Harnessing LinkedIn for Business Growth and the Power of Discipline

Lauren Krailo, founder of Krailo Socials, joins us to break down why LinkedIn is the most underutilized tool in B2B marketing—and how companies in commercial construction and beyond can turn connections into contracts. A self-proclaimed gym rat and business strategist, Lauren shares how discipline from fitness transfers into marketing success. We dig into how to boost your Social Selling Index (SSI), decode LinkedIn’s algorithm, test video lengths, and use AI to streamline content. Lauren also tackles common myths like “my industry isn’t on LinkedIn” and offers real strategies to turn passive profiles into powerful business drivers.

(0:00) Introduction to the episode

(0:19) Reflections on podcast milestones and final question tradition

(2:26) Tim's running journey and health insights from Lauren

(4:39) The importance of psychology in business

(6:27) Overcoming challenges and motivation in business and fitness

(9:30) Transitioning skills from fitness to marketing

(10:35) Client retention, loss, and discipline in business

(12:21) The role of self-motivation and discipline in success

(14:29) Leveraging LinkedIn for B2B growth and networking

(18:14) LinkedIn algorithm trends and content balance

(20:53) Social selling index and LinkedIn page management

(26:23) Engaging with LinkedIn connections and using Elevate

(34:40) Perspectives on AI, content automation, and LinkedIn features

(41:17) Testing video lengths and analyzing content performance on LinkedIn

(49:05) LinkedIn analytics, key metrics, and external link strategies

(57:22) Transition to LinkedIn ads and messaging from business profiles

(1:00:28) Considering ads and Microsoft's impact on LinkedIn

(1:01:42) Local interests, military relocation, and settling in

(1:04:29) StartUp World Cup event and public speaking experiences

 

- Use AI as a resource for content creation but avoid depending on it entirely to maintain authenticity.

- Engaging with LinkedIn through live videos can significantly boost your social selling index and keep your audience engaged on the platform.

- Start with organic content to build a strong foundation and gather valuable data before investing in LinkedIn ads for better results.

 

https://www.krailosocials.com/

 

Innovate Hampton Roads is on a mission to foster the growth of Hampton Roads' innovation and technology ecosystem by educating entrepreneurs and business leaders, providing access to essential resources, and building connections that drive synergistic partnerships. We are committed to creating a supportive environment that empowers entrepreneurs, strengthens the regional economy, and fuels long-term prosperity. By growing, guiding, and connecting key players in the ecosystem—including investors, industry leaders, universities, corporate partners, and community organizations—we aim to build a more innovative and inclusive economy. It’s time to unify our efforts, amplify our collective voice, and streamline resources to benefit aspiring entrepreneurs, students, employees, and businesses throughout the region.

 

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Episode Transcript

(00:00):
I love the robots. I think they have such a good place in any business if you know how to use them right. When we're talking specifically about LinkedIn and creating content with ChatGPT and AI, Use it as a resource, but don't depend on it.

(00:01):
Hello, and welcome to another edition, your two hundred sixtieth edition. I never I'm on the shore like the show like that.
I know. I was thinking about that. I'm like, every week before we go live, I ask what number it is, and then we rarely do we even reference what number it is when we're talking. But
Well, I used to do this. We used I used to say that, like, that, like, paragraph.
Oh, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
I probably haven't done that in four years. But then my favorite part about that, and I know you'll love this too, is when people would say, like, well, what does Fervent for mean? And it's like, it literally used to be in the name.
There there there that is funny. There are a couple tells when we have people on the show that they have never watched it before. And it's, people even if they're not on the show. But their tell is when I'm talking to you and you have not watched the show is what does the what does the four mean? And then when we have a guest, they're like, oh, the final question.
The final question.
Yes.
Oh, that's when you did question. It was like, well, if you've watched an episode, you you know it's coming. So you've got however long to prepare this. Prepare your answer.
It's hard for someone to listen to an hour long piece of content.
I listened well, I well, I don't know. I I am not in that that category. As you know, we've talked about it so many times. I listened I run six miles a day. I listen at 1.5 speed.
That and so an hour an hour long, podcast or whatever, that's my weight loss.
Okay. You know, when we started the show, you were only running three miles a day. Now you're up to six. You doubled it. What the hell, man?
No. I've been running I've been running I averaged six for many for for my for as long as my streak has been going. Promise. I have I I can I'll I'll share the spreadsheet.
You have the receipts. Are you a spreadsheet of this nonsense? Lauren, this man who you have just met ten minutes ago has ran every single day for, like, eleven years, at least three miles.
I was listening to that. More power to you, Tim. I my shins would be on fire. What got you started running? Why?
Why? Yeah. Well, I the the very first thing was I went I had a annual check wellness checkup or whatever. And Mhmm. But, like, your triglycerides are high.
You know? You should probably start adding exercise to your daily routine. And my whole thing is, like, I am not gonna be on meds when I'm, like, 30 years old for the rest of my life. This that's just a nonstarter for me. So that really was what got everything started.
So now I'm 51, will be 52, And people think that it's crazy that, like, I don't even have a pharmacy, let alone being on any prescription, and I have no intention to to go down that road anytime soon.
What's a triglyceride? Is that like
I think it's Ultimately, it's, like, the amount of sugar in your blood. And then, like, that could be the pre the pre starter of diabetes.

