The Small Business Safari
Have you ever sat there and wondered "What am I doing here stuck in the concrete zoo of the corporate world?" Are you itching to get out? Chris Lalomia and his co-host Alan Wyatt traverse the jungle of entrepreneurship. Together they share their stories and help you explore the wild world of SCALING your business. With many years of owning their own small businesses, they love to give insight to the aspiring entrepreneur. So, are you ready to make the jump?
The Small Business Safari
Mastering LinkedIn and Celebrating Three Years of Small Business Safari with Rachel Simon
THANK YOU FOR 3 YEARS OF LISTENING, we have enjoyed talking with so many great people and we hope you have enjoyed it as well. Let's Keep going up the Mountain and let's plant our flag. This episode is focused on a a great part of what we think it takes to be a success - networking with great people - Discover the secrets to mastering LinkedIn without the constant pressure of creating content. Learn actionable tips on old-school networking from our guest, Rachel Simon of Connect the Dots Digital, and hear why it’s still a cornerstone in building meaningful professional relationships.
Step up your LinkedIn game with expert advice on crafting impactful profiles and the dos and don'ts of professional networking. Rachel Simon provides a masterclass on making your LinkedIn presence not just a resume but a solution to customer pain points. We discuss the importance of thought leadership, even for accountants, and tackle the frustrating realities of modern TV subscriptions and DIY disasters. Dive into our lively conversation and walk away with practical strategies to enhance your LinkedIn profile, build genuine connections, and navigate the digital landscape efficiently.
LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/raksimon/
Website - connectthedots.digital
Email - rachel@connectthedotsdigital.com
So you can still do old school on LinkedIn and be successful using it to network, as opposed to feeling the pressure. You know, and Chris feels no pressure to expose himself on TikTok, but you know.
Chris Lalomia:No, of course not.
Alan Wyatt:Yeah, so I don't have to be creating content for it to be valuable.
Rachel Simon:You don't have to be creating content, but like look, you have a podcast, you have like content, you're creating content every single week, every single show. You have content. But you can do a lot by just engaging with people, commenting using the direct messaging in a way that is not annoying and selling crap to people, because also nobody likes that.
Chris Lalomia:Welcome to the Small Business Safari where I help guide you to avoid those traps, pitfalls and dangers that lurk when navigating the wild world of small business ownership. I'll share those gold nuggets of information and invite guests to help accelerate your ascent to that mountaintop of success. It's a jungle out there and I want to help you traverse through the levels of owning your own business that can get you bogged down and distract you from hitting your own personal and professional goals. So strap in Adventure Team and let's take a ride through the safari and get you to the mountain top. Alan, I love that music. It gets me pumped up every single time.
Alan Wyatt:Every time.
Chris Lalomia:And you know what? I listen to it in the truck on the way over here to the studio, aka the basement, and I got myself all fired up with my rockin' stompin' blues baby. Because why am I so fired up? Why are you all fired up with my rockin' stompin' blues baby? Because why am I so fired up? Why are you so fired up? Three-year anniversary, alan. That's unbelievable. Come on man. I know it's stupid that we've been doing this for three years, but that's another reason that you guys have all been listening. We've been picking up listeners progressively, last year, especially Top 5% Yep, top 5%. Top five percent yep, top five. Pretty excited about that and uh. But more importantly, we're having a lot of great conversations with people and people were asking to be on the show. Believe it or not, I'm gonna get like two or three requests a week now and that doesn't sound crazy do you say like we'll think about it or I'll have my people call you, you know?
Chris Lalomia:I lost my people you gotta play a little hard to get. I did. I know I need and I need people because I lost, so eager I'm like please, please, fill us up, fill us up, we need more, we need more. So, no man, we've had quite a journey and we remember when we started with basically a, a, an iphone in front of us, yeah, and two little microphones. And here we are with our fancy ass setup with our big old hour display where I can get myself louder and keep you quieter, I mean get us all evened out correctly.
Alan Wyatt:You know? There's like how many buttons are on that thing? There's at least 50 buttons. How many of those? Do you know what actually any of them do? Three and a half, I'm going to go under.
Chris Lalomia:I agree it's been good. Hey, we want to thank everybody for listening. You guys have been listening in. You're in your truck, you're driving, maybe you're taking a walk or something. We're going to try to edutain you guys again. Come on, adventure Team. We've got to get better at what we're doing each and every day. We're in the middle of the Olympic seasons to kind of timestamp this one, and it's been so fun to watch some of these different athletes perform handball. Did you know there's a speed rock climbing?
Alan Wyatt:Yes, I saw that that was insane. They were like spider monkeys going up the wall. That's exactly right.
Chris Lalomia:Yeah, at first I went oh peace shot. This is not oh my gosh. Look at these little guys go oh my God. Yeah, it was crazy. I just the sporting has been great watching these people practice for four years and get their craft perfected just for 15 seconds or 45 seconds, or in some of these sprinters, of course. You watch some of these people.
Alan Wyatt:You're like oh my gosh and there's a couple of people who've come completely out of left field. Nobody was expecting them to win, do you see the guys? 1500.
Chris Lalomia:So I'm not a big runner, uh if you've ever watched any of my uh instagrams. I think you'll probably figure out why, uh. But yeah, so I'm watching it and this kid comes out of nowhere and wins, and I didn't know the results, and I mean, I came out of my couch. I was like, oh my God way to go.
Chris Lalomia:And we got first and third. Yeah, that was amazing, yeah. So again you get into it, you get excited, but it's just fun watching that competition and you realize what they had to do to get there and it's continually practicing and training and getting better at stuff, at what they do, and perfecting it. This is their one time to shine. I only focus on the ones that have done that and I feel horrible for the ones that maybe fail or got hurt. I watched one guy pull up with a hammy.
Alan Wyatt:I saw a guy hit one of the bars on the steeplechase and just went down and had medical treatment. By the way, have you paid your power bill lately? I have paid my power bill. Warm in here, do you think?
Chris Lalomia:Well, I'm trying to keep it warmed up in here, is it really? Yeah, all right. Well, uh, that's okay. No, we, no, we don't have to do that.
Alan Wyatt:Okay, so Alan's obviously going through. Is that menopause? Do you have that? I'm having heat flashes, but I'm uh, I'm quenching my thirst with a nice bottle of bourbon here from our good friend Steve Beecham.
Chris Lalomia:So let's prop that up Beecham's hometown bourbon whiskey.
Alan Wyatt:Couple of great episodes. By the way, you need to listen to it. I know mortgage brokering doesn't sound exciting and that's why we didn't talk about it at all. We talked about his his traveling around the world in the quest of whiskey.
Chris Lalomia:It was crazy that we had we ended up doing two episodes with him because we didn't even touch mortgage broker in the beginning and what was funny is that through the emails that go out to people, I had two people respond and say hey, didn't realize you were going to have people on who are in the spirit business. One says hey, I've got one who does it. Another one said hey, you had Steve on, he was really interesting. I've since pivoted and I want to come back on and talk about AI and how it impacts your business. Oh, that would be really cool, and all because of his episode talking about bourbon.
