Kitces & Carl Ep 85: Building Your (Local) Brand With PR That Actually Works

***Editor's Note: Can't get enough of Kitces & Carl? Neither can we, which is why we've released it as a podcast as well! Check it out on all the usual podcast platforms, including Apple Podcasts (iTunes), Spotify, and Stitcher.

Show Notes

• Measuring The ‘Best’ Marketing Strategies And The Second Kitces Research Study On Advisor Marketing
• Kitces & Carl Ep 84: How Do You Introduce Yourself If Not A 'Financial Advisor'
• Josh Brown
• Tim Ferriss
• Seth Godin

Kitces & Carl Podcast Transcript

Michael: Well, hello there, Carl.

Carl: Greetings, Michael. How are you?

Michael: I'm doing well. How are you this week?

Carl: I'm good. Yeah, things are good. Wishing for more snow but other than that, things are good. It's too sunny and nice around here.

Michael: This is things people in Utah say.

Carl: Exactly, exactly.

Michael: We have opposite problems here in DC, like, "Oh, no. it snowed an inch. We have to shut everything down." We're not very good here with snow.

Carl: Yeah.

Michael: So, Carl, I wanted to chat this week because I guess a little bit of an extension of our last episode. We were talking about this whole "What do you call yourself?", "I'm a financial advisor, I'm an insert super-witty-elevator-speech here thing". Just saying, like, "Screw it. I don't care. I'm a blogger." And letting people figure it out for themselves.

I thought it would be interesting this week to take kind of the opposite end of this, which is I know there are some advisors out there that are really trying to build sort of their notoriety, their visibility, their personal brand. They're trying to get known in the media.

I don't want to have to introduce myself because I want everybody to already recognize who I am because I'm on the TV, or radio, or in the local paper, or the national paper, or whatever it is. For some of us, we try to create this more inbound looking thing of sort of building our brand and visibility, and doing media and PR.

And so, I thought it would be an interesting discussion since you sort of directly lived that as sharpie guy in "New York Times" column and all the stuff that you've done in the space of media and PR. Just does it work? Does it actually bring in clients? How do you do it? What do you actually do that turns that into business? How does all that work?

Determining A Public Relations Objective With Maximum ROI Potential [02:03]

Carl: Yeah. Yeah, really cool questions because there's so much to unpack in terms of the Instagram-y piece of it. It's the thing that everybody thinks you should do versus what's the actual reality and how does it really work. And where my head goes first, and I'd be curious about your perspective on this, too, is just what's the goal? Why do it? Because that would drive...if the goal is, "I want to become Twitter famous," that's a thing.

But if the goal is, "I want to get new clients," that's a separate thing. And sometimes we confuse those two. It sounds ridiculous to even say out loud, but it's really easy to slip down that slope a little bit and lose track of what and why you were doing.

Because we can certainly get into...I think it'd be fun to get into, like, "Okay, let's decide that PR..." Something like writing for your local newspaper or a trade magazine for your niche or...let's decide...we can talk about later if that's important. And now, I think is a good idea. We can talk about how.

But first, let's get clear. Have you sort of noticed that? Sometimes we get confused. PR with the goal, or I used...Twitter is an easy one to pick on. I use Twitter because it's about business. Turns out it's just about talking with your friends. Have you seen that problem?

Michael: Oh, I've definitely seen that problem. When we ran our research study on advisor marketing, just, literally, getting out to advisors, like, "What are you doing? How much time did you spend? How much money did you spend? How many clients did you get? And let's just math it. What's actually working?" Social media was at nearly the bottom of the list.

Carl: Of things that work. Where was it in terms of time spent?

Michael: Well, so very high in terms of time spent and very low in terms of clients. So, we calculated what's the value of your time, couple of hundred dollars an hour or how many hours did you spend? Okay, that's a multi-thousand-dollar marketing expense.

All right, how many clients did you get for that multi-thousand-dollar marketing spend? And it's, like, "Yeah, I spent $10,000, $20,000 worth of my time, 50, 100 hours at couple hundred dollars an hour, I got a client, maybe."

Carl: Maybe.

Michael: It's, like, "Cool." So, $10,000, $20,000 worth of your time and you got a client. That's not actually a terribly good ROI. There was a very small subset of advisors who actually got a lot of business off of social media. There's sort of the big head, long tail effect there. There were a couple...

Carl: The Josh Brown effect.

