 to my website. So would you take some pictures of me if you have them and you can tweet me or just grab me and shoot me? That'd be cool. My talk is so you don't have a business card and I have a little bit of frustration with my fellow WordPress brethren and sister-in because I come to work camps or I go out networking and meet somebody who's really interesting. Got to fix one thing? I don't know if we can hear me now. I can start again from the beginning which is cool. No, I'm gonna start from the beginning. Well I'm Ray Mitchell and this as I was saying the talk is something that came out naturally because I meet with a lot of WordPress people. This is not my first word camp but Raleigh is the first word camp city that I ever attended and I was just so excited about meeting so many people using this tool and this platform to build their business and do so many different things that you want to keep in touch with them and I always ask for it do you have a business card and invariably more than half of people go no I don't have any or I don't use business cards I know and it always perplexed me because I fancied myself kind of or I've kind of grown into being a networker over the years. So I'll talk a little bit more about that journey and why this business card thing is kind of important for us particularly if we're freelancers or small agencies or anybody who relies on other people to bring us business. So a little bit more about me in the summer of 2010 I started 6-4 web design I decided all of a sudden because of another business that failed I needed to do something different. I had a consulting business I did leadership training and development for small businesses I figured I was going to start this business I had a whole lot of corporate experience and I was going to go out on my own and started training business. Unfortunately it was 2009 in the middle of a recession and nobody wanted to pay for training. Well in 2008 where I was thinking about starting this business I built a fancy website for myself because I don't want to pay for one. Everybody asked me where I got this website for my business but no one wanted to do business with me so I figured I'd start doing web design as a business. So that's how I started 6-4 web in 2010. Made for you is another brand that I started very recently last summer things go on in the summer to also do web design for small clients. So as we talk about this presentation the title definitely was clickbait because I'm not really going to talk too much about business cards so if you're a print designer hoping to be in your glory typography nerd maybe next year. So I talked about my journey into becoming a networker and doing networking. I was an anti-networker. Before I started the consulting business I spent about 20 years at American Express and operations and there was one guy in my team that was always in networking. For a lack of a better name or not to use his real name. Where's Joe? Oh he's out networking. Joe's a slacker. Joe doesn't half get his work done. He doesn't manage his people well. Why is he always out networking? Finally Joe had to leave American Express because he wasn't doing his job as effectively as he should have. But Joe landed a cushy job three levels up as a vice president as virtual as networking. So maybe there was something to it and as I kind of look back on it I was networking in the company didn't call it networking but I was the guy that if you wanted something done if you wanted to know how to do something you'd call me because either I could do it or I can tell you who could do it and point you to the right person to get whatever task you needed to be done done. It was a skill that I cultivated knowing who's out there who's doing what being good at my job knowing what I was going to do and I would help people is yeah send me an email Ray do you know who can do this or Ray can you do this and I'd always find an answer. It was networking but I didn't know it was networking. Fast forward a little bit I left American Express started this consulting company and literally I moved from slacker and schmoozer to someone who had to go network. That was the point where I entered my gripping grin phase. Hi I'm Ray Mitchell and I give up business cards call me if you need me and I'd give business cards and it got to be where you go out to these networking events. Chamber of Commerce is having something I bring a stack of cards and throw them out like they were making it rain at a club of ill repute right but as a networker or as an inexperienced networker that was supposed to do. You give people your card and then magically you get business after they have your card. Doesn't always work out like that and those of you who've been in business for a little bit and freelance for a little bit know it takes a little bit of work actually to cultivate business. It takes a lot of time I didn't know that because working at a big company I didn't have to network. My my check came every other week in direct deposit everything was cool. Somebody asked me a question I'd answer it and if I didn't answer it the check would still come in two weeks but when you're working for yourself you're working for a smaller business you've actually got to go out and generate this business you've actually got to go cultivate it. I got frustrated at this process. I built this fancy website. I knew the technical pieces of my consulting work but I wasn't getting work so there must have been something wrong with it. So I'd go back to my office and work on it, post a website, build another training package. You know maybe the design on this flyer is not right. Maybe I need to do that. And fortunately I had a guy who saved my life from a networking perspective and I owe him a lot. He called me to go to one more event at the Chamber of Commerce and I just got frustrated and I blew up at him. Chris I don't have time for any more of this networking. I got to work. I'm working and he kind of calmly just told me about what I needed to do. And effectively said Raymond, networking