Episode 351: 01-14-16
On this week’s show, Sandi Abbott of Xpresso Content Cafe explains how to build an email list and create content calendars for email marketing, UHealth’s Laurence Kalkstein, Ph.D., discusses climate change and health, and host Jim Fried shares his thoughts on the power of social media.
How To Build An Email List
Sandi Abbott is owner of Xpresso Content Café, which helps brands and small businesses CAFFEINATE their sales!
Xpresso Content Cafe is a digital marketing agency specializing in developing interactive online and onsite marketing campaigns for brands and small business clients.
Abbott will be sharing how to build an email list, how to clean your lists, and how to create content calendars for the year.
Climate Change and Health
Our special UHealth guest is Laurence Kalkstein, Ph.D., a bioclimatologist who specializes in the impact of weather on human health. He has been conducting research for over 35 years and is the lead researcher on a number of projects dealing with the development and implementation of heat/health warning systems for major cities worldwide. He does fantastic work at the University of Miami’s prestigious Department of Public Health.
He will discuss why climate change is spreading vector and mosquito-borne diseases, heat-related problems such as heat stroke and other heat-related health issues.
Power of Social Media
Jim shares his thoughts on how he has been using the power of social media to help find a kidney donor for his wife.
Episode 351: 01-14-16 (To download, right-click and select “Save Link As”.)
Transcription:
Jim Fried: All right everybody. Welcome to another edition of Fried on Business. I’m trying to control myself but I absolutely can’t do it. We’ve got the greatest show ever for you. That’s right. Give it to me. We’ve got a great show. We’re going to talk about how to maximize your content with content marketing expert Xpresso CC Sandi Abbott is here. She’s going to give it to you. Then, after intermission, second half of the show, we’re going to start off talking about the impact of global warming and climate change on our health and well-being. I think this is really important thing but the most important thing is saving for the end. I’m going to talk about how I’ve been using social media to find a donor for my wife in her kidney disease and her end-stage renal disease and I am not going to say that we found the donor but I am going to say we found a lot of people that are interested in helping. I’ll tell you how we did it, why we did it, where we’re going right after I talk to my good friend Paul White. Put Paul on. Paul, what’s happening?
Paul White: Hey, Jim, I appreciate the opportunity to be on your show this afternoon.
Jim Fried: Our show, Paul, our show. You guys are sponsors.
Paul White: We’re happy to be a part of your show and we’re happy to have the opportunity to announce that we have in 2016 the CCIM Commercial Outlook Conference coming up. That’s Jan. 30th at the Coral Gables Country Club, we’re inviting the business community out to participate. Registration is 7:30, breakfast at 8:00 and the program runs from 8:30 to noon. So we invite all the commercial brokerage people to come out, attorneys, bankers, investors or brokers. We invite them to come here at 7:00 experts in all the different market fields to talk about what they see ahead in 2016.
Jim Fried: Paul, I just got to say I have made money at these conferences, I love them, they are awesome, you see people you have not seen for years, you reconnect. Anybody in real estate who wants to do deals needs to be here. One more time, Paul, how do they get more info?
Paul White: They get more information by going to miamidadeccim.com.
Jim Fried: Okay, but the Jets fans, they can call you on the phone, right? 305 I’ll go slow, 270 0710. That’s how you get the man, the myth, the legend, Paul White on the phone to talk about the new CCIM conferences. We’re coming up next week. Who’s your big sponsor there?
Paul White: My big sponsor is TotalBank, Daily Business Review and TenX. TenX is going to be putting on a reception the night before, Tuesday night, January 29th at Graziano’s restaurant in Coral Gables and that’s from the brokerage community because auction.com, the former name of Connect and they’re rolling up a new name on Monday and they’re announcing it Tuesday night at the restaurant, 5:30 to 7:30, drinks and hors d’ oeuvres on them, it’s a free event but you must register at the same website miamidadeccim.com.