Alan Wyatt:Well, and for those that haven't listened, you need to listen and even if you're not into whiskey, he's just a great storyteller. And he dropped a couple of bombs. I mean just from business standpoint, like how to grow your business through, you know, get involved in local politics and stuff. But he mentioned he's got a bourbon barn in his backyard and so I kind of invited myself over there just to see what it was all about. And it was a man cave like you wouldn't imagine. I mean fireplace, all the animal heads on the wall and then a collection of whiskey I've never seen. It was just fantastic.
Alan Wyatt:And so he took us around the world with uh, here's a little bit of japanese whiskey. Uh, we had icelandic whiskey that instead of peat they use sheep dung for the uh smoke and yeah, so pretty, how appealing does that sound? Yeah, well, he didn't tell us until after we drank it. Like, what do you taste? And I'm like it's kind of grassy and uh, so it's sheep dung. But anyway, he's got his own whiskey that was bottled for him and the whiskey was made with the grains from dave's killer bread, which is from my hometown of portland, and uh, so pretty exciting to have this bottle. So thanks, steve thank you, steve.
Chris Lalomia:That's great. It's always better to have a story behind your bourbon, especially when you have it, but we have got to get to our guest. Oh, we have a guest here. Well, sometimes you got to connect the dots, alan, and you are connecting them by by doing them with steve's, dave's, killer brand, killer bread, steve beach. I'm doing this, you're going around the world. It's all about connecting dots, though I mean, don't you see how you did that.
Alan Wyatt:You like he's been doing this for, like I don't know, four months. No, no, no. He didn't do it for the first two years, but yeah, I'm perfecting my craft.
Chris Lalomia:He got the dad jokes down Come on, I thought that was a good lead in it was great Thank you, Rachel. We have Rachel Simon from the Connect the Dots Digital, who is a specialist in LinkedIn and other things, but also is a fellow podcaster.
Alan Wyatt:She has a radio show show. Is that technically a podcast it?
Rachel Simon:comes out on podcast, on apple podcasts and other podcast things so sure all right.
Chris Lalomia:I mean, she's a seasoned radio personality that's me and she's in a real studio, not your basement. That's correct but we have more bourbon than her studio.
Rachel Simon:Yes, that is true uh, also a fan of dave's killer bread and olympic junkie olympic, all right.
Chris Lalomia:So what has? What is your like? What's fun for you in the four years?
Rachel Simon:I mean, I can't get enough of the swimming and gymnastics. Swimming and gymnastics is my favorite. My daughter was, you know, did club swim for years, so I went to 10 million swim meets. Oh, boy. And like she got to meet Caleb Dressel in 2018.
Chris Lalomia:Oh, wow.
Rachel Simon:At like. Like you know, he did like a clinic for her, her club team, and that was I was like had to go back and find the picture of him there's a lot of great swimmers at university of georgia, so many yeah and um.
Rachel Simon:It's been like that's just so much fun to watch. But like I did see the clip of the speed climbing and that was bonkers, I was like like what did I just see? But the track, I don't know. It's just all fun. I love all the emotion of it and how hard they work.
Alan Wyatt:There was a 51-year-old guy that competed in skateboarding today and had no chance of winning, but he actually nailed two routines and I think he finished 18th or 20th or something.
Chris Lalomia:But tony hawk is in the crowd just going nuts because this guy's still out there just giving it as awesome isn't that amazing, yeah, and and so what's been so fun about this uh, the olympics here is that I'm actually enjoying the snoop dog stuff oh my god, he's, amazing.
Chris Lalomia:I can't get enough of it. And then you know they're starting to discredit it now Like, ah, they're paying him all this money. I'm like good, keep it going, because I'm actually looking for that. He's fun, he is, and he makes it fun, yeah, and you watch these people come up and he's become what I think he's the Team USA mascot.
Rachel Simon:I don't know, my friend sent me a meme yesterday. That was like I have to put my glasses on because I can't see. I didn't know how we got here, but in the year 2024, the two most wholesome people on television are Snoop Dogg and Flav and Flav.
Chris Lalomia:There we go, right I heard that as well. I said, if you had gone into a coma in 1994 and woke up and you're like what is going on, that Snoop Dogg and Flav and Flav and Flav was doing he's.
Rachel Simon:He sponsored the women's water polo, but nobody was having more fun at the gymnastics than Flav.
Chris Lalomia:I'm just hilarious and but it's so much fun to watch these guys go running around doing that stuff. And then, uh, and then, uh Al and I are big into golf and you watch Scotty Scheffler, who's made 27 million dollars this year. He won the olympics. He's literally crying on the podium.
Rachel Simon:He won 37 000 it's just something about the olympics, it's just so meaningful to these athletes, even though you know the professional, even if you're a pro or whatever, or, like simone biles has won so many medals.
Alan Wyatt:But every medal is meaningful oh, and lebron james has, like, found the fountain of youth. I mean, he's just going nuts in basketball. It's amazing, I love it yeah, the whole thing.
Chris Lalomia:I love the countries. In fact, my new favorite guy is the shooter from turkey oh yeah the pistol shooting with the point in his pocket and he picked it up because he's going through a divorce and had to learn how to. He just had to get some aggression out. I'm like, hmm, but he looks like he was a hit man who was hired to come and they're like, here's your uh hit and it's a target. Yeah, it wasn't somebody.
Rachel Simon:He was like all right, just show me where to go but the thing about the olympics that I also love is like there are just so many lessons like life lessons, business lessons. You know, I did a post on linkedin last week about pommel horse guy oh right and how like sometimes you need to bring in a specialist.
Rachel Simon:I mean, it's very rare. You would think it's unusual that they put on the five-man team somebody who has one skill, that's it. But they needed a specialist, right? And so I wrote a post about how sometimes you need to think about to get your business to the next level. What is that specialist that you need to hire, whether that's like a coach, someone with specific financial skills, whatever the case may be. So I love pulling those life lessons out of-. Yeah, great call.
Chris Lalomia:Yeah, you're right. That was such a great one too. I loved how he was doing the visualization and he's doing that. So I actually did that with my sales team. I said, like the pommel horse guy, you guys are visualizing, you got to be visualizing your sale and my guys perhaps aren't built like he was, and so I made them all get up and do the hula like he did and like their palm went. It was hilarious, yeah.
Rachel Simon:But a lot of these athletes also are like they're. They're using techniques like to get in the right mindset of journaling, you know again, visualizing, uh, positive self talk. You know, really working on their, their mindset, their mental health and understanding that there's like they can have all the physical skill in the world but if they don't have the mental piece dialed in they're not going to be successful.
Alan Wyatt:Well, what blows my mind is you work so hard for something four years in the future and then maybe you don't make the team, or maybe you make the team and then you get injured, or you hit the hurdle and fall down, and then you've got to wait four more years. I mean, the perseverance in this is unbelievable.
Chris Lalomia:you're right, there are a ton of great business lessons yeah, grit, perseverance, uh, specialization, bringing in the right person to do the thing. I mean, again, you can pull so many out of these. I just I, I jones on it too. I enjoy it, you know. I know there's been some negativity around it, as there is with all the olympics. I think some people have forgotten that every four years, you're like what well, it's never been this divisive. I'm like, well, yeah, actually every four years it pretty much is. Yeah, I just ignore that crap and go back to the, the athletes who are there doing the thing. Man, and that's been the best. I love the, the, the, the opening ceremony. I mean Celine Dion.