is the work. If you think about it as a small business person the only way that you're going to get it out because you don't have the multi-million dollar budget to run ads on television. You can't necessarily afford to put those digital billboards on the highway. The way you get out is really one-on-one letting people know what you do, how you can serve them, how you can fill their need. It's kind of embarrassing for somebody who professes to be a web designer but over the years the majority of the work that I get does not come from my website and those are even doing this for a little bit. You know you probably realize that as well. It comes from the interactions that you get with people. You tell them how you can solve their problem, their website issue and they see your previous work and they may contract you to do that work. Or people in town know your reputation for doing good work, for being fair, for being on time, having quality, having a standard and they refer you to someone else who needs work and that's where the work comes from. So in that statement that Chris made, I went from networking skeptic or networking heretic to networking evangelist because I see how important it was and it was a skill that you don't really learn in the corporate environment because your check comes every two weeks. You do your little task and you get a check. When you have to go out and actually do it yourself, it becomes important and I realized that and I told everybody I left behind at the corporate world, hey you need to start doing this network. You need to start going out. You need to start making connections outside the walls because once you get outside it's pretty cold. You don't have that built-in network that can help you do things. So I talk about this networking. I don't know how many of you are active networkers but the question is, you know, what is the purpose of networking? The purpose of networking really is just to build and forge relationships. Networking is building. A woman that I network with uses a statement that's pretty similar to this and she talks about networking is you either spend time building relationships, you spend time building your knowledge or you spend time networking building your bank balance, making money. Those are the three reasons to network. You want to build relationships with people in the community, people who can use your services, people who don't necessarily use your services but just need to know about you and what you do. It's not just about you. You need, if you're a good networker, to know about them, to be able to reach out and get resources, resources that cover things that you don't necessarily do. From a knowledge perspective, networking provides an opportunity for learning. WordCamp is a great learning experience. For those of you who, this is your first WordCamp, it's probably overwhelming with all of the knowledge that you're getting in. For those of you who have been to more than WordCamp, you're back because of all the knowledge that you've got and all the relationships that you've built. So networking adds a lot of value to your life and can add a lot of value to your business. Of course, you network to build your bank balance. You're out seeking balance. You're actively seeking business and one way to do that is to let people know about your business endeavor and what you do and how you can solve problems that make you money. I use the phrase networking but it's not really networking. It's really the process of building relationships because if you can actually build a real relationship with people, they trust you. They know your character. Over time they learn your ability and they're willing to refer you work or make an introduction that can make a positive change in your business. So networking does not have to be a fixed kind of meeting that you go to every week. It can be but there are a lot of other places and a lot of other ways that you can network. There are business networking groups. You may have heard people refer to BNI or leads groups. Chamber of Commerce events, if you're a member of the Chamber of Commerce, that's a great place to be if you're in business because chambers of commerce typically are made up of business people and you have a little extra credibility as a member of that chamber speaking to someone else who's a member of that chamber and that helps grease the skids for building a relationship. You can network in your Uber. I do a lot of that because I ask people what they do. Is this your full-time job? No. Well yeah, we talk about it. What do you do? Well I work with small businesses and nonprofits to build them a website and we talk about that. I give them my card. A lot of times they are not working at their dream job. They're Ubering and it's an opportunity for them to use my network to get introductions to people who can help them in their career. So networking really is kind of a two-way thing. Provides an opportunity for you to build a relationship for the future that is mutually beneficial. Grand openings of new businesses, ribbon cuttings. It's a great place to meet other people who are interested in business, who are also interested in their community and potentially interested in doing business with people from their own community. That's one way to go out and shake hand. Not in the grin and grip and throw business cards out, but to meet some new people. And if you make it part of your regular routine to be involved in your community, you will see people who are also involved in the community and they will recognize that you're involved in your community. They'll want to get to know who this person is that they always see in the community and that's where you build a relationship. Conferences like WordCamp or Convert South or Internet Summit, you get to meet people in your industry. The people in your industry are potential referral sources. Civic groups like Rotary or Kiwanis, your church, there's an opportunity for you to see, be seen, to meet and talk about what you do and that is a way