Jim Fried: I’m going to be there, lots of cool people are going to be there. We’all be broadcasting a live remote from there, live remote from the event if you want to see us, if you want to get on the radio with this, go to the event. Again, this is awesome, I make money every year at this event from the people I meet. Paul, one more time I’m going to give out the phone number then you’re going to give out the website and email. If you want more info, call my good buddy Paul White at – this is for the Jets fans and we’ll go real slow – 305 270 0710. And Paul, where do they go online?
Paul White: And the website is simple: miamidadeccim.com.
Jim Fried: I want to thank you and TenX for being the show’s partners on this. I want to thank you so much for supporting us. I can’t wait to see you, Frank, Steve and the rest of the CCIMs at this awesome event.
Paul White: We’ll see you then.
Jim Fried: All right. AC, now play the music. It’s all yours but I think everybody knows by now what I am. I’m just simply a fireball.
[commercial break]
Jim Fried: All right. Community calendar time. You heard Paul talking about TenX and CCIMs in there, big event going on, Tuesday night at Graziano’s and Wednesday over at the Coral Gables Country Club. Get Paul a call: 305 270 0710. I’ll just go there. Give him a call. It’s going to be a great event. I make money, I meet great people. Also, the 6th annual bank and financial institutions special assets forum on real estate CNISBA loans. It’s going to be held in Fort Lauderdale February 4 and 5, it’s the IMN event. If you want more info, go to imn.org/bankersfl16. Make a lot of money of that one too. I think I make a lot of money everywhere, don’t I, Sandi? All right, and a place you’re definitely going to make the cash registering at the UF Real Estate Trends and Strategies Conference. It’s going to be Thursday, 25th February. We’re going to broadcast live that day from there. And Friday 26th February, Hyatt Regency Orlando, gorgeous facility. I don’t care where they hold it, the room is worth the price and admission, the 400 or 500 big deal makers that are going to be in there, you want to network, you want to build your business? That’s where you want to go. Now, if I want to network and build my business on internet, I mean on email, the person I trust is the number 1 content person here in South Florida and I venture to bet probably just about anywhere, Sandi Abbott. Welcome back Sandi.
Sandi Abbott: Hello. Thanks for having me.
Jim Fried: I’m great. Sandi, it’s after the holidays, you told everybody had to build a list for the holidays, maximize it, now they’ve got this new list, they’ve been collecting business cards, all kinds of stuff. Now what do they do and how do they do it?
Sandi Abbott: I’ve got to say, I’ve got to give you a plug because you do an awesome job always building your list. People don’t realize how simple it is just to export the outlook like you do on a regular basis and how much that adds to the list. I would say, keep up the good work with what you’ve been doing and continue to do the outlook export at least-
Jim Fried: I do it once a month. I collect probably 100-200 cards when I’m out there networking every month and I got to give a plug to Claudia in my office who makes sure my database is up to date and if she’s not there, then my backup is my mom. So now that mom is putting together my contact list and it’s getting pretty much all there, I’m like 5000 people on just that-
Sandi Abbott: No, you’re more.
Jim Fried: Okay, but we have to curate it. We got to prune it to maybe a couple doubles and such?
Sandi Abbott: No, right now that’s a single number but what you do need to do which I do for you is the balances. On a regular basis you should go in and see which emails are not being delivered to and remove that because that does two things for you. If you’re paying for it, obviously it’s going to reduce the cost but the other cool things is that it’s going to make your open, rate and click three-way look so much sexy.
Jim Fried: And I love looking sexy with social media. My cloud score is 63, I can’t believe it. Up 2 points in the last months and we’re going to talk about how I did that in the fourth quarter of the show. You’re beaming so you got something to say, say it girlfriend.
Sandi Abbott: I just got to say that sitting on this side of the booth, watching you do what you’re doing, this is such an adrenaline rush. And yes, it is a fireball, you should see the visual antics going on.
Jim Fried: They can. I got AC and they see a fireball on Youtube. High five, AC. You can see he’s having fun because we’ve got good information but a lot of people don’t care. You need the information. We also want to have a little fun here. So Sandi, now we’ve got my list, I’ve curated it, I’ve cleaned it, I’ve got a message to deliver, what do I do?
