Why franchising is the faster way to a business success + What is Award-Winning Publicity?
Episode 24: Why franchising is the faster way to a business success with Max Emma. http://www.franchisewithmax.com What is Award-Winning Publicity? with Liz H Kelly http://www.awardwinningpublicity.com
Full transcript
SPONSOR MESSAGE - TICKETPORTX SPONSOR MESSAGE Introducing TicketportX multi-day events. Hosting a festival, seminar, conference, tournament, or event series. No more manually sending tickets 24 hours later. No more scrambling to issue comps and catch up with attendees. With TicketportX, everything happens in real time. Sell tickets for multiple events on one page. Create ticket packages across different dates. Manage entire event series from a single storefront. And spend less money marketing multiple links and event pages. One platform, one link, endless possibilities. TicketportX, powering your brand, your events, and your growth. INTERVIEW 1 - MAX EMMA / FRANCHISE WITH MAX PAUL WRIGHT & MAX EMMA And welcome back to the Link Thru Social Podcast. Today we have a special guest with us, Max Emma. Now, Max is a certified franchise executive with over two decades of hands-on experience in the franchise world, from providing bookkeeping services to over 100 franchise brands across the U.S. through bookkeeping to build his own bookkeeping franchise to guiding aspiring entrepreneurs as a franchise consultant. Max is a seasoned expert in all things franchising. His journey is anything but conventional. As an immigrant from the former Soviet Union, Max arrived in the U.S. over 32 years ago, barely speaking English, but through his own creative know-how, he mastered the language, graduated with honors, and climbed the ranks of corporate America, only to leave it all behind 23 years ago to follow his entrepreneurial calling. Max, welcome to the show. Thank you, Paul. It's great to be here. So, Max, your website is FranchiseWithMax.com. before we get started about your business, let's hear a little bit more about your personal background and your journey here. It's it's quite a story. Well, I've been here, as you said, now it's already 33 years. Time flies when you're having fun. I came with my family to California from Soviet Union just collapsed, and then we left the country within a year. So it was a great experience, but scary because you know we came to a known country. Yes, I didn't come by myself, but I was the only one who was barely speaking English. And as soon as we crossed the border, I was 18, and I just became the head of the family because I was the only one speaking even a little bit of English. So all the appointments, all the paperwork, everything, DMV and all the other stuff was on me. And I came with my parents and two of my grandmothers. So, like it was literally I was a baby, and then at GFK, when they were stamping our passports, I became an adult. So that was very interesting experience by itself. And also when I was leaving Russia, I was living forever, like I was saying goodbye to my childhood, to my friends. God only knew if we're gonna see each other. Thank God we kept in touch, and you know, we're still meeting in different parts of the world. I had my big 50s and I had people from eight countries, you know, come and you know join me. It was it was unbelievable. So we're still close friends with some people, but again, when you're 18 and you leave the childhood behind, it's interesting. But nevertheless, I found a job and then got my degree, worked for corporate America, and after four years realized that corporate life was not for me. And I left a very well-paid job with benefits they were gonna pay for my master's degrees, but I just couldn't take it anymore. And I left basically, they weren't challenging me enough, and that was making me very, very depressed because I was looking, I was young and eager, and you know, a lot of people would say, Well, they're paying you well, just sit tight and do nothing and get paid. But I'm like, I couldn't do it because the time was going so slow, and it just the eight hours work shift seemed like you know, 18 hours, and day after day, and I probably was busy a week out of a month, and I understand I was responsible for financial office for international offices for one of the largest employers in San Diego. So without me working hard one week, they would not be able to close their books at the end of the month. But once I was done, there were some special projects here and there, but there was nothing for me to do, and the accounting department was 300 plus people, and I was just one of the financial analysts for the company. So, anyway, and that's what happened. I left, joined a small family business, grew it from 396 employees, and it was a construction business, and we were growing like crazy until the recession of 2008-09 hit, and it hit the entire world. But US got hit really, really hard, and they stopped building track homes, and that's what we were doing, and we lost everything. So, with one baby at home and one on the way, we declared not only