Chalzy Help - F2F

Chalzy Help: It's. It's.

Chris LaFay: Hi.

Chalzy Help: Oh, man. I can't hear. Hold on.

Chris LaFay: Oh, God. Freaking heck.

Chalzy Help: Silly.

Chris LaFay: It's dumb. Freaking.

Chalzy Help: How can I put this on?

Chris LaFay: Weird audio. My microphone's working. Just saying. I mean, it's just like, you click the button and you change the headphones. Like, it's up in the top right hand corner. Click that and it drops down. And then you select the right headphone slide, and then you drag it better. Can you hear me?

Chalzy Help: There we go.

Chris LaFay: I mean, obviously, yes, I can. So.

Chalzy Help: Yes.

Chris LaFay: You read lips really well. I'm really proud of you. Good job. Like, no. You just gotta be able to keep it moving. Yes.

Chalzy Help: Not really.

Chris LaFay: No. Is it Can. It's not really. How do you not really hear me? Like, it's either, like, a yes or a no thing. Like, there's no headphones. Turn the volume up.

Chalzy Help: Anybody home?

Chris LaFay: Testing, 1, 2, 3.

Chalzy Help: I'm not sure your miming needs work.

Chris LaFay: I should have actually done that to where I just, like, just mouth them and not actually speak them and drive you nuts. No.

Chalzy Help: Well, there's nobody here, so what if I unplug this?

Chris LaFay: Wow. Wow. You're just going. You're just gonna go. You're going raw right now. That's in the middle. I mean. No, not really. Actually, it's not bad. I mean, I got. I got headphones. They work. They're really cool. So there's no echo on your side, at least.

Chalzy Help: I hear no echo.

Chris LaFay: Good. You should hunt.

Chalzy Help: We're good. Yeah, we're good. Okay.

Chris LaFay: Where are you at right now? You in Colorado?

Chalzy Help: I know it's one of your stomping grounds.

Chris LaFay: Oh. Oh, you're crazy. Crazy love.

Chalzy Help: No, Colorado's one of the stomping grounds.

Chris LaFay: Oh, yeah, that is. That is true. Yes.

Chalzy Help: Or used to be.

Chris LaFay: We haven't been out there in a while, actually.

Chalzy Help: Oh, yeah.

Chris LaFay: Yeah, we really haven't been out. Honestly, the last time we were out there was probably close to when we were doing stuff together. Like, it's been. Oh, really? It's been a hot minute. Yeah. No, don't get wrong. We've been to plenty of other places, but Colorado in particular. Yeah, it's been a minute. Been a minute. Where are you at right now? Are you at a car? Are you at a coffee shop over in Roswell?

Chalzy Help: I'm in Roswell. At Starbucks. Yeah. Oh, we were there. We were there two weeks ago.

Chris LaFay: Oh, shoot. Okay.

Chalzy Help: We went to the first time. Well, I was there a very long time ago, but didn't do much. But we went to Red rocks. So show red rocks. And hung out mainly in golden and a little bit. Went to Rocky Mountain one day and.

Chris LaFay: Oh, you went to Rocky Mountain National Park, Dude. Yes.

Chalzy Help: It's ridiculous. So, so beautiful out there.

Chris LaFay: My. My favorite part of that general area. Because we did. We did a trip. You actually might have a better memory than me. We actually have been to Colorado more recently because back like, I think three years ago, we did a two week trip and we did Rocky Mountain National, Grand Teton and Yellowstone and then came back and phenomenal. And the best part about that was Grand Teton was awesome. And there was one particular hike that was across the main lake. And you actually walk. The path was not actually up a mountain. It was actually between two mountains. So you actually were hiking in this very like, wooded. Grassy, but also wide open in some places too. It was almost like a pass, if you will. There were moose and elk and all these other things just scattered all about. It was like the best of all the worlds. Like, there was part of it that was very rocky, like very mountainous. There were parts of it that were like. You felt like you were in a forest for miles and miles. And then there was just like some open grassland as well too. So you got like all the biomes in that one hike. So 10 out of 10 if you go back over to like the Midwest. Grand Teton. Yes. It was awesome.

Chalzy Help: Yeah, that's awesome. Yeah, it's so beautiful out there. Trying to do a little bit more traveling these days. So now the kids are getting a.

Chris LaFay: Little older, so they can actually move around and do stuff by themselves and not, you know, require content attention.

Chalzy Help: Right, Exactly. We can leave the house for a couple days. Well, one of them's in college, so it makes a little easier.

Chris LaFay: They're already. Yeah. How.

Chalzy Help: Yeah.

Chris LaFay: Young is the youngest.

