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today’s episode is proudly sponsored by
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welcome to scaling up h2o the podcast
where we scale up on knowledge so we
don’t scale up our systems
my name is trace blackmore the host of
the scaling up h2o podcast
and folks i’m just so happy to be with
you today
thank you so much for listening to this
podcast thank you for all the people
that give me feedback on a regular basis
about this show by the way if you have
something to tell me about the podcast
whether it’s a question you want me to
answer a guest you want to interview
or just something you want me to do
by all means do not keep that to
yourself you can go to scaling up
h2o.com
find your way to our show ideas page
and you can tell me anything you want in
that section now do you have a question
for me
a great way to ask a question is when
you go
on our homepage a button will pop up
over on
the right hand side that says lee
voicemail you click on that you can use
whatever device you are using to use
that microphone
to record your own voice and i can use
that voice
to ask that question as we get it
answered
so many people have done that i love it
when you do that so
please keep that up nation something
else
i want to make sure that you are keeping
up is with
james’s challenge folks i love the fact
that we’re all coming together and we’re
doing these challenges just think 52
things that we do
at the end of the year how much better
we’re going to be
what a better vantage point we’re going
to have as an industrial water
as we’re getting there and the thing i
love most about it
is that we are sharing these items on
social media so we can i don’t say
challenge each other but that’s the
whole
point of it it’s james’s challenge we
can see how other people are doing it
and maybe we want to refine what we did
so here is another james’s challenge
[Music]
hello scaling up nation it’s time for
another james’s challenge
to help you grow as an industrial water
treatment professional
drop by drop today’s james’s challenge
is
[Music]
draw a process flow diagram for your
customers
complete with feed points water meters
blow down
pre-treatment boilers cooling towers
chillers etc
a hand-drawn diagram can be just fine if
needed it’s amazing what you may find
out once all the bits and pieces are
seen together
and in their real order you may find
your feeding chemical products in the
wrong area
you may find a makeup source you knew
nothing about or water loss that’s been
plaguing the system for years
be sure to share your experience on
linkedin by tagging it with hashtag
jc21 and hashtag scalinguph2o
this is james mcdonald and i look
forward to seeing what you share
are you keeping up with james’s
challenge well you can always
go back and do the challenges if you are
not now last week i talked about the
seinfeld
chain that was where jerry seinfeld said
he wants to write
jokes each and every day
so he had plenty of material to create
the career that obviously
he had but it all started with him
writing
that first joke a lot of us
think of a goal is that
we want to achieve what jerry seinfeld
achieved and we look at him now
but what we should be doing is looking
at what
he did on that very first day and how he
kept that up
and what he did is each and every day he
wrote jokes
he put an x on a calendar and his goal
was not to break the chain so
i want to ask you how are you doing on
the james’s challenge
not breaking the chain you can always go
back and catch up
but once you do each and every week i
think it’s a great discipline to keep
yourself in
and let’s face it we’re going to have 52
things that we are going to be
better about well nation on one of my
earlier episodes it was episode 47.
now my friend i didn’t know him at the
time
i read some of his posts on linkedin
jim lauria the water guy uh he writes
about
water i think he has water in his veins
he’s actually replaced his blood with
water he loves water so much just a
really
really neat guy and uh he’s just all
things
water and also a great guy to talk to a
great podcast guest
well uh he has teamed up with another
gentleman
adam tank and jim and adam
have come on the show again and they’re
going to be talking about
what is going on with them so folks i
hope
you enjoy my interviews with jim lauria
and adam tank skeleton nation
i don’t just have one lab partner today
i have two returning guest
jim lauria and adam tank how are you
guys
hey great trace good to be back doing
great trace
well thank you both for coming on the
show jim when was the last time we had
you on
i think uh october 2018 we had a lot of
good conversations about leonardo da
vinci
mind mapping all kinds of good uh
discussions
it was a great episode and uh glad to
have you back
and adam welcome to the show i guess
what jim told you about being on last
time didn’t scare you off
[Laughter]
not yet we’ll see how this one goes we
will see how it goes
well guys i’m really excited about this
interview before we get started
do each of you mind uh sharing a little
about yourself
with the scaling up nation yeah sure so
so i’m vp of sales and marketing for
maisy injector
we’re a company that designs and
manufactures mixing and contacting
equipment for a wide range of
water and wastewater treatment
applications i received my chemical
engineering degree
from manhattan college and initially
came into the workforce in a lot of
different process industries
and pretty much been dedicated to water
treatment for the last 20 years
traveling around the world benchmarking
the best global water management
practices
and from a personal standpoint i live in
san francisco with my wife her name is
laurie lauria if you can believe that
