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All right. And we're here live on the pirate broadcast. Can you see that? I didn't know we were live the whole time

Oh heck yeah. We're live here rocking and rolling cause Ted you know if if I schedule a Facebook Live.

Yeah

I schedule a Facebook if you don't go live after a period of time after it's scheduled it will drop down and delete the lead live stream so.

So answer me this just because we're on. So is this I'm LinkedIn and Facebook

This on Facebook, LinkedIn, Periscope, and YouTube.

Excellent.

OK. On Facebook you actually you go in behind the scenes and you schedule it. That's cool. I only dealt with LinkedIn Live for Motor City so I'm not familiar with how that works. So that's interesting. I'll have to figure that out.

Yeah. Well happy to help. Anytime. Any time.

Thanks, Russ.

So happy Friday Ted. We haven't talked since the last time we were live with you.

Yeah. Yeah. And that was a lot of fun.

It was a lot of fun.

I see your lives here and there and I see you on LinkedIn and you're active and you've got some major activity going on this year 2020 is going to bust out for you it sounds like.

Yeah yeah. Some pretty exciting stuff yesterday. All I did really was interview people for our machine tool shop and some additional support staff. So good stuff. Really excited.
We're really busy. I love hiring people we're up to almost 40 people.

Oh, congratulations.

Yeah. Yeah. No, I really enjoy it. And you know helping people out and having them help us out. You know it's a win-win. So that's always fun.

Yeah, no kidding. You know growing is a challenging endeavor because there's also some responsibility with that right. And you've been doing this for a while so how do you deal with the stress of ownership in accountability and all of this. These responsibilities that you have is it's like Coach hockey you drive across town or across a couple of states to meet with people and you've got a busy life. So one of the things that I'm always fascinated by is how different people manage their stress levels and what they do as an outlet to just relax and just be ok with it.

Well if you don't mind I'm just going to do what I always do and this just be me. It's like this week I had some sales calls in Chicago which I know the Blue Angels if anybody's tuning in.
I know we've got a trip planned. I can't wait to see a lot of people in person because we've been talking for years on LinkedIn and behind the scenes.

Yeah.

Another today's a pretty cool day for me. Yesterday was seventy-five days sober and so today 76. And it's interesting handling things differently right before when I was locked up in that in that vehicle all week and I had close to a six-hour drive home and I'm dealing with traffic and stuff. The first thing I did when I got home was grab a drink. And unfortunately, I sometimes grab a few more than I wanted to know. So this week it was kind of difficult to have a challenge. I just went for a workout. One of the best things I do a lot of push-ups. I had Ed Zia ozone from Australia who's always doing his push-ups online. That helps me I do sets of 50 like three-four or five a day that helps, I go for a run. I walk the dogs if I can get to the gym I do that chasing a hockey puck. Your coaching the kids is the best way to distress you know or I you know depending on the mood if I've already gotten my workout in and I'm doing stuff I'll turn on Netflix and watch a movie or watch an NHL game with my daughters and my wife. So those are the few things I'm doing. The stress is difficult. It's always there it's there for everyone no matter what field you're in desperate. You got to find out what works for you. I'll definitely say in the summer I like walking the dogs more I go for a walk personally, I'm the lunatic walking down the sidewalk talking out loud strategizing and business strategizing my life doing all these things or even though I live kind of in an urban setting in Royal Oak Michigan I go for a lot of bike rides that I really really enjoy.

Fantastic. You know I really think that a lot of people are, you know especially with social media and online you know it takes a lot of time and effort and energy to get online and do what you do and you know the things that we're doing we're always reaching out and connecting with people and building relationships. I love creating relationships. I love building relationships and I love these kinds of conversations. And it does take time and effort and energy and I've started walking again. You know I was a real advocate. And when the boys were growing up we were mountain bike crazy and we would you know to go mountain biking all the time and I've been on several road bike trips since, you know that really releases a lot of stress from me and it gets me active. And so that is really a great strategy also. You know what. Every time I wake up you know I wake up and I type on my computer. I have a screen that I type in a lot of gratitude. You know I have a lot of gratitude for everything and I get going on mom and dad are OK. You know life is good. I don't have to worry about too much. You know I do have responsibilities and requirements in my life and you know stress. And so you just have to find ways to release it. So but you know you're growing this year again and you're hiring people and that's a good thing and that's a gift that you can give the community and that has to give a certain amount of pride in what you're doing and in growth and in what you're doing you just I know you I know you received a fairly large contract with one of the camps with Fastenal

Yeah with Fastenal.

