Manufacturing eCommerce Success – with Gabé Leal

Damon Pistulka  00:06

Hello everyone, welcome to the manufacturing ecommerce success series. I am your co host Damon Pistulka. And with me today, brother from another mother, Kurt Anderson. Well, most of you know today that we were going to have Gabe on here. Well, yeah, I gotta go that way. Don’t I was doing like this now I’m going that exact opposite way. Well, thanks everyone for being here today. We were going to have Gabe on here and something came up. And he may still be able to join us But Kurt and I decided we were going to come on go live anyway. And Dan. Yes, we were two minutes late. Kurt. How are you doing today? You took out you took time away from the beach. I can tell you been getting good sun.

Curt Anderson  00:50

Dude, I’m not You’re glowing? Yeah, no, I’m like pink, you know. So guys, happy Good Friday, Damon, it’s awesome to see you, my friend. It’s always wonderful to be on the program with you. So Happy Friday to everybody. Great, wonderful weekend, whatever you’re celebrating. And so this is great to be here. And we apologize. We had the LinkedIn live stream expert today. And gay Brandon some challenges. So we’re hoping that he did join us today. But we’re gonna dig into let’s talk a little bit about LinkedIn live here, Damon for a couple minutes. And so guys, if you’re not familiar with this handsome guy over here, so this is Damon Pistulka. Damon is the co founder of exit your way growth exit strategy specialists. And Damon, you’ve really stepped up your LinkedIn Game Over the past several years. I know you were LinkedIn social media. Skeptic last week, you had an amazing program with Kelly Berry. And you were talking about she has a fantastic program about digital marketing for skeptics. That was us several years ago. So let’s get into your journey. Why did you decide to really You didn’t double down you quadruple down on LinkedIn. And as you were building a great healthy audience, you become in my humble opinion, an influencer nice and LinkedIn influencer, but just share about like, what inspired you to go this direction? And what does LinkedIn done for you and your business?

Damon Pistulka  02:11

Well, first of all, I refute read me and I’ll refuse to be called an influencer, because I don’t, I’m just me. And that’s just the way it is. We all know that we all know that. There’s got to be a better word. Because whenever I see,

Curt Anderson  02:27

I have one I have. Okay. Damon, you’re not an influencer, though. I think you are. I’m gonna say that you are LinkedIn positive influence.

Damon Pistulka  02:35

How’s that? There we go. There we go. If I can make that I’m happy.

Curt Anderson  02:40

Drop the mic there. Right. You are LinkedIn positive influence, in my humble opinion? Yeah. Yeah. All right. All right. So let’s talk about your LinkedIn journey. And just share a little bit about how you got in LinkedIn, why do you double down you’ve built a really phenomenal audience, and you deliver value on a daily basis. Let’s, let’s go there, brother.

Damon Pistulka  03:02

Well, I got into it by accident. There was no no big, big thought around it. I saw people going live, you know, it was in 2019, somebody talked to me about, hey, you should do videos, and I said, Look at me. I don’t want to be on video. Nobody wants to talk to me. And they said, No, really, you know, you’ve you, you’ve been around a bit, obviously got some mileage. And, and they were like, they were like, you know, you you’ve done a lot of things in business. And there’s just you talk about stuff that you’ve done, or the situations you’ve been in, and people like to hear that and learn from it. And somebody’s actually not trying to sell me but they said you know, you should put together these courses or whatever and do that. I was like, No way No, how, but I did, I did start doing video when when the pandemic really hit. I sat down one day with with my partner and are in our business and we were like, you know, we we’ve been in these situations in business where things really happen that are super tough, and we know how to help people and we just started having having conversation with people over zoom and then then I applied for LinkedIn live. Got it on our company page. I don’t know why they gave it to us on our company page, but wouldn’t give it to me until I had a lot of that’s when he you had to apply and we’re still gonna get around it. And then we started doing live streams with our own company stuff and and then I had the crazy idea to start the faces of business. Which is is is really where we had a lot of fun with it. And then you and I which is the exciting part in this. We started doing it but then it’s like you know you and I it’s like mutton Jeff you know we’d like you said before we’re those guys on the Muppets that they see. But enough about me because Gabe got in here. We’re putting Gabe online right now. So he’s down there. He’s down there smile and we’re talking about but first Kurt What are your plans for the weekend because you are in sunny Florida getting some sun. What’s happening in

Curt Anderson  05:11

sunny Florida, you know heading back home to the family little Easter weekend. Gotta get my dog you know how I am with my dog? So what are you doing for Easter May?

Damon Pistulka  05:22

You know we have a tradition out here on Easter weekend we spend time with family and we’re actually going to go up this is a time when the snow geese are migrating through our area. And it’s amazing when you see 10s of 1000s of snow geese going around and have a few beers. So So you do on Easter Sunday. I know it’s a lot different than others, but that’s what we’re gonna do. So Gabe got in here games ready to go, Kurt? Let’s bring him in and let’s get rolling.

Gabe Leal  05:50

10 Bigger? How are we doing?

Damon Pistulka  05:53

Great game. Yes.