Michael: Yeah, yeah. So, there were some people that were at sort of Josh Brown-style level. Almost everybody else got virtually nothing from it. And just...having lived in some of the social media realm, as well, I know what happens. What happens is social media platforms have a bunch of metrics that they give you to "tell you if you're doing well," number of followers, number of retweets, number of likes, number of impressions, how many people saw the witty thing you said.

None of those are metrics that matter. So, if you want to be Twitter famous, those are metrics that matter. If your goal is to actually get clients, none of those are metrics that matter. The only metric that matters is, did you get a client?

Carl: Yep.

Michael: And if you start paying attention to the wrong metrics, you spend your time on the wrong things, or you do it the wrong way because if you really want to get down to it, how do you get Twitter famous, say super-witty things that a bajillion people retweet.

How do you actually get clients? Say something that's super useful for five people on Twitter who have that very high stakes problem, and then watch them connect with you and potentially do business with you. So, unless you're...so the more focused you are in the solutions that you bring to the table...if you're focused in who you help, you're probably not going to generate a giant audience. So, if your primary metric is audience, you're going to end up spending your time focusing on the wrong things.

Carl: Right. The reason I think that's such a valuable discussion is it applies to this idea of PR. And let's break PR down a bit. I'm not talking about press releases, which is what PR stands for. No, it doesn't.

Michael: Public relations.

Carl: Public relations or a press release.

Michael: You're going to get hate mail from someone in the PR industry.

Carl: Please forgive me. I know that PR stands for...

Michael: I apologize on Carl's behalf to all of our PR friends. You do more than press releases.

Carl: PR stands for public relations, but I'm not talking about the type of public relations that is...because I've been through this a bunch with the book releases. Some people think that public relations equals press release. All right, that's the end of the job. I'm not talking about that.

What I'm talking about is the idea...I think what would be interesting for us to talk about is how do I get media coverage and even more importantly maybe would be how do I get quoted in media and/or how do I start writing a regular piece for someplace? And we can define that later.

Connecting With Potential Clients By Leveraging Social Proof In Marketing [07:30]

Michael: Well, again, just getting to what are your goals, I think that's actually really important to come back to in the context even when you start talking about things like PR and media coverage. Because at a high level, I would say, there's probably two primary strategies, ways that people turn media coverage into actual business and clients.

Carl: Right.

Michael: The first is I get seen by prospects who want to do business with me. So, sort of like the direct draw. And the second is what's at least known sort of the marketing world as social proof. I've been seen in a high-profile media place. The implication being they vet their guests. They picked me. I must be pretty good.

Carl: Yep.

Michael: Therefore, I've been endowed with the social proof because I've been seen on CNBC or quoted in the Washington Post or the Wall Street Journal, whatever the thing is. I've been validated by the media. And the reason I highlight those is what it takes to be successful with each is radically different.

If at the end of the day what you're trying to generate for media value is some effect of social proof like as seen in the Wall Street Journal, CNBC, and MarketWatch, once in my life I have to get onto those platforms.

Carl: Yep.

Michael: At some point, I have to do some media thing that gets me some quotes. And once I’m ever there once, I get to write on my website, "As seen on MarketWatch, or Wall Street Journal, or CNBC," and if I can get each of those once, I can put all three of them up there. But that's it. All I have to do is get there once and once you get there once, the value is not being on the platform.

No one's going to see you once on MarketWatch where you've got your two sentences of glory and say, "Oh, my God. Those two sentences in the middle of that article was the most brilliant thing I've ever seen. Would you please take my multimillion-dollar life savings?" It does not ever work that way, I promise. I've been in a lot of media coverage. It never works that way.

So, if what you're trying to do at the end of the day is, like, "I just want the credibility, or maybe I don't know how to get ongoing and continuous media coverage, but I've gotten out there a few times," what you make of your media coverage is what you do with your social proof, not the idea that someone's going to read your quote on MarketWatch and want to call you and hand over your life savings.

So, it's cool. You got quoted in the media. Did you put it on your website? Have you printed the article and put it in your approach package? So, tucked in there on the right side of the little twofold thing you've got your article where you were quoted.

Let's acknowledge, I'm someone who got recognized by the "Wall Street Journal," MarketWatch, or whatever the thing was. Did you send the article out to all of your clients and say, "Hey, cool news. We got...our expertise was highlighted on MarketWatch last week."