business bankruptcy but personal as well. Because in well, still, when you have a construction business, you have to personally guarantee all the equipment. And that's what happened. We had a lot of equipment and zero income, so we restructured all the debt, but we just didn't have any money to pay this debt, and you know, then opened another company, was more successful, sold it. And while I was at it, we understood the need of bookkeeping services. And look, I have finance degree, bachelor in finance. My wife at a time, who became my co-founder of bookskeeping, she had masters in accounting. So I was the village idiot with my bachelor. she and I both understood the importance of finance. We both knew how to do it. We were so busy growing the businesses, we just never had time to do it. So that's how bookskeeping started. That led to franchising, that led to you know, opening the franchise consulting on code main entrance. So, franchise with Max is just my digital business card. So people can go in on franchisevismax.com and choose if they want to talk to me about bookkeeping for their business, bookkeeping franchise, or if they want to choose from over 600 different franchises. By the way, my services for that are completely free. We only get paid if somebody buys a franchise. So once they do, we get commission from a franchiseor, which we share with our candidates, and also we pay for nine months of their sales training. Very interesting, very interesting journey. And I can certainly relate to the 2008-09 debacle that happened across the world and personally was affected and pivoted into this digital media social media business around that same time as well. so I'd like to focus first of all on franchising. you've you've amassed quite a business here. And you seem to say that buying a franchise can be safer, a safer way to start a business. Tell me a little bit more about that. Sure. I always say that look, you can be the best cook and eventually you will succeed opening your own restaurant. But let's say your pizza is the best in the world, but once you open a restaurant, you stop being in the food business. It's yes, food is still important, but especially if we're talking about quick service restaurants like McDonald's, Burger King, and such, you are going into people's business. I don't know if you were, but average size of single McDonald's is 50 plus employees. So, and most of the people own more than one and all three, four. So if you own three of them, you're employing 150 plus people. So when people get sick, there are people's issues, people sue, and you have to deal with that. I mean, food is easy because McDonald's tells you exactly how to cook the meal. I mean, they ship you everything, so you just have to follow the rules, and but it's it's a little bit different, so you can figure it out yourself. But how many pies you're gonna burn if it's a pizza place before you figure out the best one and how many pieces of pepperoni to put in. a lot of people can open bookkeeping business, I believe. But what franchisor, good franchisor teaches you, it's not just what to do, what not to do. Trust me, I've done so I made so many mistakes that I'm proud of because for me they were not mistakes, they were learning experiences. But that's what I relate to our franchisees, but during training. I'm like, look, you can do it, but I would not do it if I were you because of this, this, this, and this. Plus, when you buy a franchise, you get a support system, you get other franchisees that you can pick up the phone and call at any time and deal with issues on top of dealing with corporate team, and also you get the buying power. For example, last year book skipping was number eight in the country of number subscriptions for Intuit Managed and Sold. So we are getting huge discounts. So these discounts are passed on to our franchisees, they would not be able to get it on their own if they would contact Intuit because Intuit wants to work you know with bigger companies, it's easier for them. So that's just one of the examples. Amazing. So what's what's hot in franchising today, right now, is there a certain genre or type of business that's really hot in the franchising world? Well, depends when this episode is gonna air. I mean, it might change on a daily basis, but now I'm joking, of course. But I remember very well I was at a franchise conference about a month before lockdown in 2020, and everybody was talking about fitness franchises. You had to be an idiot not to open a fitness franchise. Everybody was doing it. It was literally, I mean, more than tens, probably hundreds of them, new ones coming in, of course, the existing ones, and everybody was so upbeat about it. And then guess what happened? All the gyms got closed for a while. The big guys they survived because they were A, they had capital, B, they were able to create online programs and all of this stuff, and waited it out and then opened slowly with six feet and everything. But a lot of these franchises never opened, or the ones that opened had to