Curt Anderson  05:58

My friend. How are you?

Gabe Leal  06:01

Wonderful. Phil well, it feels like ages since I’ve done one of the many things I’ve done. It feels like ages since I’ve done it. So you know one of the cool things about live streaming, it’s almost like riding a bike. You know, once you’ve done it a few times. Even if you take a break you might you hop on the muscle reflexes are there everything’s still there to kind of continue to you know, do get here start talking and being in front of a camera. So you know, those are the things that are pretty natural once you’ve kind of got a handle on being able to do a live stream it’s it’s it’s a fun experience and it only gets better with what like what you guys do with practice. You know, I’m pretty sure that you guys have seen how you’ve progressed from

Curt Anderson  07:02

this great game so guys, I just want to give a quick intro not that you really need an introduction, but we yeah, we have Gabe Leal the real deal. How do I did Damon did you lie not and I gave

Damon Pistulka  07:16

him you’re thrown into wrestling references.

Curt Anderson  07:19

Sure you hear that all the time. But this is Gabe you are Yeah, just so generous. so sincere. Just such a rockstar with your with your content, your generosity, supporting the LinkedIn live stream community. Guys, please connect your game on LinkedIn and get a couple of things. I’m gonna I’m gonna start with Damon. You know, I was like doing this. You go on games profile and you go down to the bottom you check out those little testimonials, you know, who gave him a raving testimonial, our dear friend Charlene Brown, United program we had around twice in the past month. And she says gate is a tremendous wealth of information, quote, game changer, totally game was a game changer for her. Numerous people are talking about you being so generous giving expert and LinkedIn live. Just let’s hear a little bit about Gabe, I know you’re not a sky, but share a little bit about your background and how you went this direction with your career?

Gabe Leal  08:15

Well, you know, I’m gonna tell you right now, guys, this is the, for me, this is what it’s been all about from pretty much the beginning. And starting with wanting to share and create a platform. It just happen to be here on LinkedIn, but to create a platform that talks about people that can be open and creative. And that’s where like the genesis of where my first idea was to actually come on a live stream and kind of put things together. And I really think, oh, gosh, I think part of it has kind of evolved kind of like what we do as creators, we start seeing the PATH WARM, we start changing, you know, things, nothing ever goes in a straight line. It’s always zig zag, zig zag and how you start out and where you are at now. I mean, it’s just part of the curve, and where you’re going and figuring out hey, this path and I’m blazing here and walking, it’s still winding and it’s still you know, there’s still parts that are that are brush that are still haven’t been treaded on yet, but you’re gonna get there. I think that’s where, for me, as a creator, when I first started doing this, this is where I’ve seen myself kind of come to and I think the big part of me wanting to share other people doing it is because in a way, it’s it is sort of selfish, because I, you know, I learned from other people. So the more people that you’re able to watch the more people you’re able to see the more people that you’re able to kind of go, oh man, I love what this individual does, or that’s a really great idea or just watching these sometimes or listening to some of these events. You, you sparks, another level of creativity. And that’s what I’m really what I really love to talk about what what’s really important to me is to get people to understand, hey, you can, I’m a normal guy, I wake up every morning, I put one pan in the same way, the other, she does everything else, everything else everybody else does. It’s just the fact that, that what I get to do, and what I hope other people get to do is know, understand and learn, you know, they have the same abilities, the same opportunities to get up and do something like this. If that’s what your calling is out of life, if that if that is what you feel, is really sparking you, then I think that’s where you need to kind of approach coming into a platform here like LinkedIn, and becoming a content not just on LinkedIn, but on any platform really, is to become, how to become a creator and share what you know, what your powerful knowledge is, and what you share differently. Apart from everybody else, you know, I’ve been blessed and lucky to, like, know and get to meet people like Damon who I’ve known for a while because of live streaming and getting the seen the evolution of what this is becoming here. It’s becoming something so really powerful that people are really understanding now that it’s become a part of their, their creation, their content, strategy, their business strategies. Now it apart from just being coming on camera, and talking. You know, I think, really, we do have the pandemic to think for a lot of this expedited technology, these, you know, these features and all the cool things that were able to do, because of people wanting to say, oh, man, this is they saw opportunity. And they took the they took the jump at it. And that’s what really, that’s what this is all about is saying, Hey, guys, you don’t need me being able to share, it’s just, you know, is it’s just another part of me extending of what I’ve always done as a person in real life. I try to do that here for other people here in the community. And I’d love that, like LinkedIn now has the ability. I mean, this is what we push for. This was the whole idea behind the calendar. Now you guys have an Events tab on your profile. I don’t know if you’ve checked it out yet. But if you go to your profile, now, you have an Events tab. Guess what, now we’re finding discoverability is going to be a lot easier. This is what we’ve been pushing for for years, as a live stream creator, from where I started on this platform to where I see it now. I’m cheering because this is big stuff for us. Because this is not how I had to start doing things. When I started on this platform, I had actually had to create a post I hadn’t posted every day I had to tag people, I had to do all of these things, just for people to come in and watch and see what I was about. And I think this is now again, the technology the ability that what what people are actually looking for. This is it this is this is where we’re getting to here on LinkedIn. And I think this is where a lot of people who come here searching for more than just an opportunity to have a find employment are finding other ways to kind of now. And people have built businesses off of this platform. They started their brands, they’ve started all these other things. So you know, there’s just so there’s just so much that I think a lot of people are now starting to see that are again, it’s to me, it’s wonderful. And I love that I’ve gotten to be a part of this so far and still excited to see where it’s still left to kind of go.

