, you know, you can move stuff around with tabs and you can lock them into boxes. It's just kind of like a cockpit, I feel like, you know, you're like getting into your cockpit and you got all your tools and your cameras and your mics and you get your music on or whatever, you know, get into that. That's what the military taught me is, you know, okay, you get in bed, beds for, well, you know, so two things.

You can finish that sentence. We have an adult audience. Actually, I'm glad you talked about that. Headphones. You need good headphones. I'm a little spoiled. I have different headphones for different applications. So when we're doing the podcast remotely, I'm using Audio Technica headphones that are designed for podcasting, not music. Music headphones tend to emphasize the bass. And if you're a podcaster, you want to be here when it actually sounds like without the audio being augmented in any way. However,

when I do conference calls, I use Apple, the latest generation of Apple AirPods. I think they're the best conference call solution out there because the software and the AirPods themselves are listening to the two different microphones and constantly switching between the two mics to get the best audio quality. And I've been in conference calls in a very windy environment and the people on the other side couldn't hear any wind because of the noise cancellation and the switching between the two microphones. But you definitely need a good pair of headphones.

And if you could be at your desk all day, you want those headphones to be comfortable. So put them on and see if you think you can wear them for an hour. If you can't, don't buy them. Next thing is background. So Matt and I both, if you see this video snippet, Matt and I both, this is the real background of our real office. We have no filters or screens up. However, if you do want to use a background that's built into any of the video conferencing software, try to make it look legit. It's a bit distracting for me to get on a video call with you and you

look like you're on the beach because I know you're not on the beach. Then if you're not using a green screen, what happens is you get that background fade. So if you move, you're half on half off. So you can buy an inexpensive green screen. I have one that pops up with a mount that's basically five feet by seven feet. So it covers my entire screen that you would see behind me. You can also get green screens once again from the gamers that attach to your office share. So no matter where you move the chair, you have the green screen. The green screen really

elevates your background game if you're going to use a background. The other thing is if you use a background, all of the video conferencing software allow you to upload your own background. If you run your own company or if you work for somebody else, think about something tasteful with your company's logo. It's another way to brand yourself without being overtly in somebody's face is if you have a nice picture of an office space in your background with your company's logo back there. So once again, just stepping up that working from home to the next level.

Oh, that's a lot and only halfway through the stuff I want to talk about. Speaking of stuff like that, video conferencing, I love Google to death. Do not use Google Meets. Pay for a video conferencing option. Google is fantastic when it works and when it doesn't work, it's horrible. And the reason it's that is because Google is giving you best effort. So they're doing the best they can to make you happy and have quality. But since you're not paying for it, they're not guaranteeing anything. Go ahead and buy a zoom or teams or whatever. Actually,

I think even Google, you could pay for a Google Meets version. Go ahead and pay for the version. So you get high quality connectivity and audio and the ability to record and all that sort of stuff. Don't use the free stuff. So that's kind of my outline of the technology, the products, the features of what you need to do to up your work from home game. Now, from a sales point of use, a couple of things that are different that I need to just want to talk to real quick. First thing is it's a different relationship with your clients through a screen than in person.

Notice I said different, not better, not worse. I used to think it was worse and in person was always preferable. But after doing going through COVID, a lot of people, a lot of clients and prospects prefer to meet especially at the beginning over a video call. And it's so much more effective as far as time management. So just remember that it's different. One of the things that you're going to need to do is make sure that your name is properly displayed so they know who you are. You know, your prospect or client may have two, three, 10 meetings a day. And so make

sure you take the time to type in your name into that little bar and a little field for whatever the video comes so they know who you are. And make sure you dress properly. Matt and I are both in t-shirts, but it's just me and Matt and we're doing a podcast. If this was a prospect call, even though I'm in gym shorts, which you can't see, I would have at least a polo shirt on, right? I make sure there's no glare off my glasses. If you use a ring light, you play with the angle of that ring light and look into your monitor and you can get rid of that image of the ring light in

your glasses, you wear glasses. Make sure you're framed properly so you want a little bit of space over your head. You want to be not quite centered in the frame, just a little off-center. And then if you're using your real background like Matt and I are, and if you have kids, just remember to shut the door and lock it because if not, you're gonna have three-year-olds walking in the background, which is not a bad thing. It makes it personal. But if you're in the middle of a serious contract negotiation, that could be distracting. You need to personalize as much as you can, all of your

deliverables when you have virtual meetings with prospects and clients. You want them to know that it's you coming from you and that's coming from your company. When you hand off something in person, you shake somebody's hand that personalization is already there, it's not there so much with video. So make sure everything is personalized with you and your company that you deliver to your clients. And then get very comfortable with doing product demos virtually. I've had several people reach out to me and go, Mark, I sell through tubing services or I sell

