One of the most important and powerful effective strategies for marketing your business, for growing your opportunities is to understand how to get referrals. How do we, whom do we even approach referrals and how do we approach them in a way that is both gracious and effective? So that's what we're gonna talk about today and I have a guest speaker to share with you. Her name is Karish Sminkie. She's one of my clients and she herself is a great business and marketing coach. In fact, I think she has a more marketing experience than me. But let me bring her on. I will, let me say a bit about her and I'll bring her on. So Karissa has 20 years of experience in the corporate world doing marketing and business development and leading teams. And for the past, I think year or so, she has been, I'll let her explain more, but she's been transitioning to serving small business owners like you. So that's her passion is to help small business owners and solar printers grow their business and their marketing in a heart-centered way. So something, you know, values that we can all relate to. And I'm just excited to share her expertise and her presence with you. So hi, Karissa, great to have you here. Hey there, good morning. Yeah, thanks for doing this.  Yeah, I'm in Busan, South Korea. I live on the southern coast, about four hours south of Seoul. So I'm actually just getting my day started here on the other side of the world. Yeah, that's great. Well, people are watching this any time of the day or night. So it's perfect wherever they are. So I know you have a lot to share and I'll interject with questions, but is there anything else you want to say about your background, your philosophy, how you like to work with clients? Just give people a context of how you work, how you, what you like to do. Well, I really appreciate that. Yeah, so as you mentioned, I'm a business coach, similar to you. And for me, it's really about creating, creating clarity and movement. You know, it's really about being able to create this collaborative relationship. And I really believe, and I think this is what, your message really resonates with me so deeply because it's not about me telling people how to run any business. It's not just about me giving them this like cookie cutter prescription for how to run a business. It's really about helping them take best practices but then figuring out what's authentic to them. So they can build a business that's really true to who they are. And that's why when I found you, George, that's why your message really resonated. I love the way you really humanize this whole process. And that's, I think that's really similar to the type of work that I do. And that's why your message really resonated. And that's why you're my coach. People are always surprised that I'm a business coach with a business coach, but I'm like, everyone should have a coach. So yeah, that's why I admire your work so much. Thank you. I really, really appreciate that. And, you know, as a, you know, I just, just tell my story about why the topic of referrals is important. When I started out in my business, I had no network in this field. You know, I had some friends and colleagues that were supportive of me emotionally, but they didn't support me in terms of becoming my client. So I had to figure out from the get-go how to get clients, how to get business. And one of the things I stumbled upon early on, so grateful that I stumbled upon it, is getting referrals and creating what you are calling business alliances, finding business allies. So I am such a fan of the strategy. I've been teaching the strategy off and on over the years. I haven't actually talked a whole lot about it recently. So I think that this is gonna be super helpful. And you've also been seeing the importance of business allies. And I'm sure in your, you know, in the corporate world, the same thing, business development, it's a lot about referrals, et cetera. So let's start by, let's start there. Why do you think referrals are important, especially now? And when I say especially now, people sometimes think, well, gosh, there's social media now, right? So why don't you just post things on social media and maybe run Facebook ads? I talk about Facebook ads all the time. So I'm a big fan of that. But yes, those things can work, but why are referrals particularly important in this day and age?  It's no surprise that we're kind of in the same thinking. So first of all, when I think about marketing, I think about marketing as the goal is really to expand your orbit, if you will, right?  And then the idea is everything we do with marketing is really about just bringing people closer to us. You know, I think we get really overwhelmed with like the vernacular about it. And I think some of the marketing is really becoming a little dehumanized, but marketing is relationship building, right? Everything we do is about getting into someone's peripheral. And then everything is like, how do we nurture this relationship to bring people closer? And the way we do that, I don't know who coined the phrase, but it's developing this like no-like-and-trust factor. So the idea is that you get into someone's line of vision and maybe they see a blog and you've developed a little no-like-and-trust. And so they subscribe to their newsletter. That's them taking one step, well, no-like-and-trust by creating really beautiful content in your newsletter. They take one step closer with a discovery call and you can see how that relationship builds. And in that way, it's like every relationship we have, right, with friends and spouses and every important relationship in our lives. So I think it's really helpful to think about marketing in those terms in that really human way. And so where I think that referrals are more important than ever. And you're right, it's kind of, I think a lot of people think of it as this like old school marketing effort. And it's, you know, it might be old school, but it has never gone out of fashion. And the reason it's important now I think is it's noisier than ever. And also we're building businesses more and more online and developing a no-like-and-trust factor. It's harder online. It just is. You know, when you don't have that human, you know, one-on-one connection with people, it just takes longer. And so when we work with referrals, we're essentially borrowing their no-like-and-trust factor. So we're borrowing their audience and their influence to get more people into our orbit. And then these people have already developed the trust factor. They're already likable to that audience. And so in doing that, we're kind of expediting that process of developing the no-like-and-trust. And that's so important, especially when you're trying to cut through what's really, really noisy nowadays. So I actually think that while this has been, we've been doing this forever, I think it's more important than ever. And I think sometimes we get blinded by, you know, email funnels and social media and all these other things. And sometimes it's just the old-fashioned, one-on-one human connection that really drives our businesses forward. So I agree with you. I think it's more important than ever. Yeah, yeah, totally. Well, there's kind of cycles in marketing and in kind of human social development. And I feel like everything always comes back around. And now I feel like we're in really the last decade or two where digital has become such a big part of our lives. We connect more and more just online. And we connect more and more en masse, you know, like posting something and expecting our friends and family to see it and engage with it. Like you said, it's become increasingly rare, for example, that people reach out to me one-to-one in a thoughtful way. You know, back then, like back before social media was this big, it was normal to make cold calls or to send letters or whatever. But now it's like, you just expect people to kind of see you online. And like I preach Facebook ads all the time. So of course that's a great way of building a business. But I'll just, let me share my background real quick in terms of my experience with what you're talking about. I, you know, some of those of you who know my background know that I was able to build up my business fairly quickly in the first year. In my first year, I reached my first $10,000 month. I only share the numbers to share that whatever I was doing was viable for business. And the key strategy I did in the first year back then I had not knew nothing about Facebook ads. So I didn't run any Facebook ads. All I did was I kept reaching out to people who had an audience who could benefit from my expertise. I just kept reaching out until I found somebody who was willing to, you know, to say yes.   So thank you. Thank you for talking about why it's important. So let's keep going. What, I mean, you have lots of content but you know, one of the things that I think people might wonder as well, how do I get started with thinking in this way and with doing this? Yeah, you know, before I dig into that, you just brought up a really good point. You just said it's so rare that people reach out to you in a really thoughtful one-on-one way. And I just, I see this movement that the more we get into social media, the less social it becomes. And I've been really encouraging people to approach social media the same way they approach their in-person relationships. You know, someone talked to me the other day, they have a Facebook group and they asked me, should I thank people? Send them a little note to say thank you when they join my Facebook group. And I thought, well, what is your brand? Like if your brand is meant to be thoughtful one-on-one interacting, thank somebody for coming to an in-person event, then try that. You know, do that. Reach out in the same way you would in an in-person event. And give it a try. See how it feels, see how people respond. But I think people get intimidated in the social media space and they think there's just one way to do it. And the social media is meant to be social. So again, it's you bring the same principles that work for you in interactions and you bring that to social media and that really resonates with people. So I really appreciate you bringing that up. I wish we could all approach digital and social. This are, you know, our most valued relationships. I think that would make for a really nice space in Facebook too. That'd be great. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. So what I thought I would do is dig in with what I think are kind of my three foundational questions. So these are the three questions that I use to set the groundwork and the foundation for just about everything I do with clients. I'm always circling back to these three questions. And I think if you can get really clear on these, then everything else becomes a lot simpler. And the tricky thing about these is I think these questions are really simple, but because they're so simple, sometimes people don't take the time to really dig in. And it's worth pausing and taking a look at it. So the three things that I always ask clients at the beginning of our relationship and then any time they're doing a new initiative is who are you serving? And really who are you serving? Who is that person at the heart of themselves? What is the problem that you're solving? What is the challenge that you're solving at the core of it? And then how are you uniquely qualified to solve that problem? So what is it about you that's different than everybody else? Do you say it differently? Do you offer a different message? What is it about your experience and your life that makes you unique about that? So I would say that before you even begin to brainstorm who you wanna do referrals with, a really good place to start is just to get really clear on those three questions. Who do you serve? What problem do you solve? And how are you uniquely qualified to solve it? And that really creates the framework for so much of what we can talk about. And so I thought I would start by just helping people brainstorm who would be good referral sources. And when I said this before you do that actually, so I would love to invite everybody watching this if you are willing, and if you would maybe like additional referral partners, which I hope everybody is open to that, please comment below the video and answer these three questions. And you know what? Every time I answer questions like this, it comes out differently. So don't worry about having to have a perfect answer. Just write what's coming to you right now. You can always edit your comment in the future if you want to, but this is gonna give you some practice to do that. So Chris repeat those questions one more time for us. So who do you serve? What problem do you solve? What problem do you solve? And how are you uniquely qualified to solve it? And how are you uniquely qualified to solve it? Who do you serve? So who is your ideal client or ideal reader, ideal audience? How do you, what problem do you solve for them? So what challenge are they having in their life or what issues are important to them that you help them to resolve or to move forward in? And then third is how do you do it uniquely? Is that right? Yeah, how are you uniquely qualified to solve it? So what about your education, your background, your experience, what about your approach? Really creates the environment where people can solve that challenge. So what is it that's unique about you in that process? And Chris, are you, maybe you could give us an example of how you might answer this right now. I know I'm putting you on the spot, but would you like to? Yeah, so I work with like inspired, heart-centered entrepreneurs who are in the service industry. And the problem I solve is that they often feel confused and overwhelmed with the variety of ways of building a business and the many steps that it takes to build a business. And I'm qualified to create clarity and movement for my clients because I've got 20 years of marketing and business development experience from a former VP, but also I create and nurture the kind of relationship that allows people to feel comfortable enough to explore their own authentic vision. That is great. Well said. That's what it looks like. But you know, you made a great point. And I love that you said that that every time you do this, it comes out a little different. And this is such, I've been really talking to people about the fact that us as entrepreneurs and our businesses are constantly evolving and there's something really so beautiful about allowing that to happen. Sometimes we get so focused on the way things have been that we can get a little rigid and there's something really beautiful about giving us and our businesses the breathing space to grow and evolve. And so I encourage people that ask these questions of yourself monthly, quarterly, create real check-ins because these answers are gonna change and they should, they should definitely because you're changing. Yeah, exactly. And also the other thing is, the reason why these answer change is because of the context of when we're answering them. And I always tell people, people say, how do I create my elevator speech? I say, ultimately, the elevator speech depends on which elevator you're, I mean, who's in the elevator with you, right? Like you talk about yourself in the context that they can understand or in the context of whatever you're talking about in the moment if you're doing it on social media or something. So, all right, I'll let you keep going with what you wanted to share. Like, who do we know who's an ideal referral partner or business ally? Yeah, I love that, I'm using that by the way. It depends on what elevator you're in. I'm using that, I love it. Okay, so I wanna just quickly help people brainstorm on who would be good referral sources for them. And at the top, we talked about this being referrals and also being what I'm calling kind of business allies. And when I say business allies, I mean, anybody that might be able to support you getting your message out into the world. So these could be people who would have you guest post on their blog, it could be somebody who is hosting a podcast that you wanna be on. It could be someone who would collaborate with you on a new course or an offering. So, any kind of business ally. So we're gonna talk in terms of referrals, but these principles work in all of those business relationships. So you can really consider these things in a variety of different ways. So I wanna start by helping people brainstorm who these people are. And the reason I think this is so important is that it's human nature that we hang out with people who are like minded, who are interested in the same things, right?  So I'm a coach. I've got the coaching circle from my coaching program and then you join the coaches federation. So you end up hanging out with people who are actually offering a similar solution. They're offering alternative solutions. And that's not usually the best referral sources. Now, George, you've got such a big heart. This is a really unique opportunity that a business coach would invite another business coach onto their Facebook page. But typically it's not somebody who's offering an alternative solution that's really gonna help you with the referrals. So I put together kind of four ideas to help you brainstorm. So the first one is, I love this. I want you to think about who is working with the same client that you're working with on a similar problem, but at a different point in the life cycle. So people are always evolving. So you're speaking with a person when they're addressing a certain challenge. So I want you to think about what are the challenges that this person faced leading up to the moment that they needed your service. And after they've used your service or they've corresponded with you, what are the other challenges that they might face? So let me give you a couple of examples.  Specifically, you work with women who are going through divorce. They're really in the trenches of the divorce. Now, the people who worked with that person before could be marriage counselors. So these could be people who are working with them when they were still a couple and they were deciding if divorce was the right step. So that's the person who's serving your client and then afterwards, I've seen coaches who actually work with women at least a year out of divorce when they've gotten through the process and now they're looking to redefine themselves. So there's somebody who works on both sides. I have a client who is a pre-diabetes coach. And what she knows is that leading up to people coming to find her, they are often really concerned about weight loss and they often have people in their lives who already have diabetes. So the people who are solving the problem before them are weight loss coaches who aren't specific to diabetes, but weight loss coaches and also diabetes support groups because they're probably researching these concepts because a family or friend has it. So those are the problems they're solving before. Now, she does pre-diabetes. If her service doesn't work, the after solution is someone who's actually working with people who have diabetes. So think about the problem that you solve and then ask yourself, what are the challenges that led up to this challenge and who's serving them in that capacity and what challenges will they face after this one and who is serving them there? So both of those groups are really good people that offer referrals. So that's your first group. That's a great, great idea because the fact is after someone uses a service provider or a business, oftentimes that service provider wishes they could refer this person on to the next step and oftentimes they don't have a good person or they don't have someone who's top of mind. And another example might be, let's say, acupuncture and nutrition coach, right? And so an acupuncturist might in that process of helping someone discover that, you know what? You do need to work on your nutrition as well, your diet, et cetera. And I just spoke with somebody who is a nutrition coach and she just reached out to me, he just reached out to me and I looked at his background, he really came from a good certification program, whatever, he really seems to know what he's talking about. I recommend you take a look and have a conversation. So it is really good. That's why when you reach out to these fellow service providers in that related field, they're often grateful to know that you exist and you might also refer people to them too. Absolutely, it brings real value to their whole journey, 100%. So the second group is talking to people who are addressing a similar product but with a different clientele. So my example of this is, this was a perfect, this was like a match made in heaven, but I had two clients simultaneously who were both leadership coaches, but one was working with Gen X and Baby Boomers, who were challenged by managing millennials. So they were really figuring out how they could make the most out of the millennial workforce. My other client was working with millennials who were trying to figure out how to climb the corporate ladder, how to create their own leadership skills and how to communicate to their Baby Boomer coaches or managers. And so here you can see where they're actually serving different clientele, but it's the same challenge. And that was kind of the perfect compliment to each other. So consider that. Who else is having a similar challenge? It might be a different clientele and who's servicing that group? Because people are gonna come into their orbit that are not actually their ideal client. So that's a great place for them to refer out, but also when they're putting programs together, you might offer a legitimacy or a new perspective that they don't have. So they might be really eager to have you come on as an authority, as a blog host, as a podcast host, because you come with a fresh perspective. So consider that too. Who is serving in the same world, but a different clientele? Yeah, that's really good. Another interesting sort of example of this is male and female. So as an example, if somebody came to me and says, George, I'm actually looking for a female business coach. I just get along better with them and it just feels better. Say, I'll recommend them to you.  