Curt Anderson  13:57

That’s awesome, Gabe. So a couple of shout outs everybody here on this wonderful, Good Friday, we got Josh house, Dan Biggers at his daughter’s volleyball game Bible. We’ll give them a little Yeah. With us. We’ve got Adam, we’ve got

Damon Pistulka  14:12

diadems here. Oh, this is Don’s in Alaska. He said the Alaskan internet is having trouble today. Oh, listen, but last night,

Gabe Leal  14:21

sorry. Yeah.

Curt Anderson  14:22

So let’s go here. So again, guys connect with Gabe on LinkedIn. And you are the Pioneer founder, hashtag LinkedIn live streams. Yeah. For your game. I know you have a b2b industrial background. Why LinkedIn? You could be on Facebook, you could get on other platforms. What really what inspired you to really double down on LinkedIn?

Gabe Leal  14:42

Because I saw that there was a big opportunity here. You know, I multistream to all the other platforms, you name that Facebook. I’ve been there, YouTube been there. Twitch, I’ve been there. You Twitter, you name it. I’ve streamed I’ve gone there, and I’ve done live streams that have been a part of it. What I found was different though, is here on LinkedIn, the ability to kind of build, build not only a network, but build relationships has been a lot easier for me. And I think that’s for what I see for a lot of people who come here on the platform. I mean, I’m starting to see other creators migrate here from other places. And, you know, that’s for them the part of it, because number one, above all, we are still here in 2022, when we find I’m not, I’m not breaking news here. But we are still a networking platform. Right. So that is the main idea that a lot of people come here, apart from, you know, being a recruiter, being a sales manager being some, you know, part of those lines there. So people will come here now, knowing that LinkedIn is a really great place to start building connections and start finding people. But again, if you’re in the sales industry, and you’re looking for clients, or like minded people, or people that you know that corporate entities that are going to match what you’re trying to look for, as a serve as a provider, what better place, I mean, you come here, and you can come find these people, you can only find these, you’re gonna find people that are not readily available on Facebook. Yeah, you know, you can go find a CEO of a company that you’re looking for, and almost have very direct access to him. Where else can you have the ability to do something like that where you know what I can reach out to this individual. And, you know, I might actually get a response back, not through a secretary not through a, again, through a secondary means of connectivity, you might be able to actually connect with that individual, because they might be coming on here talking about a product, or they might be talking about a service, or they might be on a live stream, and you get direct access to some of these individuals.

Damon Pistulka  17:04

Yeah, that is an amazing part about LinkedIn. And, and oftentimes, you know, we forget about that, you know, so somebody that could be your idol could be the person you really want to talk to they post something, you can comment on their posts. Where the heck are you going to ever get that? You know, it doesn’t matter. Just name somebody mean? Because just by commenting, and somebody told me this several years ago, they said, just by commenting, you’re going to become on somebody’s radar. And I, I saw a friend of mine a few years ago, he politely stalked Gary Vaynerchuk for I don’t know how long right? Making thoughtful comments thoughtful, this thoughtful that for months, Gary mentioned him in a video mentioned him how he always do it. It’s like, Who the heck how the heck, you know, never met him, never never went to an event where he was at nothing. But he was going I still remember the video, Gary was going from an airport and a car going somewhere someday. And he mentioned and said, Hey, this is really great idea, thanks for the input, whatever the heck it was. But, you know, you get direct access to whoever the heck you want.

Gabe Leal  18:16

And that’s where we’re at, for me, I saw, strategically a way to kind of build out to other creators here is to finding ways to direct access. And, you know, hey, again, hopping in here on a live stream while hopping here on a post and making comments and still being able to reach out to folks. I mean, again, this is what this platform I think does a little bit differently than some of the other platform platforms, I mean, you still have the ability to join them on other platforms. But this has it, where again, if somebody reaches out to you on Facebook, it’s people still see it more of a, that’s where I go from my personal stuff, or I keep my family photos, or I keep all these other things. So if this individual is reaching out to me, and trying to pitch me or whatever, for whatever reason, you know, it’s gonna seem a little bit more odd, where you’re on LinkedIn, where, hey, this is again, a business platform. We are a networking platform. So when reaches out to you, okay. Yeah, you know, what you might get a pitch in the in a DM, you know, it might be something that you’re, again interested in or before you might be just a smidge more open to it, or connecting to that individual because of it. And, you know, that’s part that I think that’s part of what the magic of this platform has to offer and why I think it’s continuing to grow every single year more and more people want more followers or more people joining the platform becoming active here. You know, and they see it now as a as a as a value. And I think that’s where, other than just coming here by using my resume or my CV and hoping to land a job, I mean, to me, this is where people come to look for open source. Branding, you know, people come here for hacking, they come here for that better than some of the other platforms, because they, again, a lot of pages, a lot of businesses here, a lot of branding companies, they have their business pages here, they have all the corporate stuff that they use here through LinkedIn. So that’s where I think it’s the advantage of a not only is this like a self becoming a social media platform, it still has the business aspect to what it is. And that’s why like, I keep telling people, a you’re getting out here, you’re creating your live streaming. And there’s an advantage to it, that I think you’re in don’t quite get on some of the other platforms. And that’s just my, in my humble opinion, and how I can connect here easily more easily with a lot of other people. Yeah,

