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Cut the tie to anything holding you back from success. Welcome to the Cut the Tie podcast. Hi. I'm your host, Thomas Helfrich. And in each episode, we bring you real entrepreneurs that really overcame challenges on their journey to become successful. We look at the impact, the moment, how it affected everything in their lives. Follow us on Apple, Spotify, and YouTube. Now let's meet our guest on Cut the Tie podcast.
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Welcome to Never Been Promoted. Hello. I'm your host, Thomas Helfrich. We are here to help you cut the tide, all the shit holding you back so you can unleash your entrepreneur, become the best version of yourself, actually, just beyond entrepreneurship. Part of what we do is bringing guests on today. We're gonna be joined by Casey O'Toole, the founder of Linky Bot AI . We're gonna get into the weeds on LinkedIn and how he spammed no. He doesn't. I'm just kidding. We're gonna talk about how automation AI can come together actually with a bit of a class, if you will, and function and strategy. Casey's got a really good background in automation, so this will be a great healthy conversation given my twenty years of consulting on intelligent automation and having a LinkedIn marketing agency. I'm ready to go to the mat with him on this one. Let's go fit. It'll be fun. Listen. Thank you guys for listening. Really, our we wanna create more mission, more entrepreneurs in this world. I want you to get better at entrepreneurship. This shit's hard. And I want you to, you know, just, learn from our guests what they've learned along the way and how to leverage some of their technologies or their services to help you get better. Hit that follow button. I know I say it in all the promos, but that really matters on the Apple, Spotify, podcast site, or even YouTube subscribe because you get the latest stuff. It helps the guests get their message messages out there and helps us kinda grow our mission. Alright. Enough shameless plugs. Let's bring on mister Casey to the to the stage. Hello, Casey. How are you, man?
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What's going on, Thomas?
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It's cool. You know, it's great. You're, you're in Costa Rica, man. That's a little too that's probably too little too Mexican how I said that. You're in Costa Rica. That's probably better. Costa Rica. Pure life. That's right. I spent my did my my customary eight days and had the visions of moving there, and I'm like, then then my family shot that down. They like Atlanta and the traffic that's here, I guess. No. I it would be a change. So so you live in Costa Rica. You're from and you moved from California. Correct?
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Correct. Yep. Was living in, Santa Barbara, California for the past fifteen or so years, and and, you know, my career was able to let me work anywhere I wanted. We took a couple trips to different countries, had to be in Latin America, and I was like, well, Costa Rica's the one. Pretty simple. People here are super cool, super nice, laid back, and, love it. Absolutely love it. It's a I
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mean, it's a it's a country that is really receptive to to us gringos coming in. And but at the same time, as long as you're not disruptive, like, if you play it cool and you are cool there, they're like, alright. This is great. There's US dollars coming in. People are jiving. Usually, people who move there are kinda more aligned to that, you know, blue zone type of living because Costa Rica is one of the blue zones. Right? It's like a people live long there. The diet's simple. It's really good rice, beans. It's great.
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Yeah. And And and people people like you. I mean, I got I've traveled I've lived in, like, tons of different countries, traveled all across the world, and Costa Ricans like Americans. They like us. And and it's and they're super friendly.
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Yeah. It's it's it's kind of the best of all worlds. So we're not gonna have the Gulf Of Costa Rica? I think they're gonna sorry. I'm getting too topical. By the time this airs, the Gulf Of America may be back to Gulf Of Mexico. We don't know. Yeah. Who knows? We won't even go down that path. We try to avoid politics here, just but it's not not guaranteed. Is well, before we move on to kinda what you're doing with Linky Bot, is Spanish required, or is it something you should learn, or does it is it not super required to live there?
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It depends on where you live. There's communities that are mostly expats, and you can get away with just English there just fine. It definitely helps, though. I mean, you pay a gringo tax if you start speaking in English with people, so you wanna learn Spanish just for quite a few reasons. I like that. The gringo tax. And you happily pay it, which is crazy.
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Let's get into a little bit. So, Linky Bot AI . You you're you're focusing on LinkedIn. I like the idea. I mean, LinkedIn's become very it's it's obviously the business network. I love it. We we we've tried everything on LinkedIn. And I mean, legal, illegal, immoral, moral, ethical, nonethical, legit, not legit. Just in the last five years to see what works and what doesn't. And so we can get into that. Give me give me the ADHD hook three fourths way through your story about LinkyBot, and we're gonna back in how you got there. What's what's the hook? What what do you guys do really well?