Sandi Abbott: It’s the beginning of the year and everybody has started planning for a year. And sometimes we don’t do that with email, we just fly by the seat of our pants and figure out ”What do I need to send out this month?”. So what I would say is look at what you’re going to be doing this year and put together accounting calendar as much for your email as your social and it doesn’t have to be anything fancy. You could just do it even on a napkin. But figure out what are your important selling times, the times that you really need to be out there with a message and plan to be there in advance of the message and then whatever you need to do for post. So if you know you’re going to be doing a trade show or you’re having a special sale cycle that’s coming up, make sure you plan those messages on email and social. Because what happens is sometimes on social we’re very good about sharing things but when it comes to promotional stuff, we get to it late in the cycle.
Jim Fried: Yes, and what I just learned and we’ll talk about this again in the fourth quarter is Facebook ads. I found out they cost about $100 to get a good live lead for what I’m looking for – we’ll talk about that – kidney and I spent about $1000 and got ten good leads. So you have to plan and I got to say is that I plan my social media calendar regularly, I’ve got a weekly plan and I’ve got something that always ties in to our content marketing and then there’s a social component with that too which you can program. I love constant contact, hashtag.
Sandi Abbott: Yes. You could plan that and with you, you have a lot of content that you are able to recycle. So when you to through the trouble of creating content, don’t just use it once. Use it in your email, and your blog and your social and bring it up again. And if it’s evergreen information you can share it throughout the year, not just once.
Jim Fried: I just pound the way on all my content and the good stuff that I really do that. But what I really love about the email that you – and high five to Ashley – put together is that you take this week’s show in the content and then you go ”If you missed it, here, check this out at the bottom” so everything gets hammered twice. So you’re right. And I’ve got to tell you Sandi, I get compliments all the time on how that email looks and it works for me. Everybody says ”There’s Jim Fried, I got your email, Jim”. And I’m sometimes sitting out in the middle of an event or right here before the show and bang! there it is. In fact, I always use the email blast to do the rundown on the show and it always arrives right on time thanks to the best email content marketing person I know. That’s you. Sandi, we’ve only got a minute left in this segment, people may not be here next time. So especially for the Jets fans go slow, how do people find you?
Sandi Abbott: They can find me online at xpressocc.com and I’m the same on Twitter, Xpressocc.
Jim Fried: All right. Sandi and I have had a bunch of good positive energy vibes here in the first quarter. We’re going to come back and make it even more positive and I have even better information in the second so hang out. And if the guy cuts you off in traffic, that’s their problem, not yours. AC, why don’t you take it away?
[commercial break]
Jim Fried: We’re back. I was telling Sandi how I’m perfectionist because the lighting stinks in here so when you look at my Youtube videos it looks like I’m electrified. So we’ll have to take care of that when go to the new studio in about a month. Right on, now we’re back with Sandi Abbott. She is the queen of content marketing. She helps me look good and reach everybody I know all the time. Sandi, how do you make sure your email list is clean? We were talking about that a little bit, you got to curate that, you got a good clean list, now I got my list, I got my messages teed up, what do I do next to be effective?
Sandi Abbott: I think sometimes people miss out the opportunity to sell in their emails. It is good to have a soft sale and to be able to give value but you have to be very clear about what your call to action is and be very upfront about it.
Jim Fried: My call to action is easy. Listen to my radio show, we’re going to have fun and maybe learn something. So I’m not really asking somebody come in to my store and write a check but I guess there’s all kinds of things you can do. Is there a wait it and do it and target it from the proximity basis like a store or restaurant to get the neighborhood?
Sandi Abbott: Now you’re talking social media. As far as email marketing, we’re talking about putting the call to action in there and in your case you want them to listen to the show. You’ve got to know going into it not only what are the important times for you to sell, when you need to be there, what the messages to be month to month but also what it is you want out of it. Not just to say ”I’ve got to do email marketing. What do I want to get out of this? Do I want more sales? Do I want the phone to ring?”.