Curt Anderson  21:06

Gabe, and you’re doing a phenomenal job in your company’s EMPro Media Group and your vision, video strategists and LinkedIn live live stream expert. And now you have let’s talk about few things that you have going on. So you do a TGIF I believe every Friday you’re doing a LinkedIn live yourself. So you’re not just talking to talk you’re walking the walk. And you also do let’s talk about your your daily LinkedIn guide man and I absolutely that’s awesome. Guide, it is so powerful. If anybody isn’t isn’t subscribed, I strongly encourage invite welcome you to subscribe to his LinkedIn live. Damon, go ahead, well

Damon Pistulka  21:43

then hit the bell too, because I was on your profile this morning. And I realized I hadn’t hit the bell on your profile doesn’t want to do that. You know, because your your livestream guide Dude, it is awesome. It is absolutely incredible. I can’t tell you how many times I go in there and just look at it just to go okay, what’s up today? Yeah. And, and, yeah, and the group itself.

Gabe Leal  22:06

I think that was that, you know, and a big part of that was because there was, again, I felt like there were things that were missing. Yeah. And I, you know, as a, as a live stream, not only is a live stream creator, but as a, as a consumer of live streams. I think that was a big one, as well as that I didn’t get, you know, I wasn’t fine, what I wanted to see on the platform. And that was where, like, the idea to kind of start putting all of these together in the first place. And, you know, I you know, that and I gotta say there’s, there’s been other people that have come along that journey and sort of helped me manicure this a little bit better. But even now, I mean, there’s, there’s, there’s, the guides got a finite point, because they’re, like I said, LinkedIn is now thank God, they’re starting to do this. But guys, if you start following a lot of events, now, if you wanted to go follow live streams, if you wanted to go find creators, you know, number one, you can now click there bill follows. See what they do is somebody that interest you in in it, they’re going live all the time, like you guys do on the regular. I mean, now you guys can subscribe to your events. I mean, you can click the attend button in your events, and then you profile. And I don’t know if this is available yet. I’ve actually been out of the loop for about a week. So I’m just telling the truth. But you know, there’s been a few updates like that now. So when you go to your profile page, I believe that when you go to your LinkedIn page and look at your profile here, you can now find, again, all the events that you I think have subscribed to so like I’m gonna show on my phone so

Damon Pistulka  24:02

people can see. Check it out here. Yeah.

Gabe Leal  24:05

So as you can see, there’s the pages that I manage. And then if you go to you see groups now that are part of where you do so I don’t know if this is mobile. And if you click the events now we have it. But yeah, now it has all your live stream anything that you’ve it’s almost they’ve taken the concept of what I’ve been doing with the guy. Yeah, and making it more widespread, which is what I wanted in the first place. Because yeah, I think as creators, that was a big part of it is it people wanted to find discoverability so now instead of them just having to come follow me and now it is a LinkedIn wide thing. That when you start falling in particular sector people or individuals or live streamers or audio events, or whatever it is if you want to go fine. Now you have access to it and that’s the most wonderful part about it now, yeah, is it people now going to be able to say, I’ve created an event. XYZ individual attended my event. Now when they go to their events page, boom, here it is, I can go see all the events that I want to go attend. And all the ones that I’ve kind of manicured. So that and that’s, that’s the wonderful part about it is not only that now you can have all your groups in one play. So they’re trying to streamline this process to make it a lot better. I think that’s where it’s, it’s gonna become advantageous for us as creators here on the platform, is it now, I don’t have to struggle as much. Now there’s still a few latest kind of few things that but but it’s again, it’s maturing into a really a really useful social media platform, that we still have the ability to, again, to do all the wonderful things that I’ve mentioned earlier when making business connections and networking and finding things that are that are, again, more app more openly accepted, because that is what this platform is built upon. This is what this platform is still all about.

Curt Anderson  26:09

Yeah, this is awesome. And so as a pioneer, you know what I remember we were kids back in the 70s. Remember, you get the TV Guide, and during the week I’m circling what cartoons.

Damon Pistulka  26:24

Yeah, exactly.

Curt Anderson  26:28

They can’t relate to that whatsoever, because they can watch anything they wanted anytime. But when they were kids, we had our TV. Scooby Doo or whatever.