Because if I'm your client, I want to feel good about my decision. I feel good about my decision when my advisor tells me they were on MarketWatch. It might even be an excuse for me to forward it to my brother-in-law and say, "Yeah, my advisor's on MarketWatch. He really is pretty good. You should probably give him a call."

So, am I sending it out to my prospects to let them know that I was quoted? Am I sending it out to my COI relationships to let them know? Yes, there could be a piece of this that's basically a little braggy or a little humble braggy. That's part of how marketing works. There actually is a piece of marketing that from time to time, you do actually have to tell people, "I'm good at what I do."

Carl: Right, right.

Michael: And it's...some of us...for some of us it's hard to say. Either we're not there on the confidence yet and we're working on it, or just we don't necessarily like to talk about ourselves or brag about ourselves. Sometimes we're taught certain childhood lessons of not doing that. But at some point, if you want to be successful from a marketing end, you have to actually tell other people you're good at this and show them a little bit of social proof.

But the key, to me, from the marketing end, is if what you're trying to do is that strategy, you just literally have to ever get out there once, or alternatively if you've gotten out there once or twice but you can't figure out how to turn it into a regular thing, just kudos. You got your 15 seconds of glory but you're having trouble repeating it. It's cool. You don't need to.

Take what you got. Put it in your marketing packet. Put it on your website. Get it out there to get the social proof value, and you're injecting the value without needing to keep chasing every single reporter that might call with a HARO request.

Carl: Yeah. And I think that's really, really important. That's sort of almost a, whatever, a seven-minute masterclass on how to use that. It's not the thing that's important. It's what you do with the thing, and we just call that...it's got a term. It's called social proof.

And one way to think about the problem of bragging and telling people, and how do I distribute the social proof, you get a reprint of an article that you were featured in, how do I send that out? I love to think about it as what problem does this article solve? So, it's not, like, "Hey, I was recently featured." I would just...

It'd be much easier to phrase this in an email with a link or in the mail you're going to send out to say, "Hey, recently, the 'Wall Street Journal' was exploring this challenge that entrepreneurs face about a successful exit, and they called me and I thought you'd enjoy the article."

So, it's not, like, "Look, I'm featured." It's, "Here's the problem." And of course, when they open the article, you've highlighted where you are or you can put an arrow there, whatever. But the point is it's much easier to help people understand, "The reason I'm sending this to you is because it deals with a problem that you might...I thought you might find interesting." So that's important to note.

And it is really true. I can't believe the number of disappointments where I thought my life was about to change because I was on the XYZ Show. These are big-name places, and then I go do the thing and nothing happens. And it turns out it's what you do with the thing.

Michael: So now, I've just got to ask. What was the biggest heartbreak of...what's the highest-profile thing you got to do that you thought was going to be a thing and then turned to be nothing?

Carl: So, a national...without going into the name, a national, one of the national morning TV shows.

Michael: Okay.

Carl: And my PR...so when the first book came out, they hired...which is unusual, not just the internal PR team at the publisher. They actually hired an external PR team as well. And it was so interesting to me because...anyway, that's a whole nother subject.

But they worked really hard to get me on some TV show in New York, and then I was, like, "Nothing..." It didn't do anything for book sales. There's a few people who do Tim Ferriss. If you get on Tim Ferriss, you're going to sell some books. And if you get on Oprah, you're going to sell some books.

Michael: I would say as far as I hear, Oprah still works.

Carl: Yeah, yeah. Oprah, Tim Ferriss, and then there's a whole bunch of the podcasts that are just a great…Rich Roll...there are some people that have some real audiences that go out and buy books, but the traditional media stuff. So, that was disappointing. I was on a TV show in Canada and I walk in, they rush you in.

It's one of those morning financial pornography shows. What do they call them? The host is...she's sitting there. She's all ready. And I sit down. The thing starts in five seconds. She's got the book in front of her, and this was near the end of the PR tour, and I was kind of salty at this point. And I was sort of over the whole thing.

And she literally is, like, "Okay, we're ready. Three, two, one, start." We had no pretalk, nothing. I knew nothing about the show. And she has the book in front of me and she's, "Carl Richards, author of ‘The Behavior Gap.’” She goes, "Carl, what do you think of the market?"

And I literally said, "That's actually a really dumb question, and I'm going to walk you through why." And when we got done, she goes, "Great interview," stood up and walked away. I was never going to get invited back. So, anyway, that's a PR story for you.