Rachel Simon:Oh my God, singing about perseverance. I mean amazing, lady Gaga Amazing. I didn't watch all of it because I kind of tuned in and out but there was some weird stuff. But it's, you know, it was very French.
Chris Lalomia:Right. So I said I was saying to myself, if the media would just leave it alone, I would never would have known it happened and I watched it. But I did the same thing.
Alan Wyatt:I tuned in and out, I saw something I didn't like. Well, the one, the one thing I'm like, all right, you're trying to bring the world together, that's your theme, and then you just kind of piss off a third of it. You did a good job and I didn't.
Chris Lalomia:But I, like I said, I moved on, I went to the positive. I'm going to celine, celine was great and I still wanted to see one of the smaller countries coming across like in a raft with row rowing down the ascent. That would have been a winner, like that would have been the best you know Cameroon with their five guys or whatever.
Alan Wyatt:That night Celine was amazing, but I just was so moved by the hundred year old French athlete with the torch in his hand and the wheelchair, right before they they lit the car. I just I got goosebumps with that.
Chris Lalomia:So, yeah, I know we're, we're, we're talking about the Olympics. But back to the business lessons. What I, what I've enjoyed too, is they're putting up the iconic Olympic moments in some of these commercials and I have to say, for me it's always been the Muhammad Ali lighting of the torch, for in Atlanta I wasn't even living here and they keep showing that I went. Yeah, I mean that, I mean it was so moving.
Rachel Simon:I mean, I remember that Like I don't think anybody who watched that could forget. You know how amazing that was and how meaningful that was, and I wasn't living here yet either.
Chris Lalomia:But yeah, so that's been great. All right, let's get into some business lessons, shall we?
Alan Wyatt:Or let's keep telling stories, cause that's no no, I I am actually really excited to hear what she has to say today, Cause when Chris and I first signed up for LinkedIn, I think we sent our messages via telegraph, right.
Chris Lalomia:So when we first started on LinkedIn, I think we had to do the smoke signals and then click rocks and then Morse code. So, we clapped coconut.
Rachel Simon:Do you know what year you joined?
Chris Lalomia:When did it start?
Rachel Simon:2004.
Chris Lalomia:Which 2004. Yeah, I've been on there since it started was in yeah 2005, I think for me so you mean I didn't join until like 2010 and what's funny is late adopter.
Alan Wyatt:I was a little baby I was a late adopter.
Chris Lalomia:What is funny coming out of high school at the time.
Rachel Simon:It's that I definitely wasn't, uh, I a facebook memory came up around that time and it said said I just joined LinkedIn. Somebody tell me what the heck I'm doing on this platform. And I thought it was so hilarious when I saw that. I saw maybe like a year ago, and I did a LinkedIn post about it and was like, oh, how the times have changed.
Alan Wyatt:I went to classes for it, and I mean at the time it was, you know, professional networking. It was kind of a way to put your resume online.
Rachel Simon:It was really job search.
Alan Wyatt:It was job search. And then I heard you know, 99% of all recruiters use LinkedIn and you fast forward to today and it's kind of like we got the Facebookification of LinkedIn. It's a lot about content, and so I'm kind of curious how somebody like me, who kind of still would like to use it, just for you know, professional networking. How do I navigate these waters now?
Rachel Simon:Yeah. So I think what's important now is to think about LinkedIn as it is. It's a networking tool. So you know too many people and I hear this all the time like, oh, I don't need to do, I don't need to be there until I need a job. But we need to be networking all the time because you don't know when your current job may not be your job anymore or you might be like I don't, I need to brush this stuff off and get with the program here. So I really challenge people to rethink about what this platform is. It is a networking tool. So all the things that we do when we network fall under that broad umbrella. And over the last couple of years, yes, it has changed a lot. It has gotten a little bit. A lot more personal. People are sharing more. That definitely like during the pandemic, but because we were all lonely and sad and stuck at home and people were finding community on on LinkedIn, it's. It's level-setting to a certain extent.
Chris Lalomia:I just find a community in a wine bottle I kind of enjoyed.
Alan Wyatt:or three alone for a couple of years.
Chris Lalomia:But anyway, what you did? I was going absolutely insane.
Rachel Simon:The extroverts were like really miserable.
Alan Wyatt:I'm like oh, thank God, I don't have to choose between three things to do tonight.
Chris Lalomia:All right, I was like, where are my three things? I need three more things. And I went on Zoom. I actually went on a drinking Zoom, did you really? We had a cocktail, all.
Rachel Simon:And I Zoom where we actually we had a cocktail all and I'm like I'm right there. Lots of people did that. Yeah, like Zoom happy hours, yeah All right.
Chris Lalomia:So back to LinkedIn. That's where did it start to find us? I mean, it's growth, then, or do you think it started to evolve an identity?
Rachel Simon:It's always been growing. I mean, obviously now it's like over a billion users and stuff, but that's what they, that's their current stat. Like they hit a billion users last year, like I was saying, it kind of like got a little heavy on the Facebook posts during the pandemic, but it's definitely like kind of level set it now.
Chris Lalomia:Have you found that people have self like self reported on that? I mean like people come in and like hit a political post or hit a too personal post and people like, hey, shut that down, that's not for here. I mean notice that.
Rachel Simon:I'm going to recommend never talk about politics on LinkedIn unless your job is politics Like, because it's just it's just a tough topic to talk about on social media in general and I feel like on LinkedIn, we want to kind of position ourselves to be as broad, appealing as we possibly can.
Alan Wyatt:Right. So I'm professional and professional, and to me that's not professional and I'm seeing a lot of posts where I'm like man, this is I'm getting annoyed by them.
Rachel Simon:But you can also. There's a setting and I don't know exactly. You know there's just a million things you can have in the settings, but there is a setting where you can turn off political content. So, like it will, I haven't turned off on mine Cause I'm just not interested in seeing it.
Chris Lalomia:Is there any way I can just like have that whole bubble follow me, like in my day, like on the radio, watch a TV driving? Can't see the bumper sticker.
Alan Wyatt:Right.
Chris Lalomia:I'm like so I just heard a back to back, we got to talk about this for a minute, so I just read this article 60% of millennials and the younger generation, um, want the uh race to be over. I'm like, um, so uh, pretty much that's underreported and you don't even have to do that.
Chris Lalomia:I said I'm right now thinking like 85 of us especially if you don't make money off these things want it to be over yeah but the 15 of us who make money off running the ads and doing this and doing that and burying some money whatever they want it, the rest of us, what can we be done tomorrow?
Rachel Simon:yeah, so if only there was a setting for all things. Yeah, but there's not.
Chris Lalomia:Back to linkedin yes, they found that people that done this though, really get outed. I watched people's comments saying hey, wrong place wrong. Oh, I've seen crazy stuff.
Rachel Simon:I mean stuff where people for sure got fired for things that they said or comments this, that and the other. So it's always just like just don't do stupid things on there, because people are watching. Your employers, potentially, are seeing what you're saying. So, going back to kind of like the way that people are using the platform and again the personal posts, there is a level of it where it is very helpful because we think about when you're meeting somebody, you want to find that continuity, something you have in common. So you start a conversation.
