Live Stream Jam Session

Curt Anderson  00:00

Wow. All right, we’ll get this thing started. So

Damon Pistulka  00:06

let’s get this party started.

Curt Anderson  00:08

Oh, Damon’s gonna we’re doing karaoke today too. So

Damon Pistulka  00:14

start saying, Man, we’ll start. So all right,

Curt Anderson  00:17

all right, guys, hey, top of the hour, whatever time zone we got how many time zones we have represented here. So we got a couple, for sure. We got it several. You know, what do we have? All four, five. We have five. We have a lot. So anyway, happy Thursday for our friends out there. Happy Friday Eve. How about that one? Megan, happy Friday evening, everybody. So let’s dive in. We’ve got Joe Roy Nebraskan house, Roberts in the house. We’ve got Lori’s here. She’s Chicago. Jim is Michigan. So got a number of different time zones here. I’ll be letting people in as we get the party rolling here. So my name is Curt Anderson. What an absolute honor and privilege to be with you guys. Shout out to our sponsors. So Joe, give a wave. We’ve got the MEPs represented. We’re going to be talking to an MEP, so if you’re a manufacturer out there and you’re not connected with your local manufacturing extension partnership, strongly encourage you, welcome you, invite you to do so they’re absolutely amazing, just like our dear friend Sammy, Joe on the stage and Joseph here. So check out your your local MEP, but we’re here to talk about live streaming in in particular LinkedIn live, and what it can do for you and for your business. And so I’m going to do some intros. Let’s go around the horn. Meaghan Ziemba is in the house. I’m going to go by time zone, so I’m going west, right? So, Meaghan, good morning. How

Meaghan Ziemba  01:34

are you I’m good. Thank you, Curt. How are you doing?

Curt Anderson  01:37

I’m doing. Oh, my goodness. If I was any better, it might have to call 911, right now. So let’s go here. Megan, if you could please share with folks you’re the Maven of manufacturing, and you know what? Robert, thank you. Shame on me. You beat me to the punch. Guys, if we were in person, we’d be high fiving, high fiving, handshaking. We’d be handing out business cards. Please, please drop your LinkedIn profile in the chat box. It’s a great opportunity to connect with some wonderful friends here, man, there’s some great people here today. Denise just joined us. She’s in Chicago, so Jim’s here today. He breaks for Forbes. So again, great opportunity to connect with folks. Meaghan, please share with folks who is Meaghan Zimba, how are you making the world a better place? Yeah.

Meaghan Ziemba  02:16

So I’m from Wisconsin, so Midwestern in the house, and I have a podcast called maintenance of manufacturing that I started around the pandemic, and I noticed that there were a lot of conversations happening on LinkedIn when everybody was trying to figure out how to keep their sanity in isolation. But a lot of those conversations were highlighting the men in the industry, and not that I have anything against the guys, but I just felt like there was a huge voice missing from those conversations. So when I was trying to reach out to the host and offer up suggestions for women guests, they would say, yeah, we’ll reach out to them. And they never did. So I said, Screw it. I’m going to start my own thing. Called me even some manufacturing and by trade, I’m a technical writer, so I love wordplay, and I noticed that a lot of women were using mavens in some of their titles. And the fun thing about mavens is it’s not a female it’s actually a gender neutral word that means connoisseur or expert. So I wanted to not be another obvious women and empowering thing, I wanted to kind of keep that on the down low, and really just focus on the skill sets that these women were bringing into the sector. So for something that I just did to start for fun and keep my sanity during the pandemic, it’s still going strong now in 2024 and I’m starting to book episodes for 2025 so if you’re curious about what the ladies are on tune the sector, I highly invite you to come to my channel and check it out, because there’s they’re doing some really cool things. Well,

Curt Anderson  03:51

Meaghan, thank you. What an honor and privilege, I think. As matter of fact, I think you and I are presenting together at the industrial marketing summit in February coming up, so I can’t wait to see you there. And so again, Meaghan, if you don’t mind, drop your LinkedIn in the chat box for everybody. I encourage everybody connect with Meaghan, fierce, fierce advocate for us, manufacturing, in particular, young people and women in manufacturing. She does an amazing job. She’s all over the place. So, Meaghan, thank you for being here today. I’m moving west. Damon pistilka, my friend, Seattle, Washington, what is going on? Tell us a little bit. How are you making the world a better place? Well,

Damon Pistulka  04:26

I don’t know how I’m making the world a better place, but I like to, like to think that I get to help people every day, and that’s what I really love doing. You know, I started out, I’m in Seattle. As you said, I grew up a Midwestern farm boy, actually in South Dakota on a working farm, not not farms, as most people talk about them today, or, I guess out here, I have people talk about that, and I kind of giggle, but it’s, it’s my privilege to be able to help business owners in their business development efforts, in their scaling efforts, and then ultimately. I help people sell their businesses when they ready my partners and other people that we work with, but I’ve been fortunate to work in the manufacturing industry, literally since I was 19 years old, sweeping floors in a tool shop. And I started out injection molding, I was able to run do engineering and other things with manufacturers, ultimately running companies for private equity investors before I started what I’m doing now. But today we’re talking about live streaming, I believe. And you know what I found in the pandemic, as Meaghan did, trying to help some people get online, you know, just, just trying to get, get through the times. You know, it was, it was great learning about live streaming and seeing how you could build community with it. And then ultimately, Curt you and I connected up to do the manufacturing e commerce Success Show, which I don’t know we’ve done a two, 300 episodes of, that had some awesome people on it and really built a nice community. And along the way, figured out how you really to use live streaming for business development, and ultimately that’s that’s how I get to work with a lot of people and do a lot of cool things. Excellent,

Curt Anderson  06:10

Damon, thank you. Do me a favor, drop your LinkedIn in the chat. Guys strongly encourage you connect with Damon. He is a fierce advocate for manufacturers as well. Does wonderful networking if you want to learn how to really master LinkedIn. He has done so. So a few more people. Anna’s in the house. So, Anna, thank you. I know you weren’t sure if you’re going to make it. And speaking of we have a live stream show. Chuck Cox head is in the house here today in Philly area. He was just on our show on Monday. Yeah. Thank you for being here. Giselle is in the house today. She is actually married in the MEP network. Sami Jo, she’s down in Florida, so now I’m going to the total opposite side of the country. Let’s go up to the great State of Alaska. We have Alaska MEP in the house. Sami Jo Lewis, bright and early morning to you, my friend. How are you

Sami Jo Lewis  06:56

I am doing well, I’m excited to be here. Thanks for having me. Curt,

Curt Anderson  07:00

my pleasure, my privilege. Thank you for joining us today. Sami, Jo, for folks friends out there. So a lot of our friends are connected through the MEP, either we’ve got some clients here that are through the MEP, I’ve got some friends here from IMEC, the Illinois MEP, Joe and John are here from the Nebraska. MEP, for folks that aren’t familiar. What this MEP thing is this Manufacturing Extension Partnership. Just share with everybody. How are you making the world a better place? Especially, how are you helping manufacturers?