Chalzy Help: 17. Oh, she's gonna be a rising. She's a rising junior. So a couple more years left with that one.

Chris LaFay: So you. So you and your wife went to Colorado just solo by yourselves and two other friends?

Chalzy Help: Yeah. Oh, so it was fun, dude.

Chris LaFay: That's what I said. So it was fun.

Chalzy Help: Exactly.

Chris LaFay: What was it? Who was at Red Rocks?

Chalzy Help: Russell Dickerson. Country.

Chris LaFay: Oh, country. That's why. I don't know.

Chalzy Help: Okay. I know you're not a big country fan.

Chris LaFay: I'm not. I don't. I don't follow music. Now there are a couple of artists that I will follow, but they're like, they're smaller. They're not. They're not like tiny, where they're like going out and playing like bars with like 20 people, but like Judah and the lion is one of them. Like they're like a mid sized, like, I don't even know how to describe. They're like rock slash alternative, a little bit of pod, like a mixture of genres. I mean it's all that. Anyway, everything's. But we, we've been in a lot more like comedy shows.

Chalzy Help: Oh, really?

Chris LaFay: Yeah. Like going to see more stand up, more improv. We're gonna be onto Dad's Garage down in Atlanta. Not like often, but, you know, zero was the previous number for the year and now it was like, you know, we went like three or four times last year. So.

Chalzy Help: That's a good time. That's a good time.

Chris LaFay: Have you been to Dad's Garage before?

Chalzy Help: Oh, a number of times. Yeah. It's funny.

Chris LaFay: So good. Yeah. Are y'. All. I don't know how they do it, dude. Like you gotta be so fast. Like.

Chalzy Help: Yeah. Super quick witted.

Chris LaFay: I am not. It takes me five minutes to come up with something. I'll slack you a comeback in about 10. When hang up, I'm gonna slack you and come back to that one. It'll be great. It'll be fire.

Chalzy Help: All right.

Chris LaFay: Oh man.

Chalzy Help: Well, good. So you're going, you're going to Smyrna beach this summer?

Chris LaFay: Yes, dude. Freaking.

Chalzy Help: You're never. That's what I remember. Smyrna Beach, Colorado, and Ben and Jerry.

Chris LaFay: I. So actually every year in December, I remember this. I actually tell this story often. More often than you would care to, I would care to admit. But one of our friends who was here in Atlanta for a long time, they moved to Indianapolis about three or four years ago. And every year for my birthday, they send me not Ben and Jerry's, but Jenny's ice cream. Because you can do the same type of thing. And so like in December when I get a text message from them saying, are you gonna be home between the hours of 3 and 5pm and I'm like, I will change my schedule, please. Thank you.

Chalzy Help: Yes.

Chris LaFay: So good. It's so good.

Chalzy Help: So good.

Chris LaFay: Yeah, actually news from the beach is actually in a few weeks from now. We're in middle of middle of June. So very excited about it, needless to say. What have you been up to, man, other than Colorado?

Chalzy Help: Just trying to keep the show going. We lost my big boxer dog and we ended up getting two French bulldogs puppies. So it's been a lot of work with those two crazies, huh? Well, that's been a year now, actually. Geez. But they're still crazy trying to figure out what I'm gonna do with my life now that you know. I don't know if you've heard, but there's this thing called AI. Yeah.

Chris LaFay: What? Tell me, tell me more.

Chalzy Help: It's kind of shaking things up. So.

Chris LaFay: Huh. Yep.

Chalzy Help: In good and bad ways. So we'll see.

Chris LaFay: I still don't think people are going to the stuff that, yes, some of the stuff that we do is easier, but at the end of the day people still aren't going to want to do this stuff. Just because you can doesn't mean you are going to want to. Everybody can make a squarespace site, everybody can make a wix like you can. You going to. No.

Chalzy Help: Right, exactly. That's true.

Chris LaFay: So it's just a matter of figuring like my, my, my, my mindset is if I can take the like all the profits of this year and basically figure out a way to 1 of 2, like to 5x the value of what I'm doing. So basically take the exact same price point and either with that 5x value, give a lot more for the same price or expedite the timeline a lot. Yes, I can still make the same amount of money and be profitable. It's just going to look different. It's just not going to be scaling from 15 to 30 to $100,000 for builds. It'll be the same numbers. But I think it actually is going to let specialists to enjoy doing the work like you. You know, when you get, when you graduate and you grow, it's like, okay, I'm really good at what I do now. I manage people because why do the monotonous work when you can have a junior developer do it? I think this is going to allow specialists that actually enjoy doing things to actually continue doing them and make a lot more money. So we'll see if I'm right or not.