(00:22):
Absolutely. It's all from our ultra processed foods, even stuff that you think is not super processed. There's this app. It's called Yuka. I use it.
It's y u k a. It's got a little carrot on it. I use it, and it will tell you the additives, the amount of sugars, and everything in food. I use it all the time when I go to the grocery store because there's a lot of things that are labeled like, oh, this is healthy, and it's rarely not. Or it's in, like, the orange where it's got a lot of preservatives, and it looks like it's healthy, but it's not.
Do you have a food thing? You have a food allergy?
Tim or me?
You.
No. I'm very into health and fitness, so that was actually where I thought my career journey would start. I was a cert certified personal trainer for a while. My whole degree is in exercise and sports science. So it's it's something I'm really passionate about.
I'm a gym rat at heart, and that's what I do when I'm not working. So
Interesting. So I don't I I don't have a business degree. My guess is you don't have one either now, Lauren, is what I'm hearing. I know Tim does. So Tim Tim would know this.
MBA, I believe, is what
it is. Do
they teach psychology in any of this stuff? Because to me, like, that could probably be the most important thing in business is understanding the psychology of people. And what I'm getting at with this, Lauren, to be thinking about is, like, the psychology of getting people fit. It's like people know they wanna be fit, but getting them to turn that you know, for Tim, it was the triglycerides. Right?
Like, what do you like, just just generally, what do you think is the psychology of that from a fitness perspective? Because then I wanna pump that over to the business side of it to get people like, what's the psycho like, the psychology to get people to, like, to hook them, to get them to start consuming, to watching, etcetera. Because I think that can be a a difficult task, and it's like, of course, people wanna be fit. But what do you do?
Typically, that oh shit moment. For lack of better term, somebody's gotta have that moment where your cholesterol is through the wazoo or you're prediabetic or you've got borderline osteoporosis. You're walking that line. It's different for everybody. Sometimes cancers.
I mean, you name it. But a lot of times, what I've seen is people have a little bit of a scare and or something dramatic happens, and they're like, I really gotta get my stuff together. I because there's some motivation to do it. And depending on how strong that scare is can depend on how committed somebody is. Not all the time, but very generally.
I agree. I mean, people aren't gonna change until the pain is painful so painful that it forces that change. And and that and that translate into business. I mean, just like we talk about all the time, like, this area here is is is pretty laid back and lax because we're super comfortable. We have all the the military and DOD spending.
We have all the tourism dollars. We have the ports, so there's no sense of urgency. So there's no pain for us to really change and explore new revenue streams. So we're just, like, rolling down easy street until something changes. So I can compare road of of the business side, Zach.
I compare it a lot to business. So I'm a big Joe Rogan fan. And so one of in one of his episodes, at one point, I was listening to it. And he put it in the perspective of when you are actively training and you're working out and you're pushing yourself to do something unbelievably difficult, You're going through a PR. You're trying to hit that last mile.
You are doing the sprints. Whatever the case may be, when you are pushing yourself through that and you successfully hit that PR, you successfully make it to that sixth mile, whatever the case may be, it translates into business very well because you are now mentally a little bit stronger, that you put yourself through those hard things every day. And so it's very easy to not very easy, but it's a lot easier to walk through business and challenges in that because you're already putting yourself through a lot of mentally and physically draining challenges.
Yeah. Doing hard things don't it just becomes a little bit easier every time you you can't do one rep and have big guns. You know?
Then it becomes Or to
some YouTube people you can't do.

(00:43):
Six minute abs.
Fake weights.
I mean, abs are made in the kitchen. That's what I've always heard. That's true. Okay. So did you ever go into that world?
Did you were you ever actual a trainer or any of that stuff?
I did. Yeah. Yeah. So when I was in college, I actually trained some of my professors, which was pretty interesting being a college student and then training professors at the university. So that was fun.
I beyond that, I really just I decided it wasn't for me as passionate as I was about it. It really took my love away from training, and it was harder to train myself. So when it was something that I personally really enjoyed going to the gym, it was more of a chore because at 6AM, I was in the gym writing workout plans. And then at 6PM, I was trying to train myself, and it just it took my love away real fast. So I I stopped that very quickly.
And somehow that evolved into your thing now?
Yep. Absolutely. I did a little a hybrid type thing. I worked for a nursing home for a while, so I used that expertise. And I do have a business minor, so I use those two things.
I worked at a nursing home as their activity director, and that was emotionally very, very taxing watching all of your friends pass away from illnesses that they could have prevented in their life or some of them they couldn't have prevented, but it was really emotionally draining thing. So I used that degree a little bit in there as well, and then I ended up going a complete different direction into marketing and everything.
It's all I don't all all of those things is tough in terms of, like I think it's probably easier from the business marketing side because if you're working with founders or business owners, whatever the case is, like, if if you don't do what needs to get done, you're not gonna get you're not gonna generate revenue. Whereas I think that dealing with clients in the gym, it's super easy. They lose motivation, and then they just fall off, and you don't hear from them again. That would be really, really tough. But that was always the hardest thing with business.
It's like, I can't want it more than you.
It's really disheartening when you think that somebody is they're telling you all the things that they've they're doing. They're excited. And then all of a sudden, one day, you just don't hear from them again, or they say they've decided to discontinue or they don't wanna train anymore. And the same thing happens in business. You always hear that people the ones that it separates the ones that make it versus the ones that don't is when you hit that really tough spot of you are in the negative or you can't pay people or whatever the case may be and you keep going.
That's what separates the successful ones from the ones that just say, I'm throwing my hands up in the air.
I think it's interesting too, like, when you lose a client to to not, I mean, not take it personal. Right? Like, it probably isn't about you. Might be about you. But, like, in in it's okay.
Right? And to still keep that relationship with that person, still be friendly with that person, still, you know, don't don't screw it up. Right? And so it's it's a learning experience. Like, why did you gain this client?
Why did you lose this client? Why are you keeping this client? Like, learning all of those things and being, like, actively, like, questioning all of those things. Like, why do I have this? Why don't I have that?
Right? And really looking in that mirror and saying, okay. Like, this is what it is. And I think if you're if you allow yourself to do that, like, you can you can really see more success. But I think a lot of people are afraid to look in that mirror, and I think a lot of people are afraid to to do that.
I don't know why. But
Well, I think that a lot of it comes down to like, to me, it's super easy. You listen to Rogan or you listen to
The Fervent four show.
The Fervent four show. But no. But, it's easy to get motivated. But then as soon as you turn off that podcast or whatever, then you lose that motivate motivation, and then it comes down to discipline. And so is and so the discipline is what you really gotta rely on.

(01:04):
And so, like, I know that that was really tough for me running the the first incubator that I ran. That was always, like, the kiss of death. It'd be like, one day would go by and the founder wouldn't show up and one would turn into two. And then, like, a week would go by, I'd be like, yep. They're about to churn.
They're they're they're throwing in the towel. They've lost the discipline to continue to make it work.
Yeah. I think my good friend David Gawkins
That's who I was trying to think of. But yeah.
Yeah. Yeah. I think he said something like, someone can't motivate you. Like, you have to motivate yourself. I don't know, you know, I don't know that I ever heard that before until he said it.
And
Yeah. I attribute, like, running in the summer here is super hard. I mean, it's hot. It's humid. It's just I mean, you lose many, many pounds and sweat.
Zach, you probably have the record, but it was like it was like listening to that where I was like, stop being a PAB and, like, gut it out.
People don't believe me when I say this, Lauren. Tim Tim did it until he saw it for real. I can lose, like, eight pounds an hour of sweat and be drinking.
I lost three pounds this morning.
This morning.
And it wasn't even really hot.
Yeah. It was, like, 60 this morning.
67. Yeah. It
was for you? Oh, 61 for me. Interesting.
Do you drink a lot of water, Zach?
Yeah. Like, one and a half gallons.
Yeah. There you go. You should just Why
like, why you gotta be so mean about it?
What a gallon's what? Five pounds?
Nine. That's crazy.