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So we are the first company that has been able to integrate a twenty four seven AI sales assistant directly into LinkedIn's DM system. So now our system can not only automate the connection requests and the follow-up messages, but then the AI is triggered once it responded to text a reply. And then it takes that reply within context of the conversation, generates a custom message to send back into LinkedIn, and it's always on. So it's a yeah. And then you can qualify them, have it book appointments, have it go to landing pages, whatever you want. But we we train all all of our AI assistants uniquely on each of our unique clients, so it kinda stays within parameters. It's it's it's pretty crazy.
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I mean, that that is crazy too. And we can get into this. I I'd love to see how you've addressed, you know if you look in your DMs, right, of of LinkedIn, and let's say someone has sent you 15. Okay. That's extreme. Five. And you've never replied, but you finally got hooked into something they said and you look and you see five unanswered DMs. I almost always dismiss the one I got hooked on because it's like, oh, they just found a way finally to break through. How does your AI maybe and we're gonna back into kinda how you got there. But I'm curious just in the context of that. How do you guys avoid that sequencing to avoid that appearance of it's just spam?
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Yeah. So that's a great question, and we are going into, like, the strategy and the different strategies between automation and automation with AI. Because the strategy with automation typically is you need to fit your entire value prop message within that second message, which is, you know, you create the rapport, you offer value, and you ask for business, and you have a link. Now you get those enough times, and it's just white noise. Right? No one really responds to them. You don't get much kind of activity. But with AI, because it replies to people on your behalf, now the strategy can completely change. And the way that we approach it now is we simply do our research. We figure out who our target audience is. We determine what their pain points are, and then we simply ask a poignant question that is, like, directed at their pinpoints, which kind of establishes our authority, kind of shows that we've done our research, and we just get them to respond by asking a question. You know? Have you ever, used an AI sales assistant to generate appointments for you? Or how do you deal with this? And that's how you get them to engage. So from there, you then have the AI, qualify, convert, and all that stuff. So, yeah, the strategy is much more effective, with AI.
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So let so it's somebody like myself who has, a company called Instantly Relevant. Right? So Instantly Relevant, we do LinkedIn social media management. So we would maybe use your technology in the context of also optimizing profile or creating their content because it's part of the strategy. You gotta have the package. You're a part of an overall LinkedIn marketing strategy. So we would manage that piece for them, let's say. But I also have, obviously, cut the tie and never been promoted. So we go through and find podcast guests there. We find people who might be interested in the mastermind. Can your system segregate and I assume you're using a sales navigator hook of some kind of lead list. Okay. So you use sales navigator. So I can segregate segregate my brand and messaging and AI flow based on that that because I have three brands effectively that I use my personal network for to go market to. Is that what yours can do? Can it separate the the the messaging sequencing based on the list?
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Yeah. So you could segment your audience based on kind of, like, what your goal is to achieve with that audience, And then you could then create unique AI assistance that are kind of oriented towards helping you achieve that goal for that audience. So, yeah, absolutely. If you wanted to have one AI assistant that's, for one campaign, that's kind of directed towards getting people to sign up for your your mastermind groups or your instantly relevant. Whatever you want, you can kind of create separate campaigns for each of those and have unique AI assistance for all of them. Yeah. That's great.
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So let's back up a little bit. So establishing where you're going with this because I think I think it's a cool thing. I've been I've tried a lot of technologies. They've all kind of fallen short, or they've gotten too AI ish, if you will. Mhmm. Are you guys built upon the OpenAI platform, or do you have a different LLM behind it?
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Nope. It's OpenAI, kinda tried and true. It's kinda like a stack of kinda third party software, but, but we offer it as a get done for you service. So we're we're we're we're launching, like, a white label so people can kinda do it themselves, and I'll help coach them through it. But most of our clients, they don't wanna have to, like, you know, get behind the scenes. They're like, all I want are booked are qualified conversations with, like, qualified
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people. No. I I get it. Listen to me. I have a team in The Philippines that does this for me, and I I love them for it. And I I keep saying I'd rather have them just work on internal marketing. So if I could find a, hey. I'll sell it. And you guys basically act as my team to go execute for the for the customer, and I'm just the manager. I'm a % behind that because I don't have to add labor cost ever. It's just included in you know, they don't know it's your stuff, and it's like, hey. We're gonna do this, and we use AI to do it. And you tweak it, and they get a account manager on your side. I don't I'm just the billing. Yep. I'm I'm a % fine with that because that's a great model. I love that. And now you don't even need to pay, you know, labor cost. Now you're just paying API costs. Right? Alright. And I'm not paying it. They are. So it's just to me, it's like, you know, you're you're charging a hundred. I'm I'm saying, hey. For we're gonna manage well, because you had you had value around it. Right? So it doesn't work if we do straight white label, just to be fair. If for those looking to, hey. How do I use a white label? You need to add value to the equation. Otherwise, they can just go write the linky bot. The idea is that we manage that, plus we optimize, plus we run your business page, and we do some other pieces. And you're building a list for them, and you're doing some other stuff, to help it set up. And then you're also refactoring it with it. So you do need to put a management layer in there to some level. True. And otherwise, you know and it's also it's the value add you should be because what's the strategy and some other pieces to make the AI work right. So alright. So back up. What did you go back in time. Let's go let's go to the den. That's where we're going, people. That's the murder scene in the movie ahead of time that you're getting ready to go see if how did he talk about you. How how did you get started in as an entrepreneur?