downhole tools and there's no way you can do that virtually. That's not true. You just may not be able to do it at a desk or in a cube. You could easily set up a couple of cameras with a laptop, with a good internet connection in your shop. Let your shop people know you're getting ready to have a customer call so they quiet everything down and you could go through, I mean, you could go through anything you want virtually. You just have to think outside the box. So you just gotta get comfortable with doing virtual product demos no matter what your product is. Then be genuinely

helpful. If you get on a video call with a prospect or client and they're distracted, stop and go, Hey, I can't help but notice you're distracted. Do you want to reschedule this call? And you will be amazed that most of the time the prospect didn't know they were distracted and they apologize and then they listen in contrary to what you're doing or they'll go, You know what? You're right. Thank you for that. I got 10 other things I'm trying to take care of. Let's reschedule this for next week. Either way, make sure you're always genuinely helpful with your prospects

because it's a little bit harder to read the body language virtually than it is on a screen. Then finally, when you're doing virtual sales calls, you got to think everything is a longer term sales in the oil and gas industry. We all know the sales cycle is longer, probably any other vertical out there, but doing things virtually takes a little bit longer than doing things in person and you have to be okay with that. And then finally document everything. If your company has a CRM, they probably make you use it and I get it salespeople. It's not that valuable to you if

it's set up the wrong way, but make sure you track everything. Make sure you track who you call, who you have a follow-up call with, even if that's just you dropping a note in your calendar, which by the way, if you're an Apple user, you can grab anything and everything from anywhere and drop it in your calendar and it'll automatically turn into a calendar. So if Matt sends me an email and I'm checking it in mail and says, Hey, let's meet next Thursday. I can literally grab that email, drop it in my Apple calendar Thursday and it'll create an invite. So it's a little tip to make

it easy and efficient for you. So Mark, I got a question for you. So you didn't give me much room, you win. Well, that was your time. You were going point, point, point. But one of the things that came up and what you were talking about, and I think it'd just be interesting to get your opinion on it because I've heard differencing opinions. So when you're talking to somebody, right, and I agree with you, you know, adding actually the different angles and presentations and, you know, shooting a live video or even showing a video demo, making it more interactive, I think is

really great. And I mean, this is virtual reality. Okay. Like we're in virtual reality right now. But my question for you is if you're on the move, right? Like I try to be stationary when I have meetings out of respect and like, Hey, I'm focused on this conversation has my full attention. But I have seen some people lean towards or feel etiquette wise that you should have your camera off when you're talking to somebody if you're moving around, because it's distracting for other people on the call. Then also, I've seen really actually high level people

interacting with them, they're moving around and they're talking. And you are seeing their face. And you know, that communication is more than just your voice. And there's some value to that. And you can connect with somebody. What is your opinion of camera on camera off, when you're out and about, like just you get caught in a call where you can't be stationary, I guess. Great question. So the way I look at it is there's different situations required, different processes and approaches. So if I'm on a call with my team or with you,

or with anybody else that's part of the OGGN world and it's work general work stuff, I'm going to be real. If I'm in Starbucks, I'm going to tell you, Hey, I'm in Starbucks, or you'll see if I'm in the car, I'm in the car, which by the way, do not do video calls and drive. You can do audio calls, do not do video calls. But I'm going to be as real as possible. If I'm on a sales call or a prospect call out of respect for them, if I can't be sitting still and have a decent audio connection and non-distracting background, I'll reschedule the call

because they're new. And I want to, you know this, you have, you know, 10 seconds to make that first impression. And I don't want that first impression to be reaching across the table and grabbing the ketchup at Whataburger. You know, so I'll reschedule. Now there's a good point. Lately, so if you remember when we came through the pandemic and the whole world learned how to do video calls, it was actually really good. So stuff that you and I have talked about on this podcast, like lighting and everything, people have sort of figured out. But the newest thing

is people taking calls and keeping their camera off. I think that's sort of rude. And if there's a reason for it, like I had one yesterday and the young woman was actually changing her baby's diaper. It's like, okay, if you tell me you're changing your baby's diaper, I totally get you have your camera off, right? But I think if you're having a business call and you start to call your camera off, maybe rethink what's going on. If, you know, once again, if there's some circumstance where you don't want your camera on and it makes sense, that's fine. But do a little

