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Speaker 1 00:00:44 <inaudible>
Speaker 0 00:01:00 Hey everybody. Welcome back to gig. Ready. We're here today with a very good friend of mine. Ryan Conoco from rock the house in Ohio Cleveland. Specifically, Ryan is the chief principal over there and we're talking virtual events, sales, how to turn leads into actual customers. Ryan, thanks for coming. Love to have you here. Thanks for being on today.
Speaker 2 00:01:27 Awesome. Thanks for having me. Good to be here.
Speaker 0 00:01:29 Fantastic. So let's take two minutes real quick. Give me a rundown. Six months ago, everything shut down. It was like someone placed a dam in front of the giant rushing tidal wave of work that was happening. Things were rocking. It was awesome. Um, six months has gone by now. Give me an idea of what you guys have done to move from full in-person, live events straight into the virtual digital.
Speaker 2 00:01:59 Yeah, totally. I'll take you through it and I'll give you our story and I'll kind of explain how we ended up doing what we're doing, which right now is today. We had three events last week. We had 10 simultaneous streams going on Thursday. So, um, don't me wrong. I don't want to candy coat. What's been a tough situation. This has been tough for all of us. Um, you know, our company is way, way down, just like every other audio visual company in the country. And unfortunately we have had a downscale part of our staff, but we've worked hard and we're hustlers and we are really developing and putting out new products through this. So, um, yeah, definitely happy to explain what we're doing, how we're getting there. And, um, what's been selling, um, I always say on a good day, I'm a bad technician. So I'll tell you a little bit more of the front of house, uh, how we're getting the clients, how we're converting them. And I'll try not to sound silly when I talk about the tech. No, that's in fact,
Speaker 0 00:03:00 The tech, even though it is so critical, I think one of the big things I've noticed is that, um, uh, 80% of a virtual event is not in the event itself, but it's actually everything that happens before. Um, maybe not 80, but close. Like there's a ton of work that goes into preparing it. And then once you're going computers, some switchers and everybody's doing their thing, am I, am I wrong about that? Or is that pretty close?
Speaker 2 00:03:27 I think you're totally right. I think there's when you get into the virtual venues and the virtual platforms. So not just streaming and our TMP fee, but when you're looking at your things like Excel event, Pathable Hoppin, Remo V fares, you know, socio, um, I think there's some funky ghosts that are living in those systems. So I think there's some tech that does need to be understood, but, um, really when you're handling most of your core webinars stuff and your main streams, that the tech is pretty cut and dry, and there hasn't been a ton of groundbreaking changes while there's been fun, little updates in widgets, it's a pretty simple principle, but the planning has become more important than ever for us. Um, in a world where, you know, really qualified technicians used to be able to, you know, maybe your lead would pop in a few days early, started to figure out the show, do your pull sheet.
Speaker 2 00:04:22 And you know, your technicians could pop from show to show, um, the planning now and understanding exactly what's going to happen because you are more in a broadcast setting and having the graphics, the shots, the understanding of how to route it. Um, our planning time has went through the roof. It's probably one of the things early on. We significantly underestimated. Um, and it definitely hurt us because you can't go back to clients and say, well, this is a new product. We had no idea it was going to take this much time. Um, so we, we got burned a little bit on that early on. Uh, for those of you that aren't doing a ton of virtual events, um, whatever you think you need for labor, double it, or whatever, think your time, whatever time you think you're going to have into it, double it, uh, they are extremely time-consuming, um, a because of the planning, but B because they're so new to the clients, your clients are checking in constantly. They're asking for extra meetings just to touch base where more traditionally V a lot of our senior planners kind of knew what they were getting into. Um, do clients have no idea? So they really need a lot more handholding and that's going to separate, you know, the successful events versus the knocks or their comfort level
Speaker 0 00:05:38 Makes sense. Um, so what, what don't they know, what are the things that they don't know that they're constantly checking in with you on,
Speaker 2 00:05:47 They don't know what they're supposed to provide versus what you're supposed to provide, and that, depending on what day you ask me, I don't know if I know what they're supposed to provide versus what we're supposed to provide. Um, so there's this gray line where I think, you know, when you're, so it all depends on what is your virtual events. So, you know what, let's start at the beginning, you know, everyone's defining a virtual event differently. How are you defining it? Like, do you have a definition that you're using?
Speaker 0 00:06:13 I mean, to me, a virtual event has anything that comes to me on a screen that is actually either live or webinars, so training or sales meeting, or, um, anything where someone is communicating information to another individual on the other end of a screen. Um, and it's not, you know, a video on YouTube. It's not a prerecord on Vimeo. It's actually like, we're doing it.
Speaker 2 00:06:41 Okay, cool. Um, and that's totally away. And I think for a lot of clients, they say that, and I get into conversations all the time where people are like, you know, we wanted this virtual event and all sudden it was like, that's just video conferencing. And they're like, yeah, but we want to make it an event. So I think there's totally a thought process. And at rock the house, we have a few different silos and market segments. Uh, we do have some people that are working really in manage what I call managed video conferencing, which is, you know, adding some flare to video conferencing, finding ways to do it, uh, finding ways to Excel in it. Uh, there's some fun platforms out there that actually really are assisting well with that. Uh, if anybody has any demos yet, uh, and it's spelled exactly like, it sounds M M H M M um, you know, wicked fund software that they're developing for video conferencing that allows you to share in the original pitch and they've added some great stuff to it since was, you know, make your webinar look like you're on a weekend update on SNL.
Speaker 2 00:07:40 So lets you jump around the screen and lets you look transparent. Uh, lets you bring decks up in nicer areas. Uh, so it is kind of managed that, but to get to the core question, um, and you know what I think, um, what, what was the, um, the, the thing that competed against PowerPoint years ago? Um, Prezi, um, I think Prezi has their version of it. Um, I, I remember seeing it, I apologize was a while ago, but you might want to check out pricey too. So for me, what do I say when I say virtual event? Yeah. I work mostly in the meeting and conference segment. So, um, the term that I use on a virtual event is I say it is an event that tries to mimic traditional event attributes, mostly in the arena of education, engagement and commerce. So up until a couple of weeks ago, I was saying networking instead of engagement.