and i tell everybody she fills my life
with love laughter and alliteration
[Laughter]
they’re they’re a dynamic dude i know
both jim and lloyd really well
and and love them dearly we’ll talk
about how we met here in a little bit
but for everyone listening adam tank
i’ve been in the water industry now for
just about 10 years and started my
career as a microbiologist and quality
engineer
in the cpg world so specifically food
and beverage
i sort of stumbled into a professional
career in water
working for ge water i led their venture
investment strategy in software startups
and then
most recently now serve as the director
of software solutions for
a water startup that’s focused on
automating the preliminary design of
water treatment assets in this case it
would be water and wastewater treatment
facilities so
a process that typically takes hundreds
or thousands of hours
from a variety of different engineering
teams can now be done
in about five to ten hours utilizing
software
and the goal of that is to free up our
smart engineers and people in the water
industry to look at innovative
technologies
to do assessments on companies like
mazzy
whereas they couldn’t because they’re
spending time today
creating p ids you know uh revising word
documents all those types of things so
i bring bringing innovation to the
sector is a really big goal of mine
i live in kansas city have a wife a fur
child his name is trig
hopefully he doesn’t bark too much
during this podcast
and looking forward to getting started
well awesome thank you both for joining
us
obviously you guys have had great
careers
but then you met and you decided you
wanted to team up
why did you do that yeah so it’s
interesting uh trace uh
as you can imagine the story is is a
good story
and uh you know we we we title our
uh uh podcast together as two water
geeks
talk about talking about water and uh
we we really want to tell water’s story
and we we met
at a conference that we were both
speaking separately
about water and we both attended each
presentation and we happened to be
leaving at the same time
and adam had called an uber we got into
uber together we started chatting
we found out that we were on the slant
same flight to san francisco together
uh we traveled to san francisco found
out that
he was working about a mile from my
house his uh
fiance at the time lived about two
blocks away from
where lori and i lived and we started
getting together for lunch every couple
of weeks
and talked about water at the taco truck
at the
sushi restaurant at the thai place at
the ramen shop
and uh we just had a a passion about
water and
uh despite our three decades uh in
in difference in age we we had a
similarity
in the way we like to to tell stories
and
i’ll let adam tell fill in a little bit
more of that
i guess it was sort of match made in
heaven for two you know geeks that like
talking about water
so when we first met we we both were
impressed with what each other had to
say as far as the water industry goes
and then we
series of conversations later found out
we’re both posting on linkedin we’re
both writing blogs we’re both interested
in becoming you know
published authors and it’s all around
this idea that
water is a fundamental need for
everybody on earth
and we have to share our story because
it’s underappreciated
it’s undervalued and people just don’t
think about it you don’t think about
when you turn on your tap
that they’re you know real people behind
the scenes 24
7 who are making that happen and so we
both feel
passionate about helping people in our
industry tell their stories and tell the
story of water
and we we go about it in different ways
which i’m excited to get into so sort of
our running joke is that it’s old school
versus new school as jim alluded to
he has multiple decades in industry
quote unquote old school
i’m about a decade in quote unquote new
school but
we have a lot more similarity in common
than we do differences
and my comedy coach said that uh it’s a
it’s a great partnership for me to work
with adam because
anybody with the name like tank it’s a
good bet that his arguments will always
hold water
and there you go he’s here all week
folks try the fish
well speaking of fish i’m curious were
the conversations different at the taco
truck versus the sushi restaurant what’d
you guys talk about there
yeah just uh just things in general what
was going on trends i mean that’s the
big thing that we
look at traces what what are the trends
and
uh we try and build upon those trends in
the industry
to understand solutions around what
adam’s company has to offer what my
company has to offer
and and that’s kind of where it starts
and and um
that that’s kind of where our writing
begins at least you know for my
long-form blog posts and uh and articles
i try and start there because i think
that’s where people are interested in
finding out they’re not so much
interested in
specifically what maisie has to offer
unless they are of course
but um you know generally speaking i
like to tell the stories of
of water from a you know a more general
general aspect
a lot of the conversations that we had
you know as i’m thinking back on it at
the time i was running a water-related
robotics startup
in san francisco and jim served as a
mentor to me because of his diverse
background in water
and so we talked about things like you
know who to hire in the water industry
and
and how to sell to water utilities and
what the real value of water is and how
you can price that in terms of your
product
and so the the conversations were were
pretty diverse
but like jim said what we always sort of
came back to was
when you tell your story on water the
goal is not to pitch your
yourself your product you know your you