And talk a little bit about that because those are like moments that you can celebrate right. And if you can help more people that's a celebration to me.

So with these guys what I love about them is they're aggressive. Anybody who knows me knows that knows I'm aggressive. It's just it's in my blood. I can't take it out. I love it. It's a curse at times. But it's a lot of fun. What I love about these guys. They sold five billion last year.

Sorry, Russ. Somebody tried to call me.

That's OK. You still there. Yeah I'm here

Can you hear me? I'm sorry Russ. You know we tried to go live off of the computer and we had a problem because I have streamyard.

Yeah.

Can you hear me?

I can hear you OK. Yeah.

So I don't know how we're going to continue going on since I just keep talking and I'm just going to finish what I was saying so with Fastenal what I'm just excited about is they're really,
they're really aggressive outfit they're looking for growth. They're growing like crazy. They're on-site and all these manufacturing facilities that we do and, that's what I love to do is travel the country and call on our facilities. I could see on my screen somebody is leaving me a voicemail when they're done leaving me a voicemail. Hopefully, I can hear you again. If you happen to be multitasking leaving me a voicemail and watching LinkedIn Live and on Facebook please finish up your voicemail I want to talk to these two bearded gentlemen. And what can you possibly we'll be talking about on my voicemail? MR 245 area code? Voicemail still coming through apparently. I apologize. We tried to do this on the laptop.

This is a beautiful beautiful thing about it

I'm doing this on my phone.

Save me, Russ, This is beyond frustrating, we're at the 10-minute mark. And we've had a major explosion.

Life is good man. Life is good. It's Valentine's Day. And here's what we can do. Well, the adventures of Ted and Russ continue. Just one of those things that are on a Friday. It's been a busy week and we are all in there and we're doing some things that are really you know really amazing stuff. You know we got some things that are taking place and we have some things that are like, this year is going to be 2020 is going to be an amazing year. And I know Ted has some things going on. The Blue Angels are meeting in Chicago. I would love to go up there and meet everybody and connect with everybody on LinkedIn. The reality is that there are so many opportunities out there. You have an amazing opportunity to actually go in there and watch what's happening and be with people around the world and you know to build relationships, develop those relationships and what you're doing and make sure that you have an opportunity to be connected to people. Here's Ted back or back. We're back. Ted

Oh, man. Anybody that knows me knows how desperate I am but I'll try it out.

I think I think you're probably one of those those individuals that would rather drive across town than try to deal with technology. Yeah you know we'll just move past it. Like I said though. .
We tried to do it on the laptop and the laptop won't work because I got streamyard. So. So there we are. But anyway. No great stuff going on. I actually had just a fantastic week.
Actually I got out I got a really bad cold that came out of nowhere yesterday. I took some meds about 30 minutes ago and it knocked it out of my nose. So I feel like I sound decent and it sounds better but it did

you got that deep radio voice.

Yeah. Yeah. So. So hopefully it's not one of these colds it's going around that I'm that other people have had that keep coming and going for weeks I had it in December it went away and I felt fantastic. But anyways thanks so much Russ and I appreciate you putting up with me.

No worries no worries at all. You know I've been in touch I've been in Tech along then I've seen just about everything and very seldom do I get surprised by things that break and reality is Ted that it's amazing that the Internet even works. You know all of these connections and we couldn't do this five years ago. You know I was I was building a network like this five years ago and you know my goal is I want to be able to have just like you're doing in your business. You have a live broadcast and you have some individuals in your company there really do an amazing work on LinkedIn and I applaud you for the time and effort you guys put into it.

Thank you.