Works for me then, of course you work. So yeah, so even, whether it's age, whether it's the clientele is different or even the gender or their particular focus, these are all.  Oh, they're a leadership coach. Well, I'm a leadership coach. Wait a second, let's talk about what their focus is or what type of clientele that they most enjoy serving. So yeah, thank you for sharing that idea. Those are all great examples. Age, gender, perfect. The other one is kind of complimentary services. So, and the easiest way to think about this with a lot of my clients is the mind, body, spirit connection. So if you know that you are specifically working with the body or the mind or the spirit, who is solving the same problem from the other perspectives? So if you're a nutritionist, a natural compliment, like the yin and yang, the natural compliment would be a personal trainer. So try to figure out who is offering a complimentary service, who's addressing the problem where you're coming at it from different angles. So that's actually really a natural one. And then the last one's kind of like ancillary services and products. So the key here is really knowing your ideal client. And so you need to be having exploratory conversations with ideal clients all the time, even beyond, even if you're serving clients on a regular basis, I really encourage people to have more focused interviews with clients to really get down to what their challenges are. But what are the other services that they might be purchasing? So I don't know why I always use dog walking as an example, but if you're a dog walker, your client is also looking at grooming services and veterinary services and pet products and things like that. If you're a yoga teacher, where are they buying their yoga clothes, yoga instructor yoga, they might also be interested in vegetarianism. So really understanding your client and what their life cycle is like, their lifestyle and like who else are they engaging with in that process. So consider that to get really creative about other aspects of their lifestyle. Yeah. The underlying message for this is, it is so valuable for business to deeply understand your client and what they're going through, what their life is like. But I think it's also just the right thing to do, I guess. Like how can we really care about our audience and about our client if we don't really understand what a day in the life, month in the life, year in the life of that client is like. And so if we come to it from a place of not necessarily just how can I get more referrals but like how can I understand this person so well that I can more naturally activate my compassion and intuition to help them. And in the process of that, understanding them, it's kind of just naturally say, oh my God, look, they're using this type of service. They're interested in that. Well, there you go. There are my referral sources. So thank you for bringing that up. I love that. Anytime I have a client who gets a little triggered by something that feels salesy, people are really leery of feeling salesy. And whenever somebody feels triggered by that, I'm like, let's review your intention here. How can we shift your intention around this to be client centered and really heart focused because that totally shifts the energy around the entire thing. So yeah, I'm with you 100%. So I just wanna offer, with our last few minutes, I wanna offer four kind of tips that you can use to really make the most of these opportunities. So the first one, and you kinda talked on this before, is this idea of creating a win-win. So people that you're reaching out to for referrals, they're really busy. And while they probably love you and your business and they wanna support you, they're really busy managing their own business. And so if you can create a win-win for them, they're more likely to be able to keep you front of mind and be able to give you the time it takes to nurture a new referral. So before you even reach out to someone, I think people get a little, again, the salesiness, they don't wanna go in and just ask, can you help me with X, Y, and Z? I encourage you not to do that. Before you even reach out to someone, focus on how is it that this person is gonna win based on our new relationship and lead with that.  And then the other one is, and this is in the same line. And I think this is a good principle for pretty much everything in marketing. This is a good principle for your newsletter and social media. But when people ask how should I start these conversations, you should start with commonality and value. Those are just a winning recipe for anything. And think about the way you meet any new person, right? You join them because you have something in common and there's some value in you two having a relationship. So let me give you an example. If you read a blog that you really like, it really resonates. To send them a note, instead of saying, I've got a new program, I wanted to know if you knew anyone that was interested, right? That feels very salesy, it can feel really aggressive. An alternative to that is start with what you have in common and add value. So I just read this blog post, X, Y, and Z. I really loved specifically when you mentioned this. It seems like we're both really passionate about helping people who have diabetes and want to resolve that without using medication. I would love to hear more about your business and see how I could lend value. That's a really generous way to start that relationship. And I think for a lot of people, it takes down that kind of sales phobia too because it's not a sales call. It is a relationship building step. So if you feel intimidated about how to start the conversation, focus on what you have in common and how you can add value. You just can't go wrong with that recipe. Oh, that's brilliant. Yeah, and it happens almost never when people reach out to me. Like I always use myself example. And then whenever I say that, I say, hey, everyone watching this is going to now email me, so please don't. But seriously, I mean, I have a relatively larger network and audience than a lot of people. And I can always, I can count on probably two hands, the number of people who reach out to me every six months, let's say. Yeah, I mean, 10 people reach out to me every six months personally via email, and most of them are templated. So I could tell that they're just copying and pasting. That's what it feels like to me, that they're doing this with a hundred other people. And so there's nothing customized. And certainly they don't care about me and my business. They just care about promoting their thing. And even if somebody says, they say one thing like, George, I think your dog is so cute. And by the way, I have a program that I think, that's not what you're talking about. You're talking about thinking of it as, I mean, they're a potential friend. You know, potential friend. And if it's a potential friend, I'm not going to like, try to get them to do something for me right away.  You know, that I genuinely can say, I really like that you talk about this on your blog. Or I really appreciate that you emphasize this and you're about me page. That value is really meaningful to me too. And I just want to connect with, so whatever you just said was great. I'm going to rewind also because I just know what you just said. But thank you, thank you for starting there. And that's a great way. I hope everybody reaches out in that way. Well, I love what you just said. No surprise. You're saying all these things like, yes, George, yes. I love what you just said about, you're not with a new friend, you don't reach out and just ask somebody of something right away. I think we live in this kind of instant gratification world, right? And I think that to some extent, there are a lot of people making a lot of money, selling people the concept that you can build a six-figure business in 60 days. And so there's this idea that everything has to be so instant in your business. And that really disintegrates the relationship right away. Like your intention cannot be wholehearted if it also is tied to a sense of urgency. Relationships take time, no like and trust, right? That all takes time. So I think that's an important piece too, is know that when you reach out, it's not because you're looking for something immediate. You're nurturing our relationship. You know, an important component too, is that you should be nurturing these relationships well before you ever need them. You should be nurturing these friendships before you ever have anything to ask. So that by the time you ask, it's natural. And that person is really eager to help and support you. So I think that's the other thing.  