Jim Fried: I have a good question. You could tell because I was getting all anxious and going ”I got a question over here”. I use my content marketing for only one thing. It is pure, it has never been used for anything else. When I have a big thing going on in my life that I know my network likes to keep up on and most of them don’t follow Twitter or Facebook. So if I wanted to put a different message out on my content marketing would that help, hurt or be neutral?
Sandi Abbott: I think so long as it’s part of your brand you can do that. And in your case, you’ll already be creating content around what you’re going to be talking about. So you’re just going to share what you’ve already created. Sometimes people have PR firms and they get really good coverage and they get all excited about that. But what they miss is the opportunity to toot their own horn and take that PR that they got and share it on social media, put it on an email. I’m just doing that for a client right now. They got a great write up about what they’re doing with FIU students and giving out scholarships, Kiwanis Club of Little Havana.
Jim Fried: High five to that. That’s your big client. AC, you know what to do. Thank you. He just wasn’t prepped. I didn’t have him prepped for that. Good stuff, the spontaneity is really well practiced. So the Kiwanis Club has given out some great scholarships and we want to get a word out on that, I guess we just did.
Sandi Abbott: They got great news coverage on it and we’re sharing it with their network. So the network knows that when they are helping the Kiwanis Club do all these things, this is what’s coming out of it. So as long as the message is still on point with what your brand is and this is part of your brand because you talked about this before, then you’re fine to share it. People want to hear stuff like that.
Jim Fried: I want you to bring in the Kiwanis Club and we should talk about how they utilize you to do the biggest street party in this stinking country. You do a great job. I don’t want to say I take you and Ashley for granted because I don’t, you guys are artists. That’s the really important thing to me, is getting a team together that has a similar perspective or similar goal or similar vibe as I do and that’s why I love working with you and Ashely. You’re always on time, you’re always professional, you’re always Warren Henry – I just had to say it. What’s another good tip you can give the list? They should see you. You’re beaming. Bring the newspaper here.
Sandi Abbott: I got to give a good tip. You’ve got to advertise with Jim Fried. Because I was just telling you that I got a new client recently and I asked them how they met me and it was on the radio.
Jim Fried: I didn’t really fish for that but now I’m truly blushing. You see even the red parts, now I’m so red. Thank you so much Sandi. We’re hearing that more and more. I don’t really toot my own horn, if somebody would like to get involved they can always reach out to me and email me jim@friedonbusiness. Yes, that’s me. I know what I’m doing. You just gave me a big plug and I’m really just diluting it on; jim@friedonbusiness if you want to advertise and get success like Sandi. Because Sandi is reaching my network. And that’s what it’s all about. It’s all about tying it all together and creating and ecosystem for success.
Sandi Abbott: That’s it.
Jim Fried: We have the radio show, that’s our content. But use the radio show in the content marketing to get a message out. The message is: Come have fun and maybe you’ll learn something. For goodness sakes, who doesn’t want to know about the impact of climate change on your health and wellness of not only us but our kids and our community because of all this stuff. And we’re going to be talking of the UHealth people about that right after the half hour. It’s going to be great. Why? Because I’m going to make sure.
Sandi Abbott: You do have a lot of content which is awesome. That’s a fantastic way to get your message out.
Jim Fried: I know who that is, Sharon. I’m on the air, Sharon. Call me later. Sharon Dresser, probably the best retail leasing high end broker in South Florida. Sharon Dresser, High Street Retail. She’s awesome. I’ll call you back, Sharon. What’s going on back there, AC? How much time do I have left? Okay, and Larry is on the other line? He wants to talk to us now? Okay, he’ll come on in five then. Larry is the UHealth doctor. You’re just breaking my chops there, AC. Sandi, how can we get the message out more effectively with Fried on Business? I do a lot of stuff. What’s another little twisty trick that I can use?
Sandi Abbott: For your email marketing?
Jim Fried: Yes.