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Yeah. I mean yeah. I I didn't go to, like, LinkedIn lead generation school. That's for sure. So I Yeah. What he does is just wasted their money, to be fair. Yeah. No. It's, so, honestly, it kind of is a really strange way how I got here. But I went to graduate school, and I got a degree in data science. And I have a lot of experience in, like, systems integration, throughout that process. And I got out of grad school, got a job at Gallup Consulting, just putting together PowerPoint presentation. It wasn't good. Got fired from my job, at UC, UC Irvine, being their senior research analyst. Didn't like it. Then I got into real estate because Can you back up? You got fired?
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Yeah. So I didn't have to cut that. I I I didn't Otherwise, you continue. But whenever I hear someone admit they got fired as opposed to laid off, I always say I gotta have to leave. No one's ever actually officially fired. But what did you do to get fired? I didn't know what I was doing.
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I I I'm at that time, I was an incredible salesperson. And on the interview, I showed them some project I did in grad school, like, how I did this, like, quantitative analysis on the big dataset. And they're like, oh, this guy knows what he's doing. Well, it's less hiring, but I don't I don't know what a pivot table was. I didn't know I didn't know, like, the basics. And so they're like, you don't know what a pivot table is? I'm like, I know the concept, but, no. I don't know what it is. Wrote an AI to do all this. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I know. It was, like, fifteen years ago. But yeah. So it was that that was a fun experience. Then I was, like, living in Santa Barbara and, on a nonprofit salary because I'm working for a nonprofit at the time. And I'm like, Sean, which who's my brother? I'm like, I can't live here on this salary. Like, what should I do? And he kinda helped me, and he's like, well, join my real estate practice. Like, I could use some help, like, you know, and and you have a good background. You're personable, all this stuff. I'm like, real estate? Gosh. I have this, like, degree, this fancy degree. I'm not I'm not getting into real but I did. I got into real estate, and I was selling houses for, like, first, you know, three or four years. But I did not like having to do all the things that realtors do to generate business, like going to networking events, cold calling, door knocking. And I'm like, there's gotta be a better way. Right? And so, I was using some of my background in kind of systems integration automation, and, I started generating my own leads just through cold email. Got a list of, confirmed homeowners. I sent out an email sequence, got them to fill out a form, then I, you know, made my first, like, four or five sales from automated emails. And so I'm like, this is way easier. Let's kinda implement automation through every aspect of our business. So yeah. Then I kinda stumbled upon LinkedIn as, like, a incredible channel for this after a, like, home buying presentation. We used to do, like, home buying presentations at local companies. Mhmm. And after each one, I would then, at the time, manually connect and message with every single employee at that company via LinkedIn. And I'd copy and paste, hey. We'll we'll give you a credit towards closing costs. We'll let us help you buy or sell a home. And we got, you know, lots of deals from that approach. Then I stumbled upon the automation side of it. I'm like, okay. This is a gold mine. Now we're gonna be able to do this at scale, and then we kinda build a company around it. So that's why I kinda stumbled into LinkedIn. It's like I've done, like, a LinkedIn lead generation company towards realtors, helping them generate leads, for the past, like, seven or eight years. So that's kinda how I got into LinkedIn. And now with AI, it just, like, opens up so many more doors because
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I can train it on any business, on any person, on any anything because Well, I mean, yeah, you can give it yeah. I mean, I love the idea of that because then you can really load it up so it never comes out of brand. And And if you don't have any answers and you can say, listen. If if I don't know the you know, like yeah. I mean, some people are if it's a good AI, some of them are okay with that. They're kinda like, oh, that's kinda cool. But if it's a shitty one, they're like, oh, get this out of my inbox. And so a big part of LinkedIn too, right, is I have a huge network or so. Not huge, but 35,000 people followers. Let's call it 30,000 connections. Though I would like to go through and be like, hey. Who never engages? Because that's the one metric, by the way. I'm just going to sidebar on this one here a minute. I think you could probably figure it out in the data you could pull from LinkedIn. But I'd be a great tool, but LinkedIn does punish you if you do this. I get rid of, like, a thousand connections a month who I think aren't interacting or I don't think they have any relevance. And it kinda kills your engagements. Our engagement is always getting murdered because we're, like, removing mass connections. But it's like, I'm trying to build a relevant network. I wish LinkedIn gave me, like, hey. These 10,000 people haven't interacted with your post in whatever, you know, in six months or they're not even be really online. I would be like, just drop them. Like, like, get rid of them as a connection then because I don't need that. Yeah. I I know it's because there's tools that allow you to remove connections, but I'm doing it based on, like, I don't need all these people from India. I already it's not really strategic. So, anyway, sidebar. Alright. So I love your background. I love how you've evolved this. Do you have a team that does this, supports this? How how did you kind of develop it, you know, from because, yeah, I I'm keen on the fact that you lied about your first job. You didn't know what you're doing. So now I'm like, I'm hypersensitive. Does this guy actually know what he's doing? So we gotta