These relationships are worthy of that. Your business is worthy of that. So I appreciate you bringing that up. Well said. The other couple of things. First, the other thing was to make this easy for the person you're asking for a referral. So one of the mistakes I see is people being really vague in their ask. So they come and they say, I'm an executive coach. If you know any managers who want to be better leaders, send them my way. That almost gives that person some homework. Because now they have to figure out, well, what does an executive coach do? What kind of managers do I know? What problems are they facing? Now they have to go out in the world and they have to self identify these people or identify these people for you. That's a lot of work to give somebody. So the easiest thing is to help that be really clear about who you want to hear from and what problem they're facing. And the best way to do that is to deliver this message in your ideal client's language and from their perspective. The reason being is that you should be describing this person in such a way that the person you're talking to is going, oh my gosh, this sounds just like Jennifer. I got to call Jennifer as soon as I get off the phone with this person. Or that you've described it in such a way that the next time they have a conversation with someone who would be an ideal client, the language is so similar that it immediately triggers them to go, I just had a conversation with someone who fixes this problem. So as an example with one of my clients, he was an executive coach who the message started with leaders who want to get more out of their teams. And what manager doesn't want to do, they want to get more out of their team. So we did a lot of exploratory work with their ideal client. And now the message is, and this is kind of ad-libbing, obviously he'd do it better, but the message is more like, I work with senior leaders who are working harder than they feel like they need to work. They feel like they're saying a lot, but they're not communicating enough. They feel like their message is falling on deaf ears when they communicate their goals to the team. And as a result, their team is missing important matrices in the business. So those are actually direct quotes that he took from interviews he had with his ideal client, but you can see how that kind of message would trigger someone to go, I know this person that you're talking about. And that really makes it so much easier for that person to refer people to you. So make it really easy and be really specific. Yeah, that's brilliant. Yeah, exactly because when people connect with me too, they often just kind of assume that their elevators, their pitch is enough for me to go, well, I think I think of that person, that person, that person, then yes, I want to help you, but it's more about, and you know, if they could think about my clients and my network and kind of think about it from that point of view, it's so much more helpful. So like you said, I mean, the basic message is don't make the person you're reaching out to do a lot of work to have to think. Try to help think about it in their own language, in their own network, from their own network, yeah. So thank you. Yeah, make it simple, keep it easy for them. And that really is the last piece too. I think one of the biggest challenges when it comes to referral, George, I'm sure you agree with this. If I'm gonna refer somebody to somebody, I have to be really certain. It feels really vulnerable to me to refer business to other people because I feel like I'm attaching my name and my reputation to that person. You know, we've all been, we're all professionals here. We've been cultivating our reputation for decades. So to refer business to somebody, that's a really vulnerable position for someone to be in. And so I really encourage you to consider, especially if this is a new relationship, consider a smaller ask, right? So it might feel really vulnerable for you to say to somebody, I've got this $5,000 program that I'm rolling out. Do you know anyone who might be interested? For someone who hasn't referred people to you before and is just getting to know you, that could feel really vulnerable for them to attach their name to that product at such a high price versus a new relationship to say, I'm doing a free five-day no sugar challenge. And I would love to know if you know anyone that could benefit from that. You know, where there's a low barrier to entry, there's not such vulnerability associated with it. So I would consider, especially with those earlier relationships, you know, how can you make it a small ask? How can you take some of the fear and vulnerability out of it for the person who's going to refer the business over to you? Wow, this is so good. I'm so glad you're talking about this. And I just, I'm just thinking, as you've been sharing all these things, like, you know, you should have like a, well, I know you do, well, I'm assuming you do this kind of work with your clients in terms of helping them to flesh out in their own, for their own business in their own customized way, these things that you're talking, you're sharing with us, I'm assuming. Yeah, of course, of course. Yeah, and I was thinking at some point, you know, we should talk about this. You should probably create a group program where you're walking a group through this stuff and so people can see each other's examples, et cetera. I think you're being very generous in this free video. You're sharing such great content honestly. I'm not just saying that because you're a client, but I, you know, you're summarizing a lot of what I've learned over the years and you're doing it in such a good way. So thank you so much for that. We've got a couple of minutes left and I, there's a question here. Is that okay if I bring that forward? Yeah, yeah, this is great. You and I can both offer a perspective on it. Yeah, so let's see. And thank you, Captain, for your comment there as well. So Heather wrote, I've got a number of other businesses that mutually refer. Could you speak to the monetary aspect that comes into that? So I love referring to other businesses and have a significant, she has a significant connector energy, but it feels heavy to me when others ask for money, basically for referring people to me. So let's talk about that. That's an interesting question. And is there anything that comes to mind for you when you think about that? You know, and this is something I didn't really touch based on when I talked about creating a win-win. I think when people think about creating win-win, a lot of people automatically think that's money. They automatically think of like an affiliate program where they're paying for referrals or they think a referral has to be, if you refer one person to me, I refer one person to you, which in that alone can feel like a sense of responsibility and there can be a weightiness to that. So we can talk about the energy around the money piece, but the other thing to consider is what are the other ways in which you bring value that aren't money? And I think having those front of mind is really helpful when you're having the money conversation. So when someone comes to you and expects a monetary, if you have other concepts, you know, if you can talk about the authority, the expertise, the audience that you offer, you know, there are a lot of ways that you bring value that are way more valuable than probably the monetary ask. So I think beyond kind of the energy of the money, you know, being really conscious of the other ways that you bring value and the other ways that you create a win for that person, I think that's really helpful. What are your thoughts? No, that's actually true.  I tend to basically, you know, try to see that, hey, if something's important to them, you know, then do my best to meet their needs. So if, you know, Heather, if that person wants to refer business to you and say, well, how much do you pay for a commission? Just step back and realize that they're probably not being the most thoughtful in terms of how they're phrasing that. And money is important to them. And it is, you know, essentially think of it as your advertising budget. So, you know, maybe we should talk about a little bit about well, how much do we pay somebody to refer business to us? If it's a one-to-one situation, I've seen everything from like 5% to, you know, 25%.  If it's a do-it-yourself product like, oh, I'd love to sell your online course to my people, 50%, 50%, half, split half, it's very common because essentially if you're selling online course, you can sell an unlimited, virtually unlimited number of it. If it's an online course or a program that has a lot of your support, then it's not, maybe not so much 50%, maybe it's more like 30% or 35%. But bottom line is I try to not judge what is a priority for someone to offer, for me to offer to them to be willing to do this. So, yes, come up with various incentives that you would be happy to offer and just know that money is going to be important for some people, you know? Yeah.  And you know what, honestly, that may be true, but if you want their referrals, then you're gonna have to kind of play that game and just realize that, hey, money is uplifting for them. And so you can frame it in that way and say, okay, I'm giving them what helps them and that's fine too. And that's the other value of nurturing that relationship because if it's a new relationship, when they ask for money, that can feel really awkward. People have different perspectives and energy around money, but ideally you've been nurturing this relationship before you ever needed to make the ask, in which case it's a lot easier to go to someone and say, well, you know what, let's talk about that. What are your goals for a referral relationship? You know, in an ideal world, what would this look like for you? So that's another option is just to put it back on them. I think a lot of times we make assumptions about what their goals are or what the right number is for them.  If that's important to you, I really would love to hear more about that. You know, what would be an ideal situation? What would make you feel good in this relationship? So, you know, if you're comfortable with that in the relationship, there's no harm in that either. That's great, excellent. Do you have any recommendations in terms of goals to set in terms of like reaching out to referral partners or business allies or give us some kind of guidelines for what we should maybe expect? Or, so for example, it's probably not realistic that every person we reach out to is gonna refer business to us, you know? And it's probably also, it's probably true that at least one person out of every who knows 10 or 20 is gonna refer business to us if we reach out in a thoughtful way. I think if you do it in a way that Chris has been talking about, it's probably gonna be better than one out of 10. But yeah, do you wanna talk about it a bit? Like what should we be maybe reaching for in this exercise? You know, I don't have a number and I'm sure you do. I think that part of it is, I think you've gotta get out there and start having these conversations because what you're gonna find is that there are gonna be certain, like for me, networking in person, my network, my referral rates are really high. Networking online far less, right? Because like you said, they're used to getting so much in their inbox. So I think what's really important is that you get out there and you're trying a lot of different things. And also in the early months of this, be tracking that information, right? Be looking at how many conversations you're having and what that's netting for you. And then you can work backwards. You can say, well, if I need five new clients and I know that, you know, if one in 10, that means I need to make 50 referral comfort. You know, you can work backwards into that number. So I would really encourage you just to get out there and start and figure out what's working best for you. And the other thing I would say is like every, everything you do in marketing, one of the most critical pieces is that you're consistent with it. I think it's really dangerous because this is a relationship building step, a lot, you know, to start strong and then either you don't get the response you wanted or you start to lose steam on it. And so you kind of pull back. And then six months later you go, oh, I forgot I was supposed to be networking and you start to pick up those relationships again. People feel that inconsistency. You know, you don't want friends that are inconsistent like that. So I would just say that no matter what you're doing, no matter how often you're doing it or where you're doing it, be consistent about it. So if you commit to going to a monthly networking event, that means you show up at that same event every month.  