(01:25):
I used to be the one to carry around the gallon till I realized it wasn't that professional looking. Up until the last the last job I had, I had my gallon
a little bit more. All gym rats have to go down that road. Right? That's, like, part of the cycle to to earn their stripes.
Now I use the stupid Stanley, but they're really nice.
Yeah. With a scoop of something in it that doesn't really work, but they think it does. I get it. Or they have the new thing is these people drink these Celsius drinks all the time.
Oh, yeah. I gotta share a shout out to Chris Tillett, my my new You guys first YETI.
Your first YETI.
Yeah. I'm just late to the party.
You know, you get a Yeti cooler for, like, $600.
Dude, that's what I'm saying. I can't roll I can't do the People do. My pockets aren't that deep.
Allegedly, it stays cold for days. I don't know why you need that, but, you know, it's a thing. People do it. Good for them. Congratulations.
Okay. So you're a LinkedIn expert.
I am. My team is as well.
Of course. Mainly.
The the
team at Craylo. Mainly that.
The the team at Craylo. Tough tough name to spell. That'll that'll be the the quiz for everyone, the homework afterwards. Why why LinkedIn? Why is that the it's not a platform that I think most people think of first, you know, when they think of social network, region, business.
The go to platform in this region is 100% LinkedIn.
Oh,
okay. I based on my
Depends on your industry. So it it real it really depends on your industry. If you are in an industry where you're selling to consumers, so you're selling Yetis or Stanley cups and you're selling it directly to the person, you're more likely to be consumed in the social media world in Facebook and TikTok and Instagram. Whereas if you're in the business to business world and you're selling products and services to other companies, you're more likely gonna gravitate towards LinkedIn.
Yeah. I agree with that %. And I just always kinda shake my head a little bit when I do scroll through LinkedIn. I'm like, why are you spending so much time on LinkedIn? Like, this clearly is not your audience or demographic that you need to be going or platform that you should be on for this.

(01:46):
But I want an example. Give me an example of that. Like I
can't without I don't know how to without giving giving it away.
What you can't tell me, like, what they sell or, like, a like,
a product probably give
away. Maybe he's even saying it like this. Like, these people who post online so much, and it's not even just the posting. It's the commenting, and you're like, you see it, and you're just like, okay. Like, I understand it.
Well, back to the first thing we said, sometimes you have time or money, but you it's unlikely you have both. So if you see someone who has a lot of time and they're commenting and commenting and commenting, it's like, okay.
I I I I wondered that. I'm like, do you have, like, three monitors set up, and one of those monitors is just dedicated purely to LinkedIn? Because it's like, how do you spend that much time? Like, I'll pop on once or twice a day at best.
Can I get the I think there's scheduling
content? The Internet, they will Yeah.
You could be scheduling content. But if it's comments, it's probably somebody else on their behalf more than likely. I mean, it depends on I don't think
so with some of these people. I don't think so with some of people.
It's totally out town.
I do think there's the same aspect with networking. Mhmm. Right? Where you see the same amount of people at network events over and over and over again. And maybe I even told you this, but it's like, at some point, someone's gonna question and be like, how do I see you at all these events and you're an expert in this space and have clients?
It doesn't make sense.
Yeah.
Right? So, like, I think you have to politician networking and, you know, just go in ten minutes, shake a hand, kiss a baby, deuces. I think that's a skill. It's very difficult to do because you feel like you're there, you know, get it done. But it's like also, you don't wanna be seen so much.
And if you're the person that's seen and I know you guys all know who these people are. It's the same people just passing out a card every single like, that is not a good look. And I don't think I think they think, oh, well, I'm getting my name out there. It's like but I think you're doing harm to your name because then people are like, wow. Are you getting any of this work done?
Lauren, I have a question.
Yeah.
What's the what's the what is the latest and greatest in terms of the LinkedIn algorithm? Back in the day back not too long ago, was, like, post once and you get great visibility. If you start posting more than once, then the amount, then you're you would drop off in terms of the amount of visibility. Where where does that stand now? Do you know?
Are you asking in terms of quantity of post, or are you asking in terms of, like, the types of posts?

(02:07):
The quantity of posts.
Quantity. So it really is going to depend on the people that you're posting content for. So who do you want to see your content? You gotta think about how active on LinkedIn they're gonna be. So if you've got an industry like IT or finance, something that's gonna be a little bit more active on LinkedIn versus construction, you might wanna put be at that higher end range of four to five posts per week if you're targeting those guys because they're likely gonna be on every day.
If you're in the construction world, three post is typically a good average. Anywhere from three to five is good for businesses. For personal, I would say no less than two a week.
And is what's what's the top end before they start
Five. Hands down. Five.
Yep. That that's a week?
Yeah. So
Yeah. So you are going to I can't think of the word right now, but you're gonna essentially deboost yourself if you are, like, spamming and doing, like, five posts a day or something like that.
So you gotta look at it logically. Right? So if you are posting, let's say, six posts a week and about three of those posts get an okay amount of traction, and then you've got the other few posts really aren't getting a lot of lot of visibility. The platform, the algorithm is going to look at you overall. The post that you created really aren't getting on average enough visibility for them to want to continue to promote your content.
So think about LinkedIn. Think about all social media, TikTok, Instagram, Facebook, whatever. Think of them as a business. Their goal is to keep you on their platform for as long as possible. Why?
They make the most amount of money. Their stats are better. They can charge more for ad spend because they have more visibility, more time is spent on that platform. So they are incentivized to continue to propel good performing content and to decrease the position of poor performing content. So if you are constantly blasting out really poor performing content week after week after week, it shows the platform, yes, you are consistent, but you're not consistent enough with something that's quality enough for people to want to pay attention.
And therefore, you could be charging their business with less people because they could say, okay. This is stupid. I don't wanna spend my time on this. I'm closing up the app.
Okay. So I think you introduced this to me. The social what's this thing called?
You got it.
Social selling index.
There we go. SSI. Yep.
Okay. Is that only for individuals, or is that for business accounts too?
Individuals for now.
Okay.
Things change really rapidly with social media, and LinkedIn has done a lot of changes in 2025, and I anticipate that they're going to continue to do a lot of changes. And the they're doing a business premium account, So I imagine that's really soon to come as well now that they're rolling out some changes for that.
Okay. So with that, do you when you are working with businesses, are you working with their business page, or are you working with an individual's, at that business's personal page? How do you look at that?