Sami Jo Lewis  07:25

Yeah, thank you. Curt, so the MEP is a that is a resource, and all states have them, including Puerto Rico. So all 50 states, Puerto Rico, have the resource to help manufacturers. And so our main mission and priority is to help small businesses and manufacturers in the state, personally, in the state of Alaska, to grow through Lean supply chain, e commerce, there’s plenty of ways marketing, food safety, ISO certifications, just to help Grow the local economy and help manufacturers thrive in the state. And since we are well connected, there’s other national resources that we get to pull and rely on to help our clients. So it’s been really, really rewarding. I do the strategic I do the communication and outreach for the MEP, and I’ve actually been a part of the MEP. I got started right before covid kind of took over and changed everything but our initial MEP and Alaska got started in 2019 and then I joined the team in 2020

Curt Anderson  08:30

Well, it’s been an honor, privilege. You and I been working together for four years, and I think you’ve, you’ve expanded your family quite a bit since I, you know, we kid around. I’m kind of, I’m pseudo uncle Curt to Sami Jo, she’s brought two beautiful daughters into the world since we started working together, and they’ve actually had myself and Damon up to Alaska to work with great manufacturers in Alaska. You guys are doing amazing work, and you’ve actually kicked off a live stream show. So we’re going to dive into that. Thank you for taking time out to join us and my buddy Jim in Michigan. Mister rice for Forbes, he dropped a little article that he wrote about the MEP. So I strongly encourage everybody, first off, connect with Jim. He puts out incredible articles. Any hockey fans, he wrote a great article about the Zamboni, the original, the founder of Zamboni. It’s a great article, Jim, but he has another article there. Connect with Jim on LinkedIn. And again. Thank you guys for being here. Connect with each other. Meaghan, I’m coming back to you, my friend, you talked about how you launched this live streaming. It was kind of like this, your covid Baby, if you will. Right your live stream shows like your covid Baby, talk about what has live streaming I want to go here. First was, what was that first episode like, was it? Was it daunting, intimidating, scary, exciting. And then I want to slide into, you know, for friends out there that are considering going this route, what was the investment? But let’s start with, like, what was going through your mind, and, you know, nervousness, excitement when you first started. And then we’ll slide into, like, what did it take for you to get it launched?

Meaghan Ziemba  09:57

Yeah, so I, I think, does. Master is a great word for it. So when I because I’m a writer, I don’t have a lot of video editing skills, like I still to this day, don’t brag about my video editing skills at all, but I had a mentor at the time, and I pitched to my idea about mavens. And he was like, Well, what’s stopping you? And I’m kind of a perfectionist, and I need everything planned out before I actually launched something. And he pointed out that was kind of a ridiculous thought process, and I should just see if there’s any interest. So when I reached out to my LinkedIn network, I asked, Hey, would there be anyone interested in sharing their story on this live, broad stream that I’m trying to do. And let me tell you, LinkedIn made it very difficult for me to even start the live stream, like they had so many like, things that you had to do when they first started live streams. And it was so annoying and frustrating, like, I can’t remember how many complaints I wrote to LinkedIn, but it was just stupid, ridiculous. So I had to get that taken care of. I had to figure out what channels I wanted to simultaneously broadcast it out. So I had YouTube. What was then? Twitter is now x, which is another ridiculous thing we can talk about later, but that Instagram, right now is being offered as a live stream, but you got to do some walky things with that, with the the key stuff and Facebook. So Facebook, YouTube and LinkedIn are the three main channels that do really well for mavens. Um, so I basically had to figure out what channels I wanted to do, and then I had to come up with a schedule. So my schedule is pretty aggressive. I go live every Friday at 1130 Central time, but that consistency has really helped gain my audience. So people are expecting it to come every Friday before those live launches, I do at least three social media posts. So I do one on Monday to kind of introduce the guests, one in the middle of the week, and then one the morning of to kind of just remind people, Hey, this is what’s going on. Um, the investment really wasn’t that much. Like, I pay a subscription for Canva to help me create all of my graphics, and then I have my YouTube subscription. And then I’m trying to think what else I have in terms of subscriptions to help me create stuff, but I don’t think I spend more than $150 on the whole thing. Um, it’s probably less than that. And then I just reach out to people. Or Now what’s really happening is people are referring guests, and then that’s allowing me to actually build sponsorships around the show, so I’m actually getting paid for it now, which is really crazy to me, because, again, this wasn’t something that I was trying to make money off of. My writing is what I make my living off of but now this is like additional income coming in. But it was a really pain in the rear for me to start it, because, again, I didn’t have experience in video, but once I learned the basics, and I watched a couple YouTube videos, and I reached out to my network and asked them for advice, it’s become really simple. My next challenges is really upping my subscriptions on YouTube. Because right now I’m at 478 subscribers, I think, on my YouTube channel. So I’m really trying to figure out, okay, what do I need to do to up that LinkedIn I have the most followers, I think I’m past like 11,000 right now on LinkedIn. So just, I think, just being consistent and all that. But yeah, once I got over that initial hurdle of, like, I don’t know what the hell I’m doing, and tried it out a couple of times the first episode, it was a great conversation, but quality wise, it wasn’t the best. But the other thing is, too, with mavens, my show is all about authenticity and being who you are. So I don’t have all the like cool lights and flashes and stuff that other podcasts have, but it’s because I want people to be comfortable to show up as themselves, and the live aspect is really great on showing the authenticity of people, because I think sometimes when we get caught up in the business corporate world, we we tend to lose who we are and where our roots are from. And I don’t want that to happen, because right now we need more people to come into manufacturing, and it’s those stories of authenticity that really strike people’s heartstrings, and it’s really going to help them connect with the manufacturers on a more emotional level.

Curt Anderson  14:46

I I’ll give it a round of applause for Meaghan, just crushing it. There was that just you guys ready to run through a wall. Was that inspiring or what so? And how cool, Lori. Thank you, Lori, for joining us. She says, Wow, amazing again. Guys drop notes. Question. Please drop questions. The intention is, is, how can, you know, Damon, I use a line. How do you stop being the best kept secret? And we’ve just found LinkedIn live or live streaming on whatever platform is just such a powerful tool. And look what Meaghan’s done. You know, here’s a woman who comes in, she’s a writer, not her jam, and she just starts it up, you know, just kind of on the fly. And now you’ve Meaghan, kudos to you’ve turned this wonderful, you know, I dare to say, a hobby. You’ve turned it into a business where now it’s a revenue source for you. How cool is that? And again, you’re just sharing, just incredible stories. You know, tons of inspiration bringing, you know, highlighting wonderful women in manufacturing. I know, you know many of your your you know guests that you’ve been on the show are dear friends, and you’re just such an inspiration. We appreciate you, applaud you. I’m going to come back to you in a minute. Damon, let’s go here. Share it a little bit. Let’s get a little bit personal, from a personal and business standpoint. Okay, what has live stream done for you, for your business, personally and professionally?