People should know that they can count on you. Your clients should count on you, referral sources should count on you. So I would just say most importantly is the consistency. But what are your thoughts on a number? I love that message that you're just saying. And by the way, three a day is what's more than what I was thinking. I was thinking maybe three a week. But no, I actually, I mean, if you are wanting to get referrals more quickly, you know, three a day is great actually. If you could, you know, make a goal of that three a day, let's say fine, you do three times a week, you know, then it's nine per week. That's, I promise even three a week is more thoughtful outreach. Even three a month, I'm like, I'm still crying out loud. There's more thoughtful outreach than most people are doing, you know? So yeah, start with three a week. If you can go up to three a day, even if it's three times a week or something, that's great. What you just said about, you didn't say it exactly in this way, but it's like, don't reach out to somebody only when you need something for them to do something for you. Yeah. There are people like that in my network, in my life, and, you know, I try to be helpful, and I try to be loving and helpful whenever I can, but it doesn't feel the greatest and there are a lot of people who are not gonna be as compassionate as I am and are just gonna be like, you know, the second or third time you do that, you can be like, oh, this person just wants stuff from me. That's only when I hear, I only hear from them when they have something they want, they want me to promote for them. So just be aware of that dynamic and, you know, back to what we both agree with is back to the heart, enjoy people in your network, you know, like if you enjoy them and you create a relationship based on that enjoyment and that appreciation about who they are, the connections come more naturally and the keeping in touch comes more naturally, you know. So anyway, I don't wanna take too much of your time, Krista, and so I just wanna thank you for sharing so brilliantly and all the, I think the important points of this idea and this very important aspect of marketing, you might say, or connections, networking. And, you know, a word that I started using recently is net-caring, you know. And so the networking, it's net-caring, you know. And so is there any kind of final words of encouragement or wisdom you wanna share with us as we close this out? No, I would just reiterate what you said, which is that, you know, if you could walk into a networking event and not think about how many new clients you could get, but instead go, how many relationships can I nurture in this room? Your energy is gonna be so different, people are gonna feel that, and then you almost don't have to make the ask, right? If you're just there generously, people are gonna be generous back. So I would just encourage that. And I would just encourage people to get out there. I think for a lot of people, it just feels really intimidating to start, but starting everything is usually the hardest part.  That's a great place to start.  It'll become more and more natural.  Yeah, beautiful. And if those of you watching this would love some one-to-one caring support to actually do this, Carissa is a great business and marketing coach to hire. So please check out her Facebook page, which I've put in the comments below. Her website is just her name.com, Carissa Schminke, S-C-H-M-I-N-K-Y.com. And thank you for watching. I hope you got something from it. If you don't mind, please comment below and say one thing that you most appreciated from what you heard and saw in this video. Thank you all so much. Thanks Carissa for doing this. Bye, thanks so much.


Hey folks, what's up? It's Rob Dotson. Welcome back to the Progressive Web App Summit. We are just wrapping up day one. You can see we're setting up for the after-party now. I'm here with Tal Oppenheimer. She is a product manager on the Chrome for Android team. Tal, you were just talking about building for billions and making sure that businesses are really thinking about emerging markets. So I was wondering if you could just kind of tell me like, you know, why is it important for businesses to be considering these markets? What is, you know, what should their their direction be there? What we've seen across the board when we're actually thinking about building experiences for everyone is if you actually want to reach as many people as you can, the growth that we're seeing in internet users is very much in emerging markets. And so when you look at internet users today, we actually see that the majority of internet users are in India and China, and the United States still has quite a bit. What's really remarkable is when you look at where the growth is coming from, it's primarily driven by places like India or places where people haven't had internet connection in the past. So we've actually seen over the past year in India that a population equivalent to about a third of the United States entire population came online just in a single year in India. And there's still over 800 million users in India who don't have internet access yet. So we expect that number to keep growing. And in these markets, I know probably a big deal is the network infrastructure, right? And it may be being not so not so great at times. Maybe a little bit flaky. Can you just talk a little bit about that? Like what did developers need to have in their head when they're thinking about these network conditions? Yeah, absolutely. So there's probably two main points to think about when you're thinking about your network conditions for users who are coming online for the first time. The first is that the network conditions can be spotty and they can be slow. So we actually see that globally, a metric from 2015 found that about 60% of cellular connections around the world are 2G connections. But in a lot of these areas where people are coming online for the first time, we see this closer to two thirds or 66% of all connections are 2G. And that's ignoring 2G like speeds, which is actually a much bigger portion of connection types. So the speed can actually have a really big impact on how long users have to wait to even get to your experience in the first place. And the second big thing to keep in mind is the cost. A lot of the users in these areas are relying solely on cellular connections on their phone to access the internet. And that means that they're paying for the data quite regularly for all of their internet access. And in a lot of these areas, data can be incredibly expensive. So in India, for example, if you look at minimum wage in conjunction with how much 500 megabyte data plan costs, a user would have to work about 17 hours on minimum wage just to afford 500 megabytes of data, which is huge if you actually try to simplify that to web views or something. It gets the point of about just being a huge trade-off. If a user is accessing your website, they're not accessing something else, and they have to make those trade-offs pretty consistently. Yeah, absolutely. Especially with sort of the sizes of web views growing all the time, it seems. Yeah. So, okay, so with that in mind, how does the developer approach this problem?  Are there strategies? Like, how would I go about sort of reducing that payload size? Yeah, so there's a few things. The first is probably to just think about it, right? Take a walk through your experience and think how many page loads am I making the user get to before they get something valuable? How big is each of those page loads? Actually, on Chrome DevTools, you can see on the network panel exactly how many bytes are being transferred for every page load, both using cache and not using cache. And you can also simulate different connection speeds. So you can throttle your connection to simulate a 2G-like connection. So you can see how long users have to wait. And sometimes it can be 11 seconds, which you might not expect if you're testing on your conditions. So the first step would absolutely be just to sort of test it out. And then beyond that, there's actually a whole lot of tools that you as a developer can use. You can use service workers to help a lot with speed, not just for offline and sort of the extreme of the connection type, but also to keep an eye out for sort of request timeouts if users are on really slow round trip times to make sure that things are still loading as quickly as possible. Cool. And if there's maybe like a good educational resource, someplace where I can go to learn more about some of these things, do you have one of those in mind? Yeah, absolutely. So we actually have a sort of Building for Billions website that covers what you should think about when you're thinking about a global audience and then the tools that we have. So that's just on sort of our developer tools under Billions. Okay, right on. So we can include a link to that site down in the description. Also, if you are interested in catching Tal's talk, it is on the PWA Progressive Web Apps Dev Summit playlist on our Chrome Developers YouTube channel. Go there, check out the playlist. Also, be sure to subscribe. Tal, thank you so much for chatting with us today. Thank you all so much for sticking with us today. We're wrapping up day one. So I'll catch you here again tomorrow for day two of the Progressive Web Apps Summit live from Amsterdam. Thanks.