(02:28):
So primarily business page, but whenever you are handling a business page, you want to send page invites. So for example, Lauren Craylow would invite Tim to follow Craylow Socials, and that invite would come from Lauren Craylow. Tim, you would recognize me. You would say, oh, okay. That's Craylow Socials.
I know that business. Okay. Sure. I'll follow the business page. So what we do is we will work with their personal pages to send out page invites on behalf of their business page so that it associates that business with that person.
If they're in business development, they're director of sales, they're the owner, whatever the case may be, the person that they're targeting recognizes, okay. That checks. I wanna follow that business because I know that person.
This is a little facetious question. Mhmm. Are you are you I'm curious. Are you the type you're are you the type of person that is like, hey. Connect with somebody because you have a mutual.
And then within the next sixty minutes after them, and I know it's automated, accepting your connection, hit them with the sales pitch.
It depends. Right? It depends. Is it?
That can't be really effective, though.
It is. It is. You would be surprised. So in business, it's all about quantity. Right?
If you send out a thousand outbound messages versus 10 outbound messages, you're more likely going to get a lot more responses with your thousand outbound messages. It's not gonna work for everybody. But if you know your audience really well and you know how to talk to them really well, it's not an all out sales pitch right away. That's why people hire people like us because psychology does play a role in it. You gotta figure out exactly what they're most likely to respond to and absolutely start a conversation and hit them with a message right away.
Why not? You're fresh on their mind. You just connected with them. You don't have to say, book with my account.
It's gonna be a totally it's as you know, it's totally automated. And it is just like, I'm just such a relational guy as opposed to transactional. And when I see something that's transactional, they they I just they are totally discounted immediately.
I think for sure.
Yeah. So I think what you're saying is the message is important.
Yes.
But the content of the message, it really can't be like those donkeys who post some of those things. You're like, k. There's no way this could ever work. But if you if you really get, you know, granular with the with the messaging and have something that is not ridiculous, it can work, I think is what I'm hearing. So I I think you're agreeing, Tim.
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Right? Yeah.
I just you you know what I'm talking, though. Like, you accept you accept that connection. You're like, I know what's coming. Mhmm. And then
sure. I'll give you one
more time. Get the DM. So here's a good example. Financial advisers. It's like, dude, I that's, like, one of the most
When you meet someone the first time and they ask that question, it's like, you want me to tell you about my money?
Exactly.

(02:49):
But I've known you for three minutes, three seconds.
Have you
lost your damn mind? Like, they're you're like, some of your best friends, you don't tell some of your financial things. So you think you're gonna trust
Right.
I don't know. But
A big part of psychology and marketing is putting yourself in that other person's shoes and thinking, what what are their goals? What what are they incentivized by? What are they actively trying to achieve? You put that hat on, and then you look at a message from their perspective. And you think, how would this message be received by them?
Would they view it as helpful? If they would view it as helpful, they're more likely to engage in a conversation with you. And then, eventually, as you've built that relationship, then you can go ahead and plug whatever you wanna plug if you wanna have a conversation with them or whatever the next steps would be.
Following up on my last message, would you be open to speaking, or is there anyone else from your team that I should
At the top of your your inbox.
Blah blah blah. Oh, my favorite too. I'm a big fan of wishing someone a happy birthday, but I do it by pulling out the old Selly and doing a video. If I haven't done that for you, Lauren, it'll it'll come soon. I think that's what you should do.
But now with the click of a button, just a little, you can say happy birthday, and then there's these stupid emojis with them on LinkedIn. It's just so impersonal. I'm like, yo. Like, my inbox is literally not the exact same message. So you trying to be courteous and kind actually is lost because you actually didn't take it to that next step.
So I just I think people have gotten really lazy, and I think there's a way to be on these platforms and not be lazy. And I just wish well, maybe I don't wish people would do it. Be I, you know, continue to be lazy. You know? Then there's
Oh, well, it makes it easier on the receiver part. Receiver being me because I could just weed through it. Yeah. But so what are some other best practices? Your business five times a week?
What are some other go to things?
I was thinking specifically when you were talking about those messages for somebody like you or Zach. So you guys have this show that you're doing weekly on LinkedIn. A great message would be, hey. Name whoever they are. I have a show coming up next week with somebody that is in the same space as you and name whatever space that is.
I'd love to invite you to watch the show, maybe, like, twenty minutes of the show or whatever. And you you send them the link to the show. The the algorithm platform is happy because you are sending a link that links within their platform. So you're keeping them on the platform, and they're going to feel, oh, this person thought about me. They know what I do, and they're willing to share some advice because information sharing is king.
People want information. People don't wanna be spammed with sales y type stuff. They want to be educated and know more. So something like that would be a really great practice to just getting your foot in the door with having a conversation with somebody. And then who knows?
Out of maybe, like, 20 of those invites, you might get a few people that ask you more questions, which open that door further. So that and, like, voice memo messages too, I love those. I love those.
These are not automated things that you just said.
Correct. No. They're not.
Right. So that like, I think that's the missing step in all that stuff. Like, automation is great. Sure. I'm not denying that.

(03:10):
Mhmm.
Right? But you're taking it it's it's the whole cell phone thing doing the video that I just talked about. Right? It's it's taking a step that most people are automating and figuring out what you can do to anomalize. I don't know if that's a word.
Mhmm. But I haven't used that word in a while, Tim. You know? Anomaly.
I can't even say that word based on the last time that we talked.
I think that's really hard times.
No. No. No. Hold on.
On the keyboard.
And O'Malley. But that's it. We wanna hear it. How do you say it, Lauren? Because, you know, if you can't say it, you can't just tell the people.
Like, you can't. We got like, we are we're supposed to be good interviewers here. We gotta pull this out. Like, say it. Come on.
An an an anonymally. Ano I'm an see? I don't know what it is that where every time I try. Anonym ano I don't know.
Can't be listening to this right now. Anonymous. Mess me up.
Yeah. Yep. I know. I know. So if but if,
you know,
if I say it in a sentence and I just coast by, you'll be like, did you say that wrong? And then just keep going. So
It's just English. You know? I mean, can't be so hard on ourselves. You know? A n o no.
You
can spell it all you want. It's still difficult to say.
I believe I didn't know how to spell it when I first came up with it or decided that was gonna be the title. But
It did it is not it's not a smooth typing word on the keyboard.
You know these words where you look at it, and you're like, is that correct? And then you ask
Yeah.

(03:31):
Your, thing on your phone. You go, you know, is is this the correct way to spell it? And you look at it and you're like, you're lying.
That's why I don't need why Elevate is such a great thing. And, like, you look when when you learn stuff on Elevate and you see other people that and, like, they totally use it wrong. So there's certain things that people use it so wrong that you're like, it almost makes it sound like they're doing it correctly, but they're not. But then if you do it correctly, you look like you're the one that's doing it wrong.
Yeah. Because so many people do it wrong. Lauren, Tim and I do this daily habit, I don't even know, skill
Mind exercise.
Mind exercise app called Elevate. Common spelling, e l e v a t e. And it's it's pretty wild, actually. So there's, like, some math questions, some English quest questions, some spelling questions, some memory questions. I hate the memory ones.
I always skip them. But it's it's it's really quite unique, and your vernacular does get stronger, I think, because of it. They have a new puzzle puzzle, Tim. Have you been doing it?
Word search? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
It's pretty good.
Yeah.
It's it's the only app I that's not true. It's one of the only apps I pay for. And
I wonder if we get the same puzzle each day. I would think you probably would.
Well, if the I okay. So on the crossword puzzle, I'm on easy because I'm a moron.
I am dude, crossword puzzles, I really struggle. I am on moderate for the I'm on moderate for both, but, yeah, I am not really bright.
Bless you. Bless you, sir. I don't know how these people I was at I was, I was walking my dogs the other day at the park, and there was this guy. He had a newspaper. For those of you who don't know, a newspaper is this thing that has words printed on it that is delivered on a daily basis.
Your fingers get, black and inky if you Yes.
Yes. Mhmm. This one wasn't as thick as they used to be, I guess, because paper is expensive now, so they're shorter they're shorter, smaller, thinner pieces. But I think he was reading and doing the crossword puzzle. I'm like, man, this guy is, like, locked and loaded, ready to go.
Kudos to him. Oh, but yeah. So, easy on that. I moved to medium, moderate for the new game, and I got them all today. So I was happy about that.
So maybe I'll lose the heart, but it's good for the brain.
You know?
Was one of the words today on medium, was it bonfire? Was that one of the ones that you had?
Yes.