So, let's talk...

Understanding Commitment Level To Choose The Right PR Approach [16:15]

Michael: Let's talk about the other end because there are two versions of this that I find at least can work. The first is I'm doing it for the social proof in which case the biggest things there are, A, don't overdo it. If you're going to say you got quoted in the MarketWatch and put it on your website, you don't put it eight times if you've been on eight times. You really only have to be there once to say, "As featured in MarketWatch," and move on. So, what matters at that point is what you do with the media appearance, not adding more of it.

Carl: For sure.

Michael: Now, at the other end of the...

Carl: Wait, don't lose your spot. Let's also just make a rule...I think it goes without saying with this group, we're going to be honest in the way we portray that stuff. There's a lot of people who think that...I don't know. Somebody mentioned your first name, Joe, and because it was there, you get to say that or you see this with bestseller lists all the time. It was the lefthanded author that wrote a book about gymnastics bestseller list.

And you put international bestseller on your website. I only say that because in sports I'm at the point now where my age category, plus the thing...I can finally be, like, "I was on the podium among the right-footed 50-year-olds that have no hair." We've got to be honest about the way we approach that. So, that's the only catch. Well...

Michael: That's fair. So, the other end of this, to me, is the other side that we've seen that works, and we see this a lot in our marketing research as well, are the people that do a media thing with brutal consistency and repetition for a really long time, and it compounds really well.

So, the weekly column in the local paper, the local radio show. Some of those are bigger and go national, but most local markets are actually big enough that if you're going to get seen by tens, or hundreds, or thousands, or a few million people every week for a couple of years, that market is more than big enough given how many clients most of us actually need to be very, very successful.

So, it's doing a thing over and over, and over, and over again. It kind of gets back to the old marketing song of people have to see your brand seven or nine times before they're interested. And if you're doing a local radio show or local newspaper, guess what? Not everybody tunes in every Saturday morning at the same time or the same place.

So, if you're going to get your 7 or 9 repetitions, it might take 6, 12, 18 months before you're even getting there. But when you've been doing it for 7 years and people have seen you 10, 20, 30 times, you even get people that start getting local celebrity status, like, "Ah, you're the one on the radio. I hear you all the time. Love your stuff."

And then when they actually have a problem, like, "Oh, now I'm retiring and I'm not sure what to do, and I've been listening to you forever. So, I'm going to actually give you a call now." So, it's about doing something that has that ongoing repetition and consistency for a long time.

And that's part of why I highlight this distinction because if you're doing the social proof thing, you really just need one or two or three, and you're done. Milk the few you had. It's about how you leverage it, not continuing to be on the media. If you're going in the other direction and you want it to work, you're not doing it 3 times or 5 times, or 10 times. You're going to do it 100 times before it starts to make a dent.

Carl: Yep, yep.

Michael: And if you're not ready to do it at that level, you probably don't want to go down this road. So, I'm curious from your end, Carl, because you did a version of this on a pretty grand scale. You had a weekly column in the "New York Times" for a long, long time. So, I'm wondering, did it play out, did it translate that way for you?

Carl: Yeah, for sure. Let me address that. Let's talk about how to do that because I think having a social proof and how to get the regular thing, maybe start in the same place and...

Michael: Yeah, but you go totally differently because of what it takes to compound…

Carl: Yeah, let's get really tactical about how to do that. We can even talk about some scripting. But, yeah. Look, the thing that I did with the "New York Times" for a week, every week for 10 years, I can't even begin to quantify the value of that.

And the value definitely was not what the "New York Times" paid me. From the perspective of if what I was extracting its value was what they paid me, it was a total waste of time. But if you took the total value, just in terms...and things that I couldn't even…

Michael: Meaning clients, new business opportunities?

Carl: Clients, new business. And again, the clients...it was interesting. I don't...actually, I got...yeah, I get...I still get an insane amount of, "I've got X million dollars. I need help. I read something. Can you help me?" I still get a lot of that. It didn't seem to...but to your point, it didn't happen till later.

Michael: Yeah, just takes a sheer amount of repetition to get there. Ten years of weekly, 500 columns later, multimillionaires start noticing.

How To Create Connections To Gain More Media Coverage [21:24]

Carl: But what was massively impactful, massively impactful from the beginning was what...the social proof of that and using it the way Michael outlined. So, let's talk real quickly just about how to do it. So, here's the reality of...and a good PR person knows this, and it's what they've built their brand on. The reality of an editor...so, let's just talk about an editor. And this could be the editor of the newsletter that goes out to dentists in Southern Nevada.