Speaker 2 00:08:37 And then I realized that everybody's asking for a network networking, networking. Now what can we do to network? But when you really dive in with your clients, most of them don't actually need it. They're just looking for engagement. They're looking for cool ways for people to interact things that are a little bit different than just a chat bar. Um, and I think if you replaced that networking with engagement, it really gives you a broad spectrum of saying, okay, what's education. Education is my main stage. My GS it's my breakout rooms. It's an area for people to download, you know, white pages or download different material that is tied to that person. It's maybe a video on demand. I talk a lot with my clients and, um, Quimbee is a term I love using because it's the new little fun, um, you know, streaming app, but it stands quick bites.
Speaker 2 00:09:31 So, you know, I talked to my clients and I say, you know, what are we doing to, you know, give something quippy, what are we doing to give people a chance to maybe not sit through an hour long session, but to have a five minute bite for here, a five minute bite for here. So education for me, keynote breakouts, and then these kinds of little bites. These may be prerecorded videos that are on one specific thing. Um, hu Freeman a couple of years ago started selling that product where they had, um, the huge led wall they would set up. And I think I thought a PCMA and I, I don't know if they ever actually sold it or if it was a concept, but the idea was that people would record these small videos. And if you didn't like what was going on the main stage, you could tune in to these small videos and stay interested.
Speaker 2 00:10:16 It's kind of a fun idea. Um, anyways, so then you go to engagement, engagement can be networking and for some events, networking is huge. And a lot of the platforms you can engage with people, um, I've become a pretty big Slido fan. Um, so Fido's great. Kahoot is great. Um, and I think while we're using them now, when we switched to hybrid events, which we can circle back to in a little bit. Yeah. I think when we, the industry switches from this hundred percent virtual to hybrid, those are going to become even more impactful. And then the last thing I look at with clients is commerce and commerce to me generally covers anything. We want them to buy any sort of trade show, exhibit hall we have and any sort of sponsorship responsibilities we have got. So when you stack all of those and they, they don't have to have all of them, but you know, I tend to look at a virtual event by saying, it's something that's mimicking that if not, maybe it's just a meeting.
Speaker 2 00:11:15 Maybe it's just a webinar. Do like webinars got a dirty name during all of this where people thought right webinars were just like somebody on zoom or somebody on teams talking to you and webinars can be beautiful and engaging and have tons of great content. Then they can have full production and AAV companies, somehow the webinars or the name, you know, I don't, I don't know if it's going to come out. It might be something that we'll just have to call it something different because clients don't have a real positive picture of it right now, trash the name webinar and come up with something that's the same thing, but who knows because neither can be beautiful webinars. But when you say webinar clients, I don't want a webinar. I want a virtual event. Like it's a single screen show with no commerce, no engagement. Yeah. It's a webinar.
Speaker 0 00:12:02 Yeah. Well sometimes I want to get rid of the, sometimes I want to get rid of the virtual name and go to digital. I'd feel like virtual doesn't really cover what we're actually doing my personal opinion. Um, but I, and I, but I don't think I'm going to win that. I don't think I'm going to win that game. Cause everybody virtual is like the name that everybody has gone to now. And so
Speaker 2 00:12:25 The, the ship may have sailed on that one, but, um, but, but we'll sit here. You, you, you find a group that we'll replace a webinar, I'll find a group that will place a virtual we'll team up and change the world.
Speaker 0 00:12:37 Perfect. I love it. Um, let's go all the way to the start. And most people would say the start is okay, we're going to start planning, but I'm looking at, even back before that, like if you didn't have anyone right now, if you didn't have a single customer, what would you do to start finding customers for the virtual event platform or zoom or teams or whatever you're looking to do, um, to create revenue for rock the house right now.
Speaker 2 00:13:08 So let's, let's go back a step even further than that. Um, you know, why are we doing virtual events? You know, why have we decided that we are going to invest time and resource and all of these things to keep people on payroll? Um, you know, I have a lot of friends in markets that just went, it's not worth it, man, close up the business, ride it out. Your cash will get you through a year, have zero payroll, zero. You know, your expenses will be almost nothing pop out on the other end. So why do all this work in the first place? Um, so you have to decide, cause if I'm answering your question, I'm at I'm answering what I choose to get into the live event industry today in the middle of a pandemic. And I can give you a resounding hell, no. Um, but I am, and this is where I've spent 20 years and it's where I'm going to spend the next 20 years.
Speaker 2 00:14:05 So let's make something of it. Um, why are we doing virtual events? We're doing virtual events for a few reasons. We're doing virtual ones. First of all. Uh, because rock the house had an amazing year in 2010 and 11. And for those guys that are a little bit older listening to this, they're going to go. Those were awful years. How did you guys manage to do all right? Well, if you don't know the history of rock the house, we started as bar mitzvah DJs. Um, and after a series of years, we ended up with a ton of gear and a ton of really qualified guys to set it up. And then all of a sudden somebody called us and they said, we want that energy, that style, that show that you brought. But instead of it being on a Saturday night, we want it on a Wednesday and we don't need a DJ.
Speaker 2 00:14:48 We just want the other stuff. And we were there's weekday. We're like, what is, this is so cool. You can make money on Wednesdays. Um, and so 2009 economic downturn, we come out of it and you had a ton of the providers who didn't stay up with their clients. When they said we have to cancel our event this year, we don't have a budget for an event this year, our budgets have been cut in half. And you had a lot of AB providers that didn't find a way to stay with their clients to say, you know what, we're your partner. We're going to fight through this for you. We don't care about the big checks we got in the past. We care about taking care of you and coming out on the other side of this with you. So for all of those people that didn't happen two years later, you've got a different cycle money's coming back.
Speaker 2 00:15:36 And we got a chance to bid on a lot of events that had that not happened. And had people stayed in front of their clients, we would have never had a chance to bid on because people were writing. You know, you were around back then. A lot of clients were writing blank checks to the same guys every year. Thanks so much, you've done a great job. We don't really care about the budget, make it happen. Yeah. But a lot of those companies didn't stay in front of their clients. So our number one goal doing virtual events was to stay in front of every client to let every client know we will be with you. And we will find a way, no matter what your company is going through during COVID to tell your story, non-profits a big part of us, you know, to get your message out there, to allow people to donate, uh, to get your sales team together.
Speaker 2 00:16:22 So all of those things is why we chose to go into it. So, um, you know, I know there was a little bit of a sidetrack, but staying in front of the client is the single most important thing. The second thing. And you know, I'm not recommending that everybody go poach their competitors clients. But if you know that the show you've always wanted in town belongs to a guy that put a gone fishing sign on the door and you're not, well, guess what, you're going to chance. You're going to get a chance to get it in the virtual segment. And when we come out of this, you're going to be the company that stood with those people and that they said we had such a great experience virtually with you. Maybe we'll give you a chance to bid it live. You're not guaranteed the work nobody's guaranteed the work.