close, they just could not do it, or and the owners were so young in terms of like when they opened the locations, so they were not able to sustain the crisis. And look, I'm not talking about all the franchises, some did make it, but right now there are still new fitness franchises coming in, but not in these numbers. So a few years ago, the senior care was popular in the US and Canada, it still is the in-home care, but right now the problem is it's very hard to find the talent who is doing it. Just to give you an idea, there are 64 registered franchises in the space in the United States, all the one-offs. So that means the huge competition going for the same talent. Yeah, there might be enough seniors and the number is going up, but who is gonna be doing the service? Without that, you can't really get a robot to go to somebody's house. This is AI proven business if you have access to people, right? So to answer your question right now, the hardest one is home services, something that is AI proof. So I just came back from a franchise conference where there were 19 brands presenting to us, telling us about their franchises, and it's anything from painting to gutter cleaning to electrical work, plumbing, all of that, they use a lot of AI to speed up the work, call centers, schedule jobs, but there are still people going to do the work. like in two, three years. I strongly believe, and it's not my thought, that the hottest specialty will be welders and such. Because right now, if you are a professional, you can easily make $150,000 a year. and then I just read an article in Wall Street Journal that the electrician who specializes in data centers are making 300,000 US dollars a year. 300,000, yes, and they have a shortage, they cannot find enough people because data centers need 15, 20 people on a job of that qualification. Yes, you're not gonna get there overnight, but you can get it just by doing your work and being good, and they train on a job. I mean, not a lot of lawyers make $300,000 a few years in, and you can become an apprentice at the age of 18. So a lot of young kids right now choose not to go to college because I'm sure you know, Paul, it's becoming harder and harder to find a job after college right now, especially on the junior. Yes, lawyers, junior lawyers cannot find a job. The mature ones, yes, they move the companies. Yeah, I still want to talk to an attorney when I ask for an advice, not to a bot. But I know that my attorney is using AI to do the prep work that saves me money, and that actually cuts my time with the junior staff, so they don't need that, and that goes for a lot of different specialties. So, right now, home services is absolutely the hottest because people do still need a plumber to go inside their house to fix. I mean, the average age of a home in the United States is 44 years, 44. So stuff breaks, and there are what I believe don't quote me, but I think it's 26 and a half million homes in the United States. So the market is huge, especially in the rural areas. There is not enough supply of talent and supply of companies. So people are killing it, and there are a lot of markets available and there are different opportunities. And the coolest part, they don't want you to be an electrician or a painter or whoever when you buy a franchise, they want you to be a business person, they prefer you not to be because they don't want you to do the work. Because if you're buying yourself a job, it's stupid. I'll be the first one to advise my candidates not to buy a job for you know 70, 80, 100,000. Right. Good point. Amazing point, and i just love the direction this is going because skilled labor is just something that is so valuable right now because AI is helping us plan our business and potentially grow our business, but we need that skilled labor to actually the business they're offering welders and plumbers. how are you using AI in your business? Well you're keeping up with the latest innovations. We talk about it every week, it's moving at a speed of light. what are you doing in your business, Max? how I use AI or how or how I use AI or how do I want to use AI? They're two different questions. Well, let's start with how you currently use AI. How I'm using it? I'm by maximizing my time, making my time more efficient. And look, I right now ChatGPT and Claude are like my twin brothers, and I still use both. Depends for what projects. I don't clearly don't use them enough, but that saves me time. I'll give you an idea. For example, when we develop a new territory for a new market for book skipping franchise, and a candidate lives in certain zip codes, it was taking hours to go and see, okay, let's do this towns, let's do this cities, let's combine the zip codes. Like our territory is half a million people. I mean, it's easy when you just give them the entire city, but what if they only want part of it? Like, for example, San Diego is 3.2 million people in the county, so that's about six territories available. So somebody says, I live in this zip code and I want my headquarters to be here. So