Chalzy Help: But no, that's probably at least partially right. You do have people. Well, like my current situation I had, we had this startup we've been working with a long time now and the product people, you know, aren't developers and so we develop for them. But now they think they're developers so they don't need us as much anymore because they're in there, you know, vibe coding all day.

Chris LaFay: Yeah.

Chalzy Help: When they should be doing other things. But they have this unlock now because the developers were a gatekeeper to what they wanted to do, you know, and so now they could just go straight to it and get it done. It just, you're going to see all kinds of different scenarios. Like, like what you used to work with AutoZone. Like, AutoZone isn't going to just be like, let's just do it.

Chris LaFay: All our.

Chalzy Help: Oh, really? They're gone, dude.

Chris LaFay: Pay. Long story way short is we had a great point of contact. We were trucking through stuff, doing the whole nine yards and we always got approval, like for stuff. And then that guy left and this like crazy old lady took her place and she, her, she was hell bent on screwing us over. She's like, you have to stop work. You don't get approval for things. You don't log things, you don't do any of these things. And like took us and just spanked us for like. I mean we probably worked in, in general. We probably did maybe 120 hours a year with them. Not much. It wasn't great hourly rate. It was like maybe like 140 or something. I had to go through, I spent time one in January going through every time tracking log and connecting it to a project and validating a year's worth of work with her because the project manager I had didn't do a good job with it, which is true, he didn't. But I had to go back and look through all my emails and all of his emails and try to connect them. And she was like, okay, cool. You owe autozone five hours of free labor because you overcharged us by five hours. That took a month and a half. And then five, five days later she quit her job and. And then we lost autozone because of her.

Chalzy Help: Oh my God.

Chris LaFay: Now I will say they were going to take it all in house and they, they took, they got rid of WordPress and built it in there like CMS, which all fine and dandy. So we had, we had a, we had a timeline no matter what, but it ended in fire.

Chalzy Help: Yeah. Oh boy.

Chris LaFay: Yeah, that was fun.

Chalzy Help: Humans can really be problematic. To our income. To our income. We're gonna work with agents instead.

Chris LaFay: Yeah, right, exactly. Have you, have you either watched the movie Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy or read the book?

Chalzy Help: No, I need to. I've been putting it off forever.

Chris LaFay: So anyway, there's a, there's a droid in it who is called the Paranoid Android and he's just a depressed robot and everything he says is just like this, like, especially in the movie. And so as you just said, humans get in the way of everything. I literally just finished reading it and so I was calling back to the movie a lot, the last like three weeks and I was like, you Everything you just said sounded like it came out of that droid's mouth. So that's all. Great little story. I know. It's wonderful. I do what I can,.

Chalzy Help: But, yeah, other than that, it's almost like where they are. You just feel like if you get into it and you. You have 20 agents open at the same time, and you're. You just become like this fiend, and you don't. And then you're like. You feel like you're unproductive if you walk away from the computer. And then it's, you know, this whole thing.

Chris LaFay: I have been going to bed very late the last couple months because it's just one more. Just one more thing, right? I can finish one more thing.

Chalzy Help: All right.

Chris LaFay: It's the same dopamine hit of, like, you know, scrolling through, like, videos. Just. Just one more video. The next video will be a good one to end on. I know, right? Like, yeah, it's. See, it's. But now it's tied to money. And I'm like, right, I want to make more money. And I'm also, like, doing like, five projects simultaneously. And one of my guys today sent me a slack message and was like, sent screenshots and was like, 15 minutes ago you told the client X just now you told the client why these two things contradict themselves. What are you doing? I was like, I think I'm doing too much. He's like, yeah, no crap, Sherlock.

Chalzy Help: Yeah, you're getting everything mushed together so. Well, at least AI is pretty good at WordPress.

Chris LaFay: I've gotten it very good at WordPress. I actually have a. I have an entire pipeline that I've created that I can go and basic. I have a parent theme that I've created that has like, 15 of my own, like, custom building blocks that are pretty flexible. And I've created a pipeline to where I can basically give a separate Claude instance, the existing website, the site map, my sales documentation, any branding documents that they've sent over via email, stuff like that, all that. It normally lives in a folder. I just point it to a folder and say, here's everything. And I say, go build. And it builds version one of the site. It creates its own custom repository for it. It's on WP engine landing place. All I got to do is pull it from WP engine down to local, and it literally does everything else. And it. It needs a lot of help. Like, when it's done with version one, like, it's not finished by any stretch, but it cuts out. Oh, yeah, I've actually gone to sales meetings where I know people aren't going to spend 30, $40,000. They're probably going to spend like 12 to 15. And I go to the sales meeting with a site for them.

Chalzy Help: Yeah.