Rachel Simon:You don't generally go to a networking event and launch right into a deep business conversation. You're like oh, hey, what you drinking? Did you watch the Olympics? What's your favorite sport? Like you're easing in with small talk and so when we can kind of have some thing to use as a conversation starter, either in our profile, in our content, it's very helpful for people to kind of like know how to kick off interacting with us so you can still do old school on linkedin and be successful using it to network, as opposed to feeling the pressure.
Alan Wyatt:uh, you know, chris feels no pressure to expose himself on tiktok, but you know?
Chris Lalomia:no, of course not yeah, so I don't.
Rachel Simon:I don't have to be creating content for it to be valuable, you don't have to be creating content but like look, you have a podcast, you like content, you're creating content every single week, every single show, you have content. But you can do a lot by just engaging with people, commenting, you know, using the direct messaging in a way that is not annoying and selling crap to people, cause that also nobody likes that.
Chris Lalomia:All right, let's talk about that for a minute. I mean, seriously, I cannot open LinkedIn each day and not have at least one. Hey, chris, notice your profile and I love it when they're completely way off. But it's like hey, you need business funding. Hey, are you looking to exit your business? Hey, do you want to grow your business?
Rachel Simon:I'm like no, not with you, I mean, but the answer yes, yes, and yes with you, no, no, I mean, stop sending me these messages. So what? Why are we doing that? Uh, it's just a lot of bad, like guidance on you know, spaghetti at the wall. Like, oh, if you just throw it at people, somebody's gonna say yes. So if you hit a hundred people with a crappy message and one person responds to say yes, please help me, help me, then that's successful.
Chris Lalomia:Then it works.
Rachel Simon:But I always say, because I push back on people when I get those messages sometimes and I'm like but you're pissing 99 people off. So what happens in a year when I actually do need the service that you're providing? But I go back and I see I had a bad experience engaging because you were spamming me and you wouldn't take no for an answer. I'm going to go to somebody else who has a better way of engaging with me.
Chris Lalomia:I mean, we've never. Just well, I shouldn't say we. I think all of us people listening to this podcast you're trying to get yourself smarter, better at what you do. You're not just going to take this blind solicitation, this piece of mail in your mailbox, and go oh wow, this Nigerian prince needs a million dollars. I'm going to send him $3,000 and he'll give me a million back. No, I mean, we're just not going to respond to that. But back to your point on that. They get a couple and they win.
Rachel Simon:Yes, so I mean one person like again I had this whole back and forth with this one guy financial. You know you're not giving a you're, you're ruining your reputation with some people. So, okay, great, you close two deals, but you but 200 people are like yeah, yes.
Chris Lalomia:So let's talk about best practices. So I'm just getting started, or I've got one and it's kind of dormant, not really doing much with it. What are the first things they should do to get it set up?
Rachel Simon:Yeah, so number one is you need to make sure your profile is updated and really clearly showcasing who you are, what you do, why you do it.
Alan Wyatt:How often should Chris update his photo?
Rachel Simon:Your picture needs to look like you do in the real world.
Chris Lalomia:So I might date myself a little bit here, but I think my glamour shot looks really good. Okay, I mean, I have my glamour shell looks really good. Okay, I mean, I have my perm going, I get that eyelash. She's got the mullet, I got my boa. Yeah.
Rachel Simon:I've updated it.
Chris Lalomia:Haven't I? I don't know.
Rachel Simon:Well, I have, I did.
Chris Lalomia:I did with my last headshot, which I did two years ago.
Alan Wyatt:Okay, as bald as I am now, I don't think you have to update it I think we're good.
Rachel Simon:I've heard every excuse in the book for why people don't want to change their picture, and it's really important that your photo looks like you do in the real world, because it's kind of weird when you do actually meet somebody that you're connected to and either on Zoom or in person, and you're like that's what you look like.
Chris Lalomia:so a lot of guys lately have been growing facial hair and I just met this guy and then I linked in with him. I'm like am I linking in with the right guy?
Rachel Simon:with facial hair because, like you know, you may have a beard or mustache for a couple months and then shave it. It's more of like you know, maybe again you had more hair and now don't have hair. Or, for you know, women, they decided to like, let their hair go gray. A lot of people let their hair go gray during the, during the pandemic, because we couldn't get to the salon or whatever. Um, but if your picture is still with, like, your color hair, but you don't have that hair color anymore, like you got to change it right. I mean, I kept trying to change mine because I had cut my hair really, really short in 2019 and then, over five years, grew it out, so I can't have a picture with short hair when I don't have short hair anymore.
Chris Lalomia:Yeah, that's right. All right, so profile picture.
Rachel Simon:Profile picture Right.
Chris Lalomia:Good. Your profile ought to be where you're at, what you're doing, who?
Rachel Simon:you are and what you do, and it needs to be written for your customer and your client. So nobody Everybody has a customer or client. Yes.
Chris Lalomia:Yep, even if you're thinking about starting a business and you're in the business world and to start my own business, I'm watching a great guy do this right now. He, uh, his name is Ken Viziana and we worked together at SunTrust and he's created this brand name of Viziana data. Yet he works for Pfizer or one of them I mean, he works for a big company, but he's created his own brand. So I got him on the phone. I'm like Ken, I love what you're doing with this stuff, man, and he goes yeah, and it's actually gotten me involved in different groups. He's on a board of some things he's helping to give back, but his company is letting him help promote himself.
Rachel Simon:That's amazing, great.
Chris Lalomia:With no designs, to start his own business. Quote, quote wink wink. Pricer doesn't listen to this shit anyway, so screw you. But no, he didn't. So much for their sponsorship.
Alan Wyatt:Chris Thanks.
Chris Lalomia:Too often people are writing their profile like it's their resume.
Alan Wyatt:This, chris? Yeah, they're gone anyway, but you learn anything about alienating people.
Rachel Simon:Too often, people are writing their profile like they're.
Rachel Simon:It's their resume and this is a good point, because that's kind of the way we did it right, but it is ultimately an opportunity for you to to articulate the pain point that your customer or client has and how you can help solve that problem. So I always like to say you know, so many people start off with like seasoned executive with 15 years of experience doing blah, blah, blah, blah blah and I'm like do you really care if somebody has? But do you really care if somebody has 15, 20, or 25 years of experience?
Chris Lalomia:Nobody does.
Rachel Simon:You care about. Do they understand my problem and can they solve it?
Chris Lalomia:That's a great. Oh my God, that's so awesome. She said that because in the home services world, one of the things we do know is that when you say Chris has been in business for 16 years, guess what Mrs Homeowner cares about? Not that at all. I would take issue with that. All the data suggests that it does not matter so many businesses. Karen, yeah, karen, let's go karen.
Alan Wyatt:Karen, yes, could care less. You could be some fly by night who just started last week not differentiate me for my competition.
Chris Lalomia:What differentiates me is my process of my people, not how long probably like the karen I'm sure in in that kind of um you know very like customer centric uh business it's about.
Rachel Simon:You know the experience the customer has in getting in touch, get how fast can you get somebody to their home, whatever the case may be. But like it's more of, do I want to work with somebody who's got one one year of experience, maybe, maybe. I want a little bit more information.