now we have to build it out. So, anyway, before, yes, there are softwares that do that, but we are, for example, doing it around businesses and not, I'm sorry, around people, not around businesses. So, and then a lot of softwares are very expensive. So, what was taking hours now with the help of AI takes literally minutes. I still have, I mean, it takes literally 10, 15 minutes instead of five, six hours. Yeah. And because I'm responsible for it, yes, I do have employees, but it was always my project. And it was a fun project, but five, six hours. I still send it to my employees afterwards and then have human to check to make sure that it makes sense. And sometimes you know, AI makes small mistakes, but they're like really small, like, hey, zip this zip code is not attached to that zip code, and then somehow AI is missing it. Okay, fine, we'll address it. So let's say it's 15 minutes, and then it's another call it 30 minutes of a human. I mean, it's still under an hour. And I'm a CEO of three companies, I have teams in all of them, but it opens up so much time. I mean, trust me, I would rather go to the gym or spend time with my loved ones than you know, sit and do that useless work. That's nothing they can be out of it. So that's how I use it. Now we are trying to use AI as much as possible to speed up the process. And for example, in bookkeeping, QuickBooks and other software is already doing a good job. What was taking five, six hours before, now it's taking two, three hours. And we are taking advantage of it. Instead of increasing our prices, we're decreasing them and we're passing on the savings to our clients, and thus we're getting the market share. So for me, AI is a friend. I believe in it. Do I do enough? No. I schedule every day in the morning 30 minutes my AI training. Do I do it every day? No. Am I gonna put myself in the gap that I'm not doing it? Also, no. I'm you're not gonna get like guilt from me right now, but I know it has to be done. And you know, there are some days that I do spend two, three hours training myself. And yeah, it's it's it's good that you're you're doing that. And what about the potential franchise owners that come to you? They're they're going to they've maybe chosen an industry that they want to get into. are they using AI to do some research before even approaching you? Or are you encouraging them to use AI to depending on the type of business that they want to maybe potentially become a franchise owner of? 100%. And I they do both. They do come to us already researching the market. A lot of the time, people make a mistake, they ask general questions from let's say ChatGPT, what business is hot? So, right now, if you ask what business is hot, you're gonna probably get the senior care. But if you don't ask the question, what are the challenges, you won't know about finding the skill talent to do the work. Yes. And then you might come in and you know start looking into that. Yes, if you are smart enough, you will figure it out. But you know, all you have to do is just one ask one extra question from AI. So that's why it's good to come to us. Definitely I'm using AI when you know I talk to candidates. A lot of people, when they come to me, they don't know what they want to do. And that's the most fun because somebody comes in, I want to buy a pizza franchise. My job is to ask where they live and find which pizza franchises are available and give them a list and say, okay, go talk to them. But that's not fun. A lot of people come in, they just left the corporate job and they're ready to do different things, and they might be looking at the swimming school. And at handyman franchise at the same time. Because I know it's unrelated, but people look how fast they're gonna get their money back. I mean, what the time involvement is, where do they want to leave? And do they want it to be Monday through Friday, eight to five job, or do they want it to be you know, seven days a week potential job? Like if you're opening a mitigation company, unless you hire somebody, your phone might ring you know at midnight on Saturday because somebody's flooding and they're calling company after another. They don't care if you sleep or not. And if you don't go now, you're gonna miss this job. Okay, but big franchises, bigger, they have call centers 24 hours. So the call doesn't come to the owner, the caller comes to the call center, and then if it's true emergency call center, we're gonna wake up your crew, and the crew is gonna go there, and you'll deal with the paperwork in the morning. So that's that's very important. It can be a great business, but you know it's gonna be I don't want it. I want to work eight to five Monday through Friday. Like one good business right now is a testing lab for work for workers for drugs, but it's open eight to five Monday through Friday. Nobody's gonna call you on Saturday or Sunday. Hey, I want my employer to get tested for drugs because it just nobody's gonna do it, nobody's gonna wait in line on the weekend. So there is no emergency. Yes, you might stay 15 