Damon Pistulka  15:59

Well, personally, it’s, it’s forged some incredible what I believe we lifelong relationships. I mean you and I met live streaming, and now look done tons of business together, travel together, all that kind of stuff. And that’s, that’s incredible. But, and I should say, when you when you think about what you can do with live streaming to share great information with other people. As Meaghan talked about being able to reach out to someone that really knows a lot about something in your industry that you want to learn about, that you know your potential customers or your existing customers want to learn about, that’s a great thing. I mean, I’ve been able to talk to some of the smartest darn people that I would never be able to talk to, right? You know, how the heck do you talk to? I mean, just look at and this is a little bit off, off from manufacturing, but on Tuesday this week, I talked to a PR guy that is worked with some of the biggest names in the world to be able to really help them show how to get out to the market, how to use local, how to go internet, national, then International, with print and TV and other things. And I’m like, I was sitting there thinking to myself, how the heck do I ever get to talk to somebody like that, you know? And Curt, we’ve talked to some incredible people on the manufacturing and eCommerce success show, and I just can’t, I can’t tell you how much that is like our own personal coaching session, our own training sessions, but also it’s helping others that are listening to it. And that’s really how it’s changed my life is to be able to give me a much broader network to draw upon if someone has a problem, or to give me some solutions to help people, or even if things come to me that I go, I don’t know who can help this, but I can help somebody by connecting the dots. That’s even more fun. So good stuff for me. Excellent. Thank

Curt Anderson  17:55

you. And again, for folks that just joined us, this is my partner in crime, my co host on our live show, and I know he’s very humble guy. 90,000 followers on LinkedIn. Definitely follow Damon on LinkedIn. What he does is just amazing. Just puts out, just great educational pieces on a daily basis. Tons of inspiration, helping entrepreneurs. That’s his mission. Mission, purpose, passion in life. And I tell you, Damon, you’re just also an incredible inspiration. I’m sliding up to your neighbor, Damon. I’m going up the road to our friend Sammy Joe in the great state of Alaska. Sami Jo, you know? So we’ve got a couple of solopreneurs, if you will, entrepreneurs. You work for an agency, and again, for our friends that popped in a little bit after we started. You’re with the Alaska MEP Manufacturing Extension Partnership as an organization. Share your story about you know, how you got into LinkedIn, live why, or live streaming and what? Let’s go, let’s go there. Yeah,

Sami Jo Lewis  18:46

absolutely. So I definitely got into the live streaming because, you know, thanks to Uncle Curt. So thank you, Curt, for giving me that push that I really needed. Um, it was actually funny. The first time we had met was back in Chicago a few years ago, and I remember you were all about lives, and you were like, Hey, come over here, getting this live, and let’s do this online. And I was kind of like, hiding behind Alyssa, like, I was like, oh, video, like, no no, no, no, no, I don’t want to do that. And so it was just kind of funny how, how I got started, and then you really kind of kept encouraging, and like, seeing how well you were doing, and you’re like, you know, and me doing the communication outreach for the MEP, you know, I’m in charge of the social media channels. I’m in charge of our newsletters. I’m in charge of really getting the outreach out there and all connected. And he’s like, this is a way that you can use multi purpose content just by having a conversation with somebody. And I think it was really shifting that mindset of, like, so much can come out of it, just from having, you know, so much of my time. It’s like, what should I be posting? What kind of content is out there? It’s like, well, if I have a live and right now, we’ve been doing it for a little over a year, so things to Curt really giving us that push. I do it every other Thursday at noon. For 30 minutes, and I go back and forth from having a local manufacturer on sharing their inspiration, their story, how they got started, tips and tricks, trying to inspire others that are looking to get in the manufacturing field. And then the next time, I try to bring on an expert, so somebody like Kurt that’s doing e commerce, or like someone that’s doing Lean, someone that’s doing food safety. So then we have a wide variety of like, Hey, here’s some resources that manufacturers can dive into to get help if they’re looking for that. And really it was, I was scared. It was a hurdle. I actually had. Uncle Kurt was on with me. He was co hosting me. I was like, Oh, don’t leave me alone. I can’t do this, um, for for the first little bit. And honestly, once I started doing it, it was easy. There’s so much content. I’ve been able to connect with so many manufacturers now locally, just to hear their story. And it’s cool, because it’s a lot of time they’re not clients, but I have that ability now to reach out to them and just invite them onto the show, and that’s the way to kind of get you the foot in the door and to make that connection and to start talking with them. And so it’s been, it’s been really rewarding. So I’m excited to keep going. Well,

Curt Anderson  21:08

I love it. Thank you very much. Sami, Jo, and I tell you, it’s been, what an honor and privilege of you know, some of the amazing people that you and I have interviewed together, we’ve had a blast. And so I see, I’m going to go into the chat box, Chuck, thank you for the question. I’m going to read it out, and then we can chime in. I see Damon answered. How do you feel that this format compares to LinkedIn live, relative to adding Q and A versus building audience and creating interest? So I see Damon, you dropped an answer. Does anybody Megan, any you guys want to come off mute or Megan, do you want to give an answer to chuck for that answer for that question, yeah,

Meaghan Ziemba  21:41

so with LinkedIn live, the reason why like that over this format, in terms of reach and just getting awareness out there, it seems to hit a larger audience, but if you want more of a intimate Q and A session, I think this format is a little bit better, because you can See everybody, right, and you can look at everyone, and you can interact a lot better, whereas with LinkedIn live, you don’t really have that option unless you’re inviting that person to the platform. So one of the things that I do at the end of the year is I do an end of the year discussion, and I invite people to come sign into the stream yard link. The only downside is it’s limited to whatever type of subscription that you had. So last year, I was only able to have like, 10 people in at a at a time, and some people couldn’t get down because my waiting room was so overbooked, which is a good thing, but also a bad thing, because I couldn’t get anyone on. But if you’re, if you’re looking to bring awareness and expander reach, definitely LinkedIn. But if you want something more intimate, I like this platform. Excellent. Thank

Curt Anderson  22:49

you. Megan Damon, did you want to chime in?

Damon Pistulka  22:53

Yeah, I think that the the two are really they really are one, and they’re really dependent on what you want to do. As Meaghan said, you know, this intimate Q and A situation so much better. You don’t have to ask a question the world’s going to see. You can ask them. I mean, you can have three people in something like this, and just like we do normally, for business discussions, or you can have 100 people, as long as you’ve been together. It could be a networking event where you’re doing things, where you not necessarily want to share with the world, but when you want to share something with the industry or or something great that’s going on, the reach is really undeniable when you go across all the platforms. And you know the stuff that we’ve been seeing too, that the way it extends to is if you’re streaming, to say, LinkedIn and YouTube, the SEO benefits are undeniable from this, because as as we’ve talked about, a bit Curt, I believe we’ve talked about online too, we’re seeing as we produce shows, they are either native on Google or on Google videos. You know, when you do the search for videos for those topics, we’re on the first page. And that’s the thing that you can really do with this that really extend, extends your reach beyond the social platform into into Google and into search.