of promoting your business through networking. Little League or soccer games, if you're not actually playing, you're sitting in the stands with parents. You know their kids, they know your kids, maybe you can get to know each other, build a relationship. Because through the relationships, and it said, people do business with people that they know, they like and they trust. The way to get known, to be liked and to be trusted is to be consistent and be out in the public at all times. So when you're networking, you've got to have a way to talk about yourself and your business. Depending on your view and where you've heard, the picture is the elevator switch. They talk about the elevator pitch, the elevator speech. I typically talk about the 30 second commercial because you want to get good at being able to talk about your business in a short time, to be able to give a concise description of what you do so you can explain when you're sitting next to someone in the Uber, or sitting next to a parent at the soccer game or at the Y, you can talk about your business effectively. Typically, you're going to let them know what you do, who you do, for and the type of businesses that you work with or who you'd like to do work with. You want to do it in a way that is compelling and creates interest, right? So if you compare and contrast the way you say this, kind of appropriate for work, well, Rich, what do you do? If Rich responds, I'm a web designer, everybody knows what web designer is, I don't need to be interested in that anymore. I can turn my head, I can get popcorn, I can do something else. But if Rich says, hey, I'm not just a web designer, but I own a business that I help small businesses, they become more effective and they get a presence online that helps them win more business, that's a different statement. If you're not on the design side and maybe you're a developer, I work to build reliable platforms that business owners get that maximize their business. Again, that's something interesting. Well, tell me a little bit more about what you do, you build a platform. Is that a box? Or is it software? Gives an opportunity to answer the question and engage them to actually get a little bit more curiosity about what you're doing and you can reel them in and talk a little bit more about your business. If you go to networking events, probably the most, I won't say you hated, but everybody sees the financial advisor coming, right? Or everybody sees the insurance edge and you know what they do. You don't necessarily want to have that conversation, right? As soon as they say you're a financial advisor, oh God, he's going to ask me to make an appointment. Let's get together for coffee so we can talk about my insurance, right? If you talk about how you protect family's wealth or how you ensure that if there's a crisis that everything doesn't fall apart, well, how do you do that? Well, I help people by fully funding their retirement through life insurance or something like that. It forces the second question and through that second question gives you an opportunity to distinguish yourself in their mind enough that they might actually be interested in talking to you a little bit more. With that 30 second commercial, the goal really is to get the person that you're talking to to say, well, how do you do that? If you can peak their curiosity enough to get them to say, well, how do you do that? Now you can really talk about how you solve problems and who a good referral partner is because not everybody you speak to is in need of your services, but they likely know somebody who could use them. And if you can explain how and why you do what you do, it's more likely that you'll get a referral. So in the networking environment, here's a little tip. The first person who gets to say, so what do you do? They're the winner and it's not a competition, but they're the winner because it allows you to kind of frame your 30 second commercial in the context of what they say. If they say I'm a small business owner, you can kind of quietly but not smile too broadly, but start going like this. If your market is small business owners, because now you can talk about how well you serve small businesses. If they're a big corporation, you can still smile and go like this, but now you frame your 30 second commercial is we help larger businesses achieve these goals. By having a little bit of information, you can be more specific about how you solve the need for people like the person you're speaking with. Networking is kind of an interesting thing and a lot of times when you go to a networking event, it's kind of strange and people have different skill at networking. You'll run into people who you meet, hey, how you doing? What do you do? And they vomit on you. They literally tell you everything they possibly do, every service that they have, every customer they have, every solution that they have, whether you're in the market for it or not. If networking is about building relationship and working with it, there's no need to actually go through this process and just cover them with everything you do. If you're an established, if you have the intention of being an established networker, you're around for the long haul. And if that's the case, treat the conversation like you're going to come back and speak to them again, like you expect to see them in an event again, because you're working to build a long term relationship, a relationship built on credibility and stability. If you're hit and run, you're just, again, making it rain with business cards. You know, people don't think you're going to be around, they don't take you as seriously. I was talking to my wife, I saw an article on maybe on NPR's website or something like that. They're talking about building friendships. And networking kind of is the same way in terms of repetition. They say, in order to actually build a friendship versus acquaintances, you have to spend 90 hours with someone doing the same thing. And it's not necessarily you're both doing the same thing, not bicycling