And I and I have to believe. and I want to hear you tell me your actual results is it has to have some impact on the bottom line of what you're doing.

Some impact is an understatement. It's amazing what the feedback is and what the results are very quantitative. We get a lot of leads. Alisa Rodriquez works for us. She was a subcontractor that I worked with for years but she was under contract with a lot of different companies and she came on board really somewhere around the mid to late summer of last year and she's really helped us with our website. She's helped us with helping Mandi on LinkedIn and she's doing a lot behind the scenes stuff. But she helps all of us. Everybody works together as a team we collaborate. We come up with different ideas for content. We help each other just by promoting each other on and on different posts and things where we're doing linked in live as you know we're doing a lot of different things. But you know the feedback is huge. We go to trade shows across the country and literally we have people walk up to us all the time and talk to us.
Nick Goldner has a podcast that's the largest in the manufacturing industry called making chips. Pretty cool we talked about the Blue Angels and go into Chicago. They actually film in Chicago so I'm going there in a couple of weeks to do that. So not only am I getting exposure on LinkedIn and we work a lot with influencers and different people that are on the platform.
We're now breaking into the metal cutting machine tool world for social media because this has taken over every media and now we're hitting our target target audience even more.
You know I don't mind being very straight forward with our strategy our strategy was you know there's not always a lot of people in our particular industry online. There certainly are they can be hard to reach and hard to get to. So our strategy was to hit the biggest audience possible so so that we can hit our audience.
But now that we're tapping directly into that audience directly and we're hitting the streams and the podcasts that they're on it's kind of becoming more of that one two punch in that I absolutely love it. I celebrate it. I'm thinking about it on a regular basis and how we can do it more and how we can do it better. And because I enjoy it you know it's kind of like a side hobby that helps the business. And we're just having fun and I look forward to seeing what's next.

Well, it removes the friction from having a conversation because the thing that I discovered along the way Ted is that you're out there you're putting some ideas whatever it happens to be right. And then when you connect and you do a couple of direct messages or you start having a conversation when you pick up the phone. People are familiar with what you're doing and why you're calling. You know there's a purpose involved or you go to a live event. And like you said it's a trade show. People come up to you and they and they recognize who you are and what you're doing and why you're there and it just removes the awkwardness of you know it's like you could make 100 hundred cold call and not make the same impact as is doing one live video.

Absolutely. And you know one of the hardest things in our industry is to get people to come tour your facility. We have a really nice facility in Detroit and people a lot of people have already seen it. And with the technology and the way LinkedIn is is you know I can shoot a video put it online and a lot of people see it but then I can go to the share option on it and I can text somebody and say hey check out my LinkedIn post here's a tour of our facility. And now they're getting to check it out and they're helping us promote it and if they like or comment on it now it's going out to their co-workers and the people that are in it sister plant in another state. And it's pretty cool. It's pretty cool. There's a lot of things that we don't even know that are happening and I can't even connect the dots and that's what I like about it you know.

They don't even have to get it in their vehicle and drive across the country to look at your thing because your products and services are or your shop or your facility. And it's just a way to build a relationship and your total relationship guy. I mean I know that from a fact in our conversations and everything. It's like let's figure out what we can do to work together. You know it's one of those conversations.

It absolutely is and the hardest thing and anything I think in business and sales anything. It's getting people to give you a shot. If you get people to give you a shot. Then you've got to earn their business and you've got to earn their repeat business. You go out and you know why do people buy so much from Coca-Cola or Nike or McDonald's because they're because their advertising is great. But people like the product enough to come back and keep buying and keep returning. You know what. If Coca-Cola is out there is as big as anybody else. You know maybe Pepsi second in charge. But if. But whichever one you like. Right. You're going to try it and you're going to keep going back for it and that's it. That's all we're trying to do. We're trying to spread the word get people to give us a shot. And I think our growth speaks to the fact that people are coming back. Right.

