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Podcast Description “My mom said, ‘Be happy you have a job, if they just tell you to clean up just do it. And I was like Mom you’re missing the point: nobody else is cleaning up after someone else’s dog. Nobody else in this company has cleaned up someone else’s shit.”Ahlaya Reed is an Office Manger turned Full Time Entrepreneur. Black Activist, Old Oakland California Native. "I say what you want to say but cant". Pro - Dont Fuck with Black Women.  Transcription 00:30Kim Crayton: Hello, everyone. Welcome to today's episode of the #CauseAScene Podcast. As I told you last week, I am supposed to be on vacation. But you know, when there's some shit that happens, I need to figure out what the fuck's going on. And so I actually have the Black woman on the show today that Shannon talked about last week. You 'member, the one that was there for a week and figured out the bullshit shenanigans that were going on at Mirror, I mean at—the fuck is the name of the company?Ahlaya Reed: Matter.Kim: Matter. Yeah, that's it. [Laughs] So I have Ahlaya here, and their pronouns are she/ her, and I'm gonna start, as always, I'm gonna have you introduce yourself, and then I'm gonna ask you your two questions. So introduce yourself to the audience.Ahlaya: Sure. What's up, guys? My name is Ahlaya Reed. I am a office manager turned entrepreneur—shout out to COVID, low key—and I'm here to...01:23Kim: Oh, girl, COVID has—it's unfortunate that our community has been hit—but I keep telling Black folx, if you can't make no money in COVID, I don't know what... because this white guilt is payin'.Ahlaya: It is paying literally; I... it's the time to get hired 'cause everybody wanna have a Black face now; it's the time to get money, OK? They wanna be friends with Black people, this, that, and the third; OK, open your fucking purse. I don't wanna hear no apologies, I don't wanna hear your bullshit; open your purse and get on the front lines. That's what y'all can do. But yeah...Kim: Alright, well... OK, well, let's just jump the fuck in there. OK, we always start start the show wit' two questions: why is it important to cause a scene? And how are you causin' a scene? And then we'll get started on you telling your story.02:09Ahlaya: OK, perfect. So, why am I causing a scene? It's pretty obvious. Racism in the workplace, specifically with Black women. Out of all my years of working in corporate America—I'll just go ahead and throw it out there: I'm 27 years old; I've been working in corporate America since I was 20 years old—and the amount of racism that I've experienced is bullshit. And the reason why it is important for me today to give my honest opinion and to really be 100% transparent is so that number one: we can call out these bullshit-ass companies, because you're not gonna be hiding anymore. We're gonna fucking drag you. And number two: this is also to validate other Black women's experience because for the longest time, I felt like I'm... OK, am I trippin'? And I was like, no, fuck that! Y'all are fuckin' fulla shit; you're racist as fuck; you're passive aggressive; your microaggressions is gonna fuckin' stop. And I'm putting you on blast today.Kim: And so I want to talk about—first of all, I no longer call 'em microaggressions. I call 'em what they are. And this is one of the things that I did get from Kendi's book. This is abuse. This is not fuckin' microaggressions; there's nothing micro about this shit. This is ongoing long term abuse. And yes, this shit has to stop. So I'm gonna... you know what? Well, first of all—I stopped you when we were getting started, because I wanted to let you know—well, first of all, I'm really tired. And so I... my friend said, "Are you gonna..." 'cause again, I'm on vacation. I'm supposed to be on vacation, not supposed to be recording new episodes until... shit, August. And she's like, "Are you gonna reschedule?" I was like, "Oh no, this is a Black woman.

[fusion_builder_container hundred_percent="no" equal_height_columns="no" menu_anchor="" hide_on_mobile="small-visibility,medium-visibility,large-visibility" class="" id="" background_color="" background_image="" background_position="center center" background_repeat="no-repeat" fade="no" background_parallax="none" parallax_speed="0.3" video_mp4="" video_webm="" video_ogv="" video_url="" video_aspect_ratio="16:9" video_loop="yes" video_mute="yes" overlay_color="" video_preview_image="" border_size="" border_color="" border_style="solid" padding_top="" padding_bottom="" padding_left="" padding_right=""][fusion_builder_row][fusion_builder_column type="1_1" layout="1_1" background_position="left top" background_color="" border_size="" border_color="" border_style="solid" border_position="all" spacing="yes" background_image="" background_repeat="no-repeat" padding_top="" padding_right="" padding_bottom="" padding_left="" margin_top="0px" margin_bottom="0px" class="" id="" animation_type="" animation_speed="0.3" animation_direction="left" hide_on_mobile="small-visibility,medium-visibility,large-visibility" center_content="no" last="no" min_height="" hover_type="none" link=""][fusion_text] Watch the live interview below [/fusion_text][fusion_youtube id="https://youtu.be/kTE7MhFGjWI " alignment="center" width="" height="" autoplay="false" api_params="&rel=0" hide_on_mobile="small-visibility,medium-visibility,large-visibility" class="" /][/fusion_builder_column][/fusion_builder_row][/fusion_builder_container]   Transcription (was completed by automated process. Please ignore any speech-to-text errors) Hi, I'm Beatty Carmichael, and welcome back to the Get Sellers Calling You Real Estate podcast. And I'm just really excited about today's call because I get to interview another wonderful set of agents with an amazing story, and who are actually clients of ours. Tom and Nancy Cleppe from Franklin, Tennessee. And I'm just really excited about today's call because I was able to speak with Tom and Nancy earlier. They have a really neat business and story. And I really wanted you guys to hear it. So, Tom and Nancy, how are you guys doing?   [00:00:39] Hi, Beatty, how are you? I am very blessed. We're lucky. Blessed as well.   [00:00:46] Well, very good. Very good. And I want to talk about those blessings in a moment. So they'll be great. Just also, a quick reminder for those who are listening and watching, watching, this is an Internet call. So if there are any type of Internet interruptions, just please part in this part in those four for that. So tell me, Nancy, I'd love just real quickly, just a little story about your real estate career. I know you're in the Franklin area, but maybe how long have you been selling just anything about you guys? Just the introduction of who you guys are.   [00:01:23] Nancy looks at me like I should start right away then. So so Nancy had been in business, in real estate business before I was eight years before I got involved in it. And she said to me, one day, you should get into real estate. This is before we were married, actually. And I said, no, I don't want to work weekends. We can build our business. We don't have to work weekends. So three weeks later, I was enrolled in a class and what, six months or less later, I had my license and we started a team. And so that's eight years ago. 70 years ago, no.   [00:01:57] Ok. So I got to ask your question. Do you work weekends?   [00:02:00] No. Rarely, I should say no. Obviously we if if necessary, we do.   [00:02:07] Ok, cool. Well, it's out now. Let me ask you just Horton comes quantifying purposes like how many transactions a year do you guys do?   [00:02:17] This is consistency we like. We do. I want to say that we do 50 units a year, but it's anywhere from 30 to 60 units.   [00:02:25] Ok. So 30 to 50, maybe 60 on a good year. And rarely work weekends. So I'm out. So the typical client that I talk to works 50, 60 hours a week, works week as you ask them. Hey, what's that? How is your weekend? They kind of with this blank stare or astonished voice pause in the voices, they say. What's a weekend? Right. So how did you how do you guys build your business where it's rarely on the weekends? I mean, how do you make that happen?   [00:02:57] Why you've got to be purposeful. You know, the first thing is you've got a time block and you've got to use your week well so that your week will fall together and follow. It's in the, you know, Monday to Friday business hours. And one of the ways we do that, we put God first, we put family second, and then our real estate business is third. And it seems like doing that, things just kind of fall into place. You know, we work hard during the week. We try to get it all done and we schedule as much as we can during the office hours. And obviously, we have clients that can always meet during office hours, and that's when we fall back to, you know, weekends or evenings to accommodate them. And it's pretty rare.   [00:03:36] You know, I love to explore that just a little bit, because as you're talking, Nancy, my mind went back to two or three other agents I've interviewed, and they all had the same pattern. And I think this is a pattern that's really worked to pull out in terms of setting the parameters. Okay. I'd like one of my clients, he or he does two to three times the volume. You guys do personal production. He does it differently side. I don't want to make that comparison, but what he does is he works. At the time I was asking him this question about thirty five hours a week. Yeah. No, seriously. And and I asked him how in the world did you do that? He said, well I structure. He said, I choose not to work Friday, Saturday and Sunday, and I choose not to work on the evenings unless I just have to. And I'm willing to give up business by me too. But he says when you put those parameters in place, you just fit your business around it. And I think a lot of agents never put those parameters in place. Yeah, sounds like you got some monster over there.   [00:04:51] Well, we have construction going on as well.   [00:04:55] Oh, okay. I love it going on. I thought that was maybe the door. We we're having a fun discussion about the dogs before their call, so. Great. So tell me a little bit. So 30 to 50 transactions a year. You don't work weekends. You set parameters. Tell me a little bit more about your business practice. And most importantly, how do you keep the business going? I don't have I want to kind of go and go towards what is it that you're doing that keeps your business? Because I know a lot of folks who would love to have 30 transactions a year and they're working 50, 60 hours a week just trying to get there. But what have you guys found to be the pattern that works for you that keeps you guys going? Does that is that a fair question to ask?   [00:05:42] Yeah. You know, when Nancy and I got into business or when I got into Nancy's business, she was kind of coasting for the lack of a better term and how she was doing your business. It was kind of coming to her by your relationships. And then I come in and it's like I have a sales and marketing background. It's like, wait a minute, we can be doing this, this and this to bring customers into us. We can do this business to set ourselves up so that there's stuff out there that's working without us kind of dealing in. I have it. I keep saying I'm the luckiest guy in the world because when it comes to contracts and negotiations and closings in one, Nancy's the structured one. She keeps all of that in line. I refer to myself as the guy out front bringing people in and the guy after the close of the sale then keeps in touch with them so that we give referrals and repeat business from that. So Nancy takes care of all the middle. And I take you to the beginning in the end.   [00:06:31] If you're a single agent, that would be a single agent with my capacity. That would be difficult.   [00:06:38] I totally get it. So. So you're more behind the scenes, Nancy and Tom, you're more in front of the scenes, is that right?   [00:06:46] Until it's time to switch. I'm in front of the scenes up front and then, like, we'll go to a listing appointment, get a listing and they never see me again. It's up close.   [00:06:54] Ever from there. I handle the listing and getting up and running and handle all the contract negotiations to get it to close. Okay, cool. Yeah. We don't need assistance to help us with those things, but I think the core of our business has always been it comes from our relationships with people.   [00:07:12] Talk to me about that. Yeah.   [00:07:14] Well, you know, I had a business before Tom joined me and we do a lot of referral business. I think our first several years together, our business was solely on referral business and then friends and family, you know, they trusted some of us and they want their friends to, you know, experience the same trust that they have with us. So whether they use us for a transaction or not, they feel comfortable referring their friends to us.   [00:07:40] So how big of a group are we talking about with this? Your relationships?   [00:07:46] Wow. There's fourteen hundred people in our in our database and we consider two hundred of them close. You haven't referred broken down and advocate a being. See, depending on if their client if they're just friends with referrals and if they're local.   [00:08:04] Ok. And then what? What do you guys take to nurture that? I'm assuming you do something. Is that correct?   [00:08:10] Yeah, we do. We don't do enough. It seems like sometimes. And there's other people that say we do too much. So like events, we're always doing client events to keep people safe. To get as many touches at once makes a lot of sense to us. And of course, everybody appreciates a good party kind of deal. We also do community outreach stuff where we're giving away. We have like an ice cream sundae. We're well into. This is a Sunday where we'll we'll give away ice cream at the local custard store and everybody we publicize it than anybody who comes in, gets to sample the ice cream, obviously, and then we get to shake hands with people that are not necessarily in our database or weren't at that point. And, you know, we're making fundraisers, fundraisers and the local fire department.   [00:08:58] And we've also raised money for a couple other organizations by giving away things and asking just asking people to donate when they can't. Like, we gave out pumpkins last year and pumpkin patch, we gave a pumpkin to everybody that they donated or not. But then we had a little jar set up for donations and those people died.   [00:09:17] So tell me how. Because one of the things that we talk about, especially like with a geographic area to do fundraising events or some sort of civic community event where you get the people into the same a common spot, you're the the civic champion, so to speak, of that cause, and then you get a chance to meet them. Help me guide me through, if you would. Let's take one of these fundraisers that you do. What's the process? How do you if you just come and give me a short synopsis of the process and most importantly, how it's structured so that you interact with the people if you're interacting at all. Does that make sense?   [00:09:58] It was probably our biggest.   [00:09:59] So I guess, you know, maybe when I was a kid, a delinquent and I might have had I had a lot of parties. Right. And it was just a matter of putting ourselves out there. You just create the event and invite people to come in. Those people that came had a good time and those people that didn't come heard about it kind of deal. And so the next time they had one, they wanted to come. And we just kind of promote it that way. The idea is, is we put the event out there and make sure that everybody knows about it, at least four different touches. And if they show great, if they don't, they kind of miss the event when they come, then we try to have as much set up prior to the event so that the day of the event, we're not running around cutting watermelons for everybody. There's somebody either the watermelon is cut or somebody else is doing it. And the more that we have in place for that than we heard the term wants to Elm's buds. That's exactly what it means. But we're just shaking hands. We're walking around laughing with everybody and be who we are socially. And that's really where people then kind of engage in that in in some events, depending on the person and depending on on the drive, we'll say something like, you know why you're here. Can you tell us a little bit, you know, who do you know that might be interested in?   [00:11:11] Might you rarely ever say, who do you know, say something about who might have had the good fortune of having a Beatty that might be interested in in getting a bigger house or what? You know, just got a promotion that's looking into getting a bigger house or something along those lines to start that conversation with Nancy. And I don't have trouble starting conversation. It's a matter of is the event just a celebration or is the event a lead generation event?   [00:11:40] Interesting. Do you all do any follow up after an event like a thank you know for coming or anything like that?   [00:11:46] Yeah, absolutely. Everybody gets a handwritten thank you card. I think last year we made sure handwritten thank you cards went out. They get at least an email. Thank you. And then we got a lot of follow up calls as well. Well, a cool thank you for coming or sorry we missed you.   [00:12:02] I'm sorry we missed you guys are just as important. So we send all of those emails out as well. Man, you missed a good party. Here's what you missed. Kind of deal. And we'll send pictures and that kind of stuff so that they're interested in coming either the next time or or at least keeping involved in what's happening next.   [00:12:18] So these are these are just these are big, maybe not big, but they're fun party happy atmospheric events. And then a lot of follow up to continue touching afterwards. Right. I like that. Have you found anything that's kind of anything that you can share besides what you just shared, that if you go back and say these are really, you know, like the top two or three most important things you've learned and doing these things that make it successful.   [00:12:49] I think advertising at a time or getting the word out ahead of time, it seems, when we get lazy, not lazy, but get busy and we don't get the word out as early as we need to. And and those extra follow up touches prior to the event is what seems to make the most successful. We're doing it and having it catered and, you know, doing all the things we need to do. But if we don't get the word out early, we don't have a good attendance.   [00:13:13] So what? So what's the timeline? How far out do you start contacting in invitations and then talk to me about when you start to actually make the personal contacts to make that personally.   [00:13:25] So the save the date goes out about six weeks in advance. And then I think just as the Sarah question, she's not with us. She's our assistant. But they get text about once a week after that, OK? They get an email that tells what the event's actually about and kind of what they can expect. And then just some reminders for hours, BP.   [00:13:46] And there's a handful. The truth is, is that you're not going to get everybody. You can't call everybody then obviously on the list kind of deal. So you call a couple of key people and make sure that they're coming. Check the RSVP fees, try to get as much RSVP so that you can plan accordingly. Obviously, the earlier the better. And then just create from there, know create the list that you're going to call it is. And then when you make those phone calls to them, you know, are you making sure that you're going to make it? And do me a favor, bring somebody along with you. It's like I can bring somebody in your life. I got you on the phone, of course. You know, so and so. It tends to be good in that sense with our neighbors to come as well.   [00:14:23] We are fortunate enough to live on a farm. And so we don't have next door neighbors what we do, but they're pretty far away. So we like the community to know that we're that we would like to do a lot of fundraising for community community, that we support the churches here. All of the churches have ice cream socials in the summer. And we try to get as many of those as we can, but we get to know the neighbors that way. And then when we have an advance, we'll even put a sign up, a big sign in the yard that says everyone's welcome. So it's not just our client and it's client people that, you know, we love and want to do business with. Right.   [00:14:59] So there are key key for that question. I mean, I'm on the phone every day. I get in the office about seven o'clock. I do a script practicing beforehand. I prepare for my day. And at eight o'clock I'm on the phone and I'm on the phone until noon every day. Whether I'm doing a follow up was how it ended or I'm doing lead generation, calling the people in our database. And there's the it's it's the relationship building. I wish I could say I was better at it.   [00:15:24] Some of the times I get we just switched over a new system in in I'm not making as many context as I'd like to be making because I'm trying to like fill the system in as I go kind of deal and make it good that sense. But for the most part, it's just keeping in touch with them, whether you're sending them a thank you card or thinking of your card or inviting them to an event or sending them birthday cards, we've got to force the birthday process. I mean, you get into an email, you you get a phone call, you get a text messages, and often you'll just get a card as well. So, well, I say often cards take a lot of time and so do the phone calls. So you got to kind of balance your mind on what you're doing with.   [00:16:03] Well, if you were to put an end, I must say, I mean, like these 30 to 50 selves a year that you guys do, are most of those coming from your personal contacts referred to or directs? Is there a way? I don't know if this is a fair question, because I know when you're just doing all these relationship things, it's hard to measure and quantify. One is more important than another. But is there a way that you guys have mentally quantified in your mind, which are the most important things that you're doing in terms of these ReachOut events and which are just kind of supporting things?   [00:16:41] Is that a fair question? It's a great question. And, you know, I'm I would say that we're just not measuring enough to know it.   [00:16:49] I think that. I think the phone calling is actually the most important, because that's something that we can do consistently every day.   [00:16:58] Now, of course, you can't you don't talk to everybody every day, but the events are kind of a couple of times a year event. And so we're touching them. We're trying to do them four times a year. So we're touching them during that time. And I think a personal one on one phone call probably goes the furthest in getting us, you know, repeat business and referrals business.   [00:17:17] I can up my game a little bit here recently in regards to the phone calls, it's like I'm setting up appointments nowadays, which I didn't do in the past because I was so focused on business kind of deal. I'm setting appointments just to have coffee with people in in trying to set up so my afternoons are filled with going and have coffee. No, no, remember. I don't drink coffee. So it's just a matter, it's just a matter of getting in front of these people. In the conversation they bring up real estate, which is really, really enlightening, kind of really cool that they bring it up, you know. So how's business with the man making it into it? You know, by the way, you know you know anybody that just recently had a kid or maybe a job promotion or those kind of questions come up then. And then the other thing is, is that we're tapping back into. So it's Nancy and I have been involved in motorcycle's in fact, that's where we met, was at a motorcycle store alone. And and so Harley Davidson, that's my that's my life for 30 years was motorcycle. So we're going back to those people and creating events around specifically around motorcycle enthusiasts and then doing stuff that is, you know, I guess dovetailing if there's another event going in, we're definitely going to be there and we're definitely going to be a figure in the event. And then we're definitely going to be promoting. It doesn't I don't ever want to make it sound like we're promoting real estate business. We're simply promoting Tom and Nancy and and then talking about business. And it's a different, different mindset than what I've always said or then what I have had. It became a grind in the past. It was how much business can you do, how much business, which business can you do and not doing not even been greatly successful. And then going back to just how what kind of person do I want to be?   [00:18:59] We know that's the basics and real estate. I was interviewing a another friend of mine who's actually here in town and he's been selling real estate twenty five years broker. And the cool thing about him is I was asking him, I said, now, what type of marketing do you do? I've never done any marketing. I said, never done any advertising. Now he's I've never spent any money and marketing for business and said, so what do you do? He says, I'm I'm just cause I I'll call people and say, hey, how's it going? Let's get together. And that's it. I said, that's it. You know, is this what you guys are doing? And what's interesting is, is he has never had a time when he never hit his goals financially because he you know, his just like you guys. God, first family second, business third. And he grows his business to the point that he accomplishes his business goals. So he has time with his family. But it's it's always it's only about Tony furious about a relationship. And that's what you guys are doing. That's what's so beautiful.   [00:20:10] There's lots of room for improvement.   [00:20:12] Yes. Now I get that. I want to shift just a little bit. Have you done. Have you tried things in the past that were an absolute failure? Let me see if I can phrase this the right way. I don't want to say that was an absolute failure in turn someone off from doing that, but maybe it was a failure for you. And you know why. In other words, most things out there work for somebody if they're in business. Hopefully they work for somebody. And the question is, have you tried some things that didn't work that you learned from? And is there something you can share with our listeners as to why it didn't work for you, that maybe if someone has similar, similar or a similar situation as you guys, that maybe you can help them understand what works, what doesn't? I don't know if that's a fair question.   [00:21:03] Now that we have had anything that has just totally failed, we have some things that have been more successful than others. And one thing that happens with us and our agents are like this, but we don't consistently use everything that we have available to use, either from lack of time or lack of money. But there was a couple of years when we farm to market, farm to neighborhood, and we were successful with that. Well, that kind of went away because we got involved in other types of marketing things. And it wasn't that it wasn't successful. We just haven't done it in the last couple years. So we could go back to that. But then we probably have to give someone else, because just the lack of time probably makes sense.   [00:21:45] The other aspect, it would be like open houses. I mean, you can farm the market indefinitely, build the relationships that are indefinitely build. Unfortunately, we don't live in a neighborhood, so we can't farm our own neighborhood, which to me lends credibility a little bit a little bit different way. And then you can grow out from there. If you're moving into a neat or you're working a neighborhood, you're gonna do you gotta find out about the neighborhood. You got to get in a frenzy to make events that happened in there. And it's always kind of out there.   [00:22:12] So that would be reason for a decision not to put that much effort into it. And yet there's lots of reasons to put it into it. Another thing would be something that we have been unsuccessful at following through with the same with the farming is on open houses. You have an open house and you've got people that are coming in. And all you have to do is set up one appointment at every open house to get a buyer or seller. It's like done. We should be doing that. And at the same sense, you know, it's a weekend job. Right.   [00:22:46] And then you have to follow the system not wanting to work weekends.   [00:22:50] Look, system, I think that ideally, you know, if I was to lay out my open house on Tuesday, had put arrows out and start the marketing on it on Friday, I'd put Gob's to somewhere around 20 different signs out.   [00:23:03] And then on Saturday or Sunday, I have open houses.   [00:23:06] There would be two hours long. And, you know, make an event out of that and making sure that we've got up systems to that. And we just don't do that.   [00:23:15] And that's why open houses are such a great way for new agents to start their business because they have time.   [00:23:22] You know, I've always said, what do we have more time or more money to invest in into a certain marketing thing that we're gonna do for that time period in our business.   [00:23:33] And if you don't have any money and you knew you don't have a clients, open houses are definitely the best way to go. We actually have more money than we have time. Right. That's the place to be either right now. Well, I always feel like we have more money and we have we definitely have more money than we have time.   [00:23:52] I totally get it. Well, you know, I think it goes back to the parameters that you guys mentioned in terms of, you know, you set the parameters and you operate within it and open houses violates the parameter if we don't work on weekends. Right. So now, hey, speaking of those parameters, I want to go back if I if we can. So you have a hierarchy, God, family business. Talk a little bit more about that. I want to talk a little bit about just that whole balance and those parameters. I don't have a specific question yet, but can you maybe maybe give me some your thoughts and what you do and how firm those parameters are? Just gonna craft what's going on with you on that.   [00:24:41] Well, this business.   [00:24:44] Can lead you astray easily if you let it. You know, you can get so wrapped up in in making money or pleasing the clients and you can take your eyes off what's really important, which is pleasing God and saying yes to a client isn't always the best thing for them or you. And so I think if you go back to kind of the old bracelets we used to wear, what would Jesus do?   [00:25:10] You know, sometimes you have to say no.   [00:25:12] For whatever reason in kinds don't like to be told no and usually all is business. In that situation. But that's something that, you know, is important to us. We go to a listening appointment. We we talk before we go. And, you know, is this a house that we want to live? And, you know, what are the criterion which we're willing to take this? You know, we're not ruling to compromise our values. We're not willing to be dishonest. We're not willing to just be at the beck and call of our clients knowing that that's not best for them or us. We're not going to serve them well if.   [00:25:51] You know, we're at their beck and call 24/7. That makes sense. We're not here.   [00:25:57] I mean, that's it. So Nancy and I just come from a place of of knowing faith and hope is clearly there for us. So. So we know that there's a that there's a higher power, that what happens to be Jesus Christ as we know and love them. And if she shows up for us, you showed up for us in the past and he's shown up for Stanely.   [00:26:15] And whether we're whether we're saying a prayer before we go into a listening appointment or we're saying a prayer at the listening appointment or or we're just making sure that when we start our day, they were grounded in in in in the word or in, you know, meditative state where we know that, you know, we're covered.   [00:26:35] All right. Hey, let's talk and let me talk on that, because different people bring their relationship with Christ into their business in different ways. When you do your real estate business and you're in interacting with clients, do you do anything that I'll call it just overtly Christian? Let me say this makes sense. When we were looking to buy our house and we were putting the offer, writing out the offer on it, you know, my realtor who's a Christian, said, well, let's pray over this. And we prayed. OK. Do you guys do anything like that with your clients at all?   [00:27:11] Absolutely. We don't want to go in talking about, you know, being Christian, because sometimes people can oversell and under deliver. And I think we'd rather over deliver and undersell. So we try to let that show up in who we are and not what we say. After most listing appointments, Tom just very casually says, is it OK if we say a prayer? He says it just like that. And have we heard anybody say no? No, I don't think we have.   [00:27:40] We've picked up cues along the way. I mean, you know, they've got a cross hanging above their bed or something. I mean, it's it's you pick up cues along the way. But I don't know about you, but I have been turned off by plenty of people that profess to be Christians. And they're the first ones to start like pushing and shoving and lying and cheating, you know, like man men. So so we don't go in there with, you know, a Christian tone. We go in there with a humble tone and then go from there. Like I said, like Nancy just said, the opportunity presents itself to say prayer. Is it OK? It's always a question.   [00:28:15] And how did how did the clients respond to that?   [00:28:18] I mean, I think the majority I can't remember anybody that's actually said no. Most people are very excited. You know, they realized then that these are probably some pretty sincere people that want to pray for us and really are concerned about what goes on with this transaction, whether we lost our house or not, and whether we sell our house or not. You know, it's they're getting a feeling for us through prayer and our actions that we're the type of people that are going to have their back. Even if it doesn't turn out to be a sale.   [00:28:51] I love it. And what other ways? I'd love to find out if you don't mind sharing just a little bit more, maybe your relationship with Christ and how you feel. It's kind of impacted what you do in real estate. Can you share something on that?   [00:29:07] I'm a I'm a recovering Catholic, and what I mean by that is, you know, we went to church as a as a family firm because all the least you could do.   [00:29:20] I just remember Mom saying something felt the least you could do is give God an hour or a week in there. And I went through catechism, confirmation and communion and all of the sacraments. Catholic. And and when I and when I separated from that and I and I needed some stability, I knew that I could go back to the Catholic Church and get that. And yet when I needed a personal relationship, I didn't have that. And I'm also a recovering alcoholic and still in the rooms of Alcoholics Anonymous. I found Jesus. He showed up differently for me than he did for many other people. But I just developed a personal relationship at that point. So that's just kind of my baseline. So if I've got that personal relationship as a result of my connection, the things that I do, and I don't mean the overt things that I do for other people in regards to my communication, my prayers in the morning, my meditation, my gratitude throughout the day. I've got reminders that proper by my full and that's as a sign for gratitude. And. And those are the things that keep me connected to the spirit, keep me connected to Jesus and go from there. Nancy, similar know, we write we read the Bible and we go to Bible study and we help out at church and we do mission work and we do this. But we don't do that to earn glory or to earn favor. We do that because that's servant.   [00:30:41] Right. Talk to me. This is really interesting. You mention relationship. A lot of times, you know, people think about Christian as a religion. What religion are you? I'm Christian. Things that sort in your life. You use the word relationship a couple of times. What does that mean to you? And why are you using that in this context?   [00:31:04] Help me understand that.   [00:31:07] Wow. Guess because he saved me. Tell me more. I mean, so, you know, my life is is not been a smooth sailing. They say the road to paradise is not it's not smooth. And in mine has been hellish. I mean, I've had a.   [00:31:27] Whether it was.   [00:31:31] Childhood diseases that I was able to to work through or that Jesus pulled me through or whether it was an illness that removed me.   [00:31:39] I was a I had a corporate profile job and I'm moving up in it and I get disabled and I'm not able to go there. And I think it's what what I what I do. That's going to make it better and then make it to the rooms of Alcoholics Anonymous and in and pulled from the need to satisfy others so that I can get that paycheck or that notoriety or whatnot. And then I'd like to say that, you know, that recovery at that point was perfect for me, no drugs and alcohol. But the truth is, is that I found Internet addiction, Internet pornography addiction, and I needed to work the steps on that. And as a result of that, unfortunately, I lost my first marriage. And in the way that that was kind of hammered on me, it can have a real negative connotation in society. And with my former wife and and in you know, I had my faith at that point. And so I look back.   [00:32:44] And I know he is with me, and that's in a can't, whether it's Nancy and I or whether it's another close friend or somebody that I work with. I know what teamwork is. And it's not because of what I do. It's because of what we do. And I can't. And I have a relationship with Christ the same way. It's not because of what I do and that just because of what he does, it's what we do together. Next, the relationship.   [00:33:07] That's really neat. In terms of that relationship and trying to I've got kind of pictured in my mind's eye what I want to ask and then trying to formulate it into a question. So someone's listening to this call. They're going through challenges and they pray. They've gone to church. None of that really is not clicking. It just doesn't seem to be, quote unquote, working. They they check off the little list. What is different between what you did and going to church and doing catechism and those things? And this thing you call a relationship. Help me. Help me understand. All right. That person that may be listening. What's the difference between relationship and these things that we call, you know, doing the Christian thing? Is that.   [00:34:10] Yeah. Well, first of all, it's not a checklist. You can't check the list and say, I went to church and I read my Bible and I prayed. So why isn't my life happier or better, whatever it is they're looking for? I mean, that's not how you have a relationship with another person. You don't check off the boxes while I called so-and-so today and I met them for lunch.   [00:34:31] So, you know, we should be really tight now. You know, you have to think of it that way. A relationship is a one on one ongoing experience with another person. And that person has Jesus and he. Is better than to your friends, because he he's always there and he forgives so quickly and so easily. I think a lot of people come to faith when they're that they've hit bottom. And he's standing there waiting. You know, he wants to help you up and pull you up and. I don't know really how to tell people to.   [00:35:10] You get to that place where they're surrendering everything to him. But that really is the only answer. You know, you're probably going to do it. Meaning surrender everything to him. You can do it now or you can do it later. Most people like to go through a lot of pain before they do it.   [00:35:28] Like, do they just.   [00:35:29] Well, they don't like it, but they do it. So if you can do that, you know, sometime in your life. If you're tired of going through the pain or maybe you're not in a lot of pain now, you will be, you know, it's coming. That is something that being a believer or being Christian doesn't mean that you're not going to have troubles. It means that God's going to get you through those. And the sooner you learn that, I think the happier that you'll be just having that solid foundation to turn back to as opposed to what do I do now? And that trying to help yourself.   [00:36:05] It just doesn't work.   [00:36:08] I think the relationship with Christ for me is developed in in two primary ways. And the first one is in nature. I can't look around me and think that there isn't something greater creating this. I mean, we're in the change of seasons right now. The colors of the leaves will be changing colors and then we'll go into winter and then. Oh, my heavens. Spring comes and you're like, well, of course, he's going to put spring after after winter because it's just and, you know, I say he put it there because I believe it was created by him. And so I can just watch around me. It doesn't mean I like all of the seasons. Frankly, I don't even like spring. But it sure does bring out beauty, you know. And and I appreciate that. And the other thing. So in nature, I see that what I've seen in people as well to the relationship I have, you know, this. This is been a twenty five year road for me to get to this point. And that's not twenty five years old, that's twenty five years. When I met Christ in that in that relationship way in like my sister turned me on to a book, The Time for Joy, which is in scrap pages nowadays. But I still read it. Not every day as much as I used to, but I read it. I read it this morning again. And it's just that meditation. And then, you know, eight or ten years ago, another friend gave me a book by Derek.   [00:37:27] It's kind of my Bible leader book. Think of the rings. Dear friends. Thank you. And then, of course, I got a recovery Bible from somebody else. And I got I got in business. I was handed a journal, you know, and said how you can put God first. That's for writing about it when you go to bed and be grateful and in in recovery in the 12 steps of Alcoholics Anonymous. You know, they they encouraged prayer and meditation. They encourage a relationship with God. And, you know, so and so all of the friends that I met in that sense and every Thursday night for the past eight years have been in a men's men's meeting which started out at a church. Now we've been through several different churches and it's clearly Christian driven. We just call ourselves the protocols at this point. And there's just a topic where men from thirty six years old at 84 years old are getting together and talking and in that crisis shows up. And in that the relationships built I mean, we cry together, we laugh together. We in in there's not a meeting that goes by that you don't know that there's a presence of God.   [00:38:35] So. That's really neat. I love what you're saying, Nancy. You know, someday you're going go through tough times. And I was thinking I just had one of our podcasts, actually, Elk LP coming out before this one, but I've already recorded it. By the time we're doing this interview and is talking about the Israelites going through the wilderness, you know, coming out of Egypt. And it seems like they always put themselves into a position. God takes them to a position of dry point. OK. Where there is no water and and they always wait till they're about dying of thirst. They start complaining to God and God shows up with their answer vote.   [00:39:19] What hit me reading it is God would have given them the answer. They just ask God to light early before they got to that point for inspiration.   [00:39:26] Does that make sense? Yeah.   [00:39:29] I think sometimes we we wait until it's unbearable and that's when we we, you know, seek the Lord and crown the Lord. And yet Jesus said I came that you might have life abundantly right now and always have to do is this kind of saken right now.   [00:39:47] Let me ask you a question on that, because you guys have gone through a lot of struggles. I know. And if you were look at your life now. I know there still probably struggles. And if you look at your life 10 or 15 years ago or 20 years ago or maybe a little bit further back when your relationship wasn't with the Lord, wasn't his strong. And I'm I'm just looking at the life with a relationship with the Lord now versus where the relationship was a lot less. Are the struggles significantly different? In other words, now that you have a great relationship with the Lord, is the struggle or a stronger relation is a struggle a lot less in terms of things hitting you than it was earlier? Or is the struggle level about the same? Does that make sense?   [00:40:38] Yeah. It's about the same struggles.   [00:40:40] Both the same. What is the response to the struggle? OK. The joy in the struggle helped me. Now the struggles are about the same now with a relationship being more mature vs. not really pursuing it. What's the difference?   [00:40:56] You know, sometimes when something disaster is happens, your first responders response is to panic and, you know, despair and, you know, having this guy here that just says to me, you know, we need to start Perrow right now. And God's not going to leave us now. He hasn't so far. And it's just really a matter of a couple of minutes. You can take a few deep breaths. You can say a prayer and come back to he's going to get us through this. Whereas I think years ago, you know, you rely on your own, like, what can I do to get through this? And sometimes you can. I mean, sometimes it's up to you to do the next right thing, but often it's not in our hands. The things that are really hurting us and bothering us are totally out of our control. And that's what you come to realize in a close relationship with God is that he's in control. And hearing our prayers is the most important thing we can do now. We don't need to try to fix it. You know, either we can't or it's completely out of our hands.   [00:42:01] There's. So you've got to think so.   [00:42:06] There has to be a physiology shift and that can be like breath work, breath work to me has always been extremely important because like breathing happens without me thinking about it. And yet, when I think about breath work, to me it's a connection with with everything else. I mean, I exhale carbon dioxide and the trees inhale it through the trees. Exhale oxygen. And I inhale that. And so there's there's a definite connection there with that stuff. So it's in it's a conscious I'm breathing and I'm kind of counting or I'm doing feeling the chest rising and lower. So there's a physiology that happens with it. And then there's also an anchoring opportunity.   [00:42:41] So for me, I have an inker that when things don't get to it, I can I can just anchor and it'll pull me back into those thoughts of when I was blessed with feelings of blessings or feelings of abundance or whatnot. And just anchoring it added recognize that. That's good. So there's a physiology that starts and then there's that the you know, it's all about mindset, 99 nine mindset. It's got to be 90 percent of it all. And if we're talking about God and we're talking about gratitude and we're talking about abundance in in the proverbial fan gets hit with life, you know, we can go with talking about the proverbial fan and the stuff that's flying or we can talk about the good things. They're in the office. There's a saying that your thoughts eavesdrop, get your thoughts, eavesdrop on your words. And so if you're gonna be talking about the things that are not favorable, then you're that's where you're gonna be hanging on. And that's what you're going to find support in. If you're thinking about things that are, you know what I want I want to use the word good. But that's way too general. Things that are of abundant, things that are of joy, things that are of Christ, things that are of life, things that are of relationship. Then it's soon certain to go in that way in Christians.   [00:44:01] You know, I love the mindset. When you mentioned that my mind went back to Roman, say, with Paul, has the mind set on the flash is death. But the mind set on the spirit is life and peace. And where we set our mind is the outcome we get. Right. And. And I not long ago, we were going through some challenges. And my son is very wise in the spirit and we're talking about these different things. And he said, Dad, the battle is won in the spirit before it's won in the natural. And you know, that's so true. And, you know, God is a god of patterns. And he has a pattern. And he keeps repeating that pattern in one pattern that you guys have seen in your life. I've seen in mine. And that is that. God takes care of you. God takes care of you, as you say, can follow him, in fact. I would probably suggest without knowing the inner workings of your business, that if you were to look back over the life of your business. That all the big wins and and transactions and revenues that covered all your expenses probably were things that God brought to you, that you didn't really work.   [00:45:22] Yeah. Yeah, I would almost guarantee it. Yeah.   [00:45:25] It's a it's a pattern. And because of that pattern, we can live in joy in the midst of the struggles that come our way because we always are in struggles. The question is, do we try to reline ourselves to solve them or rely on the Lord? And the pattern with the Lord is he always handles it for those who love him and who follow him. So that's kind of the big takeaway I'm getting with you guys. Yes. Well, this has been really neat. I've enjoyed this. Is there anything else? As we start to wrap up, is there anything else you'd like to share business spiritually? A combination or anything else that. Before we wrap up the call.   [00:46:20] Thomas reading his notes. No, I'm not. There a tax in place? There's two things that come to mind.   [00:46:28] First of all. In watching videos and in watching and reading other people's real estate businesses and do this, do that, do this, that I've put other people on pedestals and in like that envy, maybe envy is is a word that might fit it as well. But I want to be like them or how come I can't do that or what's happening. And when Nancy and I sit here like this, I don't ever want to be thought of as the guy that has the answers because we struggle day in and day out. But we've got the answer of relying on our greater than ourselves. And we know that if we just get up in the morning and put our best foot forward, that the answers come in as long as our house is in order as we stand in the rooms. And so it's it's their struggle and there's pain and there's loss and there's reward in. Life is clearly way more abundant now than it was before. So. So don't do what I did and yet do what I did. But don't think of Nancy NYes any better or worse than we're just on the same path in the same. Going in the same direction and doing things have a little different speed than you are because everybody is is on the path.   [00:47:52] The other thought is, is.   [00:47:54] Some of the things just kind of along those same lines. Some of the things that were said here by what you've read and what Nancy and I have come up with in the moment, and as we said a prayer before we started this, I think this is a good podcast. And I'm looking forward to listening to those two people because they get some good stuff to say.   [00:48:14] Well, y'all are definitely just an amazing couple. Anything from you announcing that, trying to put you on the spot or anything, that song line before we wrap it up?   [00:48:23] Now, I just you know, for me, the most important thing is to have Tom as the leader of our family. And he continues to do that. He leads our company and he leads our family. And that's important to me. I hope to retire someday sooner than he does.   [00:48:38] And it's just nice to know that the person leading our company and leading our lives is a man of God.   [00:48:46] Absolutely. There is another passage that says no. Why be submissive to your husbands as crisis, as the churches, to the Christ husbands love your wives as Christ loves the church. And the picture that I got was this. You know, in the in the Christ center form of marriage, the husband is the covering of the family. And it's the husband's responsibility to take care of the family. Right. Ultimately, and as the bride of Christ, all of us make up the bride of Christ. He is our husband. And we can trust him to cover us. And trust him to provide for us. And it hit me as I as I was reading through this in the spirit, just kind of spoke this to me. At least I believe it was the spirit that said, you can trust me to Beatty, I'm your husband. And you don't have to worry about all of these decisions just to, you know, follow the leading I give you and leave it all up to me. And it's just really freeing. So it's wonderful to have a man of God is your husband to to just follow and lead your family. So. I really appreciate that.   [00:50:00] Thank you. Thanks. All right. Well, as we wrap this up, if you do like this podcast, be sure to subscribe to it and you'll get a lot more. Be sure to like us on iTunes and YouTube and learn more about us and how to grow your business and how to grow spiritually if you want. At our Web site, get cellar's calling you Acom. Thanks, everyone. You'll have a great day.   [00:50:23] Thank you. Thanks.   P063