Gabe Leal  26:38

That’s how you planned out. That’s how you planned out your evenings and

Damon Pistulka  26:43

Tuesday night, you know what you’re watching on TV.

Curt Anderson  26:46

So to give let’s go there. So again, if for folks that are that are, this is new to them, they’re not familiar, you know, getting what Gabe has done. Gabe is a pioneer, you really lead the charge, you are a champion. So generous. So giving that up supporting the LinkedIn live stream community. What he’s done is he’s created this extremely robust daily guide and just for us older guys, it’s just like, useless now and I’m telling you like Damon does as many of you know, Damon does his face as a business. As I mentioned, Gabe does as TGIF. There’s all sorts of amazing folks are,

Damon Pistulka  27:23

you got so many, so many great.

Curt Anderson  27:26

You can we could be here all day. It’s just awesome. As you’re driving the ship here, gate, and you’re really leading the charges of pulling together this community, what inspired you to like, Hey, I’m gonna be the guy that leads the torch and like, what was your inspiration there to get this thing going?

Gabe Leal  27:42

I think a big part of it was, when I saw I took a bit of a social media break. And I had to sit there and think about like, where, what I wanted to do and what I wanted to see here. When I decided to come back, and when I did, I wanted to see a lot more openness, a lot more people being able to find individuals and collaborate with like minded people who are, you know, part of their industries or part of their sex and part of so so when I started, like wanting to put all this together. For me, it started out as just hey, I want to see more live streams. And then from me, because I again, I’m a big proponent, I’ve been doing it for a long time, I wanted to see more people like that, then it kind of matured a little bit more into saying, Oh man, I not only do I want to see life in I want to start seeing people collaborate, I want to see people who are this individuals part of this thing. And they might know about not this individual, but see if they can connect. And so that’s part of where the idea of wanting to build out a bigger community. And not only that offer, what I like to say as a little bit of support for individuals who want to get started, you know, some of this has been a long time being more established. But you know, there was at a point when I started where I was just an unknown commodity. I wasn’t I didn’t know nobody knows me is LinkedIn live streaming expert didn’t know nobody know anything about that. But it took individuals who came along for that particular part of my life journey that would come along and help support me. And I think that’s where I really said, You know what, that’s the power of what community really does. It provides an avenue for people to support. So that’s what I wanted to do, because I don’t want to be creators who come here, who may not have had the bigger following, but could connect with people that did. They were part of another community in bringing him here and said, You know what? Then you start coming here and you show me up and you’ve been active and supporting this community. It’s gonna, again, it’s gonna, it’s going to supply you back with more people and more individuals wanting, wanting to come and support what you do. And that’s really what a lot of that was about was saying, hey, let’s give these individuals, because here’s the thing, if you start doing it, and this is just human nature, you start doing something, and maybe you don’t see the results, you you know, that self doubt kicks in. Like, man, should I continue to do this? I’m not getting people showing up. I’m not what you know, for whatever the reason, right? Yeah. And so what I wanted to do was just have a way to say, Hey, we got you don’t worry about it, you come here, be supportive. And you know, we’ll give you that little bit of boost to continue to go. Because here’s the thing, when you start that journey, again, you progress as a creator. And what you might have to add at the beginning may not be what you have to add in the middle, or where are you present now, and it adds so much more value. I mean, the daemon two years ago, is not the daemon now of what it is and what you started doing. Correct. And what you guys have done, it’s totally different. Right? But when you start, you’re like, Man, this feels uncomfortable. This feels weird. This fills other things I’m like, But you know what? That’s that’s, that’s the big part about it is you get past that. You start finding all these, I mean, guys, even if you were to quit tomorrow, let’s say cold turkey, done. How many experiences are you going to take away from the interviews, good thing, the things you learn from other people, all the stuff that you’re going to be, you’re going to have things that are going to carry on beyond just you doing this? Yeah. And that’s the remains where I want other people to discover that is it somewhere down the road, even if you’ve done 10 episodes, right. And you were to stop, Tim, you know, that’s something down the road. And, hey, a year from now, hey, I did a live stream where I was doing a podcast, and I got to interview 10 people, and then they had this, they’re just something you can always keep with you. And the best for me, where I want to keep people, at least down that track to see I mean, if you get to a point where it’s like, I really can’t do this, okay, good, you put in the time and effort. But if you don’t, at least at least give yourself that, that one chance that shot to do this, you never know where it’s actually going to lead to. So if I didn’t give it up two episodes in and said, this conversation never would have manifested nothing would have ever would have met, I never would have known who you guys are, I never would have had a chance to meet so many wonderful people. And that’s for me, where I want people to kind of continue that, you know, that journey that gets started. And that’s why this community and why I wanted people to be a part of it will be would be a great way to be just supportive. And that’s I think that’s when somebody encourages you, when somebody joins one of your stream didn’t want it’s flooded when you get like one or two comments. At least you feel like man I had, you know, that wasn’t an uncle or an aunt or brother.

33:09

family member, you know, mom’s your mom is here.