Speaker 2 00:17:09 Maybe you'll have a chance to really bid it and to look and be part of that show when it goes back to live and, you know, just like 99 or 2009 shows that maybe you would have never gotten a chance to before. So I thought I'd throw that out just to kind of why we were doing it and why these are attractive. We are not getting rich doing virtual events. We are keeping our guys working. We are keeping some gear working. We are staying in front of our clients. And, um, I work as much on the business side as I, you know, do on any other cashflow is so important right now we need to see cash entering our accounts and leaving our accounts. Yeah. So just the idea of the cashflow makes these really attractive. So, okay. Now, now I'll answer your question. Uh, reword it for me one more time. So I don't mess it up. What was your exact question? The,
Speaker 0 00:18:01 I mean, that answer was out was fantastic. Um, that's probably more of the answer I was looking for anyway, but, um, you know, and just kind of, in retrospect for me, um, you know, through our relationship, I don't know if you've, if you've ever picked up on it, but most of our clients are sub rental clients. Like that's what we do. Um, and so we were not in the place to suddenly just tell our clients, Hey, we're doing VR. You know, we can handle your virtual events now because suddenly that's what they're doing because you know, they don't need all the extra gear that they don't own, um, for doing stuff. So, um, your, your answer is fantastic. And I love that. And I think that it's critical for us to remember that one, if somebody puts a gone fishing sign on the door, you're not poaching anybody.
Speaker 0 00:18:49 They said, you know what, for now we're hanging up our code and we're not going to keep doing what we're doing because we don't see any value in it. And, um, companies want to see people that, that believe in them that have that, that see value in maintaining those relationships, even if they're not getting something from it. And I think that that's very important, you know, in this day and age, as you know, same thing, I'm continuing to reach out to people that I know I may not be able to do anything for them, but just find out how people are doing, keeping, touch, touch, you know, making sure that they understand that we're still here, that we're still doing stuff. Um, you know, and keeping in front of them as incredibly important. The, the question I guess, that I asked was if you, so you said, all right, I'm here. I need to keep in touch with my clients from the start. How are you finding or discovering these virtual events that people need to have, or want to have, because they're not doing in-person events. Did you just put a sign on the front door that says, Hey, we can take your live event and make it virtual. Or was there a lot of legwork that you went through to, to find those people that aren't your current clients?
Speaker 2 00:19:57 I, you know, it was a hybrid of a couple of things. So, um, first thing we did is realized we had never done a virtual event before we had never, you know, other than the occasional bringing in a remote guest or the occasional streaming of something for CE credits for a medical conference, we never really played in that segment. So we went ahead and decided we needed to learn this and we needed to do it fast. This was on a Sunday in April. Uh, we decided, how can we learn this and get up to speed fast and get some cash in. So we said, what market segment needs us? Um, that probably is pretty easy to work with and we probably can't screw up. And, uh, that was virtual graduations. So on Sunday we decided it, uh, Monday we built a deck for it. So our sales guys could do presentations and we started reaching out to people that could get us email lists of principals. And we went ahead and
Speaker 3 00:20:57 What did we end up with? It
Speaker 2 00:20:59 Had of been 30,000 principal email addresses nationwide. Wow. We ended up picking five States to go after California, Florida, Illinois, Michigan, and Ohio, maybe Pennsylvania was in there too. Maybe it was six. Um, I'm going to start blasting people saying your, your graduation's going virtual. Let us help you get there. And we were doing sales presentations of products. We had never sold, but we needed to get comfortable with it and asking the questions and figuring it out. And we knew that most of these are markets we don't play in and clients that would never call us. So kind of nothing to lose. Yeah. And we ended up booking and a 45 day period. We did, I think they're not as final number. It was like 76, 77 virtual graduations. Wow. It was absolutely insane. About a dozen of them were regional and they were hybrids.
Speaker 2 00:21:49 We were bringing in led walls, the other 60 plus or whatever it worked out to be. Uh, we're strictly streaming graduations. Um, so first thing we did is we learned how to do the product. We learned how to ask questions and we learned in a market segment that we really couldn't screw up. Uh, so what's the equivalent now because graduations, you know, that's what we did. Um, so many that are out there. I think you're going to see a lot of, you know, think of the arts. I think you're gonna see a lot of dance studios that want to find a way to stream, you know, Becky's, five-year-old ballet. You know, I was talking to a friend of mine today and she said for the first time, in 40 years, this company's not doing the Nutcracker this year. You know, there's going to be a need for these studios that are down in revenue, whether they're, you know, competitive show choir, whether it's this like, that kind of same youth, family-based stuff, whole market's down gymnastics, you know, all those things.
Speaker 2 00:22:46 I think I would cut my teeth on there. If you don't know what you're, if you're already a promo and skip this step, but what this allowed us to do is front of house, learn how to ask questions, learn how to listen, learn how to steer them, learn how, you know, in the old days, when somebody said, Hey, and you know that thing, can you throw that in for me? Cause I wanted it. You'd be like, whatever, another case, the lights on the truck. Yeah. I got you. You learned that when you said yes to that in virtual, it may be 10 hours of work. It's not just some lights that are sitting on your shelf. So you learn to say yes to, and you learn what to say. Definitely no to, uh, and you, you learn that the hard way. Um, so from there you've got it.
Speaker 2 00:23:28 Then I'd go after, you know, the clients I can go after, we got really lucky with some associations that had multiple events. So, um, sell at once, produce it five times is always a better model. So we went after some associations that we knew that series of events. And we said to them, and I really meant this. I was hoping I was going to get the work, but I said, you've got five events coming up in this like six week period or whatever it was. You don't want to work with five or six different providers. I know you like to spread the work around. I know you like to, you know, give your money to different organizations. Don't do it. There's such a learning curve in virtual stick with one person for this two months. And then when you come up for air, decide if you want to do it again. So I, you know, I looked for people with multiple events, um, you know, for Aussie as a sub rap man, it's tough. I don't know. I just suburban would be a brutal game to be in right now. And I'm, I'm sure it is, uh, you know, my heart goes out to you and you know, there's all of our,
Speaker 0 00:24:32 It's this big fat goose egg at the moment. So
Speaker 2 00:24:35 It's, you know, I'm trying to think, um, when's the last time I subbed rented something, um, you know what I mean? I needed a live view unit a few weeks ago, but yeah, yeah. I mean it's few and far between, um, so yeah, that, that's what I would do. I'd go after it. Um, people are visual, um, and they don't know what they're looking at now. So when it comes to live events while I do think having great photos of your events and you know, pretty decks and all those things are really important in virtual, they need to be able to see something. Okay. So do a fake event, do something that you can record, do something where you can show graphics. Um, I use, when I do demos, I'm not a technician, so I use stream yard, but I grabbed the zoom, you know, I show it and I can take them through a very basic graphics in here's what I'm able to do as a non technician when our or our tech scout here, they can customize this by tenfold. Got it.