Thank you very much to all our presenters. Now we will have a video discussion by Vanda Castello from the Mosmon team. Good afternoon. Thank you for having me in this session, in this debate. So I would like to say some words on the three working paper, on the three presentations that we had here. Because what I saw is that those papers gather consensus on the crucial role played by social protection programs in supporting the most vulnerable people, especially when we talk about children and elderly people. What make those programs key instruments also in times of crisis such as the COVID-19 episode that we had two years ago. However, the existing problems in many countries' social protection systems, especially the least developed ones like Mozambique, my home country, I'm talking about the low coverage of the programs, the high level of informality, lack of well-organized database on vulnerable populations. And also it makes difficult to know exactly who are those vulnerable populations and the complexity of the eligibility criteria in many of the programs it makes it difficult to select or to target the beneficiaries. And because of all those issues that I have raised, the initiatives carried out by the government have limited impact during the period of shock. And the interventions made in that period have not been enough to reverse the reduction in consumption due to the loss of jobs and source of income of most of the population. And also was not the intervention those social protection programs, the initiatives that the government have undertaken during this period were not sufficient enough to counteract the worsening of poverty and inequalities in many countries during and after the pandemic. And also the other issue that we had before the pandemic crisis we see that many of those social programs the amount assigned to the beneficiary were low, were considerable low. And it's common in many of the countries. It's a situation that was, we see that was aggravated by limited fiscal space and it makes difficult to increase the amount and also difficult to expand the coverage of benefits in order to meet the national targets. So these realities call us to think on the need and the urgency of strengthening social protection systems and also take advantage of some initiatives that we saw during COVID-19 such as use of remote and digital solutions to reduce the cost of providing social assistance and enable the expansion of the coverage. And also it means that we need to continue thinking on how to make the eligibility criteria more flexible and also the best way of targeting the beneficiary so we can have an effective impact of those programs. So despite the limited impact of social support during COVID-19 there is no doubt as we saw in those presentations that social protection has acted, has an automatic stabilizer to protect people's incomes during the pandemic which also is an opportunity that can be catapulted into other subsequent cases of extreme shocks. So those are the words that I would like to address and thank you for this opportunity. Thanks a lot Vanda, I think she might be connected remotely and perhaps as Vanda rightly summarized some of the key issues related to identification, targeting but also other features of the design of policies like generosity and perhaps duration. I'll just invite our presenters to keep that in mind also when we now open the room for questions from the audience just to come back to those main issues that Vanda also pointed out. So perhaps I'll take the opportunity as a chair to ask some questions and then we'll have a second round to open to the audience. My first question to David and something he could not discuss perhaps due to time was validation. So for Latin American countries now we have actual data for the last quarter of 2020. So how good does the no casting perform and whether now with the actual data that we have for 2021, 2022 there has been more evidence on whether the economy has recovery and whether some of the social protection programs have been actually expanded. Perhaps I'll just give a set of questions and then I'll leave room for you. Catrin related to your presentation, I was also wondering so as we see very little effect of social protection in times of crisis, I was wondering then what other mechanism is acting. So do you have evidence on whether for example in times of crisis the data shows that there's more on produce so people rely more on produce or whether for example in terms of a shock in unemployment, whether informal employment starts acting as a potential stabilizer. So people move from formal employment to informal employment to cushion to some extent the extent of the shock whether you have any evidence on it. So what are people actually relying on in times of shock. And then finally, Guy and I was wondering so I thought it was extremely interesting to dig into the regional differences. So we saw cross-country differences in the first presentation whereas the pictures you showed were very interesting. First in terms of how the pandemic hit Vietnam across regions but then also in terms of the targeting and how the eight packages were distributed along the country. So I was wondering what are the main differences that drove first of all the impact of the pandemic. So do we also see regional differences in the healthcare system so in terms of quality in terms of size and then how does that open a question of you know where we're to invest in terms of healthcare or social protections or whether there are big differences also across those two dimensions. Okay, so for the validation part we tried several strategies. At the beginning we use approved and also some kind of means are estimated to now cast the incomes but the alternative that we used for the final version of the paper was the best. The idea is make this profit and also taking the difference in average earnings between groups and in terms of validation what we found is the distribution if you estimate a kernel for marketing incomes they are quite similar. We can compare this in Q4 because we have the complete information for Q4 so we can compare actual data for Q4 and our now casting technique and the distribution looks okay so the now casting seems to mimic the kernel distribution but if we go to Gini coefficients or poverty statistics is not fairing that well. In some countries it's good but in a couple of countries it misses the values that we observe in the data and regarding the policies in 2021 for most of the countries the policies were erased for instance in Ecuador we don't have policies at Q4 maybe there is one at the beginning of 2021 but for most countries the emergency policies were dropped from the menu so the idea is now with the updating of the models for the south model to see the new policies, the effects. Thank you about what coping strategies households apply in times of crisis because in our case we are interested in an artificial shock and how the system reacts to it we are not really focusing on changes in informal employment or own produce but what we see is that if households have other households members with employment incomes or household members that are supported by the existing social protection system that these income sources of other household members provide some sort of insurance in times of crisis I mean they cannot cushion all the income losses but they provide some protection to a shock to household incomes. Thank you. So I think you raised a very important question about the regional difference in the social protection and the healthcare system in Vietnam so in Vietnam as I mentioned there are 63 provinces and in Vietnam the living standard is very different across the region and across the provinces for the social protection actually the social protection they targeted at the household level so basically there are no differences in the social protection across the provinces or across the region because they targeted at the household level so they targeted at the poor and ethnic minority and the policy household so but in terms of the healthcare system it's more in the poor area in the mountain and the remote area the healthcare system as not good compared with the richer region however in Vietnam during the pandemic so actually the poorer area they are less affected in terms of the COVID because the COVID cases were very high in the cities in the area with the higher population density and because they have the high population density and especially in the south of Vietnam they did not implement the lockdown policy very well so that's why in the south Vietnam there are more COVID cases there are more people affected and a lot of people die in that time when they don't have the vaccine so in that time the healthcare system although in the city it's better in the poor area but because the higher population density and higher COVID cases so they are more affected so I think that also for the COVID it's not only problem of the social protection but also as a policy like the lockdown policy they are also important in Vietnam in the north in the city like Hanoi city they also have