Chris LaFay: And I'm like, I think this is what you need. And I have sold two of those on the first phone call in 45 minutes. No proposals necessary.

Chalzy Help: Wow.

Chris LaFay: Now am I happy that these are all looking kind of the same? Not really thrilled. But I'll figure out how to make them more custom as I go.

Chalzy Help: Yeah, but that is a thing. It starts to find it's a little lame and it's hard to get it out of it. Like I, I was like, huh, you know, spit on. Thinking of things to do. How could I, you know, generate that passive income that we were talking about? I was like, all right, let me just create this system that scours the web, the United States every night. You know, within certain amount these thresholds and a scoring criteria finds websites and small businesses that look like they help, automatically creates a new site for them and emails them and says, here's your new site. Would you like to make this real?

Chris LaFay: Yeah.

Chalzy Help: And yeah, I iterated many times now. It comes up with pretty freaking cool sites.

Chris LaFay: The link that I just sent you I'm having because I have a lot of, I have a lot of Claude stuff running at the moment. So if I try to share my screen it'll probably crash. But this is about, this is about 3. Now the photos suck. The photos are actually not in alignment with what the, the product is. But this is three hours worth of work.

Chalzy Help: It's pretty good.

Chris LaFay: It's all ACF custom blocks other than like there's Gutenberg inside of the custom blocks. So there is flexibility and like if you go to products, all of those are custom post types. And it pulled all the data in a table for like if you click on one of the single products, it pulled all the data into a table. I didn't even tell it to do that part. And then there's like acf, like the brochure links and all that kind of fun stuff. Like it's not bad.

Chalzy Help: Yeah, it's pretty good. Dude.

Chris LaFay: Mike. So that was a twelve thousand dollar site and meeting number one, he's, he's signed already. Meeting number one is not going to be discovery, it's going to be. Let's react to this.

Chalzy Help: Yeah.

Chris LaFay: And if you can just give me content edits, best freaking hourly rate that I'll make in a long time. No project manager, no nothing. Just me.

Chalzy Help: Oh, yeah. It's the best, huh? Yeah, it's like, it's crazy time right now, and it's just getting crazier and crazier every day.

Chris LaFay: Did you. Do you seem. Have you. Have you. Have you seen what I did on my website?

Chalzy Help: Looks. I think I saw his Kim Crow. Like, what did I do? Maybe I saw you LinkedIn or something. I was like, oh, let me see. And then it looks like a cartoon itself.

Chris LaFay: Like, yeah, I'm gonna. I'm gonna try to share my screen. Let's see if I. If I. If it breaks, I'll come back. Yeah, it didn't. Look at this, look at this, look at this, look at this, look at this. So there is sound on here. So if you have the. If you heard the sound, you would hear that. These would make noises.

Chalzy Help: Oh, God. You gamified your website.

Chris LaFay: Yeah, It's. It's silly, it's dumb, but it's cool. So if you go down here, all the way down here, we got a bumblebee.

Chalzy Help: Oh, you can hit him. Ouch. Oh, my God. You Easter egg.

Chris LaFay: Your site at 100. One of them that I put in when I publicized it on LinkedIn, I said, type in the word intro for a LinkedIn fun LinkedIn thing. It's the traditional. It's the traditional LinkedIn spam message.

Chalzy Help: That's hilarious. Every LinkedIn SP.

Chris LaFay: And then the menu looks like an inventory screen. Got items. You can save it away. I got activities as well, too.

Chalzy Help: Oh, my God. How much of this did you use AI to build?

Chris LaFay: So all of this, all the graphics, I found an asset pack for the graphics, and I spent a metric ton of time teaching Claude how to utilize said graphics and did a lot of iteration. But now, like, for example, like with the little. The little animations, like when you clicked on the little boxes and something happened, that's all structured now. So I can basically say I want to create a new specialty item. Here's the animation that I want to have, and it's created the appropriate hooks to basically load any animation full screen, and then it disappears. So, like, creating new animations is actually really easy now. I just literally describe it and I give it the assets because of the hook architecture that it. That it created. And then for these dividers, I had to teach it. These are all like 64 pixel squares. So I had to teach it how to do, like, CSS grid appropriately and put them together and then do the right responsive breakpoints with it. Right now it knows a lot of this stuff. We Did a com. We did a very. We did a different little button style to make it look kind of like a retro game.

Chalzy Help: Yeah, it's awesome.

Chris LaFay: Yeah. A lot of time into it, you can collect the coins too, and then they go up the. The numbers go up over there.

Chalzy Help: Has this helped you, the clients?

Chris LaFay: I will say that people remember it, and that's all I care about.

Chalzy Help: Yeah.

Chris LaFay: Like, nobody, when you go and see that nobody is doing that.