(03:52):
Okay. Alright. Yes. Yep.
Elevate? Is that what you called it?
Yeah. Honestly, like, at first because I at first, Tim's wife was telling me about it. It's, like, over a year ago. And I was like, that sounds pretty cool. Let me check it out.
And then I did it. And then you get, like I'm not I I don't think you're addicted to it, but it's kinda like, oh, you gotta do this kinda thing. Like, it's
Yeah.
It's part of their morning routine now. And then and it only takes, like, five minutes. I get sad, but sometimes when it's done, I'm like, can't there be more? And there aren't there
aren't more. Yeah. I used to do the five puzzles a day. And I was like, dude, this is taking too much time. I gotta get on with my day.
So I I scaled that back to three.
Five puzzles. What are talking about?
So, like, when you do it every morning, you do you you can set it to do one, three, or five categories each day, and five was just it was taking a little too much time.
I'll let the world know. Let the record be known that I have defeated mister Tim Ryan in something because I am at five days or five five lessons a day, and he's only at three. So thank you, Tim. Not only this is a powerful moment for me. I'm I'm very grateful to be here today to win this trophy.
Next thing you know, I'm gonna win best hair at Hampton Roads.
Yeah. I'm at I'm I'm at the 400 scale on everything except for spelling. I am terrible. Just terrible at spelling.
Alright. This got way off.
But I don't see the need to wait. It out.
Do you sound it out?
Well but it's timed. So you got you have to make decisions quickly.
And There's one that's, tipping with fish.
Oh, yeah.
Pretty because you're like, okay. What's 20% of this number? Some of them are really easy, then they get into decimals.
Yeah.

(04:13):
You're like
Yeah. But those yeah. But it keeps it keeps your your your your brain strong.
Have you ever done
those two? On everything? Where do you see that?
What are you looking for?
You're looking at you're you said you're in the four hundredth on everything? You mean 4,400.
Like, you're out of the difficulty scale.
I don't know where that I don't know where you see that.
Except for spelling. But I don't see the need to be like, we have tools for that.
Yeah. Calculators.
That's why you'll never see, like, hey. We need to volunteer for someone to go up on the whiteboard and take notes. Never me. Will leave now. I will I will leave the whole thing altogether like I'm out.
Peace.
Can't can't read what I write anyway. Feel like Kelly Madison's spelling the
word buzz. No. I'm out. Yeah. I'm out.
So, Lauren, over the last, I don't know, eighteen, twenty four months, this crazy thing called the robots has really taken over the world. You hear you see a lot of content on LinkedIn, people bitching and moaning about the dashes or the emoji icons on there. So general thoughts on the robots and people producing content, what that means for you and your business, how to leverage stuff like that. Like, what are what's what's the one on one on the robots according to Lauren Credo?
So I love the robots. I think they have such a good place in any business if you know how to use them right. When we're talking specifically about LinkedIn and creating content with ChatGPT and AI, Use it as a resource, but don't depend on it. So a good example would be don't just you could have gotten away with this, let's say, two years ago or right when it first come came out when not a lot of people were using it, just prompting ChatGPT. Hey.
Write me a post for LinkedIn targeting x y z people that they would find educational and valuable. And that would've worked. It would've been fine. But as tech everybody uses it now. Everybody knows how to spot it.
I think that you can use it, but people want authenticity. And so kind of back to what we were talking about earlier with the anonym anonymly. Right. Yeah. I I'm getting closer.
So it kinda goes back to that. People want authentic presence, and you're not getting an authentic presence with somebody or a business that's writing content with a robot. So you can use it to help you, but don't use it as your primary source for generating content. Not the best idea.
Yeah. I feel like you can miss out on the
Yeah. Sometimes I think that it's okay to have a a misspelling or a grammatical error in there here just to show there's that it is authentic. Like, my wife, she was at a hotel up in Northern Virginia. And, like, you you know, you you check-in, and then you get that message saying, hey. This is so and so.

(04:34):
I hope everything is okay. If you need anything, let me know. I just assumed that that was just automated. They know when you check-in, commuters the computer then sends out the the text message, da da da da da. But then my wife replied, everything is great.
Thank you so much. And then they replied back with, you're welcome, y o u r. Welcome. And I was like, maybe it is for real. They they they misspelled your.
So
Oh, I'm sitting here. I'm like, misspelled. Right? And then I'm like, oh, no. No.
No. I got it. Never mind.
You need
to boost it up to six lessons with that Elevate app, I guess.
Wow. Wow.
You are not supposed to talk crap to the
You open the door wide open for that.
It's okay. Say him out.
But you know that, hey. The person behind the front desk is sending something out.
Ask the general behind, a robot wrote this. That's my new thing on LinkedIn. I wrote that because I think it's funny. I'm with you on that, Tim. Like, also, what I'll do, Lauren, is, like, if I think some someone, is using AI and literally just copy and paste, I'll be like, I robot wrote this.
But I'll change I don't know if you guys have all seen this. I'll change an s to a z in comments and posts. Right? That that's me my misspelling, if you will. Right?
Z for Zach. And people are like I know people catch on because they're like, oh, you didn't put a z in this. Like, in an email, they're like, why isn't there a z in this email? I'm like
Yeah.
Alright. Alright. Like but it's just, like, little, like, creative things like that to try to, like, get that attention because it's so difficult when there's so many so much content than ever before. And that's my little twist on something like that. I feel like I've been doing that for years now.
I agree. Long as I can remember.
I think that's good. That's creative. It's different. People want creative different because there's so much noise. For lack of better term, there's a lot of people competing for space, and they're competing for attention on these platforms.
So how are how is your business? How are you going to set your apart yourself apart from everything else that's on that platform? So you got to be different. So easy easy easy ways to do it. I don't know why people don't do it.
It's if you're trying to message people, you're trying to be different, you can send a little video note. You can send a voice note. Then they can say, oh my gosh. Okay. The person from the profile picture is a person talking to me.