be you focused the goal is to be focused
on the value of water for everybody
it’s a global good that ultimately is
critical for life on earth
and so if you can always tie the strings
to that overarching mission of just how
important water is
people will listen i know you guys both
advocate
for water and the water industry can you
share with the scaling up nation a few
things that you’re currently doing
to do that sure trey so one of the
things that i found
was i like to write articles and long
form blog posts
and one of the platforms that um i
really found
works for me besides linkedin and we’ll
talk about
that in more detail but water online is
a really has been really good
platform for me and uh i’ve been
writing on that platform for i don’t
know how many years maybe 10 years
and it’s really gotten the word out
about me
about my products but specifically as i
talked about before the trends in the
industry
i like to focus on where things are
headed
and some of the problems and some of the
solutions
the other thing i would say is uh you
know as as as both
adam and i do on a regular basis is
speak at conferences
and get the word out that way i’m really
pleased to hear you know adam consider
me a mentor
one of the good things about being a
mentor for somebody is
i’ve probably learned more from adam
than he’s learned from me so
uh it’s a it’s a two-way street when you
do
work with younger water professionals
and then the other thing that uh
i’ve been doing lately is serving on uh
trade association board of directors
i know uh tracy you’re very active in
the association of water technologists
you always speak about how rewarding
that is and
how much you get out of it and i feel
the same way i i’m on the board of
directors
of the california agricultural
irrigation association
i’m on the executive operating committee
of the international ozone association
and so these are the things that outside
of what i do every day for maisy
to to make sure we’re we’re selling the
products and services we need
is to you know get back to the industry
so jim and i find a new sort of a
neutral battleground in terms of likes
comments views shares
on linkedin and i think we’ll go a
little more in depth on
how we utilize that platform and how we
want other water professionals to
utilize that platform as well
but one of the things i like to do is is
come up with
creative content that’s that’s been
proven to be
shareable viral on other platforms bring
it to linkedin
and then either create a water story
around it or just
share a fact about water or share a fact
about business that people can engage
with and by nature of doing that people
will
naturally gravitate towards your profile
they’ll see what you’re up to
and if they like your product or service
they’ll contact you so it’s not meant to
be a lead generation tool it’s just
meant to be a
a general awareness of of getting people
you know engaged with fun content on
linkedin
i’m also quite active on twitter and
have a following there and there are a
number of other
twitter water friends that we often
like share we retweet you know comment
on each other’s content
and then i also serve on a number of
boards as well so imagine h2o i’ve been
a judge for that program which is an
early stage
water innovation program based out of
san francisco just recently accepted a
role
on the board of advisors for a water
startup called 120 water
who’s doing a great job in the industry
bringing software to water utilities
that desperately need it
and then and then i’m also starting to
write where jim and i differ a bit is
that i’m starting to write more personal
content
on a personal blog so long form content
about my career
not necessarily water specific but again
content that draws people in
and that will naturally stumble across
the work that we’re doing in water and
maybe we’ll spark an interest in
being part of our sector you both
mention
content and i’m sure we have some
listeners out there that
know they want to put something out
there but they don’t quite know how to
get started
so maybe we can talk a little bit about
your story how did you get started and
why do you continue
so a couple of things trace i i look at
myself as almost being
uh a journalist as my friends in queens
call me
hey jim you’re a water reporter and you
know you got to have that
accent so the idea is to look for good
stories
and and and find articles and and books
i mean there’s a
there’s a tremendous amount of books on
water now out
in the marketplace look at webinars
and so you’re collecting you’re almost a
collector of information
and then kind of resorting that and
looking at it from different angles
that you know tied to some of the
solutions that your company brings
uh ties to some of the things that uh
you’re interested in
and uh you know one of the things that
adam mentioned and what i’ve learned
from him
is it doesn’t always have to be about
water you want those weaker connections
where people aren’t just focused on
water but you can kind of bring them
in with some non-water related stories
and then they get to see some of the
other things that that you’re writing
about
and i’ve started doing that i followed
adam’s lead and
i posted a few items on uh on linkedin
that got some traction with people
that i didn’t have a relationship with
around water but now they’ve started
asking me questions about water
i think trace when when people hear the
word content
it’s a scary word if you’re not
in industry or used to producing what we
call content
but don’t let it scare you because
content can be as simple as
a photo you could if you have a
smartphone which almost everyone does
you can record yourself
you can type a sentence about something
you’ve learned
you know a lot of people do this in