the higher population density but the lockdown policy seems better than in the south so the number of COVID cases is smaller in Hanoi so I think the social protection is important here also important but maybe especially for the pandemic like COVID the lockdown is also the most important in case when the people they don't have the vaccine so that's important Thank you again to the presenters now we give the opportunity again to the audience for any further questions So I should partly know this myself but I'll blame it from having been away from the job for a little bit there's been always a lot of talk of what can we learn from COVID is there at least some learnings we can take from a really bad crisis also in terms of policy half is already sad everything was kind of just dismantled again from the emergency measures but I'm wondering now over time and the countries that you've worked with or that you've also been visiting and done trainings in I mean it clearly must have the debate on social protection was on during COVID and I'm wondering in your research but also in your exchange with countries have you seen any changes maybe not forcibly yet in policy but in the way how people look at social protection and the way how it should be run I'm not I'm not asking for a silver bullet for proxy means testing versus income testing but just how you feel the debate might have shifted or changed now that we are more or less out of COVID Okay so in my country I think that after the pandemic well during the pandemic there were difficulties to reach the poor in need so one difficulty was for instance that the people that did the cash transfer didn't have at the moment a bank account or access to the financial system so the government implemented some digital alternatives to make the transfer and after the pandemic they realized that this was very important so for instance the government now is trying to deploy a social registry trying to capture more easily the information for the people not receiving the transfers because they have a robust system for those receiving the typical transfers for instance conditional cash transfers this is a very good database but for during the pandemic well there were some beneficiaries that were not some potential beneficiaries due to the pandemic that they were not receiving anything so the government went door to door looking for them so I think that's the change but not a change in the in the tax system but in the way that we have information for the potential beneficiaries that's the main change that I see yeah thank you so much for the presenters congratulations for the good presentation my name is Yosef Atma from Tanzania Revenue Authority so I'm just adding up on issue of social protection I think it should go case by case for example in Tanzania the social protection went to exemption to the companies to the companies which we are producing this mask so to the government provided mask to some people to protect them so even though we didn't have the lockdown but the issue of social protection was considered because the exemption was provided to some importers who are importing this mask for the people and even the companies which we are producing the senators so those they as what we apply to the hands so so that's what was provided by the government and the exemption was granted to those companies which we are producing it so if we say the protection was provided by the government so thank you so much I just want to add that thank you for the comment and perhaps to come back to the comment and to Vanda's questions I guess all the presentations were taking a stake about what happened but perhaps the main the second aim of the presentation was what do we learn and where do we go from here so I'd like just to give perhaps two to three minutes to each presenter to let us know so then what or how should social protection look like if we were thinking about systems that would protect better vulnerable populations and also what are the financing options clearly Vanda referred to that so if you were to propose something to do an exact evaluation of what social systems should look like for in order to cushion income shocks from future crisis what would you be suggesting well I think I think for us it's important to first of all show that there are now tools in place that help you to carry out exact evaluation so in our case we are not focusing on covid per se but we are providing more general results and we are using tax benefit micro simulation models that are openly accessible so we are hoping that by also showing these results we can start a conversation in different countries about how can we use the limited budget to improve the social protection system and how can we not only prepare the population for life cycle shocks or more general shocks but also how can we improve the design of our system to provide insurance in times of crisis so I think maybe a message that we would like to push is that exact evaluation is important we are aware that the fiscal space is really small and by using tools such as tax benefit micro simulation but also other tools governments now have the possibility to test and to understand the design of their system better and to test how they can use the fiscal space and of course increasing the fiscal space is also important and how can we improve not only the coverage of benefits but also the amount of benefits is important so we need more fiscal space and I'm sure there are various options where we can, I guess that's also the theme of this conference right, how to increase revenues and of course one important agenda is also to bring more people into formal employment and so that they contribute to a larger tax base and to more revenues. There are various tax exemptions that we have already learned about this morning that could be thought about I guess in many cases increasing the revenues is not only looking at households but really looking at companies and other actors in the economy but for me one important message is really to use the tools that are out there to carry out the exact evaluation of social protection systems to start thinking about the design of measures and to understand better how the system works and where we have maybe coverage gaps and where the system is not sufficient. Thank you. Well one thing that I pick from my presentation and Catherine sees this role of automatic stabilizers I think as we saw that automatic stabilizers are not important in the context of crisis and for instance in Latin American countries they had to increase suddenly a lot of government expenditure but if you have automatic stabilizers and these are well designed you don't have to do that in times of crisis so I think we have the models and we can think for instance on some kind of unemployment benefit that is not currently in some countries in Latin America maybe that they automatically cushion the effect of crisis so I think that is one message important from our research and we can model this with the tax benefit micro simulation for Latin America or for Africa to see how to cushion this kind of event. Thank you. So from experience from Vietnam so I think so that time the Vietnam failed to impose a lockdown in the south of Vietnam so that caused many people died that time and one reason is that because the government they have the limited resources so they try to identify the people the most affected people and provide the support for them but it takes very long time to identify the correct one so I think a better lesson maybe during the pandemic so the government they should provide the full coverage the full coverage the support for all the people so and once all the people they can receive their support timely and then the government they can able to impose the lockdown because if they impose a longer time of lockdown and the people they don't have the job they don't have their support so they cannot they cannot follow the lockdown so I think one lesson maybe during the crisis like COVID-19 and if the government want to impose the lockdown for long time they have to provide the social assistance for all the people they don't need they shouldn't care much about the leakage they don't need to care about how to identify most affected people they should provide the full coverage of course that got a lot of money but we need to do that we should do that I think thank you and I think all points are very very interesting coming to the last point that's something that happened for example in Brazil in Brazil is the only country in Latin America where during the pandemic 2020 inequality dropped because these eight packages were given almost universally there was a big expenditure from the government and actually what we see now is the reversal so in 2021 now inequality has increased so perhaps goes in the direction as you said perhaps is not only thinking about the generosity and targeting is thinking about the duration so how timely this the government can react to in terms of crisis if there's any last comment from the audience okay thank you very much for your good representation my name is Issa from Zanzibar I want to address my question to last presenter about the estimation techniques we know when we want to propose a policy implication we need it to rely on the finding of the result but I'm not sure whether the estimation technique the last presenter used it was robust or not so I just want to know the justification of selecting fixed regression model in studio for random regression model thank you okay thank you so actually in the I use a panel data something like a panel data and with the three year in the baseline in the 2019 no one affected so there are no lockdown no catch and for support for COVID and then in the 2020 and 2021 the lockdown time and the eight package level they are very across the individual and very across the provinces so that's why we can identify the impact for other characteristic level maybe you can take my report so it's a more fully description of the method but I think it's a quite simple and straightforward question yeah great so not only can you take a look to the report you can also catch up with any of the presenters during the coffee break so please free feel free to interload them and if you have the opportunity so thank you very much to everyone especially to our presenters to have asked questions in the audience and I hope you enjoy the coffee break and the rest of the conference