Speaker 0 00:25:31 Okay. Very cool. Um, so what are you, so you, you find a market segment, um, like you said, they're visual. So what else are you sh give me a little idea of what the dog and pony show looks like when you get in front of them and you're telling them, here's what we can do. Um, and those examples, what are you, are you just showing them, Hey, we can do a PIP and we can do this and we can do that. Or are you really helping them understand how to use the event to engage and engage differently than they would in the live sense?
Speaker 2 00:26:05 So I talk about, you know, three main things I talk about, like inside the screen, I talk about outside the screen, which is kind of your general engagement, you know, all of those other things. And then for us, if the client's regional, um, we had a lot of led tiles sitting on a shelf getting dusty. So, um, we have a training room here that we were able to build out and make that a virtual studio. So whether they think they were calling about it or not, everybody gets to virtual studio demo. Um, but when I, so when I talk about inside the screen, when I talk about, cause you have to explain to the client, no matter what they're like, I want all this at the end of the day, somebody is looking at a video player. Yep. So when I talk about what happens inside the screen, first, I talk about visual.
Speaker 2 00:26:51 Um, and that's where I'm showing what a lower third is, what ticker tape looks like. You know, what a PIP is, um, how, when you hire an a V company, we're not having people share their screens, but we're bringing in the graphics as a separate input and therefore we can size it during the show. They get larger, smaller, you know, I, I talk about, you know, remote clickers, cause those are always fun. Um, and I talk about really how to make that a thing. Um, then I talk about outside the screen. Now it's just an AAV house. You might have nothing to do with what happens outside that player, but it's part of a virtual event. You better be ready to talk about it. So, um, I have demo platforms and a couple of the different softwares out there that are virtual environments. So I usually jump in and I explain to somebody the difference between a robust, you know, a robust webinar platform, something like an up, did I lose?
Speaker 2 00:27:52 You know, that was weird, uh, something like an on 24 or a brand out live. Uh, and then I go ahead and I take them through what are the more complete virtual environments? Something like Accella events, Pathable, uh, grip, pop in FIFA are these the, the virtual venue. It's what people, here's the thing people started saying, you know, platform. And I still use the word platform a lot, but what I try to tell a client fairly early on and it seems to work. I say, don't think of it as a platform. Think of it, venue. Cause sometimes they'll ask, well, why do I have to pay them? And you, and I say, well, you paid the Hilton last year and you paid me. Why wouldn't you pay the venue as me as well? And when they start to think about it as a venue, then you kind of become more of an advisor on it and less of the person they think is running it at all times.
Speaker 2 00:28:51 Okay. And, um, and I'll leave it to you guys, if you want to be, if you are a full producer or a turnkey solution and you want to be running those, go ahead, add for us, we're running a little hard and a little fast right now, and a little bit lean on staff to want to be able to be the ones managing those venues always. Um, and then people start yelling. He's asking, well, you know, what is zoom? And you know, why aren't I just using zoom? And you know, you verse zoom and I will credit my dear friend, Aaron Cobb down in Texas for this line. Um, Erin said, tell them that zoom is just like stage decks. And I started to explain to clients, zoom is just a series of stage checks. Just like any venue we roll on the stage and you stand on it.
Speaker 2 00:29:37 That's all zoom is, zoom is just where your presenters are standing. And once you start to understand that the platform is just a venue and whether you're using zoom or live stream to bring people in or stream yard, or I think VMX, you can bring people in, uh, whatever your or teams or whatever you want to bring people in. Think of it as just a bunch of stage, right. Decks. Cause that's all it is. It's just what they're standing on. But everything that happens around it, you know, at a live event, the hotel gives you stage deck. So why do you bring in an ag company? Well, because there's a lot of stuff. That's not just the stage decks that needs to happen. Here you go. Here's a deck, stand on this, do your events, have a great show piece, but when you start to think of it in there, it makes a lot of sense. And then yeah. Then I talk about engagement and you know, you sprinkle some fairy dust on some stuff. Um,
Speaker 0 00:30:35 Can you send a box of that fairy dust to Denver for me?
Speaker 2 00:30:38 Yeah. I'd be happy to um, well, yeah, you know, I talk about, you know, what are your goals for engagement? Is it just, you know, is it Chad does a Q and A's um, you always in every sales call I do. Whether they say they get it or not, I have to say, do you understand the difference between video conferencing and streaming? Do you understand the difference between one-to-one or one-to-many because everybody says they do, but then they keep asking for video conferencing as part of streaming. And it's not the same. So it's kind of hard to draw that line. So I always start with it. It'd be like, Hey, it's fun to put this out there just to make sure we're on the right path.
Speaker 0 00:31:17 Got it. So streaming streaming being only going one direction, conferencing, going both directions.
Speaker 2 00:31:24 Totally. One to many verse one-to-one and then I always say the easiest way that I like people to remember it is video conferencing is you're all sitting around a boardroom table. Streaming is you are standing on a stage and you have an audience watching. You got it. Okay. Very cool. And then you start to build up from there. What do you find this place?
Speaker 0 00:31:46 What do you find is the most, um, requested type right now? Streaming or conferencing?
Speaker 2 00:31:54 Oh man. It's I mean, it's, it's streaming, but they want all the fun perks of conferencing. They're like, no, we want to totally streaming. We want to make sure we have control over everybody. We really want one person presenting. Uh, you know, but if so-and-so has a good question, I'd love for them to be able to pop up on the screen next to the person with the lower third and this and that. And I'm like during a live event, you've got a live gen sash for 3000 people. When was the last time a good question that you could run up to the stage, jump on. We had your headshot ready, your lower graphics, ready to jump up. It doesn't work in a live. It's not going to work in virtual. And yes, there are ways. Yes, there are. You can, somebody that asks a good question.