minutes extra if you're doing the work yourself. If there is a line of people, it's a good problem to have, but nobody's gonna call it a promise. So you have to take all that into the consideration. But yes, AI is a huge part of it. Good. Yeah, it's it's it's big decisions. You're you're either, you know, maybe potentially leaving a corporate job, like you said, or maybe you didn't even have a corporate job. You just had a company or kind of disenfranchised, you know, intended, about you know, working for yourself and wanting to start a different type of business. So there's lots of questions asked. It's not as easy and cut in just choosing a particular genre. So Max, this has been very fascinating and wish everyone to go to FranchiseWithMax.com. Like he mentioned, this is the URL that will all the different types of things Max does, from owning a franchise to buying a bookkeeping franchise and actual bookkeeping services as well. are you also active on social media, Max? So I'm active on LinkedIn. I do we do have posts on all the social media. I'll be honest with you. I have a social media manager who is handling majority of the business post, but LinkedIn is really business related for me. on personal, speaking of social media, I think I wanted to mention that look, I am connecting with my personal friends on Facebook, but on Facebook, everybody who is my friend, my connection, I know them personally. This is just my choice. So I when I put a message, I know that I know everybody. So I have, I don't know, 200 people, I know each one of them. So when they wish me happy birthday, it's not just random people. I do, I haven't, I've met them, we had a drink together or whatever. Some childhood friends, some you know, friends from work, but we are hanging out. LinkedIn, I have 10,000 connections. No, I do not know all 10,000 people, right? But you know, nevertheless, so I use LinkedIn for business, I use Facebook for personal. But what I've started doing about a year ago, and it changed my life. I'm putting a blog on my social media. I don't have access to it from 5 a.m. to 5 p.m. Okay. So that bought so much time for me because I didn't know how I ended up on Facebook and just started scrolling and 30 minutes passed by. And that was doing between the meetings. I'm like, I have time, I'm gonna sit there, but now instead of that, I can do some research or reply to the email. So that was a huge life hat for me. Yeah, you can get lost in those tunnels very quickly. 100%. Yes, yes. Well, Max, I really appreciate you coming on the show. I'd love to have you on again in the future. And again, everyone, go to FranchiseWithMax.com and wish you all the best and you enjoy the summer ahead. Thank you both. Same to you. Okay, well, the Link Thru Social podcast will be back after this short message. SPONSOR MESSAGE - SMART POST APP SPONSOR MESSAGE Tired of stressing over what to post on social media? Meet Smart Post App, your all-in-one solution to create, schedule, and grow your content effortlessly. In just a few taps, you can generate engaging posts, stay consistent, and keep your audience coming back for more. No more guessing, no more burnout, just smarter content faster. Whether you're a business owner, creator, or entrepreneur, Smart Post App offers both premium and pro plans. In addition, we have new features that have been recently added that include instantly viewing public links to your posts on any network, weekly view allowing you to plan hour by hour, account groups, group your accounts to save time and simplify your workflow, and a desktop version which offers a simpler way to stay consistent. Start posting Smarter Today at SmartPostApp.com. Smart Post App, because your content should work for you. INTERVIEW 2 - LIZ H. KELLY / GOODY PR PAUL WRIGHT & LIZ H. KELLY Welcome back to the Link Thru Social Podcast. Well, we have a really good guest for us today. She over the last 20 years of PR and marketing experience, Goody PR, founder Lindsay Kelly, has secured top media coverage for clients including show, CNN, BBC World News, NPR, and in Time People and Forbes magazine. Kelly is a John Hopkins University Kerry School, a business graduate, autism advocate. So welcome to the show. Well, thank you so much. I really appreciate you having me. And I'm excited to share. I love social media and the whole impact on traditional PR. Wonderful, wonderful. So before we get started, maybe I just briefly touched on your background. Just give a little bit more information about yourself and then we can get into our interview. Absolutely. So let's see, I think for your audience, one of the most relevant things is before I started my PR company, Goody PR, I worked for MySpace, and MySpace, it was 2007 to 2008 when I worked there, was the hottest social media platform. Yes. And I was running the campaigns for Toyota and University of Phoenix, which were $10 million each. And it, I learned a lot there because people were trying to figure out social media, and then when I got laid off in 2008 at the beginning of the Great Recession, I