prep work ahead of time and grab a space where you can sit down. Even if you're on your cell phone, Matt and I, a little bit or get to our product review and the product, when I've played around with it, I realized it is fantastic for when you're on the go and you got to do a business video call with your cell phone. That's not what it was designed for, but it's amazing for that. So yeah, I don't think you should start a call with your camera off. If it's your team, it's okay, as long as you explain, but if it's a prospect or very important person you're meeting,

even if you're mobile, get everything set up so you have a good presentation. So, you know, we got some feedback that people wanted me to talk more about, like, marketing versus sales, you know, and so trying to maybe add some value on that side of things. More than anything else, when I'm on a call, taking everything into account person to person, like, looking at data together or looking at presentations together, like getting, like, you're trying to tell a story, right, in marketing, you're trying to explain what is the

story and the data or what are the goals and what have we done to reach those things, right? So, you're using a lot more technology. I would also just say from just like a mobile team standpoint, really from a marketing standpoint, you know, I have a big network. So, I use LinkedIn as my, like, AOL instant messenger for anybody that grew up in that. And then I use Google Chat internally. And then we actually use Google for a lot of things to use a platform called ClickUp for project management. I've tried a lot of the other ones. I see billboards in Houston on Monday,

you know, there's Trello boards. It's just about what is the process and how to stay organized. And then we had to actually even develop etiquette, right, of like put something in the system on the task, right? Versus like, Hey, I have a quick question and you message them versus an email, right? Versus a call. Oh, good point. What are all those things for? We actually even went through a program at one point called EOS. And really, it was about how to make more productive calls with the team, right? Because that was like one of the biggest things you start getting a lot of people

on a call. And if you think about as like sales managers, market managers, that's a big burn rate depending on like you keep people on 15 minutes long, you know, if you calculate it out, it gets pretty expensive. And so it's about processes, but forms of communication and trying to get stuff accomplished because project management is marketing, right? Like so once you sell the deal on the marketing side, it's about execution. It's about project management. It's about processes. It's about expertise. It's, you know, and there's a lot of different functions. And so

you just have to have all these different mediums and how to connect. And yeah, so we built out etiquette based on that. And like even like people that work at night, a lot of programmers work at night, because you get dedicated time. And then if they're saying something, they start pinging people at night, and some people have their alerts on, right? And then they're like looking at their phone and other people will turn it off. And then, you know, depending on if you're like a server based person, and then you don't have your phone on, like there could be an issue, right? So you

have to come up with all kinds of rules to this stuff and how to interact and what the workflow looks like. That's like the biggest thing. So we transform from a local agency to basically overseas contractors outside the US time zone, super tough, super tough. Not a lot of people can understand how to work with them. We ended up bringing on some Canadians. There was kind of a discount with the dollar, at least right now, you know, and then we looked at some people in South America. And then the only reason we would go to a different time zone is if we're monitoring

websites or something like that, you want to have like 24 hour support, that sort of thing. But I think marketing is phone laptop or like anywhere in the world, like phone laptop anywhere in the world. Certainly the mobile dual monitors really help having a good power source. And, you know, having a big enough screen. So your work is important. And then, you know, zooming in and being able to share it. But I think, I don't know, I'm trying to give some insights on marketers. They're usually having a lot of tabs open and a lot of different kind of software and programs. And

again, I think the most important thing is those proper SOPs or workflows. So yeah, managing a remote team, once again, is a ninja skill when you work from home. It's easier if everybody's in the office in the cube, right? But managing that team, if you want to take up the next level, it is different. It's a great points, Matt. And you also brought up something I think we're going to cover for another episode. This might be your new thing is Matt's wisdom for next episode is virtual assistants. I have failed in the past with virtual assistants. And I think I'm

getting ready to try it again. So maybe we should have an episode on how the best use virtual assistants because I have not been able to figure it out. Although I see the value in it. All right. So if I can get it right, I can see how it would free up my time to allow me to do more selling. So there we go. Matt and I gave you the ninja skills for working from home, bringing everything up to the next level. You want to say something? Essentially, like how marketing sales, like we talk about how it goes together,

when you're doing all that front end, maybe prospecting or research, also the follow up, utilizing automation, right? Like those are the things that surround the sales call and the sales person to make them that super person, right? Like there's technology like Rebump, right? It'll keep sending the email over and over again until they open it, you know, putting a tag in a CRM and it automatically creates a drip, right? Virtual assistants are really, really good if you outline exactly what you want them to do to build you a prospect list. I remember

sales wise, I was every night building a prospect list for the next day because I was doing recruiting, cold calling, right? To oil and gas professionals and it was just, I didn't have to save all that. Save all that. We'll use that on the episode around virtual assistants. Retargeting then. Retargeting, right? You get somebody to come to your website or landing page, keep hitting them. It's all about those pens and pads in a digital format to stay in front of people to move them through the funnel. Like we can certainly. We are absolutely