their personal lives on a regular basis
they’re using
facebook as a great example they might
post a picture of their grandkids or
you know a short little sentence or two
about what they’re up to that day
that’s content don’t let it scare you
away from being active
when i first got my start it was on
linkedin and i was working for ge water
and i was part of a conference where
a speaker really wowed me with what he
had to say
and ended up speaking with him after the
conference and i i wanted to write about
that experience because i thought other
people would find it compelling
so i just wrote about the experience it
wasn’t about water but i was working for
ge at the time i
alluded to the fact that i was working
for ge and i said you know i
i loved what this guy had to say here’s
what he said i’m putting it out in the
world what do other people think about
this
and i think you know to date it had 14
000 views or something as my first
piece of content on linkedin and i was
shocked and what i found is that
it’s sort of a self-fulfilling prophecy
when you put content out there
you are looking for engagement and when
someone engages if they like
share retweet comments send you a
personal note whatever it might be
that you want more of that and so it
encourages you to post more
and more often and it’s a great i guess
we’ll call it self-sustaining feedback
loop
where as you post content you get
feedback you want more feedback so you
post more content
well you are both out there posting
content but you have different
approaches in the way that you do that
can you speak on that
sure so um as we talked about uh i have
a
usually writing articles and and and
blog posts kind of long form
but also i found and and you know i took
this a bit from
adam who was doing shorter content
shorter posts
so just last year what i did was
every day for 500 days over 500 days in
a row
i found a water quote that i posted and
i i quoted from songs i quoted humor
i quoted from uh leonardo da vinci
anybody plato anybody i could find and
it it got a real good following and then
those people started following some of
the longer form
articles and blog posts that i i posted
on linkedin so
it was a quite a good experience
i’ve now got all those quotes on my
website jimloria.com
so you can go there and see i i don’t
think i posted them all but i’ve got
like 250
300 of the quotes that i had over the
last year and a half
so jim and i differ on linkedin
specifically around this idea that
i’m finding content that has been
utilized on other platforms i really
love
reddit as an example and
repurpose that content for linkedin so
what i see
jim doing more often is posting water
related content
but it’s very unique and very creative
so it’s not just hey here’s what mazzy
does you know
our injector nozzles are great and
everyone should use them it’s a water
quote a day
for 500 days and people naturally want
to follow jim because they look forward
to receiving the quote so they look
forward to his humor
or they look forward to some very
detailed long-form content
i’m usually finding things like photos
videos
gifs that more often than not have
nothing to do with water
but that create an ecosystem for people
wanting to engage
and then they naturally sort of find out
oh this guy’s in water
you know if i have water related
questions i know to go to adam and talk
about it
the other thing i’ve been doing is i i
have a personal website set up so like
jim i’ve got a website atomtank.com
and it’s a collection of stories that
i’ve learned or tips and tricks that
i’ve learned
about career and business as a whole
i mean an example would be i lived in
rio de janeiro brazil earlier in my
career and learning portuguese
was a challenge so i share some
embarrassing stories about that
and you would be shocked at the number
of people who have come across a post
like that
and have said hey i you know i loved
your post i loved what you i loved what
you had to say
but i’m really interested in water like
what do you think about you know
desalination
the future of desal around the world or
what do you i read your water
predictions article on linkedin like
what do you think about you know x y or
z
and it’s a it’s a ub fascinated trace
that
as you post unique content
people will come out of the woodwork
from all over the internet
people you never would have met in the
quote unquote real world
that want to engage with you that want
to talk to you that want to have
conversations with you
yeah a specific example of that is it’s
a really interesting story
so last year when adam was the judge at
the imagine h2o
session here in san francisco i went to
the closing night party and they had a
number of
different entrants that were showing
their technologies
startup companies and i went around and
i talked to a few people and i was
introduced to a gentleman
we exchanged cards i linked to him i
looked at his technology
i linked up with him on linkedin and
just uh the other day
he started following some of the
writings uh
that i’ve been posting uh some of the
articles some of the quotes
and he’s the ceo of the startup and he
he came to me just yesterday
and he said hey jim i think we can use
your technology
we’ve got to start up we’re trying to
put air into our system
and uh i was looking at some of the
technology that maisy
offers and i think we can use it and um
my
uh technical manager is got a
conversation going on with him today
so just by posting by connecting
you never know how that can lead to some
direct sales
and not that you got any business off of
me but you and i met off the linkedin
exactly exactly and and look i mean this
is for us
for me for adam it’s a great platform to
tell our story
about telling stories about water well i