said, okay, I'm gonna start my own PR agency. And as part of what I've been doing, I also have taught digital media at UCLA Extension. I'm based in Los Angeles, and so that was a nice additional job to have, and I learned a lot there because you know social media changes every day. So currently I actually hire people to do my social media for my I have some book awards, they're called the Goody Business Book Awards, and I hire somebody to do that because she's on top of it every day, while I'm doing more my personal brand. So that's just a little more about my background. I grew up in Baltimore and lived in DC, and I just I love everything creative and everything media. Wonderful. That's wonderful. So your agency is Goody PR. And so we talk about this every week. How are you incorporating AI into business? Great question. How am I incorporating AI to my business? So I do write about that in my new book. I have this new book, Award-winning publicity, and there's a whole digital marketing chapter, and one of the topics is AI. And the way I use AI, number one, is for research, and number two, I create graphics, and let's see, number three, pictures, I'll enhance pictures. But what I won't do is I won't use AI to write a press release or write my book because I feel like if you get AI to write, then is it's not really your work. And so it's a great research tool. That's the way I recommend it. It also can help you enhance your process, but I really don't like using it for writing. On social media, I've used it for some of the graphics, like that caricature option when everybody was doing that. I had fun with that. I think I did two or three of them. I think we all did. And then my favorite tool, which I'll share as a publicist and founder of Goody PR, is Notebook LM. And Notebook LM is something that was created, I think, by Google as a study guide for students. So you can put a whole book in there, a PDF of a book, and it will come back with a 20 to 25 minute audio summary. It will also give you an executive summary, it will give you a QA, it will give you a slide presentation if you want it, and an infographic. So when I get a new client with a new book, I will put it in Notebook LM so that basically I can I can figure out the basics of the book really fast and try to find the messaging that then I'm gonna go pitch to the people I pitch are TV, radio, print, and podcast hosts so that I can get my clients earn media interviews. But so that's how I'm using AI in the big picture. an example of research might be I might say, who are the top podcast hosts in the social media space? And then your name might pop up. Or I hope so. I hope so. I mean, I love I love the name of the show, Link Thru Social Podcast. And then I think I think I've also used it for who are the fast company reporters writing about leadership, because there's a lot of fast company reporters, just like any media outlet like CNN, but you have to find the people writing about your niche. And even though I have access to databases that I pay a lot of money to have access to that have 600,000 contacts across the country, they're they're not always in that database, so AI can help you find people who might be hiding. Yes, that's right. So I have to ask you're you're in the PR business. What is the biggest mistake that people make when trying to promote their brand? Great question. The biggest mistake that people make when they're trying to promote their brand is that they don't show a humble or vulnerable side of them, and they just want to talk about how great they are. Yeah. You know, I love telling this story about how I failed second grade. I was seven years old, we didn't get our report cards, so I marched down to the principal's office and said, Where are my report cards? And the principal said, Can you sit down? We've been meaning to talk to you because you're failing everything. And they didn't say it exactly that way, but you're failing everything. So do you want to go back to first grade now or repeat second grade? And I was seven, and I immediately said, I want to repeat second grade, and it was the best decision I ever made, but I didn't know it at the time. And of course, my mother's like, don't tell that story because she's embarrassed. But you know, it was a humbling moment, but it then made me the oldest in the class, so I was the first to get my driver's license. I had a serious boyfriend, and I became president of the class and captain of the lacrosse team. So sometimes you just don't know what those humbling moments will lead to. And those are the types of stories that I try to encourage my clients to do. I call it, I learned how to fail forward and how to deal with rejection, which I deal with every day. And a lot of my clients, you know, they're proud. Of course, they're proud of what they do, but that's not going to help the audience because they don't want to hear an ad. They want to hear tips or a story that they can relate to. Exactly. So what are some of your maybe the top three media training tips for people to sign on TV, radio, and