or something else. But, you know, if you have a cup of coffee together, after you have 90 hours worth of coffee, you probably have a good relationship, right? If you are volunteering together in an organization, I'm a Rotarian, a lot of people join Rotary thinking they're going to get business. Those people who come exclusively for business, they usually hit the door and then head right back out. But if you work together with people who are volunteering for 90 hours, you get to know a little that something about people, you understand their character, you understand what they're interested, you understand a little bit about their family, how they operate. You see them in action because you're watching them when they're doing other things. And you get to understand them. So, as a network, if you make the assumption that you're building a relationship over time, it's all right if you don't get business the first time. It's all right if you don't get a referral the first time. It's all right if you don't spend more than a minute talking to each other. It's the over time building the relationship that makes sense. So, I talked a little bit about the elevator speech. I really believe in helping people with networking. I talked about my networking evangelism. I talked about my debt to Chris who shook me on networking. If you need help or want to work on your 30-second commercial or your elevator pitch, visit that website and I will work with you on helping you build your 30-second commercial. No charge, no obligation. That's my give back to people who have helped me. Once you've gotten past that 30-second commercial and you're actually sitting next to somebody or talking at an event, you may ask 30-secondsecret.com. So, what do you talk about when you're sitting with somebody? I mean, if you're an introvert it may not be your natural thing. I really don't accept that fully because if you're in business and you need to go talk to people, you can be an introvert when you go home. But when you're out, you got to be out. So, what do you talk about? You could talk about cars, but I would encourage you to talk Ford. Ford is an acronym. It's kind of easy to remember how you can actually start a conversation. You don't need to use every letter in the Ford, but if you use those things, it is an opportunity to talk. It's an opportunity to get to know somebody. And over time you may get through all four depending on how long your conversation is. But it's very easy, depending on the circumstance. If you're at the Little League, oh, is that your kid out there? Yeah, that's my son. Oh, my daughter's over here. And that at least gives you the ice breaker to get into the conversation. You're not always going to start out talking about family, but you may talk about what you do or, hey, so what do you do for hobbies? What do you do that's exciting here in Raleigh? That recreation is potentially the ice breaker. There's two of these acronyms, this Ford and Form. Form is actually probably a little bit more business appropriate. And when I say business appropriate, once you start to get a relationship with somebody from a business perspective, and you're actually having that one on one meeting afterward, Form probably Form, F-O-R-M works a little bit. It's family, giving me details about your occupation in specific, still recreation. But what's your message? What's the message I should go away with about your company, which is the who you want to work with? What types of businesses that you support? Because at that point you've probably established kind of a relationship for business, and you have the real intention to try and give this person some support from a business perspective. So understanding their message and being able to repeat that effectively helps you look credible when you're talking to one of your clients about this other guy who can actually solve their problem. So remember the acronym Ford. You don't have to, you know, it's good if you have a couple of questions in each of the categories. You don't have to wear the same question out. And if you have a couple of questions related to family or occupation, it makes it a little bit easier and makes it sound a little bit more natural. One of the things I learned about networking at WordCamp, and you may have already heard this phrase, or you probably will hear this phrase, but it is the icebreaker question for our little group. It's, so what do you do with WordPress? Has anybody heard that today or in this trip? One of the back, Sharon knows that. But it's a very common question and it's actually good for us as a crutch where we don't necessarily like to network as much. Everybody kind of has this interest and the question is easily understandable. Well, I built sites. I'm a dev. I've never used WordPress before. Everybody can answer that question and it immediately allows you to get pulled into the community. So at Donut to Networking tomorrow, please ask the question. So what do you do with WordPress? So we have the acronym Ford. There's another acronym that we are going to not use in our networking pursuits. It would be very implied if I went up and burped at you. When you're networking, please don't burp. All right. Stay away from bad jokes. That's going to be hard for Corey who's a comedian. But stay away from bad jokes. I'm not saying your jokes are bad. But if they were bad, you shouldn't do them in a networking event. Oh, now she's leaving me. All right. Uncomfortable childhood experiences. You know, and it's kind of there jokingly, but realistic. How many times you meet somebody new and you're whining and pissing and moaning about something. It's not an effective networking tool to be a downer. All right. And of course, the last two that we're familiar with don't get into a deep conversation in religion and politics. You can, but you take a risk, right? Networking is a two-way street. I said it's value for both parties. I am not a big proponent of BNI, but Dr. Ivan Meisner is the founder of BNI. And he stated that and the principle that they