Curt Anderson  24:11

Yeah, excellent. So, and Alright, Sami Jo, anything that you wanted to chime into that, into the question, no,

Sami Jo Lewis  24:19

I think, I think you definitely covered it. I think that, yeah, this way provides that intimate Q and A and you’re able to and it probably maybe gives some people a little bit more confidence that they don’t want to share it with the world, but they feel comfortable sharing it in this in this space, that is something, because right now, I’m only on our show. We’re only streaming to YouTube, and then it’s going to our onto our website, and so that’s something we were really trying to look into, and maybe look into and maybe put more money behind. Is actually not do using the free subscription that we’re using now for streamyard, but maybe actually getting subscription for streamyard, and then we can um stream out on all of our channels, including LinkedIn and Facebook. Yeah,

Curt Anderson  24:55

thank you. And if you you’ve heard the word streamyard A couple of times, you’re like, hey, wait a minute, guys, what on? Or. At the streamyard again. Feel free, you know what? You know the famous you know statement, there’s no no question. Is a bad question, right? What is streamyard? So actually, if you go to my LinkedIn profile, or Damon’s LinkedIn profile, or if you go to my website, we just did a LinkedIn live yesterday on how to go live on LinkedIn with streamyard, and we actually ran through a little demo yesterday. It’s a quick, little 15 minute video. So you can check out our LinkedIn profiles, and we’ve got a nice video there. I want to dive in, and then I’ll show some examples on the SEO since you brought that up, Damon. But a big thing that Damon, I love, to preach, and I know Sami, Jo, we’ve talked about this, Meaghan, I’m sure you’re right there with us, is, how can you use this platform? You know, everybody’s out there trying to market and try to stop being the best kept secret. It’s very new. Secret. It’s very noisy world. And so we’re like, how do we separate ourselves a big tagline that we’d love to use, and especially, you know, take part parlaying with the MEPs. You know, we’ve got Nebraska university here, and, you know, working with other universities, how do we out teach the competition, you know? So bringing on these other subject matter experts. Like Damon said, like, we don’t, we never need to be the smartest person in the room, but we can bring in these other subject matter experts. So Meaghan, let’s, I want to dive into a little bit on, like, the method of madness behind like, how you strategically pick different guests or different topics. How do you process, like, who you’re actually bringing on? Um,

Meaghan Ziemba  26:21

it’s there’s for me, it’s really no strategy behind it. To be quite frank and transparent with you, I have to vibe with the person. If I’m not interested in what they’re talking about, it’s not going to be a fun episode. So I have PR companies reaching out to me, telling me how great their their client is and how wonderful they’re doing things. But if I do a pre briefing with them, and I’m not getting energy off of them, I’m not going to have them on mavens, because the whole point of my show is to really bring that energy to the wider audience so that we can get the general public really excited about manufacturing. So I’m not going to bring anyone on that’s kind of boring and not authentic, like there’s a lot of I had one guest, and I’ll never do this again. They actually sent me a whole script because they were so nervous of being on camera live, they didn’t want to mess up. I It was when I first started Maven. So of course, I like accommodated them so that they could feel comfortable, but it just wasn’t as authentic as some of my other interviews. And one of the things too, is I get people who are really passionate about what they’re doing, and they’re like, Well, can I, you know, is it going to be a bad thing if I drop a curse word? No, not to me, because I don’t get offended by that stuff. So if you’re passionate and you slip out an F bomb, okay, cool. I’m not going to edit it out. So it really just depends on how they care about what people think of them. But I mean, we’ve all been on a shot four before in manufacturing. It’s not the cleanest language on the shot four, so why are we going to try to cover that part up of it if we want people to join and that’s just my personal opinion, and people can feel free to disagree with me, but I get a lot better reaction from my audience when my guests are who they are, when you meet them in person, and that’s the whole point of mavens. I want people to just show up as themselves and not worry about, you know, what people might think of them, because not everybody’s going to like you, and that’s okay, like it’s okay if people don’t like you.

Curt Anderson  28:30

Meaghan, I couldn’t agree more, though. My mom thinks that everybody likes me, it just does. Damon, just everybody does it, you know. So I, you know, I have to break that bad news to her, but So, Meaghan, I love what you’re saying right there. And I want to go back to something you said earlier. So again, for folks that, you know, we have any of our solo marketers, my dear friend Lori out there, you know, it’s that word consistency, right? You know, I had a client I was just with this morning. They’re just like, wow, it’s sporadic. I post here, or when I have something to talk about, what you talked about is like, you know, 1130 central every single Friday, you know that you’re posting, you know, Sammy Joe every other Thursday, 12 o’clock Lunch and Learn with Sammy Joe and the Alaska MEP up. You know, you guys are hitting that I wanted Anna dropped. Well, first off, Jim had agreed. Yeah, yeah. Jim dropped a comment with to you Meaghan. He goes, Well, hey, there goes my shot of being on Meaghan’s show. You guys definitely gotta connect. But yeah, Jim, you’re dude. You’re fired, not boring. So, you know, connect. Hey guys, connect with Jim. Fierce advocate writes for Forbes magazine. Has wonderful, amazing articles. Has a wonderful, uh, podcast yourself. Live Stream yourself, Jim. So thank you for being here. Anna says, How did you get the confidence to believe that you had a voice for sharing. Meaghan, let me come back to you. Wow, I’ll go around the horn. But Maeghan, what? How do you answer that one for Anna,

Meaghan Ziemba  29:49

how do I What was the question? Anna, I’m sorry. How

Curt Anderson  29:52

did you get the confidence to believe you had a voice worth sharing?

Meaghan Ziemba  29:58

So. Fun fact about me, I am actually an introvert, and I have ADHD, so I over worry about and I just got diagnosed with ADHD, so I over worry about everything, and I had a lot of things happen to me over the last couple of years, like divorce and family issues, so I was getting, like, a lot piled on. So confidence was not easy for me to obtain, but what I needed to learn was how to surround myself with encouraging, supportive individuals that believed in the same message that I believed in. So I went through a business coach, and I also have gone through therapy, and I just surround myself with people who believe in the same things that I do, and it’s been really helpful. I also keep a journal of my successes and my wins, just so that when I’m having a bad day, I can actually go back to that and reread them. And I’m all about positive affirmations now, so like, anytime I’m alone in my car, or, like when I’m getting ready, or if I’m at CrossFit, I’m always telling myself, you’ve got this. You can do it like it. It can sound ridiculous to people who aren’t used to doing that kind of thing, but it really does help jazz you up and give you that energy to keep moving forward. And not every day is perfect, right? But you gotta just understand that failure isn’t like the end of something, it’s the beginning of learning a new lesson. So I always try to figure out what lessons are in the failures that I have. But yeah, confidence has been a really tough thing for me, but it’s gotten easier ever since I found my tribe of people, and I’m able to communicate with them and ask them for advice and share ideas with them and brainstorm with them. So I’ve gotten rid of a lot of people in my life that were kind of divvy downers, and that’s okay, like you want to keep growing. So yeah, good.