Speaker 2 00:32:37 You could send them, like, I understand the backend technology to make it happen. It's just not encouraged. Yeah. Um, but that's where I think you can show them, you know, the difference between the virtual venues and platforms because they all kind of have their own widgets. And then, you know, we have found it successful saying if you want it to be more streamlined, go ahead and just use Slido. Got it. Uh, cause there's some fun stuff there. A lot of the shows we're doing, we are producing the full gen sesh and then within the breakouts, most of the virtual venues have some sort of broadcast player or you can integrate zoom into the breakouts. So we are saying for breakouts, if it's not in your budget, have a technician in every room. Once again, just like an in-person event. Do you want us to have a floating technician that pops in and out or is on call or do you want a dedicated technician?
Speaker 2 00:33:29 So if they have a dedicated technician, we can do a little bit more with engagement. If not, we're a little bit more limited to just, it is what it is and Zoom's done some great stuff on the backend where you can jump in and out of different rooms. You can help people troubleshoot. Uh, you can get into anybody's computer and check out there, you know, they're up and they're down there. CPU usage and zoom. Um, I came kind of full circle with zoom. I think I was telling you this the other day I came full circle with zoom. Uh, at the beginning of this, I was kind of like, we're a pro companies. Zoom is very pro-sumer, you know, we shouldn't be using zoom. We can only be using, if you are using a live stream link or a VMX link or something and your presenters can't get into it.
Speaker 2 00:34:12 There's an issue. I promise you, your client looks that is it's your fault. You made it too hard. You made it too difficult. Your software doesn't work. If you're like, I sent them a zoom link and they didn't know what zoom was. Well, then you're presented right back on your presenter. And like you did anything wrong, you know, what do they say? If you know, people want chocolate ice cream, give them chocolate ice cream. That's true. Yeah. There's better things out there. They're going to give you a little bit higher resolution. So maybe your top things when you have more control. But if you're doing, you know, we just did a diversity conference where we add, you know, panelists after panel, after panel, after panel, we send one zoom room out. And when I say zoom rooms, zooms and other vernacular, we're, we're going to rewrite everyone's vernacular it's today. Um, zoom rooms are actually they're installed video conferencing that for permanent installation, zoom meeting is what we all know, but everybody got zoom room, so, okay. So we set up a zoom meeting or a zoom room, whatever you want to call it as a green room, every presenter goes in there and then we just peel them out with other links as we need them. Got it. Uh, we have found that more successful than an email with 10 different links.
Speaker 0 00:35:24 Got it. Yeah. Click on this. And then at 10, 15, click on this one to then go and
Speaker 2 00:35:30 To be really clear, how did we figure that out? We had some really rough shows.
Speaker 0 00:35:34 Oh, well I'm, I'm glad you're through that. Um, what do you find is selling your clients on doing a virtual event right now versus waiting and hoping that live events can come back in the next six to eight months?
Speaker 2 00:35:52 The same reason that I'm doing virtual events, they don't want to miss this myth and they came and talked today. There you go. Same reason I'm doing virtual events. They don't want to miss a cycle. Yeah. And I, I say to them, they're like, well, we're not sure if we want to do this. And it was like, do you really want to miss a cycle with your sales team when they need more support than they've ever had before? Because they're selling different than Lee than I ever had. Do you really want to miss a segment with your donors where everyone's going to be banging on your donors wall? Do you really want to miss a segment with your clients? Um, when they don't really know what's going on and you can show them your new products missing a cycle will kill you. Just like, I don't want my clients to go away for a year if I'm making money or not on these events. I don't think our clients want their audience to go away for a year. Yeah. So that's the number one selling point that we tend to go with? Huh?
Speaker 0 00:36:44 Okay. Um, I like that, that works really well. Um, missing a segment is huge, especially when it comes to sales.
Speaker 4 00:36:53 You were,
Speaker 0 00:36:55 You mentioned earlier that you were talking about education, engagement, commerce. Um, do you find that most virtual events need or want to have all three or are there ones where you're really only focused on one segment versus all three?
Speaker 2 00:37:10 No. I mean, you, you, the, the most common is education. Um, and, and depending on your event, education is just the show. It's your main screen. Yeah. Um, so yeah, that's the most common from there? I think everybody likes a piece of engagement, um, and engagement doesn't have to be networking, but people, man, I, they, they got to get off this networking train. Um, but you know, the engagement of two-way communication and that's what I kind of use to fight against people are like, well, video conference. I'm like, no, but we can do engagement. Yeah. You know, we can find ways where your audience kids still feel part of the show. Uh, commerce is big. Cause usually there's somebody underwriting these things. So either you've got sponsors, you've got to recognize you've got, um, exhibit halls that want to show their wares. You've got something that people want to sell, even an internal event.
Speaker 2 00:38:05 Cause a lot of internal events are underwritten by, you know, Hey, you know, I, you know, spend a lot of money with you every year. I'm having my staff meeting. I need you to go ahead and, you know, give me five grand, 10 grand, whatever. Yeah. Um, they like seeing the website shout out. They like seeing their logos. Even if the clicks aren't super high, it ends up becoming really important. Uh, I told a lot of clients that I got, I haven't said this in a while. This was like one of my early, I go through ups and downs with lines that I say, but early I was talking a lot about, um, how has an event community? And I tell this to planners and to clients, uh, we have a responsibility right now to over deliver in the virtual environment to our sponsors. And I would say that because so many sponsors are really nervous and we're in there.
Speaker 2 00:38:52 Like, I'm not sure I'm going to get value. And I'm like, we have this responsibility to over-deliver because we don't know how long COVID is going. And we don't know if events are going back to in-person or if they're going to go back to hybrid. And we want to make sure that all of these check writers and in every city it's the same, it's, you know, your big national companies and then more regionally it's your banks, it's your hospitals. It's the people that write those checks often. We want to make sure that they're not so soured from writing a big check and being under-delivered in the virtual environment that they're like, Oh, virtual. Yeah. We're going to tap out of that one.
Speaker 0 00:39:32 Huh? What are you finding is actually selling? Um, I'm trying to think of how to, how to make this question a little bit different than the last one, but what is getting people to sign on the dotted line and say, okay, yes, we're going to move. We are going to move forward. We are going to do this and then getting them to, you know, cut that check and boom, away you go.