Chalzy Help: Right?

Chris LaFay: Like, yeah. I had a. Out of one of my agency partners text me the other day because the. For a while, the Bumblebee didn't do anything. Like, multiple people were like, I clicked the Bumblebee and it doesn't do anything. And so one of my partners texted me yesterday or two days ago. It was like, thank God the bee finally does something. I'm like, did you just, like, randomly.

Chalzy Help: Go to the website back and keep checking it?

Chris LaFay: Yeah. He's like, yeah, I was on hold on a call and I figured I'd go back to your site and like, click around for fun. I was like, yeah, now that's somebody that I know well. Like, I don't. I don't need to stay top of mind with him about the website. But, like, the fact that that's happening in some level is really cool.

Chalzy Help: Yeah. Yeah.

Chris LaFay: So whole marketing play is fun. That's what I'm doing.

Chalzy Help: What is your marketing play?

Chris LaFay: Event.

Chalzy Help: Events.

Chris LaFay: Events. Events. Events. Events.

Chalzy Help: You go to a lot of events, like, in person.

Chris LaFay: I'm hosting them. So I started doing something called Content Day last year. Content Day.

Chalzy Help: Content Day. Okay.

Chris LaFay: And let me see if I find the page for it. I do. It's not the best one. That's okay. What I've realized is I like working with other agencies. I've talked to other agencies, other fractional people. Like, those are my favorite people to work with. I'll work with their clients, but I don't have an icp. I don't have. I'm not going to go after health care. Like, I'm not going to do that. I would rather. Yeah, I would rather build a business off of word of mouth, but have very intentional rhythms on staying in front of people. And so I don't have enough work to pass out to all my agency partners. I just don't. So I can't be like, you send me leads. I send you leads. Like, it's not going to work that way. They're going to send me leads, and I will make their clients happy. So I was like, how do I stay top of mind with A large group. And how do I provide value? What I can't send you clients over all the time. I was like, the thing that agency people want is they just want to meet new people. And so I did a content day where I got a video crew that was dirt cheap. I know they're college kids. Got a co working space for very cheap as well because it's ran by a founder, not a big corporation. And I set up a talking head video shoot all day, 9 to 5. And people scheduled 30 minute slots throughout the day and ahead of time. When they signed up for a slot, they had to submit in three to five questions that they wanted us to ask them off camera. So just them talking about whatever they're interested in, whatever they want to look smart about, whatever topic their audience is interested in, doesn't matter. And then we sent them their social media clips a couple weeks later, all free. I will, by next week. I'll have done it four times now. Since November, I hosted a topgolf event. We're just a social hangout event. A couple months ago, split it with an agency partner, met new people yesterday. Two days ago I just hosted an agency owner's lunch. Didn't pay for anything, just said, we're going to Taqueria del Sol, come down, bring a friend. And people did. So I had about 50.

Chalzy Help: So these are all agencies that you're already connected with.

Chris LaFay: So what I'm trying to do, one of my goals now these are the web agencies or what anybody, I don't care. Doesn't matter to me. Their web, their marketing, they're SEO, ppc, branding, video, all kit and caboodle. And so my thing is what I'm going to do with a lot of mine now are I'm only going to invite half to three quarters of whatever my capacity is and tell the people that I'm inviting. I know that the purpose of this event for you is to meet new people. So let's all pitch in. I'm inviting you. Can you bring a friend with you? Just one, bring a friend. Not the generic, hey, if you know anybody, you should reach out to them. But like be very specific about bring a friend. And when I did that for lunch this past week, people really enjoyed that and a couple people felt bad that they didn't bring a friend with them. So.

Chalzy Help: Good. So you only get one sandwich,.

Chris LaFay: Right? No, the lunch. No, I literally for like lunch, we just met at a restaurant. Everybody bought their own meals.

Chalzy Help: Oh, okay.

Chris LaFay: Yeah, so I bought maybe like we did a taco place so, like, I bought a couple of like, salsas and quesos for the table, but like, a couple people already bought sauces and queso. So, like, it caught that lunch for 15 people cost me like $32, I think.

Chalzy Help: Okay.

Chris LaFay: And nobody cared. Nobody wasn't. Nobody was expecting it to be free.

Chalzy Help: So. Yeah, that's good, man. Because it's like, it's so hard. Distribution is so hard. Software or service is like, impossible, man. I've been trying. It's like, hard because.

Chris LaFay: You want to go to one of my agency events? Want to come and hang out?

Chalzy Help: Yeah, I might, you know. Yeah. When's your next one?

Chris LaFay: I don't have any next one. Well, actually, I don't. I don't think you want this. Do you want video for yourself?

Chalzy Help: I don't need or want.