know you’ve inspired
several people today and they’re
thinking okay i need to start creating
content how do they get started don’t
be scared of posting something that
you think is routine or wouldn’t be
interesting
because people outside of the sector or
outside of the industry
have no clue what happens in water
and i mean a great example of this would
be you know the guys
and gals who are out in the street
repairing a water main break
this happens every day all over the
united states
probably hundreds if not thousands of
times a day take a picture of it when
you’re out in the field
and post it and say hey you know work
working hard today you know working hard
repairing this main break for people you
know
uh maybe put a little something about
how many gallons of water flows through
that pipe every day or whatever it might
be
that in our industry is would be
considered boring yeah that’s run of the
mill that happens all the time you know
that’s nothing fancy that’s nothing
special
but for everyone else that’s not
something they see every day so
just start by by cataloging things that
you come across every day things you
find exciting things that
you’re like oh you know what that might
be interesting take a picture
write a sentence put it out in the world
and see what happens i think you’ll be
amazed
yeah start small i mean that’s that’s
the that’s the key thing and
and share other people’s content you
don’t have to generate all this content
yourself there’s so much out there
on water now share some of adam’s uh uh
posts some of my posts um you know
whatever you think could generate
interest
just start you know a really good one
trace that
um is is easier for people to do would
be
i mean this is going to sound
self-promotional for other three of us
but someone could very well summarize
this podcast
take the top 10 lessons they learned
from the trace jim and adam show
and post that on linkedin i wish they
would
i you i mean it is incredible how many
views how many eyeballs will see that
content
like if people don’t have time to listen
to an hour-long podcast
but they can listen to or read a
five-minute summary or one-minute
summary or one high-level takeaway
they will and that’s a that’s a great
way to generate content
well you both mentioned linkedin and
that’s where you do a lot of your work
i know a lot of listeners use linkedin
jim you and i met through linkedin
my question to you does the average
person
utilize linkedin correctly
so i’m i’m not sure they do i think
people look at it as a job search
tool you know that the the one thing
that i said and i
i i gave a presentation at the water
quality association meeting several
years ago
about how to use linkedin effectively
and then i wrote a blog post on linkedin
about it and it’s still there and and
people can go to that
but one of the key things that i want to
remind people
about it is sometimes they look at it as
facebook and and my
analysis the difference between facebook
and linkedin is linkedin is a business
lunch
compared to facebook looking at as a
backyard barbecue and
if you think of it that way you’re not
going to show up
to a business lunch with your wife with
your dog
wearing a tom brady jersey a pittsburgh
steelers cap
you’re going to show up differently and
that’s what i i think
people need to recognize is that it’s
different than facebook
and it’s more than just a search tool if
you’re out of a job
i would i would say that people are not
using linkedin effectively
it’s a it’s a hard no for me and the
reason that’s the case is because i
think
people use it very selfishly so if
they’re using it for job searching
that’s selfish if they’re using it to
promote their own products and
businesses that’s selfish
if they’re using it to talk about
themselves that’s selfish
so what people on linkedin should be
doing is providing value
share you know innovative stories gym
sharing his water quotes he’s being
entertaining people enjoy listening to
that maybe they get insight from some of
the quotes
you know share a summary of a podcast
share a summary of a book share
something that is
valuable to the people that are reading
it or viewing it watching it hearing it
and that value will be returned
eventually but your first thought
should not be how how can i gain from
this it should be
how can others gain from what i’m
putting out
yeah i’d say some of the do’s that i say
about uh
linkedin trace is do connect with people
so when i when i go to trade shows you
know
they may be a thing of the past but
business cards i’d collect business
cards
and then i’d come back and i say
nice meeting you at uh such a conference
uh i’d like to have the opportunity to
connect with you
uh on linkedin and then i’d follow up if
they connected with me i’d follow up
thanks for connecting
and i’d send them a link to this article
about how to use
linkedin more effectively as a what i
call network lanyard
and lanyard is something i don’t know if
you’re familiar with a trace but it’s
basically
something a little extra that a a
business gives you for doing business to
build a relationship
like uh a baker’s dozen you get an extra
doughnut
or you buy some plums and they throw in
a pair
and so i’d like to put that in and and
say
let’s connect as adam said you know give
them
something that you feel might be of
benefit
the other thing i i’d say some of the
don’ts
don’t sell i mean the last thing i i
like
seeing is someone sends you a connection
you say okay this person looks like
someone um
i’d like to be connected with and then
they send you their brochure
on their valves or or their pumps or
whatever it is
and it just it turns me off and i know
it turns most other people off
and then the other thing i’d say is a
hard don’t is