Episode 9:  Influencer Marketing – The Emergence of it’s own Marketing Channel & How can Micro-Influencers & Nano Influencers can Help Grow your Brand with me – your host Carey Sperry Data is showing that Influencer Marketing is gaining sig more spend from marketing budgets.  I was shocked to read that Estee Lauder recently announced that they plan to allocate 75% of their entire  marketing budget to influencer marketing in 2020.  Some of them are big names such as Kendall Jenner and others are what we are going to break down later in this episode, what are Micro-Influencers like on YouTube and Instagram.  You might be saying, yah well, that’s a HUGE company and that isn’t relevant to us.  With this announcement and data, it is a definite sign of what works today in social media marketing so I thought the subject deserving of some attention so you can consider what it means to you and your business.  SMBs have some distinct advantages and brands large and small are changing the way that they work with Influencers.  Bigger isn’t always better in 2020!  As my kids say, “Facts” This is going to be a shorter episode as I decided to let you know about this shift if you hadn’t already realized how stark it is and second kindof lay the ground work for next weeks episode where I interview a Micro-Influencer. In this episode I’m going to go over what could miss out on if you don’t at least think about partnering with a Micro or Nano Influencer and I’ll break down what those are for you also. 1 – Influencers have Large & Often Engaged Followers You can see right in their bio how many followers they have and when you click on their posts, you can assess the engagement and number of comments.  So this may seem obvious but for those of you who haven’t really put much thought into what Influencers really DO – when they post about your brand, you could get noticed by their followers. 2 – Influencers are more trusted by Millennials than are advertisements       With the Drive to Authenticity & Trust – this is important data.  If Millennials are in your customer base or will be soon, then think about it – the speed to conversion will be faster via an Influencer because they already trust them or they wouldn’t be following them most likely. Unless they’re a hater! 3 – Neuroscientific studies by firms such as Whalar,  show that Influencers content measurably has shown higher levels of emotion and memorability compared to television, Facebook in general or YouTube.  Additionally, in many instances people go from doing nothing in response to content to a “yes” after they consume content promoting a product or service when promoted by an Influencer. The Whalar study demonstrates that Creativity, Authenticity and Values Driven are key components that prove to drive the success of the Influencer’s results so when you determine these components are present in an Influencer’s content, you can more confidently expect they will gain the attention about your product with their followers 4- There’s opportunities to give product or a free service in exchange for promotion by Influencers Not all of them require to be paid or be paid big!  It’s just a matter of finding them and striking an  arrangement that makes sense for both parties. Some brands create affiliate programs where the Influencers get a link to post in their bio or in specific posts – such as a blog post with the link where people can click thru to buy and they are transparent about the factg that they are an affiliate and they may be compensated if they are, if that’s the case.  Side note! 5 – Tracking conversion or results related to that Influencer can also be done if you give promo codes like JOGINJANUARY for a jogging pant or COOKING42 for a pregnancy cookbook let’s say.   Alternatively, you can use referral links which are URLs to a landing page.  You give one of these to the Influencer while they include your brand in their posts organically. 6 – Brand Ambassadors use your product ongoing for typically long periods of time. It’s called Brand Ambassadors.  They use your product,  occasionally urge others to use it too and they are a reflection of your brand.  You can then also then repost their posts, acting as like a testimonial for your brand or product.  In Episode 4 with Heather Cox of @Aglowpresets she talks about how she’s built a very successful Brand Ambassador program and it’s growing every week pretty much, by she gaining university students to represent her brand and preset products.   7 – Some influencers are also bloggers and you can ask them to include a link or two in a blog taking readers to your offer(s)!  Bloggers post social media posts directing followers to go read their blog.  See how this works?!   Now how do you find Influencers if you choose to go it on your own without an agency’s help – first you can start with who already follows you today!  So go to your followers - Then dig into their followers and comments they get on their posts.  Then you can search by hashtags #.  So go into the search field, click a hashtag relevant to your business or service, then click thru to their presence to see you know, how many followers they have and what kind of engagement they have. You look specifically and I know it’s time consuming but it could be worth it.  Look for people in your niche or who are interested in your niche with the number of followers between 5,000 and 25,000.  Those are what most brands consider the Micro-Influencers.  Influencers will collaborate sometimes too, so you can ask an influencer that you already know, who you know and trust and are well aligned to your brand – who do you know that is also an Influencer who might be interested in collaborating with you around our brand?!  Ask that of the Influencer you like working with.  Add hashtags to that collaboration or collab. campaign and your reach could really blow up!  In these show notes you can find a couple of message to Influencer outreach templates. Ok? They are email or message templates you can use to get started. It goes like this: Hi Betsy,  I came across your Instagram when I searched by #___________ and I was really impressed with your content.  I saw you also have a blog and are really passionate about _______.  We are a _________ and _______ company.  My role here is _____.  Our IG handle is __________ and you can visit our website at www._______.com.  We would love to see if you would be interested in partnering up with us to promote our _______ next month, in _____.  If so would you be available later this week or next for a call to talk through and see if our synergies align? Best, Carey That’s just one example.  I’ll have one more in there for you to try. Now Conferences are a really great way to meet Influencers too.  Face to face is always the fastest way to detect chemistry and start to form a relationship. No onto this next term.  Nano Influencer.  Have you heard of it?  These are people with over 1,000 followers but not yet reached Micro levels of 5-10k Next week we feature a microinfluencer.  I interview this microinfluencer so you can hear specifically of what some of them do, how personality plays a role and considerations that will help convert people into being your customer.  Don’t miss it! Influencer Outreach Template 2 go to www.allsocialyall.com

We have a very special interview with Jimmy Coltrane and he performs a track live off his upcoming project Scorpions. Our favorite bodega moves to the Tucson Mall, Ynot drops a track with the king and we talk a whole bunch of podcasting on this episode of The Mankind Podcast. We want to shed some light on the rest of Tucson's vibrant podcast community, you may not know but there's a wide variety of shows available that are produced entirely by Tucsonans in the old pueblo. Now, this is in no way the entire list but I wanted to talk about and spotlight shows that include hip-hop in their format. ◦ Tucson's number one podcast The Science of Things is back with season 10 and a couple of new cohosts in Roch and Bonus. Runt tells all the stories and good times had by all as they're recording out of Thunder Canyon brewery. ◦ The Hood Diner Is one of our favorite places to hear hip-hop interviews, news and more the homey Kazual was in California this time and being featured on the no offense show which is part of the inner circle podcast network listen to all their episodes at thehooddiner.com ◦ POD by Mac-Sama, Tim and Mac drink whiskey talk sports and call Aske in Denver ◦ V3 podcast is a YouTube podcast featuring 3 rappers with “V” in their names. Rachel V aka Bonita Fea, Ill V, and Nathan Villins. They talk about hip-hop and interview people. ◦ Cholostereo by Miguel from lower Arizona leaked a piece of their interview with the incredible Jabee ◦ Selves Talking is produced and hosted by Happy Greg, profiling some of the most prolific artists and activists in the community. ◦ Kendra After Dark drops new episodes every Saturday talking about everything going on in the mmj industry and interviewing the amazing