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I mean It's a Fair enough. I mean I mean, I'll tell you what. I I didn't initially know what I was doing. I mean No one ever does. I'm okay with that. Yeah. It's it's it's taken lots of trial and error and, but you eventually get to a point at figuring out what sort of messages resonate, what sort of messages kinda get responses, what sort of profiles get the most engagement, what sort of people. Like, the more you just kinda, like you know, I've I've had over 1,500 clients, and I learned something new from almost each and every one. And so, like, that's kinda helped me build out, like, this whole program where, like, you hit the the nail on the head when you said how important it is to have, like, a good looking LinkedIn profile. You wanna first optimize your profile. You wanna verify your profile, self verification. You need to get sales navigator. You need to learn how to target your audience. You need to see what messaging works best for that audience. There's so much like what I call sharpening the ax that needs to be done before you start chopping down the tree. So yeah. I know. It it's taken time, but, you know, now I could I could confidently say that I'm an expert at this, and, and it's fun. And now it's, like, troubleshooting and, like, figure out what is the best strategy for this person.
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Well, it's funny. So, we we were early three years before ChatGPT became whatever new, we were on their beta. So if if you do anybody listening, if you Google AI nerd, you'll see a fatter version of myself with more more hair. And so because of that status and my years of ex consulting and AI and all the other stuff, you know, in in intelligent automation space, I had early access. And we were doing a lot of this stuff. And I remember one thing, we turned the automation engine on to commenting and DMing, just something that you're similar to doing. And at one point, I read one of them and said something like, my two my dad too also died in a plate crash and and was in the NFL. My dad was alive and was an optometrist. I mean, it was like Oh my gosh. I was like, woah. Turn that off. And so we saw the power of it, but I also saw it quickly. I didn't have the skill set to fine tune that, build it technical, and so we just built services around it. And my idea was and where you guys are is, like, there'll be a lot of really good technical people that'll compete in that space. And as they come forward, I wanna go do the services around that. So that should be part of our core strategy of how we do engagement. It reduces my labor cost potentially, because part of your AI strategy, right, doesn't have to be commenting and driving DMs. Right? It could be very simple. It could be like, just send one DM. This is here's what I do. If you'd like to meet, here's a link. I'm not gonna spam your inbox. Like, it's just straightforward. It's here. And that way and and it seems simplified, but sometimes that works really well because you can go and just like their posts and just not even comment on them. It just draw attention. Do do you see, like, that mix of simplify the AI, and then once they do jump in, then you can have the conversation. But it's it's what I'm referring to is the we we we hinted at it before is the overspamming of automation versus true AI that sits and waits and monitors. One of the problems with services is the follow-up from two months ago or a month ago, and someone jumps back in and the person looking at it has no context. Like, what what was that about? So Yep. Can you talk about that context and, like, if you've left comments, does your thing look at sales navigator notes? Or what does it do to drive context on the conversations? Is it just DM or is it more?
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So yes. So so we we strictly focus on DMs. And so, our system that we created is doesn't do any of, like, the liking of posts or commenting or anything like that. We strictly focus on kind of building that relationship through, like, you know, hyper targeted prospecting and then training the AI on the kind of pain points that these audio this audience is going through and then the solutions that your services would provide. And so and so the engagement that we generate is always authentic, and then it just keeps the conversation going because it knows so much about this particular field. Right? And so, I mean, there's other kind of things you can do too. You can, like, find people who recently viewed your profile, and there's some sort of customization in terms of, if they've interacted with you. But Right. We're we're outreach. We do the lead generation, the initial message, and then the conversation to the appointment.
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So, that's a good point. So, it becomes an expert in it, and it drives it. I I like that, piece of that for sure. What's, like, a service like this? I I'd ask. What what is the kind of tier range of costs? Because it it determines who can use it too.
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Yeah. So it ranges from a thousand dollars a month to $1,500
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a month. Oh, so it's really reasonable from from I mean, that's like a VA doing it full time and missing stuff. So that's not bad. Absolutely. Account or can I if I was an agency, can I go in there and set up multiple LinkedIn accounts? Is that per LinkedIn account that comes in?