operate on there is givers gain. And I really truly do believe that. If you're always trying to do for yourself and you're networking with the intention of helping yourself only, you're not going to prosper. People will back away from you. They will see how transparent you are in your attempts and keep their distance. But if you actually give and people see you as a giver and they know that you're a connector and you go out of your way to introduce the new person that stand in the corner by themselves to someone else and you bring them into the group, they will see that and you'll gain from that. If you're free with giving referrals you get known as somebody who gives good referrals and people reciprocate. Givers gain. It's easy to give. When you're networking it's not about you. And it's easy to it's easy. If you have that spirit, if you have that heart for networking it's easy. What can you do to help this other person? Is there an article or resource that you can give them that would help them in their job or help them to find more clients? Is there someone that you know that this person just needs to meet? Once you start getting in the WordPress community a little bit more you will find that you can make a lot of connections and there are people that you want to introduce to each other because it would be good for them to get together. It'd be good for both of them if they knew each other. You can be that connector. Is the person you're talking to a good resource for your clients? If they are it makes you look good if you bring them a good resource. Are they a good resource for your family? If you see that this person is reliable and trusted, wouldn't you want your family members to take advantage of that? That's a benefit and it gives this person business. Is the person you're talking with a good partner for your business? Is there a potential relationship that you can gift them your business? You know to be able to turn that over because it builds your business and it builds their business. When you meet somebody in the networking event it's important not just to take the cards and put them in your desk. Definitely need to follow up after an event. We meet a lot of people at these events make the effort to catch up and touch base again. You know hey it was great to meet you. Are you coming to Sunday session? Let's talk before everything gets started. Let's meet for coffee next week. Let's have a call next week and just talk a little bit more. Hey can we go out for a couple minutes? Are you going to the after party tonight? Let's sit down and have a beer or let's not have a beer and watch everybody else who's having a beer, right? I use LinkedIn a lot because it's LinkedIn is kind of the role of X online. It's your connections and it's really meant as a platform for sharing contacts. So I typically send a lot of LinkedIn invites. When I'm referring someone or putting two people together for an introduction I try to always use the LinkedIn profile because it immediately shows that person's history and credibility and gives a little bit of esteem to the person that I'm recommending and putting together. So you can learn a little bit more about Michael when you check out his LinkedIn profile at linkedin.com blottyblot. So do you have a business card? Now just as a joke and don't be ashamed. How many of you actually have business cards today? All right, that counts. You had the intention. That's okay. They're in your car. All right, you need to have your business cards and I'm like really dancing on a razor's edge because I've been giving up business cards today and I thought I had enough but I don't know that I have enough. So business cards are important. If you don't typically use business cards you can do it. They're not expensive. I would not necessarily recommend going to that one that everybody knows because there are places that are cheaper and much better to get business cards pretty inexpensively like really inexpensively and it's an opportunity to set yourself apart and distinguish your business by having a good card. So I'm going to talk about bad business cards. Bad business card is one that has too many fonts and there's too many things going on. You know unless like I say you're a copywriter that does ransom notes keep the card simple, keep the card legible, right? Choose a lot of curly curly swaths with curlicues and all that and make the font really thin so that when it's actually on a card as opposed to on your screen when you're designing it you can't read it. That's not a good business card and while you're at it make the font really tiny because you want your logo to be big so you have to make the information really small like the phone number or your email address. That's not a good thing for a business card. Some of my favorites are light gray on white cards. You know, I'm getting old I can't read like I used to, right? So make it light gray on a white card and make the font really small. Thanks for your card and it gets tossed, right? The other one is laminate the card so no one can write on it. You know, you can make a nice card but only make it glossy on one side that way they can turn it over and write why they wanted to talk to you on the back, right? And then use an image that doesn't relate to your business. You know, the dream catcher is always good on a business card or the howling wolf when you when you have nothing to do with a howling wolf or a dream catcher and then if you're going to use a picture make sure it's like really tiny so it gets pixelated when you blow it up on on the card too. In seriousness there are a couple of tips that you can do to have a good business card. You know, try not to use clip art or the generic templates that come from, you know, staples or office depot. You know, the hairdresser one is always that home style hairdryer or the plumber's got the, you know, the pipe wrench that every plumber has. You know, you can spend a little bit of money. You can actually go to Fiverr if you wanted just to spend 20 bucks and get a logo that's kind