Curt Anderson  31:55

Hey, Lori, my dear friend. Lori says, Great tips, Meaghan, your authenticity is refreshing. Also introverted here. So again, thank you for sharing, and I keep saying it, you have to follow Meaghan on LinkedIn. She’s all over the place. Does amazing job. You know, just such an amazing job. Meaghan, we’ve been friends for years. You’ve been on the show. You’ve been a repeat offender on our live show. Several times we’ve been together in person, and so it’s just such a privilege connecting with you. Damon, how about you know, hey, we’re not young guys. How? What were two old guys doing? LinkedIn, lives where? How did you find your voice?

Damon Pistulka  32:29

I hate selling. It’s that simple, right? I’ve had to sell my entire life, ever since I started out as an engineer, as a as a tooling engineer, working with people. I had to sell them on, buying the tooling, sell them on that we’re going to do this, then go through the process of building and implementing. And then I, you know, I was selling in the other companies I ran, and I selling to big corporations, small companies, you know, small manufacturers, whatever it was and and what I realized is a I can sell if I need to, but it’s just, man, I just hated that cold outreach. I hated that just pounding the road like you had to do and and even in my in my current business now, I pounded the road for two years before I started doing this kind of stuff. I mean, four or five days a week, I was driving around and and you get there, but you can’t get there the way you can with with live streaming and the relationships you can build and and really reach out to different people. And this is the one thing that I didn’t know going into it. I don’t, I mean, I don’t consider I’ve had enough experience in business. So my voice was, I was just going to share the junk that I’ve been, that I’ve been through, and other people that have been through really good stuff. And as Meagahn said, you just want to have people that are passionate about what they do and have a good time talking about it. But I really wanted it to use it to build relationships that will help build business and and that was the thing that surprised me, is how much different the outreach is with a live stream. You know, I’m sure Sammy, Joe seen this. Meaghan seen this, you know, Curt, you and I have seen it is, is that you can literally reach out to anyone that you think is interesting. To talk to someone, an influencer in your industry, someone that you you really admire that’s doing a great philanthropic thing, and then you begin to build these relationships around you, whether it’s, you know, local and to where you’re doing business, or whether it’s national or global. And you know, my voice really came from the passion of the people that I get to share their great information and their stories. And I’m just a business geek, right? I love this junk. I wake up trying to figure out better things for business and all these other people around me. It’s so much fun. But it all really started because I didn’t want to sell like I had to sell before on the road, you know, trying to get appointments with everybody every day. And the business development this way is just. Lot, a lot more effective for me. Yeah,

Curt Anderson  35:02

and I just, and I want to hit that point home, especially for our manufacturers to see Robert, our friend Lori. Lori dropped a comment. LinkedIn has changed. The prospect in networking game, personality comes across on video. And I think, you know, the business development standpoint, like so for David and I like so, for those of you who aren’t familiar, we have a LinkedIn live show we do a couple days a week. We’ve been doing it for our four year anniversaries next week. And so this is our business development, you know, like, what we do is when we’re reaching out, and, you know, it’s, it’s really shining the bright light on other people. And Anna, I want to, I want to share this comment. You know, when you just, when in Anna, you’re, you know, such a amazing human being. And just, you know, you have great content you put out, and you’re so passionate about what you’re doing. When you’re like Meaghan and Sammy, Joe Damon, when you’re so passionate about the other person, it’s really not about us, you know. And so I think that’s a big tip or a hack for you to think about. It’s really not about us. It’s about, you know, Jim coming on the show, or Chuck was on the show Monday, Joe Roy’s coming on. And we’re just like, hey, how do you guys make the world a better place? Let’s hear about what you’re doing. And like these incredible stories you know, Meaghan share, you know, very raw of being very vulnerable with us, even here today, and just when you can pull out and it doesn’t matter, Hey, I’ve been metal, I cut steel, I’ve manufactured circuit boards. People do business with people. We’re all people. You know, it’s not just our products, it’s our people. Sammy, Joe, what do you want to share on from that standpoint?

Sami Jo Lewis  36:26

Yeah, absolutely, I would say. I definitely didn’t. I’m still not the most confident person, and I definitely didn’t start out the way. I think the more that I do it, the more confident I get. And I think it really comes back to what you’re saying. It’s not about me, though. So that’s, that’s what makes it better. It’s not about me, it’s about the guests that I’m having on the show. I know something else this might be frowned upon. I I don’t go back. I don’t go back and watch them. I’ll go back and get, get the info that I need and get some, you know, like testimonies, or get like stuff for social media content. But I’m not going back and watching because I think that that’ll get me really in my head. I have an overthinker as well, Meaghan, so I totally relate to that. And I think I would just get in my head and be like, Oh, why did I do this? Oh, why did I say that? And just like, go to sleep. Just like, constantly thinking about that, and it’s just like, You know what? It’s out there. It’s live. People are seeing it. All I did was my best. I’m gonna go out there. I’m gonna read content. But again, it wasn’t about me, it was about the guest that was on the show, and that’s what really matters. And so it really just takes that next that next bit, store or forward, and the more that you do it, the better you’re going to get. So thank

Damon Pistulka  37:33

can? I yeah, you certainly can, if you, if you’ve got a list of people that you know are, are you think are good, would be interested in your show? One of the things you can easily do is promote your show every week. Meaghan talks about sending stuff out. I mean, if you have a a list of people that are in your industry, potential soulmate, customers of yours, it’ll be a great idea. If you think there’s a relevant episode you have coming up on a live stream, send them the email on that. That could be your newsletter every month, as I’ve Hey, I’ve got this coming up on to next Tuesday. Might want to tune in great things, you know, we’re going to talk about this, this, you know, something that’s really one of their questions they would typically want to get answered, or some information that would be valuable. That’s a great way to do it. And also go ahead, sorry, I