Well, I love the idea of what you're doing. And I have to give you a hats off APPLAUSE A round of silent applause for Ted and the team over at Motor City spindle because I love what you're doing on LinkedIn. I love the fact that I know There's a lot of individuals in your industry that may not necessarily go to social media first thing in the morning, and what it does is it's association with other individuals and you start getting some authority and you build invisibility and all of those things that you need in order to build that opportunity, to have the people walk in the door. And then win they're business right it's easier to start a conversation when somebody can see your face and know what you're doing and know what you stand for.
It's like hats off to you man. I love that.

Thank you. Thank you. I definitely do appreciate that and it's you know it's surrounding myself with great people now not only within my organization but working with people like you guys the Blue Angels.And you know look at what that groups do and you know it's all about kindness. We're trying to get some other things going about kindness and doing things for the right reasons. So I just applaud it and I think that these platforms can be used for great things not just vanity statistics not just inflating our own egos.
And that's what I think a lot of us are doing and I think that's what's really making it grow is the authenticity. I just love to see what happens organically and you know like you mentioned it before or you know 2020. You know it's exciting. You can't wipe to smile off my face.

You know it's a wonderful experience. I just want to give a shot a couple of people in the room here Ted. Angie. She wants to go to Chicago. So Sherri Filsinger. Sherri I'm actually you know Jill Sullivan started something. Ted I don't know if you know this or not but over a year ago Jill goes RUSS Why don't you have shirts. Why don't you have the kindnessiscool shirts or twominutetips or you know? So I finally got my admin. My sister actually got that started and she's got that going so, Sherry bought a shirt a couple of people have bought clothes and coffee mugs I got coffee mugs too but it's just this whole purpose of kindnessiscool and smilesarefree. You know you can make a difference in somebody's day by doing something very simple.

I Love it Love it.

It doesn't. It doesn't require a whole lot of effort. It doesn't require you know it doesn't require an investment of weeks and time and months you know it's just like make it simple do something kind. Diana thank you so much for being here Mandy "Feel better Ted" she says I hope that you feel better Ted,

She knows she's good to me and she told me how awful I sounded about an hour ago and asked me if I was going to cancel. Oh I'm not canceling I might sound bad. But if I sound bad, I sound bad, oh well.

Oh well, not the end of the world. Gabriel thank you so much for being here. Here's the beauty of it Ted is it's only temporary right, now this will pass too you know we'll get past this and this is to deal with it while we can enjoy it enjoy the moment because I was thinking about this the same concept yesterday. You I was like, OK I'm. I got cataracts. You know I got go have cataract surgery but that reminds me that I can see right. Yeah I got my knees are sore but it reminds me that I can walk. Yeah. I have aches and pains but it reminds me I'm alive. You know let's be thankful and have gratitude for what we have and what we can build on rather than thinking about what we don't have and what we're you know woe is me kind of stuff. Don't be a victim.

So I listen 100 percent. My back's sore cause I've been working out a lot. My legs are aching my quads and my hands are what take it the most from hockey and I don't like it that those 20 and 30 year olds are blowing by me on the ice. But but I'm absolutely ecstatic that I'm still on the ice. You know when I was 20 25 you know I started playing with a different group leading into my late 20s and I used to look at these 40 and 50 year olds and go Oh my God how are these guys still playing. I'm just so thankful that I can continue to play. And you know I'm I hope I'm playing into my 60s. Yeah but like you said I'm just so grateful to be out there and you know another another shameless plug you know for me and my family. But I'm just so so elated so joyful so happy that I'm able to coach and then I'm able to spend time with my daughters and that they absolutely love it. And yeah I'm just very very blessed in that respect and I and I'm very very thankful for it.

Yeah well. And in coaching you know that's just another relationship-building tool that you know you want if you could bring those that team together and you know everybody doesn't have to be, a rock star but everybody has to work together to have a rock star team right.