Alan Wyatt:You know, let's say I'm going to do a surgeon, I need a surgeon. He's brand new and he's brand new Well he's got to work on somebody's heart first.
Rachel Simon:My point is more that I can see that further into your profile. I don't need that to be the lead. I need the lead to be, um, that you understand my main problem and then you have a solution for me so your linkedin profile dynamite.
Chris Lalomia:So let's go check it out.
Rachel Simon:Pump that real quick oh, you can just find me, rachel simon. Uh, I mean, I don't know what the actual url you'll put in the show notes, or something I will, yeah for sure. So there's not that many rachel simons out there there's not, and I have like big red curly hair, so so I'm pretty easy to spot.
Chris Lalomia:That's the that. Now that's a calling card. I would say Rachel the, the girl with the big red, curly hair.
Rachel Simon:There you go.
Chris Lalomia:That's very unique, uh, but anyway. So who else has? I mean, when you look at some people who are doing it the right way, are there some other people we should look at?
Rachel Simon:I mean there's a lot of people that do a really good job. I could tell you all of my clients because I've helped them write their profile and they're all looking great.
Chris Lalomia:Just pump them too.
Rachel Simon:So one of my favorites is a gentleman who's up in the Boston area he works for oh, he's actually in Cleveland but his company is in Boston. His name is Michael Collins. He's a nonprofit executive. Super cool guy, very smart. We had a lot of fun writing his profile. I've gotten to work with lots of interesting people from just a wide variety of industries, and that's one thing that is really fun is I am helping professionals from again the nonprofit space, from healthcare, from like. I helped one guy who worked in like want something. I mean I didn't even know what the heck this guy did. It was so like so incredibly niche in this like specific kind of investing, but I didn't. I didn't need to understand the industry because I'm helping him convey it to his audience and he knew what he needed to say. So I just helped facilitate him getting that out in a way that made sense.
Chris Lalomia:How about that? So she made a quant jock. It sounds sexy and interesting to people out there.
Rachel Simon:Totally.
Chris Lalomia:You actually say because I used to work with these guys.
Rachel Simon:I don't even know what it is.
Chris Lalomia:Yeah well, I used to work with these guys. I don't even know what it is. Yeah Well, I used to work with quants. They're quantitative analysts and they do a lot of number crunching and everything else that goes on. But they are not the most interesting people unless you get them on their subject.
Alan Wyatt:Yeah.
Chris Lalomia:Then it better be interesting to you, because they're not going to stop Right.
Rachel Simon:Yeah.
Chris Lalomia:So you just made him sexy. That's like making Oppenheimer. I mean it was like I can't believe that was the most boring movie. I didn't like it. I'm like as a mechanical engineer, kind of a geek who grew up around the nuclear field, I was like, oh dude, I thought he made. I think that whole movie made engineering and science so sexy. That was a great movie.
Chris Lalomia:I loved it. Yeah yeah, these guys are like I'm bored, I slept. I'm like, oh well, of course I was into it, but they made it interesting for people who didn't have to learn all those equations.
Rachel Simon:Exactly, I mean my son, who I think he must have been a senior. When did it come out Like last year Two?
Chris Lalomia:years yeah.
Rachel Simon:So he was a senior in high school and he came home and You've got to go see it.
Chris Lalomia:Is he going to school for science?
Rachel Simon:No, he wants to be an accounting major. He goes to Georgia.
Chris Lalomia:Okay, well, go Dawgs. Go Dawgs, thank God for that Two-time national champion, go Dawgs, bbb, oregon. Here we need more accountants.
Rachel Simon:Yes, we do.
Alan Wyatt:We need a lot more accountants, do we really?
Rachel Simon:Yeah, oh yeah, came and told us that we were like yes, oh, cha-ching, he'll be so good forever. Please.
Alan Wyatt:Really, he can even be just like mediocre and he'll be amazing.
Chris Lalomia:Oh hey, you should be his business, you should be his development coach.
Alan Wyatt:Hey, kid Rachel's mediocre is good enough.
Chris Lalomia:Don't listen to your parents. You can just be mediocre. Okay, big guy, you could do it you don't get up, thanks.
Alan Wyatt:No aspirations, no goals. I promise you, it'll all work out here is the mediocre business coach, life coach, everyone's right here the whole time.
Chris Lalomia:Here he is.
Rachel Simon:I think you got a new ditch, so niche niche speaking of accountants, so I actually did a training for an accounting firm yesterday at lunch and learn because you know, professional services is one of those areas where these people accountants, attorneys, different kinds of consultants they have a specialized area of expertise but they're expected to build a book of business and that's very difficult.
Chris Lalomia:That's so different than the accounting mindset. I mean, could you just imagine, alan, your wife Judy has to go out there and find her own clients, talk to them, get them to go with her, and she has to tell everybody how smart she is, even though she one would never tell you how smart she is. But think about that, that's a totally different. I mean that's.
Alan Wyatt:No, I find her clients all the time. It's really funny.
Rachel Simon:Yeah, she doesn't like doing that. Associate you with your company, understand who you're connected to, because they may have potential clients, referral partners in their network that they just forgot about. Because you're not going to see everybody, because LinkedIn's only algorithm's only showing you what it wants to show you at any given time. And then think about, yes, content creation and I'm, you know, love to all the accountants out there, but I'm not sure that, like, writing LinkedIn posts is necessarily top of your list of what you want to be doing.
Rachel Simon:But even small things, like instead of just clicking repost on content from the company page, just add a little, add a little commentary. You know there was a post that they did about a little commentary. There was a post that they did about acknowledging their interns and I was like, take this and just talk about your experience when you were an intern, or give a shout out to an intern, like something to personalize it, because ultimately they can use some of these strategies to start to build relationships with people, because we know that you don't get business from people that you don't have a relationship with. You gotta start from that good rapport, build that trust and then the business eventually comes. So it's really important to embrace LinkedIn as that platform that can help support those business goals.
Alan Wyatt:So I have a question Compared to other people who are in the social media space, chris can hire somebody to help them with Facebook and TikTok and stuff. It's a lot easier for them to measure success, measure ROI. How do you? Because you're not, there's not call to actions, you're not asking for. I mean, it's actually kind of toxic to be overtly asking for business Good question.
Rachel Simon:It is a really good question.
Alan Wyatt:On our anniversary. Three years Finally took Chris three years.
Chris Lalomia:So, Rachel, I know you're married so I'm sure you don't keep score in your relationship, but we do and I'm down one nothing. Okay, there you go, great question, but I can't wait to hear this.
Rachel Simon:It is a great question. It's really challenging. Actually, that came up yesterday in this Lunch and Learn, because it's hard to measure right, it's hard to have like hard and fast numbers that say do this and this, you're going to post three times and send 15 connection requests and you're going to close six new deals or whatever. A lot of it's anecdotal and so it kind of is. One of the people of the us partners kind of challenged me a little bit and he's like you know, back in my day, in the old days, we I used to go to networking events and we, everything was in person, and this on the other and, um, you know, and the reality is, is that what would happen? What would have happened to his business if he hadn't been going to those networking events?