(04:55):
That's authentic. That's a little bit more for personal branding. For business, it's a little bit different. But whenever people can hear voices that aren't AI voices, but they can hear a human voice, they are more likely to want to engage with you. But we're really, really going very quickly into the territory where we're not gonna be able to tell the difference.
And there are voices out there that are it's really hard to tell. And then also with the fact that we've got technology now that's not super readily accessible to everybody, but technology that if you search for it, it can take all of your words and come up with different things to say from you. And so we're definitely approaching that territory where you can still automate authentic type content, authentic type messaging, and that's just going to have to be a situation where your marketing team and your sales team learns how to adapt to that. But some platforms like TikTok, I know, put labels on stuff. I don't use that app anymore.
But I know that sometimes there are mandated, like, AI generated this, but we might get to the point where we can't tell.
Who creates movies? Is that the Grammy or the motion picture, whatever? Who who was on strike a couple years ago? Do remember this? Like, year's news year
as well?
My understanding of one of the main points other than money on that was it cannot be robot driven content. It has to be written by the actual people, and the people cannot be portrayed by a robot in the future. That was something that was, like, explicitly put in. It'll be interesting to just see if that kind of mandation who knows if mandation is a word. I just made it up maybe.
But that but but mandating stuff like that is something that ends up in the business world too or in in other sectors to see if something like that happens so that we're not there's not so much robots. But we'll see. It'll it'll just there's something to think about while you're on the run tomorrow, Tim.
Yeah. Lauren, what's the what is the number one feature that LinkedIn has that nobody knows about or uses?
You? No. Lives. I I don't know how I don't know how more people don't do these. Granted, right now, what's really trendy is those short form video clips, which is why LinkedIn recently revamped their ability to scroll through videos and kinda have it be like any other platform where you can watch those.
So those are really good hidden gem, but live videos. Because, again, gotta go back to the business perspective from LinkedIn. If somebody's really engaged in their your live video, they can have their laptop open for, let's say, an hour listening to a live chat, and that's an hour that they are on the LinkedIn platform. And so if you have a good live show and if you are consistent with it, you have good guests, you're doing more and more of them, it's a great way to increase that social selling index that we talked about earlier. And then you can use it to promote your business too if that's your goals.
I thought that you were answering that by saying, like, me, I'm the best feature of LinkedIn that nobody uses. So Yeah. Hey. That too.
Okay. Alright.
But why how come Zach, didn't you say that there was a time limit for video that LinkedIn has? It can't be longer than ten minutes or something when you upload. What was that?
It was fifteen or twenty minutes. It was something like that. Honestly know that until the other day.
Did you try it? Weird.
Minute video?
Why are you hating?
That's a long video.
Okay. Hold on. You can't you cannot make this point about live videos. And then
and then
the other vid

(05:16):
I can't. Because because there's a reason. Right? So there's a short form video clips, which if you let's say you're scrolling through what do you use social media, Zach? Like, in your personal time, what social media platform are you using?
Are you you on Facebook? Are you on Instagram? Are you any of it? Are you watching videos on anything? YouTube shorts?
I
I would say that I'm a YouTuber.
K. So let's say YouTube shorts. If you are scrolling through YouTube shorts and a twenty minute long video comes up, at how many minutes in do you think you're going to watch it before you catch on? You're like, I'm ready to see the next thing, realistically.
Do want me to say it in that voice? Like, I'm gonna I'm busy
Yeah.
Yeah.
I I think I'll watch the whole twenty minute video if I liked it.
Okay. Okay.
No. I I get I get your point. Most not a short, but it's not a short that we're posting. It would be a it would be a a regular video.
And, I mean, there is a place where that could perform really well. You'd have to test it. And so that's where it comes out and you whatever the maximum time is, you can upload a ten minute video, and then you can chop it up and then maybe upload a one minute video that pretty much if if it can be condensed to share the same point or tease into that longer video, you can upload them both, and you can see how they perform side by side and kinda test them. That's a good way to find out if it would work for yourself. But, generally, if somebody is scrolling through, they it's attentions people's attention span is pretty much that of a goldfish.
I think it takes anywhere from three to six, three to five seconds to really either hook somebody's attention or lose their attention. And so you really want to hook their attention, and typically that's done in shorter videos. And then people get bored and they wanna move on to the next thing. So there is a place for longer videos. So YouTube, I know Spotify, those types of platforms, people are going on there expecting with the mentality.
I'm gonna listen to a three hour long podcast or I'm going to watch this thirty minute how to video on this thing. But when they're on a platform like Instagram or like LinkedIn, they're expecting to get through content a little bit quicker.
Roger that. Okay. In the same
Vein.
Vein. Sure.
What
have you found delivers the best results? A picture, a video, and maybe different types of videos in there. Right? So we could say a live video, a short video, and up to fifteen minute video, but probably not a fifteen minute video because who the hell is gonna watch a fifteen minute video for context to see the last three minutes of this conversation. Just text.
Like, what what works best in that? And please don't say it depends. Like, your results with your companies, like, what do you actually get the best results with? Videos. Hands down.
Okay.

(05:37):
And with that, it needs to be, like, multiple angle cut constantly moving. Yes. That can't be just one
Not particularly. It depends on what the video is about.
Because doesn't it like mister Beast really analyze all of that really closely in terms of,
like He's not on I'm they're talking about LinkedIn specifically. I don't think he's on LinkedIn.
Well, I'm just I I guess okay. Yeah. Yeah. I don't think I don't think that he is either, but just in terms of, like Mister Jimmy. Type of video.
You know,
he lives two hours from here, by the way?
Yeah. In North Cackalackie.
Are we talking about the guy with the really big butt? Is that what we're mister Beast? That was, like, what he went famous for if he's not on LinkedIn? No?
Alright. Okay. Nope. I don't think that's that person. He this person has a game show.
And remember when I text you, are you a contestant on this show?
Let me see. Yes. I remember. Yeah. Hold on.
I'm looking for it. But, yes, I remember
what we're saying. Got really off the rails if we're
talking about
nice real
Back to back to the video video picture.
Yes. Okay. So I it I won't say it depends. So which your question was what performs Yeah.
What performs best? And then to so then you say video. And then with Tim, he's like, how do you create a better video that will get the results that you want?
So whenever what's our goal here? Is our goal more sales? Is our goal brand awareness?
What what would our goal be?