if you’re out of a job don’t put on your
headline
looking for my next opportunity need a
job
i think that’s just the wrong way to go
about it
and you know provide as adam said
provide value
and then people will want to connect and
we’ll want to find out more about you
and how they can work with you
well those are some great tips and i’m
willing to bet that you have some more
so for those of us that are familiar
with linkedin but we could do things a
little bit better
what are some of your top tips that you
can share with the scaling up nation
so i mean jim talked a lot about some
the great do’s and don’ts
at the you know the one that i always
like to reiterate like he said don’t
sell don’t sell provide value
and people will come back to you because
you’re providing value and then maybe
you’ll have an
opportunity to sell after that i’d say
the other things that
you know as adam does curate curate
other people’s information
one of the things that i would say is uh
it’s a great
forum to find out what’s going on in
your industry
a lot of water influences are posting
and one of the things i did when this
whole covert 19
pandemic started was you know i had to
re-look at
how we were going to do business at
maisy and so
i started looking at what the what i
call
quote hydroluminaries were saying some
of the research companies
bluefield research reese tisdale and his
team
what was uh what was global water
intelligence saying
uh uh christopher gassen paul
o’callaghan
and and blue tech research what were
they saying so
i i use it as a kind of a crowd sourcing
information way of finding out what’s
going on in my industry
so i can kind of navigate where i want
to take
maisie in terms of business development
and how to
handle these kind of these issues
jim does a great job of consistent
posting the quotes
the long-form blogs the content like i
said repurposing content from other
platforms
i would look at what’s you know what’s
blowing up on facebook if you think it’s
funny or you think it’s fun or you think
it might be relevant to people that
follow you on linkedin
take a look at it download it find a way
to reshare it find a way to make it
water related
you know what i and and people will
enjoy that and you know because it’s
done well in another platform
it’ll probably do well on linkedin
because even though it’s a business
platform and it’s meant for business
relationships
these people are still human they still
have families to go home to
you know at this point we’re all working
from home together so
we have a lot of commonalities a lot of
times that content
works across multiple platforms so again
don’t make it too cumbersome on yourself
don’t make it a burden
and feel like you have to write the most
perfect post or find the perfect content
that you want to put out there
just put something out there and if it’s
worked somewhere else it’s probably
going to work on linkedin too
i think that’s great advice jim you
touched on this earlier
but i know there’s a lot of people out
there that will connect with people and
they’ll just simply find them in a
search
hit the connect button and they don’t
use
any of the other features how should
they be connecting with people on
linkedin
yeah i think just sending a connect is
is just the wrong way to go
you should start off with the
relationship hi i met you at
weftec or i met you at ace
um and and i enjoyed talking to you i’d
like to add you as a connection to my
network i mean that’s
i’ve got that on my phone so and i
always look at
that kind of thing um i found your
webinar
very informative uh that i uh that i
watched today online
i’d like to connect with you so i think
that’s the first thing
you you can’t just say connect connect
connect uh and then
the the other ones the opposite side is
the ones that
try and pitch you immediately you and i
look like we’d make great connections
and i think we could do business
together um you know that that’s the
wrong way to go and then as i said
a follow-up email after they’ve
connected to to
thank them for connecting with you and
and uh
and not try and sell not say hey thanks
for connecting here’s my
here’s my valve brochure you know so um
i think
i think those are the things that uh you
really want to look at and
some of the things i do is you you look
at who they’re connected with
when someone sends you an invitation you
see who else they’re connected with
if they’re connected to adam i
immediately say yes
[Laughter]
but but you know that’s that’s some of
the you know some of the things that you
go through as
trying to find out if this person would
be a connection for you so you’re going
to get connect
you’re going to get connection requests
and you’re going to go out there and
you’re going to make connection requests
and you know put some effort into it
that’s
that’s that’s what i’d say yeah do your
do your research
do your research no one likes the the
cold connection oh
you know please join my professional
network or whatever the
the standard linkedin message says you
know there’s a reason you want to
connect with that person
even if it’s a selfish reason that
should not come
should not come out right away and quite
frankly shouldn’t come out in the first
five interactions you have with them
like jim saying there’s
you know do a quick google search on
them what pro what uh presentations have
they given recently what conferences
have they attended
maybe they have an active twitter
account you might find a really
interesting or insightful tweet that
they’ve sent
that you can mention in that linkedin
invite request make it
personal make it professional make it
make make sure that they know that
you’ve done your research so that they
get excited about connecting to you
what advice do you all have on properly