Rachel Simon:Right, you don't get business if people don't know who you are and you don't show up, because it's very easy to be forgotten. Same thing applies on LinkedIn. It's so easy to fall off someone's radar. But if you can consistently remind people that you exist and that's how I like to kind of coach my clients and just be like here I am, hello, this is me. I talk about this specific topic. That's what I want you to think about. When you think of me, when that need comes up, you become top of mind and they're going to reach out to you. So it's very anecdotal, but I like to say you know you're doing a good job, especially if you're creating content. If you go to pub, you know Publix or Trader Joe's and someone's like I see your stuff on LinkedIn all the time and they've never, ever engaged with your content. That's winning.
Alan Wyatt:Well, and there's other. I mean there's other quantitative, I mean just just the fact that the you help somebody get their profile fleshed out accurate. They're not focusing on how many years of experience, but that they're cool and interesting. And then okay, if your goal is to ask for 15 new connections a week, I mean there's, there's things like that you can track profile views and content, engagement and stuff like that.
Rachel Simon:But ultimately it's it's harder to to uh kind of draw the line between doing these and closing business. The closing business happens kind of in the way closing business usually happens. You might hear from somebody it's still a hard ROI.
Chris Lalomia:I mean to figure it out and draw that line or connect the dots.
Rachel Simon:Ha, ha ha, nice. But it's really of like, what is the, what is the cost of not showing up?
Chris Lalomia:So again, it's your time, because we don't want to get to that. But I started, I was on LinkedIn, was on LinkedIn when I was at the bank, started the trusted toolbox and went I'm never going to sell stuff on LinkedIn. But yet when I post out on LinkedIn, what do I get? I'm like, oh Chris, I remember when you were at the bank, can you have one of your guys come out and talk to us? You're like, oh my God, there you go. Or hey, love to see what you're doing. It's like you said, top of mind, you're there so, but it's a hard. I mean, could I sit there, cause I do out $50,000 in marketing. I expect to get well in my world. I expect to get 9X return and 10, if I can do it right, 150,000 in total revenue, or it's not paying for itself. I can't do that with LinkedIn.
Rachel Simon:You can't do it directly, but it's one of those. Again, I'm going to go back to the accounting example. So let's say, accountant, you know, gets their profile in order, kind of goes through their connections, identifies somebody who is in their target market that they forgot about, reaches out to them a message to be like hey, you know, it's been ages since we connected. What's going on, like what's new with you, and starts that conversation and that ultimately can turn into a new client.
Chris Lalomia:Yeah, so it's relational versus transactional.
Rachel Simon:That's the hard part. It is, and it requires patience, time, patience.
Chris Lalomia:It's like putting a billboard up in the middle of Atlanta and hoping that everybody's going to call you yeah, it just doesn't happen like that.
Alan Wyatt:Well, and the thing is is it's free and you don't have to be particularly clever to post content, as you might need to be on TikTok. You got to stand on your head and take your shirt off, right, chris? I've heard yeah.
Chris Lalomia:And I did not stand on my head. Thank you, thank God, for that. I know, yeah, it's a different Gravity would be. It's right there.
Rachel Simon:It's a different approach and there was an experiment right there right there.
Rachel Simon:Uh, every year, edelman, a consulting firm, does a um, a study on, like, the value of thought leadership in b2b. Uh, you know, as far as b2b companies are concerned and like, more and more b2b purchasers are like thought leadership is very important in their buying decisions. So they want to be working with companies, with executives, with leaders who are thought leaders, who have that trending knowledge in their industry, and so we have to be building and creating and sharing that thought leadership. People are going to LinkedIn specifically to find it. So it's really I don't believe in particularly in, well, really any professional space. So there's lots of B2C on LinkedIn, but in the B2B space, which is what I focus on, you got to be there. You just can't opt out All right.
Chris Lalomia:So how often should you be there on LinkedIn?
Rachel Simon:Again, I'm talking to my accountants, yeah, my introverts you should be looking at the app daily just to check your notifications. You don't want to miss anything um 10 minutes 10 minutes, 10 minutes. Check it out in the morning when you're drinking coffee or whatever.
Alan Wyatt:I like to say whatever whatever you drink in the morning um, I got 30 minutes for that I do too or whatever um, I always like to encourage people.
Rachel Simon:You know, maybe it's you're better off scrolling linkedin. I don't know, there's some inside joke thing happening here there is rachel's not.
Chris Lalomia:Yeah, rachel's not enjoying your humor. Yeah, uh sorry um we think we're funny, especially after a bourbon. All right, so check it every day, five to ten minutes it's a hard house case when he's really busy for 30 minutes after a cup of coffee okay, we're linked in the expert in a week you will be a thousand hour guy.
Rachel Simon:That's right Be an expert 10,000 hours Just anything Anywho, so get in the habit of looking at it daily. And then I encourage people, if you can take the challenge, to try to post once a week.
Chris Lalomia:Once a week, All right. So there you go Post once a week. But also I've heard you could reshare somebody else's.
Alan Wyatt:And reshare.
Rachel Simon:That's kind of lame, right? No, I mean, it's whatever, it's better than nothing.
Chris Lalomia:I don't, I wouldn't just hit reshare like repost, because it's like a retweet. Um, I just got done saying I'm resharing and you said that's lame. I'm doing it, he's doing something, but did you connect those dots? I connected those dots, thank you.
Rachel Simon:Look at you, thank you, I would encourage you to at least add a little bit of perspective as far as, like, why you're sharing it. What is it that you found to be interesting or like, like, put your perspective into it, um, and then spend some time commenting. So commenting is, like such a powerful way to engage with people, um, because again, it is getting you seen, because you'll notice when you're looking at the news feed you will see, like Chris commented on blah, blah, blah. Like it's a good way to practice content because you have to put a little thought. You can be a little looser in it, a little more casual, have some fun with comments. You don't have to engage. You can find content that you find is like, fun and interesting and if you can drop a few comments a week, great. Like, engage with your target market if you can find them.
Chris Lalomia:And everything you just said. I mean total time commitment in a week. I mean less than an hour.
Rachel Simon:Oh, less than an hour. Yeah, I like to encourage, you know, like suggest, spend five to 10 minutes a couple times a day. Just take a peek at it, like you know. I know I'm on it all the time, but that's what I do. Yeah, all right.
Chris Lalomia:I got to get to this one, though this one's killing me. So LinkedIn owned by Microsoft, yes, so they're not quite Amazon or Google anymore, but wow, they're all big. There is not anything but zero or a million dollars If you want to join for the professional thing. Whatever that number is, I don't care. Whatever it is, it's a number. I will not do so. I'm still free. So what does the best one I mean? If you want to pay for it, what does that get you?
Rachel Simon:Yeah. So there's a few different like upgrades. The top one of those is sales navigator and that is definitely if you're like doing business development and you're like you have to think about what is the value of a new customer to you. So even if the value of a new customer is $5,000 or whatever, you're going to get that money back with a sales navigator. So it is like $99 a month. I mean it's not inexpensive.
Rachel Simon:But again, what's great about it is it has a very dynamic search functionality. You can save searches, you can really add notes, tag people. I mean it's so much better than the free search that we get on LinkedIn itself. It was a separate platform that they purchased, so it's tech like it kind of sits outside of LinkedIn. And then you can always upgrade to premium. I don't feel like for the price difference. Premium does that much for you. The value that you get from just the premium upgrade is two things. One is last year year they made this stupid change that you can um, you're, if you have a free account, you're limited to like five to ten personalized connection requests per month, which is really dumb that's one word.