of different than everybody else is using or you can kind of do it yourself. My logos I am not an accomplished graphic designer. Typically it's a font, another font and I twist it a little bit but it's something that's clear and legible. It's something that's easy, right? When you do your own business cards be sure to proof them multiple times. Get somebody else to look at it because my first set of cards that I that I ordered, thankfully I was ordering smaller quantities then but I left out my website. You know, you could kind of, you could kind of figure out what it was because I had my email address on it. So people might just like, well, you know, well, it's Ray at 6-4-Web so it's probably 6-4-Web is the website but yeah, as a startup small business I literally had to go through all of those cards without the website on it. So I make sure that the information on the cards is correct. They're not that expensive so you can actually, you can't actually remake them but you got to wait and then you have this box of cards that sits on your counter. Well, what happens with mine is anytime I run out of good cards I pull the old guys without the website address on them and give those out until the new ones come in, right? One other tip, the back of a business card is essentially free. There's no reason to have a business card information just on one side, right? Or you can, you know, think twice before you have a blank card. A blank card on the back is okay because you can write on it but would it be great if you just spent, you know, $3 more or $5 more for that box of cards? Had them print out your services on the back of the card? Have them print out, hey, download our free guide on how to design a logo on the back where they can join your email list? You know, give them some information that actually allows you to make an offer. I changed my cards up every little once in a while so my current card has services on it but the card I used for a number of years was I have a downloadable document about the 10 things you need to think about when you're going through a website project. If I gave someone my card, I never gave the card with my name up. I always gave it to them with the offer up so they'd see that and then turn the card over and see my name but it allowed them to join the list and it allowed them to get some information that might push them in my direction because I'm trying to show that I'm giving stuff away that's credible and kind of helps them make the decision. So there's an opportunity really to use your business card as a billboard so think twice about leaving the backside blank. So I'll ask you again, can I have your card? I'm Ray Mitchell. You can connect with me here. Definitely I like to connect send me the LinkedIn invite. I'm Ray Mund with the U, my mother did that to me but you can look for me online. Pretty frequently active on Twitter and I'm trying to get my toe on the Instagram thing. So thank you. Any questions? Yes. It just depends on who you're talking to. That might work well here but I can give you a whole lot of reasons why not. People are afraid to use Facebook as a person in my personal life. I don't text because texts are like hand grenades. People send you a request by text turn away and then you're expected to respond to it so I don't text. If I delete the text with your information it's gone. It's probably better to take a photo of the card if you've got it or send them a text or the VCF file with your contact information. But have the card. People can see it in what is the movie? American Psycho. I don't know. Has anyone seen American Psycho? The first one? They go into this like I don't know in 20 minute scene where they're like comparing business cards because that was like a big thing. It's like what kind of paper and what font is it? Oh it's especially custom designed font and that provided a little bit of status and notoriety. Your card has the ability to do that more than an email or a Facebook message when you're not connected to them already because it doesn't go into their inbox. It goes into the someone sent you a message that you don't know in box that most people don't even know they have. Michael. I feel you. The most success I've had is with my local Chamber of Commerce. I live in Winston-Salem and I don't belong to the Winston-Salem Chamber. I actually belong to the Clemens Chamber which is the bedroom community next to it. Just by virtue of that's the one I joined and that's the one I got business and traction from. And you can but it's also the one that I spent the most time with going to the meetings, meeting people, building a relationship. So we are just as much friends now as we are business colleagues. And people see my work and people see that I come to the meeting every morning at 8.45 on Wednesday and he's reputable. And he contributes to the group. And he's consistent. So people give me referrals because they know that I will do the work and they're willing to hire me themselves but also, more importantly, recommend me to their customers because recommending someone to a customer is a big deal. If this person falls short on whatever you recommend to them for it doesn't make you look better in your client's eyes, it makes you look worse. So I take those referrals seriously and work to cultivate that. So that's the power of networking because by that same token, I've had jobs where and particularly it's kind of odd in the web design business but I had a client literally tell me I don't need a contract. I don't need any information. Mark said I should work with you, just do this. And it's like, well, I got to give you something because I don't work without a contract. But a little he was sold because someone else told him to do business with me. So that's the power of the networking and working together in that way. Yes. Have you ever experienced this when you get a card from someone where they have their website but then they're... Yes. And I love those because it's a marketing opportunity, right? Because if they don't have the business