Sandi Abbott: The latest twisty trick was – I said that all wrong-
Jim Fried: No, that’s the way I said it, twisty trick. I just made that up on the spot because I’m me.
Sandi Abbott: What’s the in case you missed it? Another think we can look at is-
Jim Fried: Yes, that is great. I just mentioned how great that was.
Sandi Abbott: Yes. We can do highlights. So you can do best of show and that would be a good round up that you can do of content. And it would be fun to do one of your little videos on one of emails.
Jim Fried: Hot. Can I say damn? I just did, didn’t I? Hot damn, I can’t wait to do that. Maybe we’ll do the one more, it’s me and AC doing a fireball. You can’t really hear it that good. We may have to redo it, AC. Got to come in here piping up real hot. I think that’s maybe what we’re going to do. We’re going to give some behind the scene stuff, that’s what people want, isn’t it?
Sandi Abbott: Absolutely. That’s what social is all about and social and email work together.
Jim Fried: Later, AC. You, AC, they’re going to crack up. You really exist. Sorry Sandi, I keep cutting you off, I shouldn’t really do that.
Sandi Abbott: That’s okay. One of my clients that we have a lot of fun, they brought their team together and did a holiday greeting. And it wasn’t just like ”Happy Holidays”. They actually did a song with the hats and the whole thing and there was really a lot of fun.
Jim Fried: That would be so much fun.
Sandi Abbott: Instead of doing a regular holiday greeting, they had a video that they put together and in an email you send the screenshot and that’s a way that you can put the video in. You can put it on Vimeo, on Youtube, click through it.
Jim Fried: They smile. All I want to do is make people smile when they hear from Jim Fried, when they hear the name Jim Fried. I want them to smile. Have a good time. Say ”That guy does good stuff for our community”. That’s all I want. That’s brand building. High five to Bruce Turkel for that.
Sandi Abbott: So behind the scenes video and best of show. You can share the highlights of the last month.
Jim Fried: Okay. So what we’re going to do next is, I’m sorry but I’m going up and down but I’m having little Gatorade because I’m getting little coffee, little radio caught-
AC: Is it in you?
Jim Fried: It’s in me. And I’m going to do it too. It comes out. I rock the world, don’t I? So, now we’ve only got, I spent all your time, Sandi, so we’re going to say again: how do people find you if they want to rock the world, communicate with their friends and their contacts, make money from your iPad or iPhone or your contacts? You want to monetize your phone and your contacts, this is how to do it. And go slow for the Jets fans.
Sandi Abbott: You can reach me on my website at xpressocc.com and you can email me at sandi@xpressocc.com.
Jim Fried: And believe me, you and Ashley, your teammate rock the world, you make me look good to all my followers, to all my contacts, to all my whatever they call about, all the different platforms, all my peeps, right? Because that what’s we call them in the world, to all of my friends. And I want to thank you Sandi for helping me keep in touch with the people that mean the world to me. Sandi, bless you for all that you do for the show, all your help and making us great. Thank you so much. And thanks for the plug that you got business from being on the show. I appreciate that too. AC, we’ll be back after this. Sandi, thank you so much.
Sandi Abbot: Thanks for having me.
Jim Fried: My pleasure. Back after this. We’re going to talk to UHealth about the changes in our climate and the impact on you. Back after this.
[commercial break]
Jim Fried: When he feels nice like sugar and spice we come back and we are here with Dr. Larry Kalkstein, I can’t pronounce it, I’m not even going to try. He specializes in the impact of weather on human beings. He has been conducting research for over 35 years so I guess he has perspective and is the lead researcher on a number of projects dealing with the development and implementation of heat and health warning systems for major cities worldwide. He does great work at the University of Miami’s prestigious Department of Public Health. Dr. Larry, welcome to the show.
Laurence Kalkstein: Thank you Jim. I appreciate you’re having me.
Jim Fried: It’s my pleasure. I know we’re not heading to Beijing here because we’ve got great trade winds to keep us clean. But what’s going to happen as the planet heats up, Dr. Larry?