tagging the content we’re creating
well i’ll give that over to adam because
he’s an expert at that and
i learned i’ve learned a lot from adam
as far as that so
so adam go ahead because i’m following
what he says
if it’s linkedin specific and really for
many social
platforms for that matter their goal is
to maximize
the time that you as a user spend on
their site
they don’t want you going to another
website they don’t want you
closing out the browser tab you know
they don’t want you
getting distracted and doing something
else they make money by advertising
dollars the more time you spend on their
site
the more advertisements they can show
you the more money they’re gonna make
so the key in tagging people
be it people themselves hashtags or even
other articles you might be mentioning
or urls
that you need to put in your post is to
if it’s going to be outbound link if
it’s going to be something that’s taking
people off the linkedin platform
don’t put it in the main post itself put
it in the comment section
so you can allude to it so if i’m
posting to this podcast which i will do
i will say hey everyone check out this
great podcast that you know i’ll tag jim
i’ll tag you trace that we did i’ll give
a quick summary about what it is
and then i’ll say you know full link to
the podcast in the comments below
the first comment is going to be a link
directly to this podcast
if you don’t do that linkedin will
effectively
bury that post in the feed and they will
not allow it to reach as many people as
you would like
so that would be my first big tip the
second one
is that if you use linkedin quite a bit
you’ll notice a lot of posts will be
cut off about two sentences into the top
part of the post
and you have to click see more to read
the rest you want to make those two
sentences
ultra compelling so people want to see
more they want to read they want to
engage
when they click see more you have a
little more detail
but then below all of that is where you
can just tag a whole slew of people that
you think would be interested in this
content
and that you want uh to know that you
have tagged and when you when you tag
those people if i tag you jim i tag you
trace
what’s gonna happen is every time that
post gets a like a comment a share
you’re going to get a notification about
it so it’s going to keep coming up in
your mind it’s going to keep coming up
in the minds of people on linkedin
and it’s going to boost the boost the
viral
aspect of that post yeah the other thing
i would do
and and i i try and do quite a bit is
come up with
like a provocative title or an
interesting title
something that really is compelling
because as adam said
um you typically only have a little bit
of time between
the title and the couple of words that
that are there
that you can really get someone
interested so
that’s one of the tips when i do blog
posts i spend a lot of time
thinking okay what are people interested
in seeing and how can i make this
an attention grabber as a title so
that’s that’s another tip i would say
what’s the one thing you want listeners
to get from today’s interview
i would say tell stories tell good
stories
and uh you know from the listeners i
mean we’re talking water
really tell those stories and and really
get
people engaged about the value of water
that’s i think
uh what adam and i have have typically
tried to
to do in in how we write our stories how
we tell our stories
and uh and and why we’re we’re on this
podcast with you trace i mean that’s
that’s kind of the goal we have i would
say that if you
are a professional in the water sector
you have an obligation to talk about
what we do
and one piece of advice is just start
start
somewhere don’t worry about crafting the
perfect story
don’t worry about crafting the perfect
post don’t worry about posting the
perfect photo
just post something just get it out
there you have to start somewhere and i
guarantee you
you know even for me i’d say seven eight
out of ten times the post might bomb
it’s slowly getting better than it has
over the years but nothing’s ever going
to be perfect and you just have to do
what you can with what you have
so don’t be scared post something post a
piece of content
and see how it goes if you’re worried
about it contact jim ryan we’ll we’ll
get you over the hump
there you go well this has been a
great conversation i do have some
lightning round questions for you if you
guys will stick around a little bit
longer absolutely sure
all right now i just realized jim i’ve
already asked you my regular round of
lightning round questions so i have
three new ones
okay so my first one for each of you
what’s your superpower
oh my superpower is mind mapping
and and you and i had quite a good
conversation about this the last time
trace and
it’s kind of where i start with
everything uh
adam will get a kick out of this as soon
as we started talking about doing a
podcast uh the next thing you know he
had in his inbox
a mind map about you know who we were
going to approach
how we were going to do this and and
build upon it and where we we’re going
to take it so
i i would say mind mapping is my
superpower
i would say for me active listening i
can have a conversation with someone
for 20 minutes you know they’ll talk for
19
and a half of it and they’ll be like
wait a second you didn’t tell me
anything about yourself
and it’s not because i’m proud of that
it’s just because i’m genuinely
interested in what people have to say
so i would say my superpower is making
feel comfortable enough
to share uh whatever it is that is on
their mind and that i can actively
listen to it and
and and feel like i can empathize with
that well number two is you now have a
magic wand
and you can change anything in the world