Gabe Leal  33:15

You know, apart from that, you get somebody that just shows up and starts mentioning or arms coming and start being active and what seeing what you do. I mean, to me that that’s where that’s where the magic lies, when you find that, and that’s where there’s so many, again, great people out there that you don’t know, what they might do, how they might interact with, I mean, even how you guys met. I mean, there’s so many things that did that just happen if you don’t continue that journey, but you can’t start. And that’s why I just tell people, Hey, can’t start and you don’t have to look professional, you don’t have to look for you don’t have to look any of these things. You just got to get started. And if it comes to that point where you’re like, Okay, I’m ready, I want to mature I want to develop what I do as a creator, okay? I mean, look into investing in microphones and doing all the other fancy shit, you don’t need it. You just really need to start with a really clear cut message about what you want to talk about. I think that’s probably you know, then at that point, you get a strategy behind it. But let’s talk about something that you guys are going to be passionate about right? I mean, that’s I think that’s what you guys again, you you find people that are in your in b2b and manufacturing and all these other places and things that you know, you could probably talk about, you know, ad nauseam a wonderful part about it, brother.

Damon Pistulka  34:45

Oh my god my brother’s on Oh my goodness. That’s hilarious.

Gabe Leal  34:57

Hello, Craig. And that’s the fun part about all of this. that, you know, you get to you get to set the precedent of what you are going to find interesting or what you want to talk about and I promise you, you start doing that. Guess why that’s the way this world works is probably other people that are probably just as interested in want to talk about it and voice their their own thoughts and opinions or ask questions because out of curiosity, so I, you know, you don’t ever stop with with just thinking to yourself, Man, I I don’t know if anybody would find the stuff that comes in my head and rattles in my mind. Interesting. That is, that’s not the case, you never know what you’re going to know. Unless you just put it out there and find out that they’re, you know, they’re in there like minded individuals that you may or may not be in that 100 mile radius that you’re at, and guess what they might be in 1000 2000 10,000 100,000 mile radius of where you are, and they’re going to find you. And what you say what you talk about the things that you share are going to resonate with a particular sector of individuals. And that’s what you want, you don’t have to please the whole world. You don’t have to be you know, you don’t have to be here to be you don’t have to be Joe Rogan, you don’t have to be all these individuals that have these huge, massive followings. I think those are people that have, again, a different mindset of how they want to do this, but can be just as an individual to start out. That’s for me were like, as a solo creator, you can you can pretty much make your own community, make your own world make your own sort of network here. And if you continue, and you’re being consistent with it, I think that’s where you’ll find the, the magic key that everybody talks about, like what is the key to success? What is the one thing you know, like just, again, have an idea what you want to talk about, and be consistent with it every single time you do that, you’re going to you’re going to find traction, you’re going to find people, you’re going to find individuals, that again, your message goes and connects directly with them in a way that nobody else has to go. So that’s why, you know, what we do here guys is important. Everybody that does these, these live streams and everybody that does a even a video or people that create written content. That’s why it’s so important because I might be able to say one thing 100 times and never connect with the right with that one person listening. But Dania can come along and say one time and whatever it is that what the way he says it or the way that he manifested that person reaches them to the court. And that’s the magic. It’s not so much you know, that he did anything. Super special is just that he was meant to kind of be that person to say that connects with that one individual soul that I can’t. And that’s why I said enough for people doing us out here. That’s how all these networks and connections and everything else. That’s how it builds that probably relationship for so long.

Curt Anderson  38:28

Man so oh my goodness that was

Damon Pistulka  38:31

and I do I do have to backup and Knack flowers laughing so hard. Because if people knew how many messages I sent to Gabe over the years going, Hey, how does this work? How does that work?

38:42

How does this work? Hey, what’s this? Do? They would just puke?

Damon Pistulka  38:47

Thanks so much for for not not just going Hey, get away from me.

Gabe Leal  38:52

Because? Well, I think that’s that, you know, I gotta say, it all starts it all starts with the with the gesture of just paying it forward to somebody. Because for me to get a acquire all this knowledge, what do you think I got it, I got it from somebody else. I just didn’t start when they go. I got it. I’m the creator. I know how to do all these things. It was other people, again, given me even five minutes, or given me the ample time to ask questions that I need to ask. And for me to learn and say wow, I’ve acquired now another skill set another piece of knowledge something else that I’m going to be able to pay it forward to another individual always talked about this and I will always talk about this. It’s the circle of reciprocity of you being able to give it back at some point so be open to it when somebody when there’s another individual that says hey, man, I love what you guys do. How did you get started? Okay, go.