Michael: Okay.

Carl: This could be the editor of the local paper. It's true at every level. Editors have...editors and writers, and often they're both, have what is referred to often as a copy hole. I've got to produce 2,500 words a week. This big hole I've got to fill in every week. That's hard. Because it's...not only do I have to write the thing, I've got to research the thing and I've got to have new ideas. One of the hardest questions for them is, literally, what am I going to write about.

So, in my mind, that's a huge opportunity to be valuable. So, if I were doing this...yeah, if I were doing this again, what I would do is I would make a list of the...and you may as well start thinking you're only doing this for social proof because getting featured once is a requirement for doing it regularly.

Michael: True. Yeah, just be, like, "How much of a commitment do you..." To me, the biggest distinction is how much of a commitment do you want to bite off afterwards? Because what I find in essence is you can do it once and it works because you social proofed it. You can do it 50 to 100 times because eventually, you build your local brand with repetition. And all the space in between that is a giant valley of nothingness in results for additional work.

Carl: Totally, and they both start with the same step, which is getting featured once. So, how do you do that? So, I would make a list of...and I would be thinking from a social proof perspective...what are the "brands" that I would love to have social proof from? Think of the blue-chip brands in your niche.

And again, this most likely is local. Most likely. It doesn't have to be, but it could be the "New York Times", it could be the "Washington Post," it could be whatever. It could also be your local paper. It could be, again, the monthly newsletter that goes out to the specific niche. So, you figure out what are the brands that have the biggest impact on the business and you just do a little research. Who is the editor? Who's the writer? Go start reading those.

Michael: Okay.

Carl: And then, to me, Twitter is still the easiest way to do this, but you can also do this via email. Chances are their email address will be right there. In their byline, it'll have the email address and maybe a Twitter handle. Start following those people.

And here's what I would do. I would send a message to them through whatever channel. Twitter was magical in the old days, and I still think there's still some of this magic that you can get through to people. And I would just look for ways to add value. And the way I would do that...and you cannot promote yourself. They're getting 100 of these a day from people who are promoting themselves. You're not the only one thinking that it would be valuable.

So, what will set you apart quickly is if you just show up and you've actually been thoughtful. I get 100 PR pitches a day, 99.9 of them are totally thoughtless, and they don't even get replied to because I delete...I reply to every thoughtful one even if it's not applicable, and I say, "This was so thoughtful. Thanks for taking the time." How do I know if they're thoughtful? If they reference my work, "Hey, I saw...I know you write about this. I read this. I thought it'd be interesting to you."

That's where I would start is I would...pretend like your job is to help them fill their copy hole and not with information from you. So, you just say, "Tara, I know you like to write about financial issues among underserved communities. I read this great article in our local paper. Chances are you didn't see it because it's our local paper. And it really reminded me of this that you wrote."

If you do that, "Here's the thing. It's in the area that you write about." And you make the extra step to say, "It reminded me of this," with a specific thing to something they wrote about, so if you just set aside...if this is a goal of yours, set aside an hour a week. Make a list of those people. Find a way to be valuable in their lives once a week.

How Advisors Can Effectively Communicate Value To Become A Credible Media Source [26:16]

Michael: So, how do you get to the point of asking them to quote you, though? Because that's where I find for a lot of us, "Tara, I really appreciated your article last week on the issues that retirees face. I'm a retirement expert, and I'd love to be a source for your next story."

Do I say it that way? Is there a better way to say it? Some people I find come in even harder, like, "I'm a retirement expert. I actually saw some issues with what you saw, but I'm happy to help work with you on the next one."

Carl: Yeah, I think here's the way. And I reserve the right to be wrong about this, but the way I would like to receive that email would be, "Hey, I loved that article that you wrote. It's something I think a lot about. In fact, here's an article that I read that reminded me of yours," not your own.

And then to...if you've done that...remember, Seth Godin has this story where if you go to Grand Central Station and you say...and you've got a $20 bill, and you approach strangers and say, "I've got a $20 bill, I'll trade it for a $5." If you try that in Grand Central Station with strangers, you're just going to get people, like, "You're crazy," and walk away.