Laurence Kalkstein: It’s uncertain. It depends on how it heats up. One way is that every day it gets a little bit warmer but the other way is that the variability of the weather is going to be greater which means that maybe the weather will stay same most of the time but the very hot days will jut get hotter. And if that happens, there could be some major consequences that are very different than if it just heats up a little bit every day.
Jim Fried: Tell me more.
Laurence Kalkstein: For example, let’s take some of these vector-borne diseases that we’re talking about. Some of these mosquito-borne diseases like dengue fever and so on. If each day it warms up a little bit, that will mean that the breeding season of these mosquitoes will be longer and generally they will populate more. But if in fact just the highest temperatures go up on very hot days and the other days stay the same, that may actually kill some of these mosquitoes because they really don’t like extreme heat. So that’s one of the problems here. It’s hard to predict exactly how these diseases are going to spread if the climate warms.
Jim Fried: What are some of the other impacts? I live on the bay, I can virtually see it at this point. I’ve lived there for 20 years and 20 years ago the footings on the bay bridges didn’t really go under water that much even at the king tide with high winds. Now, three, four times a month they’re freaking under water.
Laurence Kalkstein: We have to be careful here too because of course there have been some small rises in sea level. A lot of times what you think it arises sea level is erosion. And we don’t have to worry. You’re not going to be under water any time soon, I don’t believe. But on the other hand, things to according to the way the models say, in 50 to 100 years sea level could rise to a degree that Miami Beach would be threatened with floods much more frequently than it is now and we would have to do something off shore to make sure that that didn’t happen. But there are all kinds of things that are happening or could happen if the climate changes the way they say. For example, agricultural belts could shift. Imagine the corn belt being in Canada instead of the United States. These are the kinds of things that might be unexpected. Imagine during heat waves having hundreds or maybe thousands of people dying while today we don’t have that many. All of these are possibilities but again, this is the problem when you have something like this. It’s the developed policy when you’re so uncertain as to whether or not the problem is going to be real or how real it’s going to be, it’s hard to do.
Jim Fried: I know that you advise the White House. What do you tell them?
Laurence Kalkstein: I don’t want you think I’ve advised Obama or done that personally. When back in the day, when Al Gore was much more popular, we did write speeches for him. But basically, what we tell them is that we think that we need to prepare for the uncertainty that’s going to come. That is, some people say we should do nothing until we’re more certain about climate change by our time and let’s really wait, maybe there’s really nothing going on. Other people say that we should do some draconian things right now because, after all, if we don’t raise gas by $1/gallon and put fuel taxes on to lessen consumption, we’re going to burn up. I think we can get lots of incentives to industry and business to keep them cleaner, give incentives to people to switch to, let’s say solar heating and so on. That’s the way I figure it to go.
Jim Fried: It sounds really interesting. Put your futurist head on for just a second. It got a little warmer, the mosquito ponding is coming now because we got all this ponding with all the extra rain and such, we’ve got these heavy hurricanes now. What is something that the average person can just do to protect themselves I guess on a daily basis from some of these impacts?
Laurence Kalkstein: Some of these viruses are moving worldwide. And we’re not so sure it’s due the global warming part of it is due to the fact that we can travel so easily from place to place. So someone who has one of these vector-borne diseases can come to Miami, for example, and if a mosquito bites them and then bites you or me, it’s possible that the disease can be transmitted. I would say first of all, not to panic, just, after all, we’re told we should try to prevent mosquito bites, we’re supposed to put something on, long sleeves if we can or some protecting on us to keep mosquitoes from biting us. I would not change much at this time. I trust the public health system or the United States. I think that we’re suddenly not going to be overrun with zika fever or Chikungunya, the new disease that we’re talking about, or Dengue fever. I just don’t think that’s going to happen particularly if we continue to keep our eye on it. And of course, the CDC and health organizations and public health organizations around the world are, but one last thing about this: Miami is kind of a gateway for a lot of these things. We have lots of travelers from the islands, tropical countries and so on. And they always keep a closer eye on Miami than any other place. That’s not to say someone couldn’t fly to Chicago with a disease of this kind. But everyone has their antenna up. So I would not alarm listeners into thinking that these mosquitoes are suddenly going to cause spread of these many diseases very rapidly.