Chris LaFay: I didn't think so. So my next thing is. That is a video day.

Chalzy Help: I don't do personal brand.

Chris LaFay: I know it's not my.

Chalzy Help: Not my deal. I'm behind the shadows type. Guy in the shadows and the se.

Chris LaFay: You're the guy in the sound booth pushing all the levers.

Chalzy Help: Yeah, that's. And that's what makes it even more difficult. And I'm not like an outgoing person, so it's hard. I'm not like the silver tongue who go out there and spin a tail and get a customer, you know?

Chris LaFay: Right. Or what.

Chalzy Help: People who can't do that and now they have an unlock with AI. They're unstoppable, man. Unstoppable?

Chris LaFay: Yes.

Chalzy Help: If you have contacts and can sell, you're unstoppable right now.

Chris LaFay: So this is not. This is an event that I'm. I'm not co hosting this event. This is later this year. But I am helping with this event. You should come to this event. It's in October. Do you know Mickey Mellon?

Chalzy Help: Who?

Chris LaFay: Mickey Melon. He runs a company called Green Melon. Anyway, he knows a lot of people. There's gonna be a lot of marketer folks here, other agency folks here. You should come to this in October. There's good people. Two of the people that are speaking are people that I got connected into it. So that's not the like, obviously that's not like the social hangout thing.

Chalzy Help: Yeah.

Chris LaFay: The next one of those is probably going to be either in July or October, August, basically. I do them with my partners so I don't have to flip the whole bill. And I'm waiting back on two of my partners to be like, we'll co host with you. Both of them have raised their hands and said, we want to. So I'm waiting on one of them to be like, let's go, let's go. But it'll probably be like at topgolf or like a bowling alley or something like that. Something where there's a lightweight activity so there can be some fun times and jokes made, but then conversation can be easily had.

Chalzy Help: All right. Have you done any, Tried any outbound?

Chris LaFay: No, but I'm about to. I've been working with a coach for the last year and a half and he's getting tired of me not doing outbound. And so he's basically about to start generating a lot of the outbound stuff for me so that all I have to really do is push go.

Chalzy Help: What does that mean, generating it?

Chris LaFay: He. So he is starting to help me draft initial LinkedIn posts. He is helping me find folks to connect to on LinkedIn that I can start conversations with. He's also helping me write emails that I can send out to folks as well, too. Some of this stuff is more inbound, more like within my own network, but there is some of it where it's like, hey, you need to go to connect with these 20 peoples and start conversations. Because for me, the hard part is finding the list, doing the activity, if I know somebody has created me a checklist is very easy for me to do. So he's trying to, he's trying to do, start to create some of that for me. Like I have like five newsletters that he's drafted me that I just need to go through and edit and then push, publish. So.

Chalzy Help: Oh yeah, it's hard. I've been trying some outbound emails, you know, cold outbound outreach. It's hard. Nobody wants to open those emails. I don't want to open them. They go straight to trash man. So it's hard to get in there with anybody, you know.

Chris LaFay: Yes.

Chalzy Help: And everybody and their mother's doing it now with AI the behind the scenes pushing it all for him. But, you know, I waited 30 days, warmed up my emails, you know, because you have to be careful if you end up in spam.

Chris LaFay: Yeah. One of my friends, I was talking to him yesterday. He bought himself a. A typewriter. Yeah, yeah, like a legit, like old, like an old typewriter and bought himself like some, like, index cards, probably about like, you know, 4 by 6 ish size. And he's gonna type the same message just on a tiny little card so it looks like it's, you know, takes up space. He's going to type a message about, would love the chance to meet up with you, have coffee with you, etc, and then after he's done typing the message, he's going to take a selfie with a Polaroid with the letter and then put the letter and the selfie in an envelope and then mail it out to his.

Chalzy Help: Retro, very retro.

Chris LaFay: But it doesn't take that long.

Chalzy Help: Right.

Chris LaFay: Because he's, it's, he's typing up the same three sentences over and over again. He's taking the same photo over and over again. It's not, it's not that hard.

Chalzy Help: It's just time. You know, you're doing 10 instead of sending an email to 500, but if one of those 10 hits, you're way ahead of the 500 that never open the email.

Chris LaFay: The problem is getting addresses. Yeah, that's the, that's the core problem.

Chalzy Help: So, I mean, that's easier than getting an email really. You know, if you're cold out here, you know, a business address, not that hard to get.

Chris LaFay: No, but who's going, like, who's going in?

Chalzy Help: Pardon?

Chris LaFay: Who's going into that office? You don't know if they actually go into that office or not.

Chalzy Help: Oh, I said it could be a post office. Yeah, I never check.