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So that's for our done for you service. Oh, wow. So so if we're kind of doing the whole setup and the strategizing and the campaign build outs, So, yeah, it's it's pretty affordable for that. And we're keeping to that price, like, now because we're trying to get, you know, so many clients in to kinda keep making it better and better and better. We'll probably raise the prices in the next couple months. But our white label version is even better if you have the technical abilities to build this out with some coaching, because then it's only, like, a hundred bucks per profile. So you can then stack all of the profiles that you're managing and then
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hundred bucks each. So you That's not bad. So you what what's required on the white label then? So so like, or an individual goes in and they say, hey. I'm gonna just do it myself. They set up their own. Do they buy the coaching from you to help you get the this one done, or is it more, here's all the videos. Watch them. Good luck.
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Yeah. So there's different there's different tiers to that too. But, yeah, you can just get the coaching and the SOPs, and that's like training videos, operating procedures, how to set things up. And then there's the next tier up is more like coaching where you get group coaching, and the highest tier is $2,000 a month where you get two calls with me a month. And I'll be helping you, like, you know, I'll be holding your hand, basically, kind of building this out with you. So but it's it's possible. I mean, it's it's it's basically three software, Zapier, the the LinkedIn slot software, and then GoHighLevel, which is, like, the kinda like the engine behind a lot of this. Yeah. And,
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wait. Wait. How does GoHigh have a level so you're using the there's three things we use. We use GoHighLevel for our email, if you will. Is that how how does how does each of those components work? I understand the Zapier for connecting things, but what what does GoHighLevel have to do with your DM strategy?
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So yeah. So it it doesn't so you don't have to build that out and go high level, but, it's where we've built it out. It it has, like, open it has, like, a great APIs, you know, in and out, webhooks. And so and I and I have a snapshot that I can just send to someone else, and then they would just customize it a little bit. But there's there's not very much heavy lifting on their end if they're using Go high level. And so if you don't have it, then I can provide you with, an account, and we can go that way.
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But then one of the build the is it to build the the the contact list or people who are interested and get them into your funnel? That's your landing page you're sending them to effectively you're recommending or because it sits outside of LinkedIn. So I'm trying to is it is it where you're telling people to use it to sell your service or market or, like, tell me how you're leveraging that as part of this piece.
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So I leverage it more as, like, a just as the the database. Right? And so Gotcha. We store all of our custom fields. Like, we store we have custom field for conversation history. And so when we feed the OpenAI assistant, with the most recent message, we also include the conversation history so that it knows how to respond within context. And all of that's kinda built within GHL, and so
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it kinda all works in conjunction. So, like, we have, like, views after your workload. Contextual data of conversation, but also then that allows you to get them into your mailing list and other things downstream to be more effective. I gotcha. Okay. That's that's the con you're answering the question originally, and I think if anybody's confused, to get the contextual data for AI and you have no DM history, that's hard to give context. It's just knowledge of the problem at that point. And you're saying as you look at go high level, you can also reference other conversations and similar profiles, ideally, to say, contextually, this might be a good way to take this one based on 30 other, 50 other, hundred other profiles that are similar?
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Yes yes and no. So it it's all, like, contact specific. And so one particular contact will have all of that contact's information, their LinkedIn profile, their, the conversation history, their title, their company, all that stuff, including, like, their most recent message. And so when we then feed all of that information into our AI assistant, which then generates a custom message and then sends it back into LinkedIn. So everything's like we don't do much kind of meta analysis using GHL. It's more, kinda qualitative within a specific unique contact profile.
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Got it. Alright. Cool. I I'm interested. I'm definitely someone who's gonna look at this. And it it's interesting. Right? So from a from a business standpoint here, I'm a services marketing agency. There's a lot of agencies that do LinkedIn. One thing I look at as an entrepreneur is, do I even want to be in that business? Because it changes so often. And I still think you always need humans wrapping the services around it. The part of me goes, listen, why don't I just pivot my company just to recommending guys like you? Like, have you list yourself on a directory of and and we verify that you can do what you can do. I'm like, hey. We're pretty comfortable with this, and it's an affiliate based piece. You're paying to be on our site. We're also making a little bit every time we refer people to you. I think that's the better model, to be fair Yeah. From a because I my interests are talking to you and not being a marketer for the rest of my life. Do you know what I'm saying? Like, yours is I really you like your passion. You're in it. You're putting money into it. You'll exit it at some point probably. You know? But and I'm just I love these kind of kinda conversations other entrepreneurs. It's like, what do you do with your business? And for you, AI itself, you might you know, you're building upon a a format that the next release might be like, hey. Here's your free LinkedIn chatbot automation, and it it wipes your and it happened. Right? It it took out AI writer. It took out Java. Like, it took all these, like, AI writing companies went away on one release. Yep. Yeah. So how do you prepare so so the question to you is how do you how are you preparing for that? Because they could just literally I mean, you're on OpenAI. They see your code. They can see how it interacts, and they here's the LinkedIn sales AI tool for free. Here's a here's a I mean, that could happen. So what what are you doing to prepare for that or if anything?