Damon Pistulka  39:46

I love helping people do that. Do you got

Gabe Leal  39:48

five minutes? You got to get out? How long do you need? Right? I mean, just being generous with. I think being generous with your time outweighs the bad You’re saying here, I can give you a $200 course, to do this, but it’s still might not be as helpful as you saying, giving them a little bit of instruction or giving the, again acquired knowledge or advice somebody might see, you know, of course, might be, might be perfectly what they need, or they just might need, you know, something that you might be able to tell them that, hey, I would shy away from, okay, well, why? And then you tell them why or whatever, you know, just little things like that, that you’re not going to be able to take from a one hour straight video course. I mean, there’s something about the personal side of being able to talk with somebody and helping them out and then without one of my mentors, but again, he’s not here, but restaurants if he doesn’t take, oh, yeah, if he doesn’t take two hours with me. I don’t think I’m doing this. I really don’t. It took you know, it took can somebody’s kindness and generosity, to talk with an individual who was just curious, to ours to kind of give them some ideas, help them walk through their strategy and everything else. And without it. I’m here, and I’ve been able to pass the floor to other people. And that’s what it’s still all about. For me. Yeah.

Damon Pistulka  41:20

Ross is a legend. Yeah.

Curt Anderson  41:22

Ross is awesome. And gave us to this man. I know we could go on and on. I just, it’s so great. mindful of your time. I know you’re super busy, super generous to share your expertise, your knowledge, your passion, your truth with us today. So I want to unpack a couple of things. Just to kind of recap for you. First off, we have Gabe here video strategist, LinkedIn live expert, his firm is m pro Media Group, please reach out to Gabe on LinkedIn follow. You want to sign up for his newsletter, his daily life. 100% do it. Yeah. And you talked about consistency, putting in the reps not giving up. You know what I absolutely love Daymond. I preach almost every week niche what I love what you’ve done gave us like you really niche down, and you’re pioneering the way you’re the Go Giver, you’re shining a bright light on all these other LinkedIn lives, we’ve benefited tremendously from your generosity. We’re deeply in debt and grateful for you and what you do share a little bit before we wind up your superpowers on how you help your clients. If somebody is out there, like hey, man, I’m raising my hand, I could use some games, superpowers, his expertise, how obviously they can connect with you on LinkedIn, but kind of walk walk us through that process? How do you help your clients to really shine on their LinkedIn live in video programs?

Gabe Leal  42:44

You know, number one, though, is and this goes back to just anything beyond dealing with a client, but like, when somebody reaches out and is even curious about putting together a live show and everything else. You know, the first thing you got to ask is why? Why do you want to do this? I think you you find the genesis of your why. And everything else can start being developed? If it is I am doing this for money reasons, okay, then you have to probably take a different strategy. If you’re saying, Oh, I’m just trying to build relationships, okay, there’s probably a different avenue, we can go to approach that. So understanding number one, the Y factor, why you do something with somebody that also helps you as a producer something, whether or not you’re gonna mesh well with this person. I mean, it’s not just all about taking on clients. But it’s also how are you going to work well, with that individual or this corporation that might want to hire you to help them is like, it mean, you somebody we’re trying to reach out to you guys today? I’m just using it as an example. Right? And they do they know nothing about manufacturing, they know nothing about what b2b is, or where, you know, just anything, right? They’re more in the space of being an artist. I mean, how do you take that and say, well, that’s really not my forte. So I think understanding the why and saying okay, I know what it is you want to do. I think we will a be a good fit or not, and we too, maybe I can help you. Fine, find the individual that you need that will probably work better with what you’re trying to do. overall objective wise. And that’s why like when you that the biggest The first thing you got to ask anybody else, right? And then set it and then secondly, once you get to that point of that good, okay, understand your why. Now, the next thing is, okay, let’s find out what your expectations are. If again, because here’s the thing about live streaming, and when I talked about video print I can live streaming. It’s a long game, folks. If you’re expecting instant turnaround, you’re not going to be satisfied, you’re probably going to again, that’s why I say I understand your why number one, and then I got to understand what your expectations are. Because it is not something that’s going to be easily turned over. Unless you just have a celebrity backing behind you, which I don’t know many of us do. You know, you’re not going to find that magic right off the bat, it’s going to take time, you have to build traction. So that’s why understanding what your expectations are, hey, I’m looking for this many people, this many followers, this many, all this other stuff. Whoa, I don’t know if that’s just what I’m going to be able to help you with. Because you’re going to need other instruments apart from live streaming, they’re going to help you do it, you’re probably going to need a social media strategist, you’re going to probably need, you know, a branding company that’s going to help, you’re going to have to have all these other things in place. So that understanding what your expectations are. I think that’s the next part about it. And I think once you start getting to that point, then you can get down to the nuts and bolts of now let’s get your show strategy down. Let’s let’s get down on what you are going to be able to talk about better than anybody else. And that’s where once you have, again, the why the expectations and now you know what you’re going to be doing with your, with your content, I think then you’re really ready to explode and approach on how to do a show. Because then you have everything that I think everything there’s already pre open and transparent, everything’s clear cut, you have a really great understanding of how we can approach every single session that we do every single live stream and create what we can deal with the content halfway, those are all things that have to play into the idea behind it, I think, you know, the, the magic in being able to do this is understanding those things, that’s it’s pretty simple. You know, you could probably write them down on a sheet of paper. And they’re always, they’ve always been here since childhood, since we’ve been taught them. And that’s the five W’s right, the who, what, where, when, and why you understand all of those things, if you can write those down very clearly on a sheet of paper. And, and kind of then express them to somebody that you want to work with, you’re going to have a really good relationship, you’re probably going to be pretty successful at what you want to do as a creator, and what you want to put out content wise. And I think that’s the magic of me being able to what I do as a creator, is I figure out whether or not this individual is going to work with me well, or not. And then at that point, being honest about it, and finding the person that can that’s the wonderful thing about having a big wide network of other creators who are producers or other people that do this, because you don’t want, I’m not the only one that does this. But I know the right individual, that probably will be able to work with you, because they’re gonna understand your what you want to do your mindset, your expectations, better than I can. And, you know, I think that’s if you understand that, again, you’re not, you’re not going to run it to, you’re not going to run into this five episodes into what you’re already started creating, man, we just have creative differences, this is not going to work, where the frustration sets in, because it’s not what you want. So I think you have you have to be very quick cut about what your expectations are from your client and in what you know, what your expectations are, for yourself as a producer, and in saying this is what I do. This is exactly my methodology of how it works. And that’s why I said, your your all of us can you know that all of us have the ability to go out here and create. But when you get to the point of where you now want to start adding second, third, fourth, individuals into kind of what you do and building out a team, then you have to start thinking more widely with your mindset of like, what you want out of everything that you do. And I think that’s where the process is, when you get to that point, guess what your process of creating content has matured and you are ready to really expand because there are things I’m going to tell you even as a one man team you have to start learning how to delegate, you’re just going you’re going to literally burn yourself out because yeah, there’s so much that goes into this. After a certain threshold, there’s a certain plateau that you reach where it’s like now, you know, in my just doing this as the longer hobby years is now a way to kind of, again, grow and develop a brand of business. You know, the the sort of thing so then it’s like anything, business you’d look at scaling. I always tell people always use this example like starting out a small anything. Pretty simple setup, Booth, cardboard, laminate. But then you start getting getting people start showing up, then you have to say, hey man applaud eliminated a now what do you have to do, then you have to start making more, you have to start finding ways to produce more, batch more, build out more, and then the whole process starts. So it can all start out very simplistic. But you also, again, there’s a point where it gets to scaling, where all of a sudden, now I got to set up two tables, because I got more people showing up every year. I gotta get somebody else to help me to service all these people, I kind of want to fight 1020 People now wanting to eliminate, the longer they wait, the more they’re probably going to be able to walk away. So that’s how all this stuff is same concept. What we do here It scales, it starts out as you would you’re here are lemonade stand, we’ve done live streams, we’ve done shows, and now all of a sudden, people starts finding again, very interesting, like, how do I get on your show? How do I do what you do? And all of a sudden, Hey, did you do it for other people? And then that’s the question of when you get it to that point of like, okay, now it’s time to start looking at the other avenues. So I think for me, my again, real quickly how what my superpower is, is just knowing and understanding myself very well as a creator and as a producer. And I think knowing that helps me be able to help and service other people. I get a lot better. So yeah. Awesome.