Chris LaFay: Bingo. Exactly.

Chalzy Help: Everybody's remote.

Chris LaFay: Yeah. And that therein is the problem. So it's a good idea though.

Chalzy Help: Gotta think outside the box of this stuff.

Chris LaFay: That, and that's what I'm proud of the guy that I was talking to about it. I'm glad that he thought about the idea. Now that's making me think of other ideas. Because if my goal is agencies and hosting events, if I knew what my events were ahead of time, could I actually send snail mail out to folks hand done and been like, hey, this isn't happening for another two months. Just in case, you know, they don't check their mailbox but once every three weeks, like, that would be dope.

Chalzy Help: Yeah. Rsvp. You know who's coming planet.

Chris LaFay: Yes. Actually. So on the, the lunch thing, talking about like how, how these things work, I, I hosted the lunch on Wednesday. I took a picture, I posted it on LinkedIn. At the bottom of the LinkedIn post, I put a note of like, by the way, my next thing is a content day video shoot. Here's the link if you want to join. I think I got two people to sign up from that message and I in the comment section I got another three or four people that are like, let me know when you do lunch again. And now they're gonna go on my list for all My events that I do, it just. It.

Chalzy Help: Yeah. Snowballs kind of. Yeah.

Chris LaFay: I'm starting that. Like, I got freaking 45 comments on my post about lunch on Wednesday. It's not bad. Like, and it's not about. It's not about the, the total quantity. It's the fact that I'm getting people onto my list. They're going to come to events and they're going to get some kind of value by meeting people and then that's just gonna. And I asked them to invite friends. So all the seven new people that I met on Wednesday, they're going to be the first people that I ask for my next social event. So they're now my first degree that I ask. And then I asked them to bring a friend. And then when they trickle down and don't come, then I asked existing people.

Chalzy Help: Yeah, yeah. So some fresh blood in there, huh? Are you getting any business from these things?

Chris LaFay: So my second content day, I met a guy that does fractional CMO work and I got two leads from him. Within the last month, my video crew has gotten about three leads from the four content days that we've done. One of my other partners got a lead from the last one that we did, and I had two leads also from people who want me to bring my content day concept to their event and meet all their friends. So in short, yes, I've gotten a couple of actual tangible dollar bills out the door and proposals. But also I've been. There's been new doors open that I wasn't expecting to open. So so far, and the given that these things cost me like 400 bucks, my video crew cost me 600. My the place is either free or costs another 400 bucks. Split that between two people. 500 To meet 16 plus people and give them free video. Like get more hits with that than 500 in LinkedIn ads.

Chalzy Help: 100%. These things are expensive. Useless.

Chris LaFay: Yeah.

Chalzy Help: That I found in the past.

Chris LaFay: So I actually created a. Create a little vibe coated app. I called it Atlanta Marketing Events dot com. I dropped it in the. The Slack channel. And so whenever people ask to be kept in the loop, I'm like, go sign up here.

Chalzy Help: Yeah, yeah.

Chris LaFay: And then when they sign up, they have to tell me what type of person they are. Like if they're an agency, a fractional, they work for somebody. So that if I have events that are targeted to a certain type of person, I don't bombard people with the wrong stuff.

Chalzy Help: Yeah. Segment your list, huh? Yeah. Yeah. Because there's so much noise or Culture. This noise. Noise out there.

Chris LaFay: It was just a little lightweight vibe coated thing. Oh, it's. I could have. I could have spun this up in a mailchimp. Like I could have done this with a HubSpot form even. But I feel like when you go to that and you see the paper texture, the note like thing, like I couldn't have done that quickly with a HubSpot form.

Chalzy Help: Yeah.

Chris LaFay: And there's a feeling to that. And I think when people see that, it looks like a note that I wrote to them. And I was like, that's worth the vibe codedness. And having a little bit of a disconnected system.

Chalzy Help: Oh yeah.

Chris LaFay: To get people to be like, I want to be a part of that.

Chalzy Help: You have it on Vercel, it looks like.

Chris LaFay: Oh yeah. Oh yeah. Everything's on Vercel.

Chalzy Help: Oh no. So easy now you can connect your AI to it easily.

Chris LaFay: You should put your email address in the thingy that I sent you though, because that is the list that I look at at the very beginning when I.

Chalzy Help: The Atlanta Marketing events list.

Chris LaFay: Yeah. It's not an actual honest to God mailing list. I literally open it up, look at people's names, and then send one off. Emails. It's not a newsletter.

Chalzy Help: Okay. It's in your inbox now. One more step as a system manager of this mailing list. I require verification. Check your inbox. Bears beats. Confirm subscribers.

Chris LaFay: The office.

Chalzy Help: Oh, okay. Okay.