Curt Anderson  37:33

you. Sami, Jo and Kevin, I’m going to come to your question. I saw that snuck past past me. I’m going to come back to one second. So Sami, Joe, if you don’t mind, I’m going to show your live stream show. So guys, what she’s done here is she’s in her, Hey, look at that handsome guy right there. There’s that Damon Pistulka. So she’s interviewing amazing, incredible, wonderful people. Okay, and then, and what the cadence was, Sami Jo is like, hey, you know, here’s a director from the Connecticut. MEP, here’s our dear friend Jessica from manufacturer’s edge, the Colorado MEP, so on. If I recall your first week of the month, you’re typically interviewing, you know, some type of subject matter expert, like our friend Damon. Then you’re interviewing, you know, a customer or a client, and I’m shamelessly looking for it on here. So we were, we did an interview one time together, and her customer comes on, and neither one of us knew the story. You know exactly where I’m going, right? Yeah. So we, we just interviewed this client of yours a week ago on our show, and I’m trying to see if here she is, right here, this woman comes on Sammy Joe’s live show. She connects with the last me piece. She was a startup. She started up during covid. She was looking to buy a piece of machinery. She’s a tea man who, like, who, who knew that tea is manufactured in Alaska? I Damon, I didn’t know that. Yeah, this woman manufactures tea in Alaska. She was looking for a piece of machinery. It was going to be $90,000 she connects with Sami Jo and the team at the Alaska VP. They connect her with a gentleman through the New Jersey MEP, who was an expert on this piece of machinery, he found a piece of machinery for for 30 grand the Alaska MEP saved them $60,000 she comes on the live show and shares this testimonial. We had no idea that she was going to say that. Now we have a $60,000 testimonial on video. Now, do you think we shamelessly, like, got that out to everybody? Of course, we did. Right? Sami Joe right? Yeah. So the thing is, by you bringing on your ideal customers, it’s an opportunity to say, you know, Hey Robert, you know your customer, bring them on. Like, hey dude, tell us how awesome you are. Let’s just shine a bright light on you. And when they flip the script, or my friend Lori, they’re like, hey you guys like Chris shend are awesome. Hey Jim, you’re the best guy. You know when you get that testimonial. What a wonderful opportunity here. So again, I think you guys are doing a great job. You can see here, she’s posting it on YouTube. It’s on her website. You can repurpose the content. From our SEO standpoint, there’s a lot of SEO juice there. Sure. So anyway, I just wanted to share that a little bit. There’s a question I’m coming back to Kevin, and I want to see if anybody wanted to chime in. Kevin, where are you can I target a market utilizing an email list? Does anybody want to grab that question? Can I target a market utilizing an email list? Anybody have an answer for Kevin on that one? Damon I

Meaghan Ziemba  41:08

think with LinkedIn too, now you have up to five newsletters that you can put out. So if you’re making a live stream, you can create a newsletter that’s just focused on your live stream and send that out to your email list. And then I think Sales Navigator, if you have that feature, it’s easier for you to get in touch with your prospects and get their contact information. And then, anytime you set up a live on LinkedIn, there is a invite option, and you can invite your connections to participate in that live. That’s

Damon Pistulka  41:41

a great point, because you can invite up to 1000 connections to to a live event. So if you know, if you already have a pretty good network in your industry, and those people would be interested, and you can do it both by email and by LinkedIn,

Curt Anderson  41:55

yeah, great point, sir. So just to kind of recap and again, any questions, please get them in the chat box. Let us know. You know what you’re thinking. We want to try to cover every every question. Again, we talked about streamyard earlier. Streamyard as a so as a software tool to connect you to those platforms. We can talk about that further. We’re talking about that email list. So Kevin, what we do is we send out an email every single Friday, like Tammy and Meaghan. We’re talking about that consistency, right? Every Friday 730 sorry if you guys are on my email list, you’re getting blasted with that email. So we’re talking about who’s the guest that we’re that’s coming up on Friday, and then we have the guest who’s coming up on Monday. Then Meaghan, we’re doing exactly what you said. So I have a LinkedIn newsletter that I put push out. And so what we do is so Chuck, who’s on the call. He was our guest on Monday. I believe he’s going out in our newsletter tonight. And so, you know, we try to keep that consistency. Let me just show something real quick here. This is what we do. Hey, who’s our guest on Monday? Who’s that wonderful Gail, right there? So Sammy, Joe is going to be our guest on Monday, and she’s actually bringing on one of her clients, a client that we’ve worked with for years. Guy is a amazing human being. He’s up in Juneau, Alaska, Damon, you were just up that way. Yeah, and he manufactures fishing lures. And Sami Jo, and the team at Alaska MEP, have done a great job. And so on Monday, we’re going to be interviewing our friend Don, and Sami Jo is going to be coming on. Now, what we do for that content is, I was just showing you Sami Jo’s content. Hey, there’s that handsome devil right there. There’s Chuck. Chuck was just on our show on Monday. We he has this incredible connect with Chuck on LinkedIn. This was a great interview, and he was talking about, he’s created this wonderful e commerce tool on his website for RF cables. It’s called a configurator. We did a full blown demo. So what a great way to show off your product, what a great way to show off your expertise, what a great way to show off your website, all your solutions. And that T example that we just talked about where Sami Jo got that $60,000 testimonial. Here’s our wonderful Meaghan right here. She gave that testimonial on our show. We cut out that clip. What do we do with it? We send it off to our friend Sammy Joe, so now she has that video testimonial once again. So again, this is just a great opportunity to put out a lot of different content on your website, and it makes life so much easier. Okay, I want to talk about business development. Meaghan, you so I want like, guys are, you know, folks are out there. These manufacturers are busy man. They are the backbone of our economy. They’re making things. They’re just creating wonderful products. They’re like, Okay, why should I be live streaming? Meaghan, let’s dive into it from a business standpoint. Okay, you mentioned that this has really flipped the script for you. Talk a little bit. Let’s, let’s, let’s get raw on business. How has this really helped you? You’re doing more speaking, you’re traveling like, what is mavens done for you professionally from business development standpoint,

Meaghan Ziemba  44:48

yeah. So one of the downsides of it was it actually took attention away from my writing business. So I own Z-Ink Solutions, and I’m a tech writer by heart, so a lot of people. Just thought I was an influencer in the manufacturing space, which was really annoying to me, because when I think influencer, I immediately go to the Kardashian show, and it’s like, I am nothing like that, and nor do I want to be anything like that. So it was kind of annoying because a lot of people didn’t know, and I went to school for a really long time to get a master’s in technical writing. So it’s like, can we just please recognize the fact that I worked so hard to get this certificate that shows I’m somewhat smart? Like, can we do that please? So that was one of the downsides, but no on the business side of things, it really has opened up a lot of speaking opportunities for me, which is great because, again, I’m an introvert, and that was something that I needed to practice. It’s also getting me into communities and helping manufacturers come up with strategies on how they can really recruit more of the younger generation, but also help their women employees who are within their their facilities, because there are issues that are still facing us today in terms of career trajectory and, like, some resources. So I never knew how to, like, invest in anything, or I’m not very good at, like, financial information. So when companies can start helping women out with some of those things, I think it’s really beneficial for everyone. And then, yeah, it’s just gotten me connected to a lot of schools as well, and getting younger girls excited about some of the opportunities that are in this sector. And then it’s now helping me with my writing business, because once people like understand that I’m also a writer, they’re coming to me to help them with some of their marketing strategies and their content development. So I’ve been getting a lot of clients through that. And then I just got in touch with the state of Illinois, and they’re going to be doing some big launch here pretty soon. And then they reached out to me as one of the people to help promote that campaign. So I’m super excited about that. So I might get to meet some political figures. Even though I’m not a political person, it’s still really exciting for me to be able to talk about the importance of mavens and sharing the female narrative of of the sector. So lot of stuff going on. Well,