Yeah everybody's got to know their role. They've got to do what they've got to do and it's pretty interesting. You know I don't know where I'm going with this and I don't know where we'll tie it in but I think it's great. You know all the parents that help and the parents that give us the feedback that we actually get we get feedback from the parents where they say you know well why don't you try this and wanted to do this and it's like, it's interesting because sometimes the answers to us and what they want us to communicate what we're communicating.
It's not easy. Yeah, it's no as easy as just saying you know you need to do this in Arizona or this in the neutral zone or do this type of break out or use this type of different given go technique.
That's obvious you can draw it up. You can talk about it you can show it. Reach in each kid individually reach in different groups of the team and how to actually communicate it and get the results. That's the interesting part. You know you try something and it doesn't work. You got to try a different approach. Yeah you try it 10 times it still doesn't work. OK. How I gonna keep trying to do this in a fun way without frustrating yourself and the kids. So make it happen. Sometimes it takes four or five or six weeks then all of a sudden say doing it like oh my god we we played a great team a week ago and literally the coaches and I we kept looking around on the bench reflect on what's going on. We've been talking about this for the last 90 days and now what's happening like this is this is insane but it was so much fun. I mean we were making four or five great passes and then scoring goals and then I don't know it was just it was it all came together yeah yeah yeah yeah.

That's just like a pirate broadcast. You know we had some challenges. We had to work through it and it came together. It's like let's just.

I just. Nobody called me for the next 5 10 minutes please. I hope. It's me only fear because I keep getting hidden alerts on emails and text messages and stuff. So you know what. It's got a huge smile on my face in my eyes.

That's the way to start the day there Ted. This is why I do this is having interesting conversations just like this and there's always a nugget of knowledge that comes out of it. And what I want to do is bring that together is like just like coaching a team of hockey players it's like life. You know you have all these relationships. Some people react and respond to one type of interaction.
Some people react and respond to another type of reaction. You know you're a you're in the in the face to face person. You know other people are e-mail you know it's kind of the only way you can talk to him is through e-mail. The other people are phone calls you know they just like to have phone calls. Everybody's different. So you have to learn how to respond react and respond to each one of those circumstances to get everyone working together.

You know you do. You do. And you know go back to that you know what's the return on LinkedIn. You know some people want to check you out. They want to learn about you before they even want to meet with you. Right. And that's one of the things that LinkedIn does. That's one of the things that the videos about our building do or about our employees or about the product or just seeing what kind of person you are you know so. So there's so much out there there's so much that these different platforms can do. And that's one of the things we're doing. You know you mentioned that we're on several platforms right now. I can always revert back to LinkedIn but I got some new employees. Shannon is brand new to the team this week. She's doing a great job. And you know I never actually watched anything on tick-tock before today. And she told me she started showing me some stuff that all these guys and the machine tool industry are doing.
And I never thought in my wildest dreams people would be doing that. But I guess it's a pretty cool platform. You know Instagram I guess is growing. You know Facebook is still a challenge for us. We're not really big there yet but you know things change over the years. And like I I don't know we're just dipping our toes in the water and seeing what works.

Well I enjoy it and I appreciate and I wanted to bring you on and talk about it because I know for a fact that you've made an impact on LinkedIn at several layers. You know a lot of levels at the Blue Angel group and you're just our conversations and communication back and forth and, I was on your livestream and the fact that you're there putting it out there and removing the friction for people to get to know you is huge. It's absolutely huge. And I and I think that a lot of people can adopt that behavior of just being open and honest and just put yourself out there and say hey I do this work and if you need my help I can help you. If I'm the right person for you because I mean 10 people would do the same thing and you just have to learn which one you want to work with. You know it's a personality thing and it's not good or bad. It's not a judgment. It's not deficit. It's just hey I like to work with Ted. I like what he does. I like a shop. I like his team and I want to go work with him. And so that's the decision they make. And being on social media where the first place people go is search. You know Googleater and search you and find out. And then LinkedIn comes up quite a bit. You know it's you know you're showing up. And if you don't show up. That's a sign. And the people that aren't taking advantage of being online are losing an opportunity in my opinion.