But if you show up to your neighbor's mailbox and leave a $20 bill and you do that 7 weeks in a row, and then you go knock on the door and say, "Hey, I'm the guy. I've been leaving $20 bills in your mailbox. I'll trade you this $20 bill for a $5." They'll do the trade because there's a relationship.

So, I think through...and I don't know that there's a number, but I would just be adding value, adding value, and then when you're at that point, there's two ways to approach it. I think, "Hey, I loved this article. I thought it was great. I think a lot about this stuff, too. It reminded me of something I wrote here." And I wouldn't say, "Do you want to quote me?" But it's easy to say, "If I can ever be helpful, don't hesitate to reach out." Easy to say that.

And then I love what you just said. I think, as a journalist, if somebody came and said, "I love this article you wrote, but I... look, please forgive me, or please excuse me, but I found a couple of things that might have been misses here." And just walk them through it. Thoughtful criticism...and Ron Lieber and I have talked about this a bunch. Thoughtful criticism is gold. Nobody does it. Nobody takes the time to be thoughtful, and, let alone, be thoughtful in a way that will make your work better.

So that's how I...and I would just make a small list. This list should be 3 to...10 would be a lot, but 3 to 5 people. And I would just consistently show up. And the thing that's going to set you apart is consistently showing up as a thoughtful source. Because here's what...that's a real good PR person, and we know some of them in our industry. A real good PR person, I can tell you what the writer and the editor will tell you about them. They'll say, "Oh, every time they email me, I know it's worth opening."

Michael: Yep.

Carl: Because it's going to be relevant and thoughtful about the work. It's going to help me fill my copy hole, is what they're saying. So, if you can become that person...and then I would never say, "Quote me, quote me, quote me."

It's always, like, "Can I be helpful? If you ever need a source...if you ever need any research...I know you've got a lot on your plate. I think about this stuff all the time. If you run across something you need research on, just let me know. I'll hunt it down for you." That's how I would do it.

Michael: And I will say the other angle around this, a version of what I've done in the early years as well...because I’ll just admit...I felt so uncomfortable trying to reach out and give, like, "Here's the thoughtful criticism approach," because I don't want to be seen as too critical, and then they don't like me because I want people to like me, like most human beings.

I struggled with that. What I would try to do instead was a, like, "Here's a different angle. Here's a different angle maybe that you haven't seen. So, I loved the article you did about people claiming social security too early and not delaying it as much as they should even though they get all these annual increases.

I do a lot of this work with clients as well and one of the other things that we see is sometimes clients are just so anxious about all the discussion that Social Security is going broke that they just do it because they think they're taking the money and running.

It actually doesn't even have to do with the math of the 8% increases. Just something that we see with...in our business doing this with clients. I thought that may be helpful if you're writing about this again in the future."

And just literally, like, "Here's a new thing. Here's a new angle." Because if it actually piques their interest and they decide to write a story about that in the future, guess who they're calling? The personally who, literally, gave them the idea.

Carl: That's beautiful. The new angle, even those exact words are perfect because it's, like, "You know my language. I'm always looking for a new angle. So thankful. So grateful for you. You wrote this. It made me think of this, an angle that you may be interested in," not even an angle that you may have missed. I love that language. That's perfect.

Michael: Yeah, yeah, I wasn't a fan of, "What you may have missed," but just, "Hey, as someone that does this all the time, I see it a little bit differently. Here's a different angle for what we see when we sit across from our clients doing this."

Carl: Totally. It's so good. And so, I think to me, no matter what we do here, we understand the impact. Are you trying to be Twitter famous or not? What's the goal? Social proof versus doing the thing the long haul. I like that framing a lot. And then the question of, "Okay, how do I get either one of those things to happen?"

Turns out it's just some consistent, hard work. And we've given you language even around how to do it. And I wouldn't expect a response. It'd surprise me if you got a response the first time. So, you're thinking, "Hey, I'm going to try this." There's a point at which...if you've tried it 10 to 12 times, and you've been really thoughtful and really useful and gotten no response, you…

Michael: You might have to move on or you might have a typo in the email address you've been sending it to.

Carl: Yeah. But other than that, I think it's showing up regularly, being helpful, realizing you're trying to solve a problem for them. You're not asking for anything in return. You're just asking to be helpful. You'll find that that's...I can't imagine anybody doing that consistently and being sad they do it.

Michael: Yep. Awesome. Well, thank you, Carl.

Carl: Amazing. Super fun, Michael. Thank you.

Michael: Absolutely.