of course? I absolutely so the top three media training tips that are in my book, Award-winning publicity, and also I coach my clients on this, are number one, 80% of your communication is body language. So it's a very small percent listening to the words. So you got to make sure you smile, you look good, you feel good, you have energy. When I was doing TV interviews, I guess this would be number two. I did not do this today, but they would say you have to get up two hours before a TV interview so that you don't have bags under your eyes and you're awake. And let me tell you, when you have a 6 a.m. interview and you have to get up at 4 a.m., that is brutal. Yes. And then my third tip, which is really throughout award-winning publicity, is use the rule of threes, which is talk in threes, which we're doing right now. Because if you give three tips or three key points, it's a lot easier for people to absorb that versus if you're like, oh, let me tell you the top 10 tips. That is too many. People's brain gets overwhelmed. And so use the rule of threes. I love it. I love it. So I just want to get a little off topic because I mentioned off the top of the show that you're an autism advocate. And I'm I'm very interested to know a little bit about that. that's near and dear to me. And I just wanted to check in with you on what you're doing. Well, thank you for asking because autism is near and dear to me too, and I have a loved one with autism, and I also, because of that, have learned so much and built a network, and I go to a lot of autism events. there is a woman I can name, her name is Danny Bowman, and she's on the show Love on the Spectrum. And yes, yes, I'm familiar with that show, yes. Yeah, and I met her about 15 years ago, and she was a lot younger, and I met with her family, and they gave me lots of insights for what my family was going through because we had never had anybody in the family with autism that we knew of, and we were all learning. And Danny Bowman was super helpful, and then I did some PR work for her. She is a rock star, she has trained. I lost count of the number, it was 600 people with autism, how to do animation and graphics, and then she takes films to Comic Con every year, and I would go down to Comic-Con and do videos and post them on social media. So it's it's great. And then part of the proceeds of award-winning publicity go to autism charities. So I wonderful. I nomin I rather donate every year to autism charities because it's a it's a big community. It's one in is it one in sixty-eight that I think has autism now. That's yeah, that's a staggering number. You know, social media people often get a rap things that are getting posted. You can do positive things with social media as well, and to bring awareness to important things at all. So I'm I'm really happy that you're you're an advocate and you are getting it out there through your PR company through social media, and that's so admirable that you're donating from the proceeds to your book. So let's just give the website out. It's AwardWinningPublicity.com, and that would will take you to your site where you can find your book. And why don't you tell us just before we wrap things up here where we can find you on social media as well? Absolutely. So goodie PR GoodyPR.com is the main website, and all our social media links are on that website. But the easiest way to follow me is at Liz H. Kelly. The H is important because Liz Kelly's like Liz Smith. So Liz H. Kelly. And I just I just want to say that there is a there are a lot of video marketing tips in award-winning publicity because that is very important to me. And I have done, I don't know, probably a thousand videos. And when I did the videos at Comic-Con, I did one of Hunger Games, the cast, and it got over a million views. So I'm very proud of that. Oh, you should be, absolutely. I can I can't wait for the Link Thru Social Podcast to have a million views. We're getting a few thousand, which is pretty good. we just got started, so it's it's going. But that's that's that's wonderful, Liz. Well, I really appreciate you taking the time to join us today. And in the future, I would love to have you back on the show again. And just let everyone know that go to GoodyPR.com and also award-winning publicity.com and follow Liz at Liz H Kelly on all the social media platforms. Liz, certainly a pleasure. Thank you once again for joining us here on the Link Thru Social Podcast. Well, thank you so much, Paul, and thank you to all the listeners out there, and good luck getting your story out there. Wonderful. Well, the lit the Link Thru Social Podcast will be back right after this short message. SPONSOR MESSAGE - TICKETPORTX SPONSOR MESSAGE You've worked hard to build your audience. So why send your customers somewhere else? Introducing white label digital storefronts from TicketportX. Now you can process tickets, registrations, donations, merchandise sales, and collect valuable customer data directly on your website or custom landing page. 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