Chris Lalomia:That's not the word I use I think it's extremely short-sighted thank you even better so you're so much more elephant. Yeah, I was, I'm going.
Rachel Simon:I'm going a little more on the crude side yeah, I mean, it just doesn't make any sense because, they're always talking about, like you know, building relationships and this, that and the other, and then you're taking this easy tool for people to use away because they're just want to make money, and that's that's the reality. Sorry, linkedin, don't don't get mad at me.
Chris Lalomia:Rachel Simon, linkedin expert. She loves LinkedIn. She loves Microsoft. So we're going on the record to say that. Now Chris is on the record saying if you just offered a $10 a month program for a few more messages I might buy, you get 120 bucks from me and I'm free and I get a feeling there's like a million more of me.
Rachel Simon:Probably yeah, so make some money Microsoft. Don't be an idiot. Yeah, I mean, even if you like, if they they um monetized it where you could buy a bulk of personalized messages you know what I? Mean like yeah, but whatever, I don't run the, I don't run the show.
Chris Lalomia:If only I did well, maybe, maybe on this platform we get a chance maybe I can see if you've already been deleted.
Alan Wyatt:I probably, I probably just got linked in jail oh, we got well uh, let me tell you about facebook.
Rachel Simon:Yeah, sometimes it doesn't sometimes it doesn't load and I'm like, did they throw me in jail? Like oh, no, um. But the other thing that premium gets you, that obviously, like all the premium upgrades get you as well as you can see, uh, who's viewed your profile, and that can be really helpful. Uh, if you have a free account, you can only see like the last five, but like I can see way, way back and so you purchased the premium I have a sales navigator and sales navigator well, like you get sales navigators the top, so it's like you think you get everything that like.
Alan Wyatt:So premium's not the top no and that's still at all and premium still is.
Chris Lalomia:What was that number? Again, I think it.
Rachel Simon:It's like $49 a month. I'm not really sure they change that Like 600 bucks a year. Something like that.
Chris Lalomia:I'm like no, find a number in the middle, Like you find 120, maybe 300 bucks, I probably would have done it.
Rachel Simon:I think if they had it, 600 bucks.
Chris Lalomia:I'm like no, I'm not doing it.
Rachel Simon:I just don't do it that much. I think option they a lot of people would go all right.
Chris Lalomia:So rachel simon is a linkedin expert, microsoft. As you guys pick this up on your ai, she says go to 250 please, and she will always support you and she loves you. Bris, on the other hand, don't ban me, just don't ban me.
Alan Wyatt:It's bris at the trusted toolboxcom.
Rachel Simon:Yeah don't bend it's terrifying when you think you got kicked off man, it's horrible, it is right.
Chris Lalomia:Oh yeah, no, my uh long story short. Uh, our google uh business profile got suspended for nothing. I mean my, my google business profile for the trusted toolbox gets about 12 000 uh views a month. Yeah, and it got banned. Yes, you get to talk to at Google, nobody Same, I don't think they have anybody. How long did it take you to fix it it all of a sudden, three days later, it came back on.
Chris Lalomia:We filed a complaint with my, with my, with Joseph, my social media guy. They didn't acknowledge they got the complaint and acknowledge that we put it in and three days later it was put back in. We asked why we we never got an answer.
Rachel Simon:And so the same thing happens, I think all the social media platforms. There's no actual customer service person, so you cannot physically get somebody on the phone. Linkedin if you get kicked off, it's so hard to contact them I mean it is extremely difficult to even know who to contact. So don't do things to get yourself kicked off, like use automation tools and stuff, because bring that up, so no ai chris.
Chris Lalomia:So explain this automation tool. And we're coming to the end.
Rachel Simon:We're starting to run, I know so good, all right um, so in the linkedin user agreement, and like I don't know how many people actually read user agreements for anything, I just click acceptor.
Chris Lalomia:So, exactly, so this is why I actually own Alan's house. We did some work at his house. He just accepted my user agreement. I didn't even know that, and so now I have his mortgage, but anyway, okay.
Rachel Simon:In the user agreement, one of the rules is that you cannot use anything that is going to take actions on your behalf. So there's lots of tools out there that are going. This is where you get those crappy messages, because that's not actually a person sending them. It's a like automation tool, that is-.
Chris Lalomia:I didn't even know that.
Rachel Simon:Yeah, so like there's automation tools, they used to be chrome extensions, now they're all cloud beast and they connect into your usually sales navigator account. You need sales navigator right and they're sending connect requests. They're sending those crap messages. Sometimes there's a message cadence, so like you might say please stop messaging me and then you'll get the next one. That's like thank you so much for connecting Right All right.
Chris Lalomia:So I got one of those and I wrote, I wrote back and so Brent built my house in Charlotte, Brent Zandy, and I got this didn't completely form letter thing from him in my in my email. So I emailed back and say, Brent, clearly this is a form letter. Just wanted to say, hey, man, haven't talked to you in a while Going to be in Charlotte next month. If you get this, or whoever gets this, passes this along to Brent. You nameless bot, you may call me. And he emailed back. It really was me, Chris, I'd love to see you.
Rachel Simon:That's hilarious. That's really funny.
Alan Wyatt:I got him on that one, so they're not supposed to be able to do like an automate, because I swear I'm getting linkedin requests from there's people that there's just no plausible reason that they would request yeah, so those are probably automation tools linkedin's actually trying to squeeze them out yes, so like that is breaking the user agreement.
Rachel Simon:Um, now there's all these like god-awful um ai commenting tools out there. Oh God, and those are really. They're terrible.
Chris Lalomia:Way off right, and so we use AI summaries with this.
Rachel Simon:Oh, those are great yeah.
Chris Lalomia:For podcasts? No, not even close. Because it always starts out because we banter too much in the beginning and the entire summary says Ellen and Chris are off to. First of all, I did not take Ellen. Okay, thank you. He doesn't take me anywhere, and it was me. That was not the purpose of our podcast and I kind of hate this, but we're running out of time.
Rachel Simon:Yeah.
Chris Lalomia:All right, rachel, hit everybody up. How can they find you? You've been listening guys. You've been hanging in there with us walking talking. Maybe you're on the truck. Check this out. You got to check this stuff out, go.
Rachel Simon:So you can find me on LinkedIn Again. Rachel Simon, Look for the curly red hair. My name is in all caps.
Alan Wyatt:Oh nice, that's another little thing, is it S-I-M-O-N, s-i-m-o-n? Okay?
Rachel Simon:My website's connectthedotsdigitalcom. I've got lots of fun things on there. Like you can download a profile checklist.
Chris Lalomia:That's always helpful free stuff, guys from the crazy red. You gotta have a great, such an awesome name. With the red hair you can nail it.
Rachel Simon:I'm just easy to spot in the crowd. That's awesome.
Chris Lalomia:Rachel's time. Guys, check it out LinkedIn, as you can tell. She may be a little more serious than we are. Alan, she should have had more bourbon, okay, maybe next time all right, we're gonna load her up next time guys go check this stuff out. But we can't let her go because we gotta ask those famous four questions right, okay all right, what is your favorite book?