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I mean, I'm not really that afraid. I mean, I'm just becoming the best at it. Right? So I was the first to have developed it, and so I already have a significant head start. I mean, there could be some potential competition like LinkedIn decides to implement something like this, but I highly doubt they will. They'll have, like, a way to probably manually respond and, like, you know, generate a response, but there's still so much manual effort required. So I'm not so afraid of some big company coming through, but I don't know. I mean, haven't really prepared for it. I'm just I'm I'm just putting my nose to the grindstone and just keep on making it better. I mean, I think, I think the biggest threat is OpenAI itself to saying here's the LinkedIn bot
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chatbot, like, and it does it for you. Because, I mean, that's what happened with other releases of GPT that someone said, here it is for free. You're like, oh, shit.
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Yeah. But OpenAI, I'm so LinkedIn's very kind of picky with who can access their API. I don't think they would let OpenAI
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just create that because I don't think LinkedIn necessarily wants this. Right? No. They they want a platform that has no automation on it and no viability. And and and so I believe that if you make the right tool that leverages these things without being spammy, that is the right tool because it does accelerate you. And as long as you're not being, you know, overly aggressive like like, you you you're the the market will determine that, like, I don't like that person. But if the technology allows you to do it like you would have Yep. To be able to get the right conversation because all these things typically I mean, they they they may lead to, like, a a digital form sign up, but a lot of them lead into a fifteen minute conversation and say, let me meet Thomas. Let me see what he has to say. Yeah. And and I agree with you. I and I think that's the key to a good technology. It enables the human connection to come through where needed. And where it's a digital product, meaning, like, I don't need to talk to somebody to sign up, it leads them there because they got there in a nice way. And so it's like it just can't be, like, so blindly automated. The AI could be like, hey. I think I've offended this person. Let me back pull back. Like, hey. Totally get it. I'm not trying to push. And they let it go. And, like, yeah. Like, that's where an AI could do good to help recover when you've gone a little too far or something else. You don't ruin your brand or get reported.
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Absolutely. Yeah. So so we have, like, a, like, a sentiment analysis as well. And so if the person is, you know, being a little bit not happy with this kind of thing or if they're asking about this AI or whatever, it'll it it knows how to react to each of those situations. But we minimize that as much as possible. I mean, we we put all of our clients through a couple, like, GPT sequences, which, develops, like, their unique style and tone of voice. And we also put them through, like, like, a branding GPT sequence, which kind of develops their branding voice. And so so the the AIs that we create for all of our clients, they are effectively them. Right?
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And then Tell me what the setup time is for that. Just just conscious of time, so I wanna because I think I hear that. I'm like, oh god. I'm gonna be two months into this before it works. Like, how fast how fast can this be set up?
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So so long as we have all the information that we need from our clients, we can get things set up within two, like, two, three days. So because we have, I mean, we have we have templates already created. We have, like, a, like, an onboarding form that the client goes through. Takes maybe fifteen, twenty minutes to go through it. And, you know, the more information they put into the onboarding form, the better the AI assistant can be. And so once we get all those answers, we run we run it through another, workflow that then generates, you know, like, an example AI assistant. I'll then go through quickly, like, fine tune it a little bit, but it's a pretty systematized process. And, overall, it's, like, maybe three hours of my time to kinda get this set up properly. And
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So if I have an existing GoHighLevel Zapier account, you guys lever I put you in as users or admins and you set that all up for you?