what would you change
well well i mean i would change people’s
view of water
people think it should be free and
obviously
it’s something that is out there but
it costs money to extract it from the
ground
or from a lake it costs money to treat
it costs money to distribute so i think
we have to look at it as a friend of
mine
says you know it’s a resource it’s not a
free source
it’s a resource and and that that is
something that
we have to look it’s a shared common
good but we have to recognize that it
costs money to
to uh to to get it to people in the form
that we needed in
i would change early childhood education
i would bring a lot more money
into it uh just overall as a whole i
would increase teacher salaries that
would increase the amount of
resources available to these kids and of
course i would throw some water-related
curriculum in there too
but we can we can change the future by
just starting with
you know one generation of children or
two generations of children and so i
would
i would just make it so that those kids
had experiences educational experiences
beyond what they’ve ever had before
final question what would you say your
biggest accomplishment has been
biggest accomplishment i would say that
throughout my career i’ve tried to
impart this on
everybody and on myself and
and my motto has been in it and it’s
served me very well
never underestimate your ability to
influence other people
and i try and do that in in the work i
do with water and
and any other things i i try and do i
i want people to understand that what
you do
and what you say has a an influence
and don’t underestimate that influence i
would say that i’ve been
proud of of my lack of fear
in embracing change so i mentioned
earlier in my career i moved to brazil
didn’t speak the language uh you know
wasn’t scared of
selling all my belongings packing two
suitcases and then going and moving
there for a new job
i came back to the us i wasn’t scared of
going to graduate school like when i
graduated from graduate school i wasn’t
scared of going into venture capital and
ge which is
not something i had traditionally done
before you know going and running a
robotic startup
not being scared of just taking the
plunge and doing that that’s what i
would say is my biggest accomplishment
is
just not being afraid to embrace change
well gentlemen i want to thank you both
for coming on scaling up h2o
uh great conversation lots of great tips
so uh thanks for spending the the last
45 minutes with me
thank you trace a pleasure trace it’s
been really enjoyable
thanks again jim and adam nation uh
just just it’s always fun to talk about
water right what a great topic there
there couldn’t
be a better topic out there we would not
have the
job that we have had it not been out
there
our planet would definitely be a lot
different if we didn’t have
water out there so just a great topic
hey speaking of jim
and adam they’re actually starting a
podcast so a little shout out to
them their podcast is called water
we talking about and you can just hear
jim with his accent
saying that so what are we talking about
you can find that anywhere podcasts are
found anywhere you choose to listen to
your podcast
and i wish them the best of luck you
know i’ve got to meet
so many people explore so many ideas
on this podcast i really look at having
a podcast as a gift
and i look at all the people in the
scaling up nation
as a gift as well if you find folks out
there
did not listen to this podcast there
would be no point
to this podcast and if you all did not
allow
me to explore different ideas
making sure that we’re always expanding
our minds
we’re becoming better practitioners of
what we do
on our day-to-day this show would be
nothing so
thank you so much for listening thank
you for all the content that you helped
me with thank you for the feedback
all of that stuff i hope that you all
learned something new today and i hope
you have a safe week
i’ll talk with you next week on scaling
up h2o
[Music]
scale up nation have you ever wondered
if you are so
stuck in your ways you cannot learn
a new way to do something i recently had
a conversation with rising tide
mastermind member chuck hamrick and
here’s what he had to say well because
i’m an old timer and i’ve been doing the
water treat
for 37 years you know i’ve got my own
ways of doing
but since i’ve learned a little more
things that are a little more techy now
and and and being able to
uh put my thoughts on the paper and to
be able to
clarify my thought of speech to my
employees
uh one of the best examples would be
with my son
chase who will be taking over the
business probably another five or six
years
it’s taught him what he needs to do to
actually run a more effective and more
uh better run company so it’s it’s
helped tremendous
and it’s helped because we are a
family-owned business we got several
members of our families in the business
it’s actually brought more uh closeness
and understanding how we should work
together as a team
well nation chuck is an awesome member
of the rising tide
mastermind and i have to tell you when
chuck speaks there’s always something
profound that
he says he has helped so many people
within the rising tide mastermind it’s
great to hear that he’s received
so much benefit as well i want you to go
to scalinguph2o.com forward slash
mastermind so you can read more about
what our group is and to see if this is
the right group for you
if it is hit apply and we can schedule a
meeting where you can talk with me
and we can talk about exactly what this
group is
and we can figure out what you are
looking for and if those two
things are a match well you can be the
next member in the rising tide
mastermind again go to scalinguph2o.com
forward slash
[Music]
mastermind
you