Damon Pistulka  51:38

Thanks. Oh, so that was just Yeah,

Curt Anderson  51:42

absolutely phenomenal. And again, for anybody out there combination things, if you’re looking to do LinkedIn live for the first time is, you know, could be a little intimidating, a little overwhelming. It’s wonderful. Having an expert like Gabe, like Damon just said, you know, gave us his go to for expert advice on how to get his multiple LinkedIn labs going. So again, follow link, follow Gabe on LinkedIn, sign up for his newsletter, I strongly encourage you to do that. And for multiple reasons. Number one, to follow all the incredible LinkedIn live content out there. Number two, this is an outstanding case study of generosity, building a community really being a pioneer being a champion, a leader, a go giver. And Gabe, you’re I know you’re a super modest guy, you are all the above. We salute you for what you’re doing for the LinkedIn Live community again, follow his hashtag LinkedIn livestream. So good. I know you’re super busy. Thank you for taking your time to share your expertise with us. And this was just oh my god, you’re just a breath of fresh air.

Damon Pistulka  52:47

I know. It’s awesome.

Gabe Leal  52:49

I get to share man, anytime that I get to share. That’s the whole that’s that’s the whole deal about it, man.

Curt Anderson  52:56

We were blessed. Yeah, we were all blessed. Like just take all this and say what a great Good Friday. This was. Yeah. Well, why don’t we wrap up on that, guys. We wish everybody whatever holiday that you celebrate. Go out there. Have a wonderful, glorious weekend. Spend time with your family, your loved ones. Stay safe. Keep crushing it, get on LinkedIn live connect with Gabe, my brother from another mother. This guy over here. This guy over here, you gotta connect with so

Damon Pistulka  53:28

this is hard. Anything you get that? Brother? Wow. Yeah, that’s funny. And he would do that was awesome. But no, thanks so much for being here today gave I mean people that you do need to do to reach out to him and you are just an awesome example of go giver. You’re helping people and just I can’t recommend to follow you to LinkedIn livestream enough. And thanks so much for being here today. And thanks everyone else for being here. Appreciate y’all listening to us every week. And just being here. We’ll be back again next week. Have a great rest of your weekend.