No I absolutely think so. And I think that anybody that doesn't see you know how it's evolving and how it's becoming more relevant more prevalent. I just don't see how anybody can't acknowledge that. You know I mean look at what you're seeing in the law changes about people on their cell phones. You know how many times do you look at your phone in the day you know the statistics are mind-boggling and you know it is it's kind of an addictive platform. All of them and all of them are pretty similar but you know they can be extremely positive.
I've been doing some different things networking with different people that have helped me in different aspects of my life. One of the guys I had on was really big on and I'm LinkedIn, but also on Facebook and some other platforms as Terry Bean.

Oh yeah. Terry.

Yeah. I had Terry on.

Oh yeah, he's a pirate. OK.

We talked for an hour after about 20 minutes. I think we forgot we were even late in life but you know he's doing a bunch of TED Talks. He's doing a huge TED talk this fall you know it just shows how it can transform your life. Olivia right. She just landed her dream job. She setting the world on fire.

Oh, she's awesome.

You can't wipe the smile off her face. Right. Yeah. Corey Warfield who was on with us against some things with a Shed Wool and Eunice you know she's out there changing the planet for human rights. So yeah you know all these people are doing a lot of things that are helping their lives. But I think just as important if not, more importantly, they're helping others. You know we're on LinkedIn doing a lot. We're selling spangles slang and spindles. You know and all that stuff but we're doing more than that and that's what makes me feel good.

Yeah well, what it does from for me in the way I look at it is that it sets an example of what others can do. It's so someone could say hey if Russ can do it I can do it too. Right.
And it's like you just have to do it. Sometimes you just have to decide like you you've made a decision at some point time said hey I'm going to do this live thing and it's not because you're technically you know, you know you've been dreaming about this for life it's just like hey this is something that's interesting and I can have fun doing it. And it's like let's let's make it happen.
And I you know like I said I love it. I love the fact that we're here. I love the fact that we're connected and I'm going to have to check out the Chicago thing. I've been off a little bit.
I've been in Houston and I moved my son and you know some life things happen and so I've been kind of just a little bit quiet. But I'm getting ready to dive back into getting more activity going on. It's been busy. I mean life is good. I had no complaints. Like I said you know everything's going well and I love the idea that we can get on these live videos and have a conversation like this. But I want to wrap it up because I know you're busy and it's you know you might want to take off because it's Valentine's Day and you know do something tonight. I don't know. Just saying and you know go out. So what's the one thing you'd like to share with the community here about what you're doing and why it matters.
You know.

I would just say that you know a lot of people want to do a lot of planning. A lot of people want to change things in their life and do better things to do bigger things. That's what I did with Motor City. I said you know I don't want to die knowing that I didn't give it a chance. So to me there's a huge phrase I use all the time there's a lot of them and I'll tie 'em all in together. But one is "crush your timidity and fear" if you're afraid something. Get out there and do it. If you're not doing your own marketing and you feel like you should be just doing it. You know once you do it and it doesn't kill you it doesn't mame you. You're going to see some positive feedback. And just keep doing it more and the other one is pretty much the same on that side.
You know do it now when you're afraid and you have that timidity and fear the best thing to do is just to jump into action. You all need a plan. WE WANT TO HAVE THE BEST THE BEST IDEA THE BEST THE BEST anything. You know if you make dinner you want to come up with the best idea in the world the best recipe the best is in that. But you just got to dive in and do it. And then you're going to get better at it as you evolve. But if you never get started you can't go through that evolution process so you shake off that timidity and fear. Do it now.
And just you know to get better as you go. Don't try to start out with perfection. Some of us are perfectionists, but we aren't always doing everything right. None of us are doing everything right. We're never going to but it's the journey and the one thing the advice I'm going to give because I need to listen to it and I need to follow is "enjoy the journey" as well. Sometimes I get a little too destination-focused. So yes. You ask for one thing per usual I deliver a dozen, it's inherent in me anybody who knows me knows it but that's my advice and I hope it helps a few people.

I love it Ted I love it and I appreciate you. And thank you so much for taking the time to do this today and the challenges none withstanding. It's like it's a breath of fresh air and a great way to end the week. So thank you.
#Kindnessiscool.
#Smilesarefree
and you
#Enjoytheday

Thanks Russ.

I have a good one. I have a wonderful weekend man.

You too.