Speaker 2 00:39:57 Um, that's a really tough one. I'm trying to think of what's really close them. And you know, I had a client the other day call and they said, Hey, you know, we spoke with you. Your pricing was a little bit higher than we were comfortable with. This is a client that I think we did work for five or six years ago. And then they went to a less expensive provider. And um, they asked that we do a demo this year, you know, nice people. I knew they were going to shop it. And they came back and said, you guys were the most expensive out there, but you also seemed like, you know what, you were talking about more than anyone else. And because nobody else could really convince us, they knew what they were talking about. We're going to give you the work, even though you're stretching our budget a bit.
Speaker 2 00:40:39 So, you know, I think being able to show mastery in the craft, even though it's such an craft, I mean, no, one's lying and saying, you know, we've been doing virtual for 20 years, but you know, showing that we got in early, um, our studio did well. We're constantly talking about on our social. Um, we have, you know, I would say we're, mid-size on social media. We were about 10,000 followers on Facebook. Um, and we've been doing a very good job of just constantly blasting out there. And while a lot of other people, you know, one of the first people you like go in times like this, cause leads are down, you let your marketing team go. Yeah. Uh, those of you that had to let your marketing teams go or your marketing consultant, whoever you did it, a lot of your socials are getting really dry. And we just sure that we were constantly blasting it out there and people would say, we're seeing, you're doing all this stuff. We just assume you're the specialist now in the region for it. And we're like, why? Yes we are. Hey, um, there you go. Yeah, there you go.
Speaker 0 00:41:48 I got to slap my hand. Now my social has been so horrible. It's like, it's, you're right. It's practically non-existent and um, that's totally on me. So
Speaker 2 00:41:57 Yeah. And don't me wrong. I hate that stuff. Like I'm like the most not. So like, you know, for any of you that are friends with me on social I'll post every now and then when I'm with my brothers or something hanging out. But I don't really post a lot of work stuff. My partner happens to be awesome at it. Um, but we've really went ahead and focused on making sure that we're constantly telling the story and the story isn't that we do virtual, the stories that we're here and that we're fighting, cause people are going, are they even in business for a lot of these companies? And the story we're showing is our staff eating pizza and us partying after a virtual event and us rearranging our virtual studio are building out our led wall. You know, all of these things that are just showing we're here and we're ready for whatever you guys need. We'll find a way to serve you. Yeah, very cool. Um, Hm.
Speaker 0 00:42:46 It's a, uh, it's definitely an interesting time that we're, that we live in with the changes, the adjustments, the, I mean, it's just totally crazy. My brain is rolling around as I'm listening to you talk, I'm like, okay, what are the things we need to do? What are the things that we need to execute on? Um, because really every last for ourselves as, as a sub rental company, um, you know, we have to change the game and I refuse to sit here and say, okay, well, we're just going to lay everybody off and hope that I can do some sub rentals to people doing virtual events and see if that maybe helps us go for another 12 months before we really start seeing uptick. Um, you know, like you mentioned, I feel a huge responsibility to the guy, to the people, the guys, the girls that worked for me, um, and are a part of my team to continue to figure out a way to innovate so that we can be successful and not be like many of the companies that have said, Oh, well, we're just going to hang up our hat and, um, and not do these or hope that other stuff's going to come back sooner.
Speaker 0 00:43:49 Um, you mentioned that in Cleveland, there are some companies that did just that. Um, you know, do you think that they're just going to last it out? Will they end up, you know, going out of business, what do you think's going to happen in that side of that?
Speaker 2 00:44:03 You know, I won't talk about Cleveland directly. I was more talking regionally when I say that, but made that comment earlier, but yeah, the, um, you know, I've heard statistics that anywhere from twenty-five to 50% of our industry is going to shrink. You know, I hope it's not that much. Um, you know, some people say the big companies will fall. Some people say the small single ops will have to get jobs because their wives will make them. Um, and, um, you know, here's the thing everybody's broke on a different level. So, you know, the big guys have big overhead, you know, the medium guys have overhead. That feels really big. Cause that's where I live and you know, the small single ops they're using it to support their families. So, um, do I think they're all gonna come back now? Unfortunately not, I think, and also from a business sense and I know it's not our, you know, what we're talking about today.
Speaker 2 00:44:58 I think I have no ego when it comes to ownership. You know, ownership's just a thing. Um, I think it's a really good time for companies to either really evaluate, do they want to buy someone else or do they want to be bought? And you know, don't worry about the cash. Like you can figure out how to make that work with the deals. Right. But I think, you know, from a lot of businesses, this is the time to either be buying or be selling your business interests and selling could mean being coming partners with somebody. It could mean teaming up and coming stronger out of here. Um, but anyone that just kind of rides this out and it's like, well, yeah, no real changes. We wrote it out, we got our cash, you know, we, we had enough cash to get through and now we're going to do the exact same thing. I don't know. I don't know how many years post COVID they'll be with us.
Speaker 0 00:45:49 What do you think are a couple of critical things that people are going to need to do coming out of this? When we start looking at virtual and live at the same time, I think that once people realize that they have so much more reach with virtual, um, it's no longer going to be acceptable to say, Oh yeah, just throw the side, screen feed and send it on the webcast. And that's, you know, that's the deal now? Um, where do you see it going longterm?
Speaker 2 00:46:18 Totally. That's such a great point in that. You know, I'll bring quippy up again. Not even cause I love their programs. I don't even watch a lot of TV. Um, but you know, there's some of the first shows that were directly shot for mobile. And what's funny is you can turn your phone and follows and they do some cool stuff. But yeah, the, the idea of saying, you know, what is our mobile experience going to look like? You know what, me as a guy that comes from like Uber clean, I like very Chris, Chris stuff. It's why like, you know, V fairs, clients love V fares does nothing for me. Cause it looks like you're in the Sims and it's not my vibe, but like when clients want it game on, it's just not what I would buy. But same thing with live shows. Um, if I walked into a live show and I saw some wing screens that had ticker tapes and lower thirds and bugs and borders, I would go, Oh my God, that's way too much stuff.
Speaker 2 00:47:12 Get all that off. They're like Uber clean. Why are you having all of that stats? It looks like election night on CNN. Like get that all off the screen. But that's exactly what people want in the virtual segment. So your switch is going to be different. Uh, the big thing that I don't know what's going to happen is where's this money gonna come from because we're going to be asked to do more with less clients are gonna say, Hey, I want that same big show. We did a couple of years ago back pre COVID, but I want it to be cooler because it's been a couple of years. We gotta let them know we're back with a bang, but also we're going to be a hybrid event now. So one third of our guests are going to be virtual. We need to make sure they have a really great custom experience.