people involved. ◦ I also want to give an honorable mention to a couple of shows that haven't released an episode in a while but are still Tucson treasures and those are "It's OK They're With Us" by Cash Lansky and Ripdee. Where they talked about food and hip-hop and the scene and had a lot of fun doing it. And Wounded World podcast, John interviewed rappers before he left for the Navy but you can still find his most recent episode with Lasso, a truly epic one on SoundCloud ◦ I'd also like to mention brother Marcus of Stand-Up Radio who continues to do his thing every week and Arkana ENT has recently dropped AZUR that's Arizona Underrated radio and they both play tracks from the community find them on Facebook and submit your songs ◦ If you've got your radio edit together submit your songs to Speakerbox X hip hop on 99.1 downtown radio every Sunday at 1 PM your host VRiv plays the hottest underground hip-hop and talks to the best in the community. don't forget to check out the Speakerbox X podcast that drops reviews about local music and new national releases with her cohost Jimmy Coltrane. ◦ And every Wednesday at midnight EL Aaron brings you Blazing Midnight Hits on 91.3 KXCI community radio and he also gets down with the Tucson hip-hop spinning the best tracks and interviewing the old Pueblo's finest. --- This episode is sponsored by · Anchor: The easiest way to make a podcast. https://anchor.fm/app --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/mankindpodcast/message

What's up yall!? I'm back and in a new format that I've wanting to try out. So definitely let me know what you think about that. Today I'm thinking about a few random things like Keri Hilson, spell check, and those talented actors from your job's safety videos. Where are they? Are they OK? They eatin good? Follow me on Twitter: @ThoughtsandEyes and at MeMyThoughtsandEyes.wordpress.com

感谢热心听友“小睡猫JoJo”帮忙听写本篇文稿!Ryan: A deceased stuffed giraffe has been drawing people’s attention at a Zoo in Wuxi, East China’s Jiangsu province, during the past “Golden Week” holiday. The zoo’s goal was to notify visitors of the dangers of feeding their animals. Is this clever or creepy? Guys, what do you think? What’s going on?Bob: I want to tell you the story of the giraffe. It was a lovely lovely living giraffe a few years ago, about five years ago, and his name was Collin. I don’t know if you know it’s real name was Collin, but I am goanna call it giraffe Collin.(Niu Honglin: you named the giraffe) Collin wasn’t very well(Ryan: were you attached) I really like Collin, I really did. Maybe because it was really handy to have a giraffe, because you can reach high things. (Ryan: oh, yeah, make sense)yeah, Well, anyway, one day Collin was just minding his own businessatthe zoo and then somebody, a visitor, I should say, came along and throw a plastic bag into the enclosure and Collin ate the plastic bag and poor Collin died, gone, giraffe, X…. Ryan: Is that the end of Collin’s story?Bob: No, Strangely enough, Because they decided that, I don’t know when they decided, they just decided, I know, we can still use Collin, we can just stuff him and put it at the zoo as a warning to visitors to say don’t do this, just don’t throw plastic bags, or don’t feed animals with wrong things and whatever, because otherwise you end up stuffed. You know which is what happened to Collin. Obviously, I am not saying people are gonna end up stuffed.Ryan: That was magical story. (Bob: Thank you.)I real feel for Collin Bob: I hope I made it live.Niu Honglin: And on top of that, they even put Collin into this parade, saying, and just put it all around, and travelling him, I don’t know if is him or her within the zoo laps and laps, saying, see, this is what you do, you want all our animals to end up like this, if you don’t, stop feeding them.Bob: But the problem is they keep on feeding them. This is not the end of it. There was a turkey called Frank, ok (Ryan: Oh, that’s a great name for turkey). Well, anyway, so he died because it was overfed by visitors. There were two ostriches, I don’t know their name, Linda, I don’t know, birdy, whatever, because of eating plastic bags given by visitors. There were three deer who died respectively because of (Niu Honglin: oh my god) I don’t know, help me out with theese names, for goodness sake. Anyway, so basically (Ryan: Jerry, Jim, Jonson), oh, fine, whatever, so anyway, there are all these animals, all over the place, being given things by visitors. What is the problem here? Ryan: You know, obviously, this is nothing new. Animals are dying right and left basically; because people are feeding them. And I can understand why, you know, in my mind; here is what I am thinking. And, I am thinking, Sometimes my dog would come to the table. And my dog would always eat before the family did, soo that it will beg less. That was the strategy,never happened, Ok, so the dog had eaten its dinner. Now we’rere at the table having our dinner as a family. But the dog would always come up, and you know, flash those puppy dog eyes. (Bob: This is where you got it from, you do the same) you know when those puppy dog eyes are flashed at you, you just, you’re like“oh god, I know, you just ate, this is bad, but it feels so right”.Niu Honglin: See, You’ve paint a pretty picture, a lovely home, a lovely dog, family dinner, but I have to say, this is very serious. A survey conducted in Guangdong province suggested that 97, 97 percent participants believe animals can eat what human eat, that is not the fact, animals cannot eat whatever human eat; and 76 percent participants confess feeding animals is for entertainment, so they are just doing it because they think it’s fun; and 18 percent participants think animals cannot get enough food. This is not all right.Ryan: I want to go with that, that animals don’t get enough food, because these people, I do feel, when it comes to animals, they don’t know the stuff. Obviously your statistics pointed to that. ( Niu Honglin: Yes.) So the zoos not doing a good job, at least giving them that information, because this animals come up…Bob: No, I don’t think you can blame the zoos for this, because, I don’t know, but when I was a school kid. (Ryan: tell that to Jerry, Jamey and Jonson. Ok?) They are not around anymore. But, you know, When I was going up at school, I was pretty certain that we had lessons, where they say, look, this is a lion, don’t put your hand in the lion’s mouth, don’t, you know, try to feed itfish & chips or something like this, just don’t do it. And then maybe we were taken to the zoo by family or school, and again, we were shown, just don’t do it. So I think people need to know what wild animals are and what to eat before they even get to the zoo.Ryan: All right, fair enough, we can agree to disagree on this one. But, I will say that, in the US not too long ago, there was a famous gorilla that was shot and killed because a child fell into its enclosure, and the child was, they shot the gorilla to save the child. Well, basically it is the negligence of the mother that the child ended up in there. And I think it was the zoo’s fault, but I think people would be really outraged, in the US, if they paraded Harambe which was with the name of the gorilla, around, and saying, “Hey, guys, you know, this is the zoo, look at Harambe, he paid the ultimate price basically because you didn’t know, not to stick your hand into the lion’s mouth, or not to have your kid wonder around this enclosure.Niu Honglin: Yeah, I agree. So for this story, I do believe that feeding animals are not correct, are not right, you should not do this, but I don’t like the idea of having this poorly tragically died giraffe, make it stuffed giraffe, and just parade it everywhere. (Bob: …We are supposed be talking about Collin, aren’t we) yeah, Collin is just the sad animal; this is a creepy creepy story. I wish Collin rest in peace. And also I do believe that the zoo is not there to blame, but, the zoo can actually do more, instead of putting Collin all around everywhere, maybe they can put signs each and every cages, saying we do not want you to feed them, your food is not proper for them, it could kill them. And also the massive media like what we are doing right now, is to our dear listeners stop feeding animals when you are in a zoo, it’s not good for them. Bob: And I think the message, which, if you put Collin right there at the gate. The message is, hey, (Ryan: living Collin or dead Collin?)dead Collin at the gate, I mean the problem with this, is that, basically saying, Look, it doesn’t really matter, because actually Collin is still with us, he is still help us, he is still working here at the zoo, he is fine, you know, he can still entertain us all. I just think it sort of sends out the wrong message when you take this poor little animal and stick him right at the gate.

Jake, Cameron, and Lewis discuss MLG Columbus, UC-Irvine's new eSports scholarships, and is cursing on stream OK? They also recap HotS Spring Championship and LCS Playoffs.