Chris LaFay: The way that you were reading it was like you didn't no idea what I was talking about. I was like, come on, come on.

Chalzy Help: All right, Verify. Oh yeah. Let's do this. It's good stuff, man. Good stuff. So what are you using these days? Log code?

Chris LaFay: Oh yeah. I got a whole like second brain pulled up and that. I got. I got my emails funneling into it. I got all my meeting transcripts funneling into it. I have project status reports funneling in. I have all my voice documentation in there. I got all my like LinkedIn posts in there. Blog posts.

Chalzy Help: So you mean the desktop app?

Chris LaFay: Yeah, not co work. I use club code. And then so it has everything that one brain just has everything in it. And then I spin off stuff from.

Chalzy Help: There.

Chris LaFay: And I try as much as I can to do like a morning routine to where I do like slash morning and I run it runs through all my active projects. I do some voice to text and give it like here's the status update across all of them. It tells me there's anything that's missing or if I'm about to miss a deadline or Anything major, it goes through my transcripts and reads them and says like, hey, there could be some content that could be pulled from here and generate some ideas for things. It's pretty dope.

Chalzy Help: Yeah.

Chris LaFay: And I have my whole pipeline, that dev pipeline that I was telling you about earlier.

Chalzy Help: Yeah.

Chris LaFay: As well too, which is not inside of that. It's in its own separate thing. But all the tools that I've built, each of them, I try to have them submit markdown files back. Every time I make major updates in those tools, I have them submit markdown files into the brain so that the brain has an idea of why what each of them do. That's not fleshed out entirely yet. But.

Chalzy Help: Yeah, it's going full. I just set up Hermes, you know. Have you heard hermes?

Chris LaFay: I have.

Chalzy Help: VPs on Hostinger and that's been fun. I could just chat with it on. On Telegram. That's create a bot and you connect your agent to the bot and you can just talk with it because it runs on a vps, so it runs all the time.

Chris LaFay: Huh, that's nice.

Chalzy Help: And then you can say, hey, do this. And it created a dashboard for me. It's finding leads for me. It's doing all this stuff in the middle of the night kind of neat.

Chris LaFay: That's the part that I haven't gotten to yet. Like, I need to. I haven't done anything in terms of like having it deployed, like AI deployed out somewhere else so that it's doing things on my behalf externally. That's a whole. Like, I don't know where to start with that quite yet. So that's the. That's the next thing I need. Like, I would love to actually put all my brain stuff I have up there so that my computers don't have to stay in sync with one one another. So.

Chalzy Help: Yeah. Yeah, definitely VPs. Probably the way to go. Oh, hello. Have you seen my open claw?

Chris LaFay: Yeah, I haven't played around. I haven't played around with it yet, but I've heard. I've heard some of the noise bouncing back and forth.

Chalzy Help: So, yeah, a little. Little scary. And you gotta be careful with these things. Hermes too, but.

Chris LaFay: Oh, 100%. Yeah.

Chalzy Help: It's so. It's nice because if you talk about a brain, it has memory and Hermes remembers everything that you do. Yeah. And it has a Kanban board now. And you can say, you know, do I want this type of project? And it will create its own team to deal with each part of it, break it down, create cards and each of the things, and watch it go through the Camden board as it does stuff, even interact. I mean, it's awesome.

Chris LaFay: Wild, man. It's wild. I'm getting better at telling when we're doing. When I'm doing projects that need multiple things done at one time. I'm getting better about being like, here are five separate attacks. Make sure that you spin off sub agents to do all these things. Don't do them one after the other after the other. They can be done in tandem. Please do them in tandem. So I'm getting better at getting that kind of lined up.

Chalzy Help: A lot of times it'll do its own sub agents. But have you done. Have you told it to spawn a team? And then the team works independently, but they communicate with each other so they don't touch each other's. Mess each other up to the orchestrator, and the orchestrator checks in with them until they're done.

Chris LaFay: I haven't done anything that complex yet to be like, I should push that button. Not push that button, but make that comment. But yeah, I'm. I want to try that out very much so.

Chalzy Help: It's fun.

Chris LaFay: Well, hey, it's almost one. I have a sales call in about 35 minutes I need to do a little bit of research on, but.

Chalzy Help: Cool, man. Good luck.

Chris LaFay: Thanks for hanging out this afternoon, man.

Chalzy Help: I appreciate it. Yeah, yeah, maybe I'll come to one of your events.

Chris LaFay: As you should. I'll be. I'll be reaching out probably in the next. Probably month or so, once I get the July or August one slated. Cool beans, man. I'll catch you later, bro.

Chalzy Help: See you around. Be good.

Chris LaFay: Bye.