address, match the email address that matches the business, it's an opportunity what it means a person who built their website didn't sell them email, right? So what else didn't that person do to help this person in business? And my favorite is A, when Time Warner merges with Spectrum, what's going to happen through your email address? Is that road runner thing going to go away? Did everybody has? Or are you really a reputable company as a financial advisor or a firm when your address is aol.com? And you have that conversation with people and they realize that it's an opportunity. And email is an easy way to get in the door for other services. I haven't even said the financial advisor yet. I don't. I'm pretty out there with it. Because it's a logical thing and I'm not overly harsh. I said, hey, why aren't you using branded email for your domain? Or this is a way of professionalizing your business and letting people know that you're going to be here for the long term. You spent the money to do that versus I am the best whatever at gmail.com. Any other questions? Yeah. Oh, well, let me ask you a question. What is your name? Adam. I'm Ray. What's your question, Adam? You mentioned. No, no, no, no, because I'm cheap when I'm in an Uber. That's the first thing. But literally it's not. This networking is not necessarily a strategy to gain business. If at the end of the conversation while you're in the car for 20 minutes, they ask you a card. Great. I've had plenty of opportunities to pass and connect drivers who are looking for work with people in their industry. So I may get business out of it. If I take 100 rides, maybe I'll get some business out of it. But if I can meet 100 people and have a good conversation with 75 of them and maybe help five of them as opposed to doing nothing and just listening to the radio on the Uber, probably a better thing to do. Are we still recording? I can tell you later. Yeah, but there are places you can get them online. You design them yourself from a pricing perspective. 2000 double sides, glossy on one side for I think 60 bucks. Where the big box stores is like 500 for 65 bucks. Sure. The name. I was born in 1964. There are some Bible verses that are chapter six verse four that were very meaningful to me. I left my last employer under good circumstances. I left, but I was a little bitter about the way it finally actually did go down because they replaced me with somebody who was definitely under qualified but wouldn't keep me. I was actually living in Canada at the time and I had to come back to the U.S. They wouldn't extend my stay in Canada but they hired somebody who was not the right person in my mind. So I had a little bit of bitterness but there was this Bible verse that essentially said pay attention to your own stuff. Do it well and you'll get your reward in the end. And that was a principle that I kind of stood for. And the 64 was pretty easy and it's web design. So 64 web. And that's where it came from. Yes. I will try a lot of different types of networking but I'm consistent. And networking is like, you know, as I said, Chris said networking is the work. I have networking meetings in my calendar. They are inviolable because it is like going to work. You need to attend regularly. So find the ones that work for you. Find the one that you're, you can get in sometimes there. There may be another designer or a developer or another marketing person in the group. So you can't belong. So you got to find one that you can be in and work within contribute. Yes. A lot of times the business section of your paper will have networking calendars. You can check the chamber of commerce. You can check in North Carolina, we've actually got good community college system. If you go to the small business center at the community college in North Carolina, the state is paying for you as a business person to get education and training. They can actually refer you to different networking groups in the area and they may actually conduct some on site. So that's a good way to get started. And then as you're out in the community, where are you from? When you get back to Goldsboro, what do you do? Find another person who does similar work and ask them where are some good places to meet people. There's enough work for everyone. You don't necessarily want to be in the same group, but they can give you what's going on in Goldsboro. Yes. All right. So I like WordCamp because if you follow me when I speak at WordCamp, you get stuff that I charge my clients for. All right. So the easy-peasy way to give somebody branded email is to go to G Suite by Google. It's $5 an address, $5 per month per user, but it's branded. But you have the conversation. So literally my process is, oh, it doesn't match. Let me immediately go to the website and see what the copyright date is on the website. If the copyright date is not current, that means they don't have somebody who's paying attention to it. And then you can go and, hey, I'm a local web designer. I see I got your card. We met. Are you interested in potentially getting branded email for your company? You know, that way, you know, when your clients, when you give a card, your clients see that, hey, you know, this guy's a professional. It matches. Because one of the things is that, you know, because, you know, particularly anybody for me, the signals, if they're using the cable company's email, the cable companies are always merging. They're changing the services. They'll change the domain on the email when it suits them and doesn't suit you. But you'll lose that. But if you had your own email branded to your domain, you control that and it actually helps your business. Is that something you'd like to talk about? And by the way, when was the last time somebody looked at your website? We can talk about that as well. Thank you. Okay. And if there are any more questions, if there are no questions, thank you. See you at donuts and networking in the morning if you're not going to be at the beer garden tonight and hopefully we can strike up a conversation.