Curt Anderson  47:15

I love it. So we’re talking relationships, building trust, that authenticity, you know, shining light on other people, plus building your business, getting your name out there where people, you know, even from your writing standpoint, people would have no idea that you did this if you, if you kept your your gifts to yourself. You know what I mean, and it’s like, don’t we have an obligation to share our gifts? Damon, let’s dive into your standpoint. You’ve talked a little bit about that business development. You know, folks out here, like, we’ve got businesses to drive, we’ve got employees, we’ve got machines that we want to keep running. Why should a manufacturer consider live streaming purely from a business development standpoint? Well, I

Damon Pistulka  47:51

think it’s, you know, you you look at your other business development efforts, right? And live streaming can take the place of some of those. And it’s, it can be a very efficient way of doing it. You know, if you, if you are a manufacturer that looks at if I added, say, if I added six new clients a year, 10 new clients a year. Because my clients are, are not $100 clients. They’re $100,000 clients or million dollar clients. This is the, this is the perfect thing for you, I believe, because if you think about it, and if I did a show twice a month, that’s 26 a year, I have 26 opportunities to either bring on customers, to do to to talk about the problems we solve together. Boom, something that the industry would want to learn about, something that’s not confidential, obviously, but solve something like that, to show how your company helped them do this, have industry insiders come on talk about new developments in the industry that might be relevant to your customers and things like that. And then ultimately, you get a little bit of that background behind you, you can start then talking directly to your potential soulmate customers. You find the right people to talk to in those companies, and you you invite them on to share what they’re doing. That’s cool, because I now, if I’m, if I’m, just say I’m a sheet metal custom sheet metal fabrication company, right? And I’m making closures so I can go out to the automation company that’s building these really cool automation things, and talk to them about their automation solutions, blah, blah, blah, fully known that they buy millions of dollars worth of enclosures every year. And I might be able to be that supplier to them, maybe just on their specialty stuff, but I’m going to be associated with them, and we’re going to share some great things, and I might be talking to their engineering manager, or whoever the right person is to talk there and really, to build that business development out in those kind of ways, it’s a, it’s a no brainer for me to get those relationships started.

Curt Anderson  49:48

Yeah, creating that. Let’s talk about that referral network. And I know we’re coming into time that referral network is such a great opportunity. So again, you know, whatever, whatever you do, right? I bend metal, I cut steel. You. Know. So say there’s a part, and you know, who are the other folks that are selling to the same people. So maybe you’re, you know, you’re doing sheet metal, whatever. And there’s a, you know, you need a wire harness assembly company, or a PCB, a printed circuit board company, man, bring them on the show, because now when you can create that, that referral network. So when that Printed Circuit Board Company, when they need a sheet metal guy, guess who they’re thinking of, right? Or if you’re the wire harness company, and you, you know, you get the idea. Like, how can we create that robust referral network? Damon, I like to call it those ideal customers. You’ve been hearing us use that word soulmate. Like, how do you, I, you know, go after that ideal customer, that soulmate. But how do you create that soulmate? 100 list is what we call it. So how do you get that referral network and just really get that robust, you know, who are the folks that are targeting the same people that you are and you want to help elevate and lift them? So then they’re thinking of like, there’s nobody else. I’m not going to think of the other sheet metal person. I’m only thinking about you. Sammy, Joe, let’s go. You know, you’ve been real methodical. Love the folks that you’ve been interviewing. How are you approaching it from a business stand, business development standpoint? Yeah,

Sami Jo Lewis  51:05

I think it’s absolutely word of mouth. And so when I’m thinking about it from like, a manufacturer standpoint, kind of, they’re looking at, like, how is this going to benefit me or get started? I think it’s like, a lot of times with us, it’s like, okay, we didn’t just have all these success stories to invite on. You know, we’re reaching out, and we’re just asking potential clients, or, you know, experts, in hoping that maybe they will turn into a client. And so I think that starts like, you just reach out, and you start interviewing people that, like, Hey, you think would be interested in what you’re selling or what you are making or producing or manufacturing, and then even if it’s not them, you might have a really cool conversation, and then they are maybe connected to a whole group of folks that you had no idea. And so I’d really think it just like starts from that, because there are husbands interviews where it’s like, okay, maybe this isn’t the right fit, but they might know somebody that then is going to be interested, and now we have this relationship. So I really think it’s been all about building those relationships. And yes, you mentioned that amazing $60,000 testimony. We had no idea that we were going to get that testimonial, and so that was amazing. But you just never know until you invite them on and get the conversation started. And so I really think it’s just been about about that getting the people. And sometimes it’s just all about who you know. And a lot of times we get the best clients or more work just from word of mouth and referrals.

Curt Anderson  52:27

Drop the mic. Sami Jo, that was so I want you to think about this. Think about that ideal customer that you want to target. Damon mentioned probably 20 minutes ago. I hate cold calling, when you can approach somebody instead of like, Hey, let me tell you how great I am. You should use my product. You should use my service. You should hire me to do whatever I do, right? But you call them up, or you email them say, hey, word on the street is Meaghan Ziemba, you’re awesome, man. Everybody’s talking about how great you are. Would you want to come on our live show so we can talk about how great you are? We want to highlight your work and what you’re doing with young women in manufacturing, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Now we’re being genuine, we’re being authentic. We’re being sincere. But what a difference of a phone call that is when I say, like, Hey, would you please hire me? Or hey, do you want my service? Do you want my product, versus Hey, why don’t you come on our show and Let’s jam out for like, 30 minutes about just how you are just crushing it. What if you’re flipping a script? What a different conversation? Megan, what do you got?

Meaghan Ziemba  53:24

Well, the other thing to add on to that so, like, I’m not a subject matter expert on, like, any of the technology that I’m writing about, like, my skill set is strictly into interviewing and researching and getting the facts and then putting it into writing. It’s amazing how many people who listen to my show will reach out to me, asking, this is this is what I’m doing. I have no idea who to reach out to. Can you find someone for me? Because they know I’m so well connected. So I think what these live streams are actually doing is really nurturing that collaboration and partnership type of environment which our industry needs so much right now if we want to continue advancing at the pace technology is advancing. So it’s opening up those doors to connect people with other individuals, and that’s business development on their part. So it has nothing to do with like, my goals or anything like that. It’s just they know that I’m connected with a lot of people, so I’m going to give it a chance and reach out to them. And because people trust her, hopefully they’ll pay attention to me when she reaches out to them. And it’s happened a lot of the times, and it’s really cool on my part to see that connection. So I get really exhilarated when I’m able to introduce two people that have synergy off of each other. So I think that’s another way to look at it is you might not get business potentials all the time if you start a live stream, but again, like what Sami Jo was saying, it’s that i. What is that saying, that old saying, six degrees of bacon or something. It’s like that effect, you know, so you’re you’re connecting the dots, and it’s helping speed up word of mouth.