(05:58):
Let's just say more traffic and engagement.
Okay.
I know there's two different things.
Is it yes.
Engagement on post that will produce more awareness for the brand. Let's just say that.
For a brand. Okay. Perfect. So one way that would be really just the surefire way we found this is the most successful with our clients is if whoever is doing the majority of the networking, the majority, their face is in front of the business, whether that's the owner, that's a business developer, whoever is out and about the most. Having them make some content.
And they can have their marketing team, people like us, it doesn't matter, say, here's what I need you to talk about. I want you to send me a video of you talking about it. And then, yes, we can clip it up and add different clips of some b roll footage is what we call it, or it can just be a straight video of that person talking. But they have that credibility. They they're they've been seen by the target audience.
Ideally, if you have the people that you are targeting in your LinkedIn audience and then you have the person that they're seeing in person talk to them, they're more likely to engage with it. So people always work really well because people identify with people. So that would be my number one tip, but everybody I don't know what it is, but people are just so reserved to do it even if it's time blocking, let's say, an hour every two weeks or thirty minutes a week or whatever the case may be. People are just really reserved to do that, and it really moves the needle. Quick example for you.
We have a client that works with industrial bolting tools. And so one of the tools was actually able to open a fire hydrant. And it was just it that's not what its primary purpose was for, but it was really cool. And so the client, the owner of that shop demoed that tool in front of the fire hydrant. And it was really quick, really simple video, and it got a ton of traction because it showed here's the tool in action, but it's not necessarily promoting the tool.
Here's the guy that you know that's behind this business, that's behind the tool, and he's using it to do something that's cool enough to get people's attention. And so it raises questions about the products, And so it works on to get traction to your page traffic, and it works to get engagement because people really liked the content. So just creative stuff like that, and you don't need to be the one to come up with it. You can have your marketing team, your LinkedIn team, whoever come up with the ideas for you.
Your Crayola social team.
Mhmm.
I get stuck watching these videos, like Cool. These tree stump grinding. I'm like, what? I don't wanna I I just like to see I just pour the pow the the power washer, doing the before and after of, like, these the patio. Was like, oh my god.
You like ASMR. That's you're a Bob Ross kinda guy. That's what it is. That's what this stuff is. It's the new Bob Ross.
That's all it is. Ear tree tree stump removal.
Oh, like, here we go. We got another one. In his desk. Like, what am I do I I I have better use of my time
than this. I am waiting for this. You need to watch this stuff, Tim. You get that power washer. It's ridiculous.
Okay.
But to Lauren's point, it gets a ton of traction. And it was, like, a couple years ago, people these same people are very like, I don't have any content to push on there. And now these these folks have, like, millions of subs and subscribers watching their stuff because but, like, the one dude, he just go he goes to a house that hasn't been power pressure washed in forever and volunteers to do it for free because he has nothing to do. No clients. He does it.
And then yeah. This is my this is these these are my my brain breaks that I take. Oh my god. This is I
know exactly what you're talking about, and it was great.

(06:19):
I want taking this too. I'm I'm taking a clamp. I'm laughing so hard.
I can't wait to mess up your algorithm, Zach.
It's kinda How do know I don't watch this kind of content? You've never asked.
I mean, I don't know. Maybe you're laughing with us as opposed to
Oh, lord.
This is What company is doing what company does it does it write on LinkedIn? Could be the biggest of the big company or the smallest of the small.
Not a lot of them. Typically, those corporate companies with a lot of resources because they understand the value. And so they are putting money into it, and they're seeing results. Most of the time, the smaller companies don't even exist on LinkedIn. Medium sized companies are at that sweet spot where they're trying to get into it and they realize the value.
So a lot of times, it just depends on the company size. You can find good LinkedIn presence in pretty much every industry, but a lot of times, it's going to be those big guys that have the resources for it.
I really wish that their analytics was better. I I just find LinkedIn's analytics is so clunky. It just kinda makes me crazy.
It's not it's not even daily. You gotta wait, like, a couple days too, so you can't even see it, like, in real time.
There's third party tools that you can use that sync up with LinkedIn. So, I I anticipate that's one thing that's going to change as time goes on too because more and more professionals are using LinkedIn. There's a shift overall where people are starting to want to avoid their personal social media and their business social media. So LinkedIn in the past few years is really starting to get more traction because people just there's that divide. They go home and they don't wanna I go home and I don't touch LinkedIn.
I don't have the notifications on for the app. Nothing. Because when I'm at work, I'm on LinkedIn. When I'm at home, I'm at home. And so and I'm the LinkedIn guru.
Right? That's my company, but I it's not it's it's not something that I really want to partake in at home. And so that's you'll see that trend. And so I think that as more people are using the platform for business and solely for business, I believe their analytics are gonna get better.
What's the number one metric you look at for your clients?
Depends on the depends on the company, depends on the goals. So if you are trying to get more leads, you're going to probably be running ads, which means you're going to get more advanced analytics. And so we're gonna be looking at things like the click through rate. We're gonna be looking at the cost per click, all of that. We're going to be looking at basically how many dollars to that we spent on those ads to how many meetings got booked, for example.
If you were doing organic content, so that means you're not putting any money behind it. It's not an ad that you just are posting content. We're gonna be looking at multiple factors, but, generally, we're going to be looking at the engagement rate. So how many people are actually engaging with the content, liking, commenting, sharing it, all of that because that indicates interest. Also, time watched is a metric that we can get with third party tools, and that's a big one.
Because if somebody might not they might not engage with the video, but they might spend two minutes watching it. And you can see that data, and that's how you can indicate, okay. This caught people's attention. Why? And so it really depends on the goals.
If you're wanting leads, we're gonna look at a different metric. But if you're wanting just general brand awareness, increased engagement, increased content performance, you're going to look at engagement on that.
How can a company post a link that is to an outside website and still see traffic engagement, etcetera, to that post? Because, like you said earlier, LinkedIn wants you to stay on their site just like any others, any other kind of social network would. Mhmm. But if you drive them outside, it, it deters it's a deterrent, really. Right?
So what what can you do to include links because that's what you wanna sell? What what can you do to make that work?
First of all, I don't recommend it.