Speaker 2 00:47:55 And by the way, our sponsored haven't bounced back yet. So you've got to do it for 20% less and we're all going to be like, I don't know, man, like, I don't know how we're going to get there. You know? So it's going to be interesting. Um, AB budgets really got high. The last couple of years, as companies were to grow and people were dedicating more and more portions of their events to it. I just don't know how much it can be squeezed. Or if as providers we're going to have to say it was an awesome doing, you know, 70 foot wide led walls or you know, crazy blends, but maybe we will have to simplify it a bit to go ahead and to be able to afford, to give that virtual experience, uh, that will become necessary. I don't think I said it here.
Speaker 2 00:48:41 I say it all the time and I know I've said it to you, but I tell everybody it's like a pendulum and our pendulum was all the way to the right. We were a hundred percent in person events. The pendulum has now swung all the way to the left to a hundred percent virtual will pendulums don't swing all the way back to where they started. Yeah. And that's, what's going to happen. The pendulum will swing back, but it will still have this huge segment that we will now have to fill with virtual. And in-person. So the game has changed. The DI's been cast, the pendulum has been thrown, whatever you want to call. Um, now we've just got to react and the companies that react best will, right? The future of our industry and the companies that don't retain clients until they don't, you know,
Speaker 0 00:49:30 Interesting until that client wants what you know, that other guy that has that bigger, better thing has. And then they go to the company that has the, that is providing the bigger, better thing. Cause they say, we want that instead of what we had last time. And then, you know, then they move, um, you know, that's, that's part of the game.
Speaker 2 00:49:49 Yeah. I'm going to challenge you for a minute. Cause you said something I smiled when you said it. I've never thought about this before. You know, I used to always say, yeah, you know, what's the next bigger, better thing, bigger, better thing. I wonder if it's going to be bigger, better, or if it's just going to be better, better. I, I wonder if with everything changing, if they're going to say our counts are down by 50%, our budgets are this. If people are going to it, maybe they will. Maybe people always want bigger, better, but I'm wondering if they'll give us the opportunity to just show them better, better. Here's your better virtual experience. Here's your better in-person experience and it may not be bigger. Yeah,
Speaker 0 00:50:24 No, I, and I, I think you a great point there. One of the, one of the ideas that I've thought about coming out of this is that there's actually going to be more labor positions needed on smaller shows because of the virtual digital components that are going to have to happen. You're going to need a different video director. You're going to need another graphics, you know, slash you know, VMX operator, that's dealing with the stream and the virtual participants and the different breakouts and all the things that come along with that, like that takes, it requires people, AI can't solve that problem. Um, and so, uh, in the long run, I think that for us, you know, I see us being less events, but the same amount of labor needed to make those happen. Now, again, your met your comment about money earlier. Um, maybe that money comes from decreased hotel spend or, uh, you know, decreased capacity. So instead of doing the 700 rooms, they were doing last time for four days, they're now doing 400 rooms and that money is shifted. And so, you know, that comes out of F and B that comes out of, uh, hotel stays that comes out of, I mean, that's a significant amount of money when you start piling on that. Many people
Speaker 2 00:51:41 Let's hope. So, man, I hope it works like that. I love that. Um, yeah, th the, I love that the labor, the labor is going to be an interesting game, um, because I don't know if there's anybody listening right now. Who's most profitable source of their company is labor. But if it is please call me, I would love to know how you do it. I would love to know how you make lots of money on labor because in 20 years I have not figured that out. Um, so it means that when we're spending more in labor, there's more labor positions are taking away gear gear. I do know how to make money on. Um, but when they don't need the gear, eventually, I don't know if that's going to have to change our whole price point. If we're gonna have to start charging for planning or engineering or designing or stuff that we never did in the past, because we come from a world where yes, we do charge for any creative, we have to design, but at the end of the day, rent enough gear and pay our guys and everything else is kind of free.
Speaker 2 00:52:39 Yeah. Um, I wonder if that world's going to come to an end and we're going to have to find other ways to generate revenue for the organization as shows become so much more labor, heavy, and so much more gear light.
Speaker 0 00:52:54 Yeah, I think, uh, one of the, one of the correlations that, that one of the consultants that I work with, um, or that I've known, I should say that he's made is the correlation. When you go from, uh, the live events industry to the installation and integration side of things and the installation integration, they charge for every single little step. I mean, you you're building out a rack. You're, there's something there's a line item on a, on a quote that says rack bill 10 hours at whatever that cost is. Um, I think it's going to be critical for people to begin to price that in, because you can't just put a line item that says prep for five days for lighting, because on that, you know, if you have a five day prep for lighting, you've also got video prep. You've also got audio prep.
Speaker 0 00:53:42 Um, you know, maybe it's time to start putting those things in there because you can't soak those costs with decreased equipment, uh, decreased equipment rental. You can't soak that cost out of all the labor, especially when you've only got, you know, a hundred bucks a day on a guy, if you're doing a day rate, for instance, um, it, it just doesn't work. And, you know, the, the consultant I was working with, he recommended we need to start raising labor rates. Uh, my concern with that though, is that then you get the clients to start to push back and say, Hey, you know, $900 a day for a high rise guy is, is a little, is a little much. Um, and so it's going to take time for that scale to move for us to be able to make, uh, you know, make those changes because they just don't, um, know clients push back. And sometimes I think people are ignorant to that. People just, Oh, we'll just raise rates. It's no problem. Well, there's a lot more complication to that than just, Hey, I'm, you know, tacking out another a hundred dollars a day on for this guy, because I, because I want to, um, I don't know. So yeah,
Speaker 2 00:54:47 It's, it's going to be, it's going to be crazy, man. I mean, like I said, well, we are going to, um, the industry will reinvent itself and those that choose will be part of that reinvention.
Speaker 0 00:54:57 Yeah. Well, I, for 1:00 AM excited, uh, about the reinvention, even though I'm not quite sure how I'm going to fit into it yet or what that's exactly going to look like. I know that, um, you know, my company's role is going to change, um, and that we're going to have to work really, really hard to stay in the game and continue to, to be profitable in the long-term because everything's going to shift. So hopefully, um, you know, as we keep talking about it, we'll find more opportunities to create and make revenue and find those things. Um, one last question talking about sponsors, you mentioned what are some things you're seeing people do with sponsors to help them feel that extra love than just a, Hey, we're going to put your logo up for an extra 10 seconds on the screen when we're in between presenters or something like that, what are, what are some things people are doing?