Curt Anderson  55:11

Well, you’re becoming the connector, you know. You’re becoming a leader, a thought leader, in your in, like you said, not in an influencer, Kardashian way, but you’re being a trusted resource, a trusted guide, and you’re the creator, if

Meaghan Ziemba  55:24

you can help get somebody else business, just through that connection, they’re going to appreciate you more as an individual, and then they’re going to start talking about you in a good light when you’re not even in the room. So it’s just good all the way around.

Damon Pistulka  55:39

Yup. I’ve got one more quick thing, too. When we talk about business development, you talk about live streaming. The process for doing your live stream, the preparation for your live stream is is a great you can put a great step in there that helps your business development, and that is having an intro call before you go and do your live stream with somebody. So we’re talking about business development, I’m reaching out to a potential client. Well, you have to have a call to get to know each other and learn and talk about the live stream, right? Well, what is it? What is it? In business development terms, that’s that first initial cold call. But you’re not talking to them about your products or services. You’re talking to them. Have them share, have them give you all the stuff about what they’re doing, what’s cool in their life, what problems they have. They’re just feeding you all kinds of great information. You’re taking notes like crazy. Yes, you’re getting ready for the show. Yes, you’re going to be asking more you. You ask them about hobbies, all this other stuff. So when you have the show, the show is much better. But the show then is interaction number two. And we all know it takes multiple interactions to do sales. This is, this is one of the things that you really can leverage up your live stream by the right process to get get better relationships and build them out

Curt Anderson  56:47

and like, Robert’s like rubbing his hands together, licking his chops right now, I see it Robert, so you know, what a competitive advantage. I want to be respectful of everybody’s time, because I know we’re coming right in the top of the hour, and so I’m going to stick around for if there’s any questions. And so, you know, and hey, my my friend Laurie dropped to know amazing. So we’ve been interviewing. They have a chief scientist on their team. We interview Dr Ken, and just like, what a great opportunity to just bring out that brilliance. You can even do this internally, right? You can interview your internal subject matter experts and stop being the best kept secret. Get that message out. Megan, let’s go here as we first off, can I ask everybody first I want to thank everybody for joining us today. I know you guys are super busy. You have a million things going on with your businesses. We never take that for granted. So thank you for taking time out of your schedule to join us. It is our privilege. Number one. Number two, how about a big round of applause for this panel, was that, like, the fastest hour ever, or what? Man, Sami Jo in Alaska, got up bright and early. Meaghan, crushing it in the great state of of Wisconsin. And Damon here now. Are you Illinois? Are you Wisconsin? You’re on the border, right. Where are you? Meaghan?

Meaghan Ziemba  57:57

I’m on the border.

Curt Anderson  57:59

You’re anyway, so alright. So hey, big round of applause to you guys as we close out. Megan, words of wisdom, parting thoughts that you want to share with everybody out here other than you need to connect with Megan, please do so. Megan mark, parting thoughts,

Meaghan Ziemba  58:14

yeah. So if you want to continue growing your business and getting your story out there, live streaming is one of the best ways, if you’re not quite ready for it yet, at least try to create some video. Instagram, real is a great thing to create short videos and posts and put that out on LinkedIn. If you need help expanding your reach, feel free to tag me, and I will push that out, because I love helping people out. Tiktok is another one, but I know some people don’t like Tiktok, so I always try to refer to Instagram here, but yeah, just start sharing your story. Our industry needs it, and your customers need it too, because they’re not going to buy from you if they don’t know who you are.

Curt Anderson  58:56

Another drop the mic, right there. Damian, part parting thoughts, words of wisdom from our friend in Seattle.

Damon Pistulka  59:03

Now, I think just get, get it’s not hard to do. I mean, look, it’s not hard if you and I can do it. Curt. We’re digital immigrants. We

Curt Anderson  59:10

set the bar pretty low. Man, right, yeah, yeah.

Damon Pistulka  59:12

I mean, but it is effective, and I really enjoy it. You, you, if I will almost guarantee you’ll, you’ll build some great relationships, and you’ll enjoy it.

Curt Anderson  59:21

Yep. Sammy Joe, parting thoughts, words of wisdom that you want to share with folks about your live stream experience.

Sami Jo Lewis  59:27

Yeah, absolutely. I would just say, just get started. I mean, I think that if you’re like, if you’re a manufacturer, and you’re like, trying to, you know, grow and expand your audience and stand your reach, and you’re like, trying to like, you’re on social media, and you’re trying to think of content. I mean, this is a way that you’re going to build relationships, and you’re going to have that content, and it’s going to take away so much of that guessing like, oh, what should I post about? What should I put out? Today, you’re going to be reaching out to your customers, building that relationship, and now you have content to post on your social media channels, so it’s just going to take a lot of that for you, and it is really. Easy. I mean, I’ve been doing it for free. I mean, I know, like, there’s stream yard, you can get the free platform, like there’s so many ways to do it, literally zero cost. You just have to take the first step.

Meaghan Ziemba  1:00:11

And can I throw one more quick thing in there? The one of the main reasons why I was doing live is because it takes the least amount of editing,

Damon Pistulka  1:00:21

zero. Editing and fine, I’ve done zero,

Curt Anderson  1:00:25

you know, like, I’m not a rocket scientist. Man, it’s like, and it’s just, it’s that consistency. It’s that efficient, you know, unless you’re blessed with a business where, like, you know, business just comes to you, I want to, and I’d love to talk to you, because I don’t know that business. Man, I’m 56 next month. Like I’m grinding, working relentlessly, you know, Damon and I are working in the, you know, we’ve just found this as a such a powerful Damon, we didn’t even get into SEO, you know. Like we’re literally, we’re finding this is a great that could be a total jam session, just in itself. So I know I’m one minute over. I’m going to thank everybody for joining us. I’ll stick around for another minute if there’s or a couple minutes if there’s any other questions. Any other questions. Lori, thank you guys for your comments. Anna, thank you. Joe. John, I appreciate all you guys being here today. Kevin giselle’s Here. Denise, thank you. Thank you all you guys that are that are here. Any questions before we wrap up? Anybody if you want to take yourself off mute anything? Anna says, thank you everyone for great tips and tricks and advice. So glad I was able to make it. We appreciate that, Anna. We appreciate you being here. I know you had a busy day. So alright, guys, the replay will be on B2BTAIL, probably up by Monday, if connect with Meaghan, connect with Sami Jo, connect with Damon, connect with myself. Send you guys tons of love. Happy Thursday, happy Friday. Eve. Have a wonderful, amazing rest your week. Crush it. Meaghan, thank you. Sami Jo, thank you. Damon, thank you guys. Have an awesome rest your week. See ya.