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Well, so we do it all for our clients. So we would be using our Zapier account, our GoHighLevel account. We so this is on the the done for you side. We could just do it all for you. Right? And then we could also zap everything into your CRM if you wanted to. So we can, like even if they use HubSpot or different CRM, we could still push all of the information that we're getting into their CRM as well. I mean, in in I guess, I mean, if you guys are doing that too, it'd be interesting if you're like, well, we'll set it up for you in your Zapier
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and run it. That would be that would be helpful. That way, the the beer truck rule, you know, you get smashed by a beer truck or decide to move to Costa Rica. Oh, you did that. Move to Cuba and they have no Internet. So my point is, like, think about that because just somebody talk to you, I'd be interested, but I wanna make sure at the end of the day, I want you to run it. I just need to make sure that we have those assets in place to to to do it. And and so we we'll we'll take that offline because I'm definitely interested just as a buyer of it. And if that doesn't speak as an endorsement of someone to try who owns a LinkedIn agency that uses humans to do it, I would I will take that as a as a thing with you possibly. So after we get off this this podcast, we'll set up the time to figure that out. I just know I would need it probably in our own Zapier and our own GoHigh level. That way, it's working with 50 other things I got going on. I can't have yet another GoHighLevel coming in. I've it's like well, it could be because, you know, there's three brands, and they're they're all the same t people who could do different things, so they have to be organized in the same singular GoHighLevel account with the right tags. Otherwise, your marketing downstream is not gonna be effective at all. Fair enough. They are part of it is using my LinkedIn personal to do it. So Right. How do you how do you put do you have the controls in place so I don't get flagged by LinkedIn for automation? Like, is it sending variable messages and things like that so it's not repeating? Is it holding back on links until they're asked for so there's not too many unclicked links, all the and I'm referring to you out there for people not listening. LinkedIn has a very tight like, they measure these things if you have too many links without clicks. You have too many messages unread. You become your spam meter, if you will, goes up, and then your account gets restricted pretty quickly because it gets on somebody's from India's list, and they look at it and they go blocked for twelve hours. LinkedIn jail we're referring to. So sorry. Long form question, Short answer. What do you guys do about that?
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Absolutely. So, I mean, with over 1,500 clients, we haven't had one person permanently restricted. So everyone so we we again, we've done so much work with this already, which is why we when we onboard, we make sure that they have a verified profile. We make sure that their profile looks good. We make sure that they're, that they have sales navigator. All of these things kind of, like, gives you a little bit more leeway with the automation side. We make sure that and so on our end, we then make sure that the the the messaging is good and it's not super spammy. Like, we do so many things to make sure that the account stays safe, and then we also then stay within the threshold of total connections you can send out per week, InMails, open InMails, premium, group messages. We leverage every outreach channel within LinkedIn that they have they have to offer. And so we can send we're sending, like, 2,400, outreach messages to your targeted prospect list per month, and everything's
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fine. Well, alright. So can you do it as a business page too, or does it have to be a user? Can you set this up to be a u a business page reaching out? It has to be a profile. It has to be, like, a LinkedIn personal profile. Have you ever guys ever there's a thing called an avatar account. If you guys know what this is, it's basically a fake account that looks like a human that someone's built. I I have to ask. Are you using avatar accounts ever? Or is it always the person's personal profile?
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It's always the person. Yes. Again, another reason. So that's one thing that, will get your account shut down is if you have two profiles and, like, only one of them is verified, that would definitely
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flag LinkedIn. So What what what I mean by an avatar account is you actually there's companies out there that sell their fake images and not real people. They they build the profiles up and you rent them. I guess and they work for you is what it is. Do you I'm I'm asking because people will look at this as a strategy. What is your take on using an avatar account, like a sales agent of somebody who works for you doesn't work for you that's doing the outreach to protect your personal account? Because what I'm getting to is sometimes I don't wanna be the guy out there selling and being perceived as spammy, so I want to use someone else's account. Talk to me about that a bit, if you will.
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So I would recommend, I mean, just hiring a VA. So I have a team of VAs also. I use all of their profiles. Right? I use my wife's profile. I use my brother's profile. I use, you know, my other brother's profile. It's like, I'm using people's profiles that I have permission, and then they've verified, gone through or go through the same process with that. I have never done the avatar account approach.
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I mean, that's a form of it. Just a legal one.
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Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's a legal account. It is it it is a point. And and there are a ton of benefits to it. So, like, I mean, LinkedIn events is a huge, huge, like, lead generating kind of channel. And if you have if you're managing, like, five or six accounts, that means you can send out 6,000 invites to this event per week. And so you're getting registrations from you know, you're getting, like, dozens, hundreds of people to register, which you can then bring over to your CRM, put them into different workflows. You can do a lot if you have a lot of connections on a lot of accounts.
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So part of your strategy is you could do you could warm, some accounts up. Let's say I was using a couple of VAs who don't really leverage them. And at this point, our team is out of The Philippines. You know, people are okay seeing sales agents out of Philippines now. I think people are, like, used to it. Like, hey. I'm just setting up appointments, like, to make it. You would need to somehow also build their account. Like, hey. Listen. Connect. And so that is a strategy. Now within your setup, could you do a few accounts for that thousand bucks a month or whatever it is, or is it just every time it's a setup for each, or is it set up for, like, a company? Do you know what I'm saying? So how do you handle the, the setup?