Rachel Simon:oh, my favorite book. Oh, I mean, I'm not that big of a reader currently because my brain just doesn't have room for books at the moment.
Alan Wyatt:Business book.
Rachel Simon:But you know, can I share a podcast that I really like.
Chris Lalomia:All right, hit it, let's go.
Rachel Simon:I'm really into the Mel Robbins podcast. She just has great episodes and like there's always like good business stuff and just like life hacky stuff and that's what I've been listening to robbins, fellow michigander, that's the mother country, if you didn't know there you go, you went there, you, you, uh, you.
Chris Lalomia:You took the. I know the handy dandy map attaboy. Thank you all right, second one what is the favorite feature of your home?
Rachel Simon:oh gosh, I love house. I've been in my house 21 years.
Chris Lalomia:Favorite part though.
Rachel Simon:My favorite part, I think, is that it is like just feels like a home you know what I mean. Like it doesn't feel overly, like like I had a friend in high school whose house felt like a museum, like you couldn't sit on any of the furniture Right, and that's kind of a modern thing right now.
Alan Wyatt:I mean, it's a really common. It's just this minimalism and you sit on a peg and not look at anything.
Rachel Simon:I hate that so like I like clutter. I like, just it feels homey. I update we we did a a redecorated our living room Cause it was all ugly, old, like you know, college-y furniture and it's just a very soothing like comfortable room.
Chris Lalomia:Can I get my Lazy Boy back? That's all I want. My wife kicked out the Lazy Boy With the drink holder we're getting older and with the side fridge, that's right.
Rachel Simon:Like what Chandler and Joey had right.
Chris Lalomia:Right, exactly, oh, friends reference Rachel for the win. That was awesome. All right, we're big into customer service because we're kind of customer service freaks, thank you. What is a customer service pet peeve of yours when you're out there and you are the customer?
Rachel Simon:Having to do the Xfinity chat bot to try.
Chris Lalomia:Sorry, I'm going to shit talk Xfinity because I'm mad at them I'm so happy that she said heck, heck, heck and google, and then she finally goes.
Alan Wyatt:I'm gonna shit talk to xfinity you guys unleashed, chris, I know I love it I just wanted it.
Rachel Simon:I just wanted my ballet sports back, because it was back amen sister, oh my god, why do I even have to have ballet sports?
Alan Wyatt:It drives me nuts. I can't see the braids.
Chris Lalomia:I don't want to watch your braids too. I don't want to pay for freaking ballet sports. You have unleashed a holy hell that they have no idea what just happened.
Rachel Simon:Explain to me how you take it away from my current package and then it comes back, but now I have to spend $50 more a month to get it, because it's only in their high level. And I said, oh to get it because it's only in their like high level and they're like and I said, oh hell no, I know, I yeah so I was on, you got comcast, I got comcast the braves didn't become america's team by being hard to watch they're impossible to watch, but they're terrible to watch right now, so oh, don't do that.
Chris Lalomia:Right now we're. I have season tickets. This is a bad thing, but it was easier to watch the braves in 1994. I haven't gotten game. I've taken you to a mini game. Did you get it?
Alan Wyatt:this year, let's I will Off, air Off air Pause.
Chris Lalomia:Hey Michael, cancel that. Hey Alan, what the hell are you talking about? Can we go? It's been a while since I've been flipped off on air.
Alan Wyatt:Right there, it is All right. You got a good middle finger.
Rachel Simon:Thank you, it should not be this difficult to watch a baseball game. It should not Period, so I was on my phone for two and a half hours on Thursday night trying to talk to Comcast and I got this is what pissed me off, as I got transferred four times and the whole conversation started all over again and they're like how can I help you? I'm like, are you for real?
Chris Lalomia:So anyway that's my pet peeve and I think we found a pet peeve nerve. Yeah, we did push a button there. That's a good one.
Rachel Simon:It's just not fun, that is not generic.
Chris Lalomia:That was very real. Yeah, that was authentic.
Rachel Simon:That was not AI generated that was not a generated right. Let's be authentic on linkedin. That's what we're. Oh, I talked. I actually did a post when they took uh bally away about like this is like how do you get your, how do you try to build customer base by making it more difficult for your fans to actually consume your content, like it doesn't make any sense oh, this is the big one.
Chris Lalomia:all right, actually it's becoming a speakeasy. I think we have a four. Oh, we have one. All right, you're ready.
Rachel Simon:What's the last question? This?
Chris Lalomia:is the best my favorite, being in the home service industry. I love DIY nightmare stories and we love fire. We love bees, pestilence, pests, Water, blood. We used to say death until we got that. We're like oops.
Rachel Simon:What's the craziest?
Alan Wyatt:story. What's the craziest DIY story? It's not somebody else, it's you.
Rachel Simon:Oh us, oh God, we don't do a lot of that stuff because we're just not good like that. So we bring people in to do stuff in our house. But can I share the story of one of the most terrifying things I ever saw somebody doing?
Alan Wyatt:Sure.
Rachel Simon:We had a hornet's nest like up in the eaves on the second floor.
Alan Wyatt:How big was it?
Rachel Simon:I don't really big enough.
Chris Lalomia:Big enough.
Rachel Simon:I didn't really investigate.
Chris Lalomia:We're in the South and I can promise you the South it's big enough. Think as big as a pumpkin yeah, so big enough.
Rachel Simon:And so we, the pest guy comes out with the big gold ladder and goes up there and I don't think that he was well protected and my husband and I are like watching out the window and be like what's gonna happen and he starts spraying it it and he's like swatting things. I was like, if this guy falls off the ladder, are we like responsible?
Chris Lalomia:Well, as a matter of fact, funny enough you should say that, yes, you would be, unless he was with a company that has workers' compensation. There you go, so that's why you go with companies like mine.
Alan Wyatt:When you look up a pest control company for bees and you want 25 years of experience, not some dumb ass who just decided to go up a ladder and spray rain on it.
Chris Lalomia:I want to know that they're going to be background check, fully insured. I want to know that they're going to take care of my bees the right way. The fact they've been doing for six months probably not. However, 16 years does not win. People just didn't care that I've been in it for 16 years. They definitely care.
Alan Wyatt:We're going to argue this.
Rachel Simon:Maybe they care about Google reviews.
Chris Lalomia:Which, by the way, if you've been in it, a thousand. There you go.
Rachel Simon:That would be a top crazy story.
Alan Wyatt:That's good, I like it.
Rachel Simon:Don't just climb a ladder and spray a can of Raid.
Chris Lalomia:And call yourself a pest control guy. All right, everybody, that's it right there. You want gold nuggets? You got them. Rachel has brought the heat and she got really authentic at the end. Number one Bally's Comcast. Get your shit straight. We hate you. We all hate you, especially as Braves fan. Although our product right now is not what we want to see, we would still watch it. I would, I have been. I mean, I've been a glutton, although it's the Olympics, so I'm using that as an excuse. We're going to do that, but everybody, keep going up that mountaintop. You've got to get better each and every day. 1% better each and every day of what we're trying to get done. You listen to this podcast.
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