Jim Fried: One last thing, we’ve only got a couple of minutes left that I read your intro more carefully and I think I can say bio-climatologist just looked really big and scary with all the eyes and stuff. I was trying to read real fast. What do you tell the doctors of tomorrow about this? You train them, you talk to them. We’ve only got a couple of minutes left so what would you tell a young resident today who is going to be alive 50 years from now and would have to deal with this stuff?
Laurence Kalkstein: First of all, I just want to say that I’m glad that, I am not a medical doctor. I am a bio-climatologist and I am the only such person in any medical school in the country. So the University of Miami Miller School of Medicine deserves credit to recognize that we need bioclimatology in our discipline. And I would say that what I would do if I were advising people who are doing medical research that they should look into our field as well because medical doctors don’t know much about weather and climate and the fact that climate variability is more important than just the warming of the temperature, the thing that I told you at the beginning of the segment. We need to know whether we’re going to have a much more variable climate or if it’s just going to be smooth. Most medical doctors wouldn’t know this. I think the advice I would give them in terms of understanding the climate impact on health and diseases whether it be heat, the impact of pollution and the impact on diseases is to read more of the literature in our field and that more medical schools should hire people in the climate field so they can collaborate with the medical people. Because, quite honestly, I’m not a medical person and I need their help just like they need mine.
Jim Fried: Again, you drive us right to what we say about UHealth, that it’s collaborative care and I must say is high five to dean Goldschmidt for bringing you to the campus and giving you the impact here that you have. Because we need that here in Miami of all place, of course we need this.
Laurence Kalkstein: I’m happy to be here. Usually we reside in meteorology programs or geography departments. It’s opened up a whole new world to me and I think we’re really moving ahead on many of these ponds because a lot my colleagues are very appreciative of this kind of work.
Jim Fried: Dr. Kalkstein, I hope I’m getting that right but Larry-
Laurence Kalkstein: Close enough, Jim.
Jim Fried: Thanks. I can be hit by a meteor, I’m close enough. Larry, thank you so much for bringing your unique perspective and I want updates from you on a regular basis. I hope you’ll come back.
Laurence Kalkstein: It would be my pleasure. It’s good talking to you. Thanks for having me.
Jim Fried: My pleasure. Thanks for letting our audience hear what you had to say. It’s great stuff. AC, we’ll be back after this. I’m going to talk social media and how I’m using it to impact my life and change the world. We’ll be back after this. And I’m not even kidding.
[commercial break]
Jim Fried: AC is giving me the finger and that means I’m back on the air.
AC: Not that finger.
Jim Fried: I know. You give me the index finger. Come on, man. Now, the most important thing that’s going on in my life today is my wife and her search for a kidney transplant. And let me tell you, social media is helping me be successful. I just got to think about this. It’s just absolutely amazing. So I realized during the holidays for the first time – yes I’m slow but I’m not that dumb – that people might be oriented towards doing something nice around Christmas. So I started spending money on Facebook ads and I found out that my metric is $100 in Facebook ads perpetually targeted generates one legitimate lead for a kidney transplant. That’s the easy part, you’d think. The hard part is that all these leads I’ve been generating, most of them haven’t qualified. Somebody has a damaged kidney or they are pre-diabetic. One woman was a freaking marathoner, gets up at five in the morning but she’s pre-diabetic so in that case her test helped save that person’s life, thank God. Another person in Orlando, my friend from elementary school. In fourth grade we were in this school store together selling erasers and pencils to kids. He put it on his Facebook page and one of his friends, Facebook friends, a person he doesn’t even really know, all way in Orlando, she wanted to donate. She was diabetic. So then I switched a little bit of the targeting, made it just Dade County, made it people that are spiritual and then I did it on New Year’s Eve and New Year’s Day. I said ”Want to start a new year off right?”