(06:40):
I just
straight out of the gate, I don't recommend sharing links unless you are paying for an ad. If you are paying for an ad, the platform is going to be happy to let you share things because you are paying it. But to your point, if you are posting in your post and you're like, oh, click on my link that extends to external site, LinkedIn will actually notify you and say, are you sure you want to go to this external site? It's another barrier to entry because you're not paying the platform to promote that link. So if you're still you you wanna get around it, you don't wanna jump into the ad space, maybe you just started with LinkedIn, so ads really don't make sense for you just yet and you still wanna share some kind of link.
You if it's a you're sharing a post from a company page, you can always go in and comment the link from your personal page. That's one way to do it in the comments. But, again, I don't really recommend it. I would highly recommend keeping all of the information that you want to share with people on the platform. And if you want somebody to reach out to you to book a call, it might be worth just changing your call to action on that post to be message us or ask a question.
And then if somebody engages, you can reach out to them.
Like, on the profile?
On your post. So if you are sharing a post and you the easiest one is book a call with us, if you want or click here for more information or whatever you wanna share instead of sharing that link. If you want people to learn more, put on the post instead of that link. Put message me if you have a question about this, and that might resonate with somebody. I do have a question about that.
Okay. I'll message you, and then you can open that door.
Solid.
Mhmm.
Cool. Yep.
What's something we what's something that you wanna talk about that we haven't talked about?
I would say something that would be really helpful for people that are trying to decide if they want their business to be on LinkedIn or they hired somebody and they're just trying to figure out the right direction. I owe and this definitely could get me in trouble for saying this, but it's I'm being honest here. There's no reason to not be. Whenever you are first starting out on LinkedIn, in my opinion, it is not worth running ads right away. And the reason I say that is because, typically, you're not going to build a house without a foundation.
Same thing with social media. And it's a great analogy because you are not going to right away jump into paying for an ad. If you do, you're not going to have a good understanding of what type of content performed well to maximize your ad spend. But if you start with around three to six months and you commit to posting organic content and playing around with what times you're posting at, how frequently you're posting at, all those, and you have three to six months of data, you can eventually point out and say, video post with x y z person topping up talking about this topic with this call to action did the best. Great.
We can take that data and then use it to run an ad. So then that way your ad spend isn't wasted. So that's a big question that I get. People say, oh, should I pay for Salesforce, Salesforce or should I pay for ads? Or it's really expensive.
I wanna hire somebody, but what do I do? Different scenarios for every situation, but as a general good rule of thumb, start organic, start doing the legwork early, and then it can lay that foundation for you to eventually run ads.
I I like that.
Is there a certain milestone that someone should be looking for that they need to hit that says, okay. Now I'm ready for paid ads?
So it it depends on a lot of factors. If you're paying a company like us to do your social media, do your LinkedIn, or if you're paying an individual because your cost to produce that content, your cost to run that platform is going to be different. So if you have the time and the money to invest in it, I would personally recommend writing out organic content until you start to see your numbers stagnant. So what that means is whenever you first start really putting effort into your business, your personal social media page, you will see your analytics increase pretty steadily. I can say that with confidence for pretty much every account because you start with a nonactive account.
You make it active. You are consistent. You're going to see your engagement go up. The followers go up. All of that.
And so you will get to a point. And some people, it takes two years. But you will get to a point where things will just start to level out and you'll see natural fluctuations where one month you'll have a really big decrease, other months you have a increase. But all in all, it kinda levels out. That would be the best time to run ads.
But realistically, you don't need to wait that long. If you are really you really do wanna see results, I would say three to six months. Just wait that time frame so you have enough data and then move forward with it.

(07:01):
Can a business direct message someone, or does it have to be done from a individual perspective?
So currently, you can direct message somebody if they are messaging you. That's bound to change, I would imagine, because it wasn't it was, I think, this year, maybe towards the end of last year that businesses got an inbox, and it was something that was beta tested at first. So some businesses had that inbox, others didn't. And so now everybody has their own inbox, but it's they have the Lauren would have to message your company first, and then you can respond back.
Good. I might have known this, but I forgot. Microsoft owns LinkedIn?
I actually don't know. I don't know who owns LinkedIn.
Yes. That was in 2016, allegedly. Yep. Wow. You were, like, in middle school then, Lauren.
Twenty sixteen? Pretty much. Let's just call it elementary.
Call it elementary. Tim?
You being the, the person that that pays close attention to your food intake Mhmm. Typically, we would ask, what is the food of the region? You're relatively new to the region as well. So let's just pivot a little bit on that question. Where is the place that you that you would take someone or that you if if you do leave that you're gonna miss the most?
Second Street Bistro. So my friend, Damon, when I first moved here, we went to lunch. She was one of the very first people that I met. She took me to Second Street Bistro, and they have this fried chicken sandwich. I'm not a fried chicken person, but it's got jalapenos and, like, this nice honey.
And anytime we go out, we go there. It's not great.
Is it Victor Kiln Creek, Victor Boulevard there? I don't really know.
It's in Newport News. Yep. But they have one in Williamsburg too.
Yeah.
So anytime anybody comes into town from out of town, I recommend second Street Bistro. It's very good.
They used to have a great French dip, but they got rid of it. It's no longer on their menu.
Oh, there
we I'm French dip guy. Oh. Typically, if I go somewhere and if I see that on the menu, I feel like I have to give it a little little testy test to see where they compare. But
They do have this cool Mexican restaurant, and I'm from Texas. I'm really used to really good Mexican food. So that was a little challenging when we moved here, but it's in the and I'm probably gonna say this one wrong one wrong too. The Norfolk Norfolk Outlets. It's a little Mexican restaurant.
They've got a little walley looking robot that will deliver your food to you. It's very cool. That place is nice too.
Wait. Wait. Wait. Wait. What's the name of that city?
I don't wanna say it again. I'm gonna get myself in trouble. The anomaly thing, could have gotten away with, but I I can't I can't butcher a city so close to us.

(07:22):
It's okay. Assuming I'm assuming the military brought you here. Yes? No?
Yeah. My fiance is a fighter pilot. So we're here for any Air Force? Surprise. Mhmm.
Yep. Yep. So it's a surprise how long we'll be here, but we love it. It's a great I love living next to a nice beach. In Texas, our beaches were not so nice.
So this is very nice.
Well, it's been wonderful. Lovely. And if you're ever in Norfolk, let us know. I don't know I don't know what to say. This has been a joy.
Tim, final words.
Well, for those that don't know, there's this thing that's coming up on August 21, StartUp World Cup. I encourage you all to, to check it out. Get your tickets. We're taking a big, big step forward putting us, like, set like, literally center stage. It's our time to show Virginia and the rest of the world what we are all about.
We need everybody to attend, support entrepreneurship. Is there time? We talk about how serious we are about this. It's time to show up. We need you to show up.
Get your tickets. Can't wait to see you there.
Sandler Center. Big place. Big place. They've had a lot of cool acts there. I don't know if it'll be anything as cool as us and the other
person biggest audience that you have performed in front of, Lauren?
I would I I don't know the number that how many people were there, but it was at the Thrive conference, actually, this past year.
Okay. Yep. That's where you did a selfie on.
Was that was that Norfolk? Yeah.
And that hey. That goes back to my point of hey. Don't. That goes back to my point about video. Three times more likely, I stand up on stage every time I do it.
It's now my thing.
That was your line. Yeah. Because you're like, if I just write about this, it'll get, like, 15 posts or 15, you know, likes. But because I did a video, it'll get four times that or something like that. Yeah.
I think that's smart.
Well, these pictures will pitch in front of, 800 to a thousand people, so it'll be exciting for them.
Or nerve racking. Nerve racking, Tim. Lauren, has been a blast. Appreciate it.
Likewise. Thank you.

(07:43):
Like, subscribe, download. Appreciate y'all. Have a wonderful day. Peace.