going to do another episode of virtual assistants. Now it's time for us to move to our product review. Matt, do you have a chance to play around with your AXWA clip on selfie ring light? I did not, but I have used them before and I should be using it right now. I'm looking at your light and I failed in that regard. I have been sorry on vacation. It's okay. I'm out of the routine. We'll let you give your thoughts on it later. So I've been playing around with it for the last two weeks. What it is, it's really something for an Instagram person, right? It's a little small ring

light, but let me tell you what makes it different. Number one, it's rechargeable, which I love. I don't have to worry about batteries. Number two, you can adjust the brightness. So if you're in a dark room, you can have it just bright enough so it highlights you. If you're in an outside, it's bright enough to actually compete with the sun, although it does during the battery quicker. And what it's really designed for is for people taking selfies to make sure they're lit well. Like I said, the Instagram folks, what I found it was unbelievably useful is what we just

talked about today is taking video calls on yourself or on your laptop. You clip this thing around your laptop, around your cell phone, and it lights you up and you look great. Then all you have to worry about is audio. And for me, since I'm an Apple person, my earbuds with my phone give me fantastic audio. So this little light is, we'll put a link in the show. And the other thing, it's dirt cheap. It's $19. And it was amazing. So I want to thank Axelua for sending both Matt and I this ring light. I discovered it. I will. I have it right here for any of you that are just

listening. I have it right here. It's sitting right next to my desk. It will be used and I will give you my feedback. And you can see how small it is. I mean, that's the box that holds it. The ring light is actually smaller. I kept the box that it came in so that when I travel with it, I can just throw it back in the box. But it was super useful. So I'm going to give it five stars, double thumbs up. Look, there you go, Matt. Matt's put it on there. Yeah. So just a really great tool. We have some other products we're going to review. So thank you, companies. If you have something you'd

like Matt and I to review, make sure it's kind of gadgety, something travel or something useful for sales and marketing folks. Send us two of them our way and we will review it on the show and give you a backlink. And we will tell you the truth. If we think it's great, like this light, I think it's great. We'll tell you. And if it sucks, we'll tell you it sucks. Well, Mark, I just put it on and some of these lights are too bright for your eyes, right? Like, you can't really look into the camera. This, I mean, literally open the box,

clip it on top. You can see the difference. You know, it's really nice and it's not blinding me. I'm going to just keep it on my computer going forward. So this is fantastic. Yeah, great tool. I highly recommend this. If you travel, buy one of these $20 lights, like I said, the links will be in the show notes. Speaking of show notes, all of Matt and I social links are there if you want to connect with all the different platforms. We are heavily working on our insiders group. We plan to announce that this fall. So if you're a

senior marketer or salesperson, this is going to be an invite only group just for you to learn from your peers. And then LinkedIn's failure tip of the week. I'm going to do this one, Matt, because I couldn't help this. I literally got this the other day. This is from Sufan Miguel. He's a he or him. Hi, Mark. I came across your profile and noticed that you're in the healthcare industry. I'm going to stop right there. I am not in the healthcare industry. This is- Have you ever been in the healthcare industry? I've never been in the healthcare industry.

The only thing I know about healthcare is when I hurt myself and I have to go get stitches or get something fixed by a more orthopedic surgeon. So this fail is literally him not taking the time or his people not taking the time to do any research at all on me. And you want to guess about what my chances are of replying back to him when he noticed that I'm in the healthcare industry? Zero. Big fat zero. So people, if you're going to do emails in LinkedIn, make sure you spend 30 seconds doing a little bit of research. If you want to have any success of all, I will

actually reach out to Sufan and let him know he made the LinkedIn fail of the week on this podcast just to help him learn so he doesn't do this again. Oh, that's a bunch. What I'll add to is if you don't have- I forgot where to switch it on. You can certainly Google it or YouTube it to figure it out. But not specifically on LinkedIn, like automation is probably like fill in the blank like industry and they're spamming you. I mean, it's spam, don't do that guys. But on emails, I have like after I send an email, it waits, I don't know,

like 15 seconds before it sends the email and you can reverse it, right? You're kind of like, Oh, I need to go check that out. I need to go do that. And I would just say that that's a pro tip and I would encourage people to set that up because I used it twice today already. Great idea. Great idea. All right, we're over a time. So time to get out of here. Remember, make a difference, not a sale. Check us out next week for another enriching and cheeky episode of Oil and Gas Sales and Marketing podcast, a production of the Oil and Gas Global Network.

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