Speaker 2 00:55:48 Yeah, totally. Let me take you through that. Um, and I'll give you, I'll give you something else that's made me think of. So the first I was like, actually we developed this great sponsorship sheet that we send out to people showing them how they can integrate sponsors better into their live events. And I remembered I don't send it to everybody now because we finally got to the point where I never wanted to get to this point. But part of what the client is high hiring us for now is really our IP, you know, I've stopped doing D and I know some AAV companies stopped this years ago, even with in-person, but we're a flex house. My quotes look like here's the flex gear. You're getting have a nice day. And I'm like, I know how to put it together. My virtual event quotes are a lot more vague.
Speaker 2 00:56:33 Um, while I'm outlining, you know, the parameters and the scope of work, I don't ant I won't do eight intake calls anymore because eventually you really are giving them the keys to know what's out there because a lot of times we're using softwares now that are readily available to people if they choose. Yeah. So, um, word of advice, I try to be like Uber, Uber customer service centric, but I have had to say no when somebody asks for like their fourth or fifth intake meeting and just said, once you signed on the dotted line, you got me until then my ideas are kind of my product. Yeah. Um, so sponsorship, what are some of the fun things we're doing as sponsorship? So a lot of the virtual venues have great things like carousels, um, you know, uh, sponsorship booths, um, getting, letting you talk to sponsors direct.
Speaker 2 00:57:22 Um, so much of it mirrors what you see at a traditional event. Um, we're doing an event coming up soon where we're doing a virtual happy hour. So we actually, um, let the sponsor, uh, write a couple of the questions for this interactive game we're doing. Yeah. So it's the, you know, question number 10 is to health question by hospital XXX, you know, what's the leading cause of this, you know, great it's be stopped eating cheeseburgers. And, you know, that was, that message was brought to you by hospital XXX. Um, so I think you can find fun ways to integrate them. You know, so much of it mirrors live events, um, within virtual don't reinvent the wheel use what's out there. Um, but we thought about that for that client, they were really happy and it made me think of kind of like the old 1950 quiz shows, uh, you know, Geritol sponsors that made me laugh. Cool. So that's what I got.
Speaker 0 00:58:18 That's cool. What, um, last, last question here, as we wrap up, what are two things that if someone is moving into or wants to do better at virtual events, um, what are two things they should really focus on to be able to nail the rest of the experience, um, for their clients?
Speaker 2 00:58:42 Um, I would say, um, first graphics, uh, we are very lucky. We have an in-house creative team, um, and they are so awesome. And when we looked at where we had to make very tough cuts for amazing staff, they've been with us for a long time. We were very limited and knew that our creative team really needed to stay intact because within virtual, they were getting us through this. So the idea that you can take a client's logo and show them three or four, cool graphics, transitions, lower thirds, whatever you need, um, figuring out the way to do that. Now you don't have to be a graphics expert and you don't have to have an in-house creative to do that. You can go as easy as Fiverr or use graphics, generators, or use all of those things, but clients want to visually see that customization.
Speaker 2 00:59:28 So I think everyone's going to have to up their graphic game a little bit, because for all of us that never wanted to get into the broadcast world, um, we kind of all got pushed into the broadcast world. Yep. Um, and then the next thing I would say is really, really tight call sheets and scripts. Uh, hopefully a lot of you out there have been doing this for a long time, but I know plenty of my friends in the industry that are kind of like fly by the seat of their pants. They walk in, they go, who's going to be on stage. Okay. What type of music do they want? And do they have a deck? That's all I need the rest of the show. I, you know, I got up here that doesn't work. Um, we, we do a lot of shows now, callers, our texts are, you know, pretty bad ass.
Speaker 2 01:00:09 I love our texts. Um, and they don't always need that color. Uh, it, within the virtual world, we've been using callers on almost every show because we find that that metronome of that somebody's keeping that count and doing that call is really, really important in virtual. The toughest thing about virtual is you do a live event. You've got 2000 people in a ballroom, you've got wine on the tables. You just had food. There's some entertainment, pretty lighting on the walls. Cool things on the screen, huge ballroom is impressive to be in a mic. Doesn't work for half a second. It's not good, but it's like, whatever. Um, you know, a video starts at like all these things that I'm not saying are okay, I'm saying that from time to time, they've happened to all of us. It's not the end of the world when it happens in virtual, it's the end of the world, because all you have is what's inside that box. People are glued to that box and the minute it's not exactly what's supposed to happen. There's not, I'm having a sip of my cocktail or I'm talking to the guy next to me. Yeah. All you're doing is sitting there going come back.
Speaker 0 01:01:14 Yeah. Saying, what the heck am I watching? What am I looking at?
Speaker 2 01:01:17 Yeah, totally. Totally. Totally. Wow.
Speaker 0 01:01:21 Okay. Well, awesome dude. Thank you. Um, I, my head is kind of swimming at the moment. There's so much like, you know, I was like, here I was above water and now it's like, dude, dude, dude, dude. Yeah. It's like, I'm get, I'm getting deeper. Um, but dude, your insights are fantastic. Uh, I love the fact that you have a pulse and an understanding of what's, you know, what's really going on. What's working for you. What is working well what's and, and what, uh, are ways that people can get better at what they're trying to do. So thanks for taking the time today. I really appreciate it.
Speaker 2 01:01:53 Always good to catch up with you. It was good to talk with you and um, we're going to get through this together, man. Just, you know, as a community, we will,
Speaker 0 01:02:00 That we will. Thanks buddy. Have a great day.
Speaker 5 01:02:04 Thanks so much for taking the time to listen today. I know that as a professional each and every one of us want to be better tomorrow than we were today. That's why we've created the gig ready podcast. This is a place where professionals can come and at what they're doing, look at how they're doing it and get better. Every single day, we are solely value for value. We're not going to take corporate interests. We're not going to take sponsorship money. We want you to get better solely because that's what you want. So please give us some feedback. I want to get better. I want to create better podcasts. I want to create better events, just like you do. So if you have some value, you want to give back ideas, thoughts, questions, even, even the ability to be a little critical at times. I would love to hear from you. Thank you so much. I hope you have a great day. Stay safe out there and stay. Get ready.
Speaker 1 01:02:59 <inaudible>.