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So yeah. So it's it's per profile. And then we have tiered pricing. So if you have more than four profiles set up, then you get 25% discount. 10, you get, like, a 35% discount. So you get discounts based on how many profiles you have under management. Mhmm. But, yeah, I mean I mean, like, we are targeting, like, sales teams, like, enterprise level, 50 to to 200 company size that have, like, five to six LinkedIn or salespeople and a team of SDRs. But then the AI agents that we're creating could effectively either replace those SDRs completely, and then the the business, the account executive gets that lead full cycle from
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outreach to initial to eventual employment booked. It's all, like, one person. I don't know why you need an SDR anymore. I really don't. Like, a US expensive resource. It's like, at this point, I don't get it. Because, to me, it's an unnecessary cost, for most things. Like, maybe an SDR that's on a maybe one person replies to lead forms to say, hey. I'm gonna give them a call. I'm gonna get you connect. Like, that might be from a personal touch, but you don't need an army of SDRs doing stuff. Because why do I need you to set it up? The other person we I agree with you. I mean alright. So, a conscious of time. Alright. Shameless plug. I really have enjoyed this, by the way. I've learned so much. You're probably gonna get a new customer at least to try it. A final question. Month to month service, do do you set it up where I gotta try it, and if I hate it after a few months, I'm like, or it just doesn't work? Or what's your kind of guarantee, if you will?
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So currently, it's a three month commitment, and then it goes month to month thereafter. It's great. So we're just covering our cost for the implementation. And then if it's not working for you or you just don't like it or you're getting too many appointments, you don't have much time. What what what I mean What a great problem. I don't have too many appointments. I'm gonna cancel your service. Who says Honest go on. When you're when you're in real estate, so that was one of our primary reasons for churn was people are like, I'm just getting too many messaging, get I'm getting too many leads. They can't keep up. Here's your next service. We'll manage that for you for an extra $500 a month. Better qualified. Which is what we're doing. So yeah. So now, like, the AI is, like, is that managed service? It it is. From, like, contact to appointment.
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Love it. Alright. Listen. Linky Bot AI . Who's the ideal customer? You're getting wait. You gotta go full screen. This is shameless plug time for you, so go for it. Who's who's should get ahold of you, and how do they do it?
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Basically, anyone whose ideal audience is on LinkedIn. So, like, b to b companies, like small to medium sized companies whose audience lives on LinkedIn. So coaches, consultants, agencies, data security, tech, you know, Internet marketplace, SaaS agencies, really anyone who's b two b whose audience is on LinkedIn.
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Linky Bot AI . That's linkyb0t.ai. Casey, you rock, man. Thank you for coming on today. This is I I love meeting people. You know, technically, we're competitors on LinkedIn, but technically not. And I think for me to enable on entrepreneurs like you to go, I I have to bring on people that know LinkedIn in their own piece because it truly helps LinkedIn people. And so for anybody listening, that's what I'm trying to do is bring in people that really know their space and really can get shit done. So check them out. And, I mean, check out lankybot.ai. I know I am, because I think I think what you're doing is the future of it if it's done correctly and elegantly and with some kind of controls. And it sounds like you have those things in place, and it sounds like you're continually learning to make sure they're better as you go forward. Because that's how you've gotten to where you are, and you're not just gonna, you know, turn and sell. You're continually learning so you can stay around and be relevant and keep your position.
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Absolutely. And I don't I'm not even a salesperson. So so which is why I love talking to people like you because, you know, that way I have to do less less sales calls. I can just stick to my I can stick to my silo of just doing implementation,
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perfection optimization, all that stuff. Yeah. You do the product. Right? Yeah. I love it. Thank you so much, Casey. Get a hold of the linky Linky Bot AI . I'm gonna put you in the, the waiting room here real quick as I say goodbye, but I'll be right back. Thank you, Casey, for coming on today. Thanks, man. Hey. Listen. Anybody who's made it this far, you rock. Get out there. Cut the tide to all that shit holding you back. Check out Linky Bot AI . I am going to as a LinkedIn marketing agency owner, I'm going to check it out as well. So I don't know why you wouldn't because the truth is it seems like a really good way to get that part of your LinkedIn strategy in place. You do need other things. You need strategy. You need some optimization. You need some stuff on the front end. You need to understand what your brand is, the desperate problems you solve, who your audience is. That's all the work that still needs to be done. That's where, like, our agencies work out. But the execution, this sounds like a pretty good thing. And it sounds like they got some great pricing for, for for your, you know, what you know, do it yourself versus have them just do it for you. So thanks for listening. Until we meet again, get out there. Go follow, on the on Spotify, Apple. I appreciate listening. Take care.
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Thank you for joining us on this episode of Cut the Tie. Let's stay connected. Please hit that follow button on Apple, Spotify, or YouTube. And if you're ready to advance your entrepreneurial journey even further, join our free community at facebook.com/groups/cutthetie. Cut the tie to everything holding you back from success.