. I got another four, five people. Again, none of them were qualified because it’s not that easy. It basically almost has to be perfect. Did it on LinkedIn. I couldn’t believe it. People from all over the country were sharing the story. My social media metrics went through the roof. Why? Because of the positive energy encapsulated in the power of my wife’s story. It’s the most amazing pure content there is. I look electric here. This lighting stinks. I got to get better lighting here. But the lighting doesn’t matter. What matters is the message. And the message is that if you need something and you are true, and you don’t stop believing, everything is going to be okay. So, I started getting in so many leads that they started doubling up on each other. I couldn’t believe it. I got a lead from here, a lead from there, again, nobody was qualified. And in the beginning you’re feeling great because you’re getting all these leads. But then you start to get disappointed. It ain’t that great because not all the leads are working out and then God’s hand, a miracle happened. I said ”What if I change it up? What if I put out one of these Twitter blasting things that I do?”. It’s was 2 or 3 in the morning. Maybe somebody that’s not really sleeping that well is going to get up and start grazing and maybe there are spiritual or positive person. Maybe their eye will be caught by the beautiful positive energy that my wife’s picture puts out and where did I take that picture? I took that picture when we went to Gainesville to go and get tested up a chance and get in their program but my wife didn’t have enough energy. She couldn’t make it out of the hotel that night. That was just her pure desire and love and I saw that picture and I had to have it and that is our picture and that’s what we base our appeal on and I must tell you that somebody from out of state saw it. And God – I got to just say it, they got all the religious studios.
AC: Yes, we are.
Jim Fried: Okay. So I’m going to just say it. God’s hand made that woman reach out. And she did. I spoke to her for the first time today. What a beautiful person. Got to stay anonymous, we’re not going to talk about who this person is. But her spirit is amazing and God made her the perfect donor. She’s all positive. That means that she could give to pretty much anybody but she decided to work with my wife. Somehow they became soulmates out there in the hinterland. God put them together. And social media reached Mr. Big Himself. And I want to just say, if you need something and you put it out there in the pure and righteous way, you don’t know where it’s going to come from but it’s going to get there. AC, how much more time do I have? I can go on forever. I want to just send blessings out to the people that have been offering to donate. Their spirits are pure and even though they’re not necessarily able to give physically, the spiritual stuff that they’ve give to us, there’s just no way you pay the price and the young lady who’s standing up tall for her I can only say there’s a special place here on Earth and in the world, the spiritual world for her and her soul, and God bless her, God bless America – I just had to say that – got to go now. I know AC, you got let me roll. I know, I’m trying to keep it together here. I’m keeping it together.
I want to thank – I guess I got to go by script because I’m going to lose it otherwise – I want to thank our sponsors UHealth, KIND Snacks, CCIM and TenX, Warren Henry, The Miami Marlins, The Miami Dolphins, South Florida Business and Wealth Magazine, EarlyShares, Xpresso Marketing, Social Media 305, The NFL Alumni Association, Lauren’s Kids, Magnum Energy Solutions, the Bergstorm Center, Engineered Tax Services, the Gonzales Family Office and the young lady who’s going to help my wife. I want to thank all of our listeners. If it wasn’t for you, I wouldn’t know about this. Thank you. Go to our Facebook page, give us feedback and comments. Tell us who you want to hear from. @JimFried, @FriedOnBusiness, Facebook, LinkedIn, Youtube, you’ll see this on Youtube. The website, the hits keep on coming. Join us there. If you missed the show, it’s going to be on our website www.friedonbusiness.com . This is Jim Fried for Fried on Business. Look for me in the community at these events with TenX and CCIM all next week. If you missed today’s show, it’s going to be on our webpage. This is Jim Fried for Fried on Business, I’ll be on 880 AM next Thursday at 6:00. Why? Because I think by now you can tell, I love this. Remember, this is not a rehearsal, this is your life. The person that wants to do something finds a way, the other finds an excuse. Now go out there and make it happen. AC, it’s yours. I’m out of here.