All right, we are following some groundbreaking news on this Friday. Amazon buying Whole Foods. I'm here now with Brian Sasi from The Street. Brian, unbelievable. Mind blowing. I mean, this we have our top story right now on the street is what this deal means across retail. This is Amazon getting into bricks and mortar retail in a big way beyond just bookstores.  Kroger, Target, Dollar General, Costco. All these stocks getting slammed this morning. And they're going to stay slaughtered because what you're going to have here, Amazon coming in, they're going to be aggressive on price. They're going to probably roll out a lot more Whole Foods stores. You know, we had Kroger issue a massive earnings warning yesterday. And the guidance cut? The guidance cut. I can't see it possibly getting any better in light of this big news. Now, $13.7 billion. Is that fair value? What do you make of that price? It's, well, first of all, let's keep in mind, it's nothing for Amazon. This is a drop in the bucket for them. For Whole Foods, it's fair. I mean, this is a company that's been struggling mightily. They've had activist investor pressure sell the company. I think obviously you have a Jeff Bezos founder. John Mackie is leading the company founder. They probably agree on many things. Good strategic fit. Fair value. Yeah, I mean, the stock was probably going to keep going down anyway. What does Amazon founder Jeff Bezos want with this deal? I mean, it sounds like he just wants to go out Walmart. He wants stores. Domination. Yes. But also keep in mind the Whole Foods brand. I mean, it's very, very Jeff Bezos. It's Santa or something good. It's organic. It's new age. It fits with Amazon. But make no mistake, to your point, there is a hardcore war going on right now between Walmart and Amazon. And today, in fact, just after the Amazon news hit, Walmart came out and said they're acquiring Bonamos, an online retailer. So they're going back and forth. We know Janna Partners was involved in Whole Foods. Where do they fit into all this? I mean, they're winners. They're straight up chilling. I mean, let's be real here. This is another win for an activist investor. They put pressure on these companies that are not doing what they're supposed to be doing. For the past two, three years, Whole Foods has been horribly, horribly managed. They've run it as a private company. The stock was in the toilet as a result. They came in. They agitated for change. They overthrew the board. Phenomenal Whole Foods board right now. And you know, a big win for them. All right, we are going to be following this story throughout the day. And everyone should check back on the street for more of Brian Sassi's work. Brian, thank you so much. Thanks so much.


Welcome back to EM Ottawa Trauma video. This video will discuss the secondary survey. The secondary survey begins after we have addressed all the components of the primary survey. That is airway, breathing, circulation, disability and exposure. The secondary survey is a head-to-toe physical examination with a focus on trauma. We will now discuss it in detail. First, head and neck. On the face, we look for achemosis around the eyes or behind the ears. Tenderness of the facial bones, the nasal bones and the jaw. We check visual acuity, the eyelids and the globe for injuries. We look into oral cavity for tongue laceration and missing teeth. We look inside ear canals for blood behind the tympanic membranes or foreign bodies. On the scalp, we look for skull fracture, scalp swelling or lacerations. Without the patient moving, we palpate the cervical spine for tenderness or swelling. We also inspect the anterior neck and look for swelling, deformity or lacerations. Next, we return to the chest again. This time, we examine the chest for tenderness, swelling, subcutaneous emphysema and bruising. We look for signs that suggest there might have been restraints such as a seatbell sign as shown here. We listen again to breath sounds and heart sounds. We palpate the clavicles, the ribs and the sternum. Next, we examine the abdomen for again bruising, swelling, tenderness or deformity. This can also be a time for a focused abdominal ultrasound examination to look for free fluid in the abdomen. Next, pelvis. We palpate the pelvis for tenderness, deformity, asymmetry and check for instability. We also look for achemosis, swelling and deformity on the skin. If there is a pelvis fracture, you might feel that the pelvis is unstable. Be careful not to open and close the pelvis repeatedly. Every time it does that, more blood will bleed into the space. We also examine the perineum for lacerations, hematoma or blood in the urethra. If you find blood in the tip of the urethra, we do not insert a catheter, since there might be an undiagnosed urethra injury. Next, extremity. Each extremity is checked for neurovascular status, checking for pulse, motor and sensation. Every joint is checked for swelling and deformity. This is also a good time to note any lacerations that might need to be sutured. Next, the back. The patient's back also needs to be examined. A log roll is performed to move the patient as a whole to examine his back. The entire spine is palpated, noting for swelling, tenderness and stepped deformity. We also inspect the back for lacerations, deformity, swelling or bruising along the sides. A rectal examination is also done to check for high-riding prostate, loss of rectal tone, or the presence of blood. That concludes the secondary survey.  Let's return to our patient. On examination of the abdomen, the patient had swelling and bruising along the top part of the abdomen. A focus ultrasound examination shows this image. In this ultrasound image, this is the liver, this is the kidney. This liver of black here shows free fluid in Morrison's pouch. In the context of his injury, the patient likely had an injury that bled into his abdominal cavity. What should we do with the patient? If the patient is stable, as in if his vitals are normal, we have time to bring him to the CT scanner to characterize the injury further. If the patient is unstable, despite resuscitation by fluid and blood, we will want to involve the surgeon's early to bring him directly into the operating room. This concludes our discussion of the primary and secondary survey in a trauma patient. Please refer to the other video on clinical decision rule for CG head and C spine imaging.


How long should I pray for something? I want something or you want something and you pray and you pray but nothing seems to happen. How will I know what the answer is? Do I know that the Lord by me not having it at this moment? Is this the Lord saying no, you cannot have it? Is this the Lord just wanting to see if I want to keep praying? How long do I continue to pray? Well, what is clear in the Bible is that God is not as concerned as we are about the things that we want or even the things that we need at least to the degree that we are. Does that mean that God is not concerned about what we do want or need? No, it's not to say that but the point is though what God wants you to get more than anything else is Him. And so the beauty of in praying for something even if you feel like it hasn't come yet and you're desperate is to keep praying. Why? Because by praying to Him by going to Him you recognize who the giver is and your focus will instead of being on the gift will be on the giver and you'll end up taking comfort in Him. Remember when Paul had this thorn in the flesh? Paul prays to him three times. This is Paul who has his closest with the Lord, is led by the Spirit, full of the Spirit and he prays three times. And what does the Lord say? He says my grace is sufficient. I've been given this thorn and he says my grace is sufficient. So what is Paul doing? Now he's going to start boasting in his weakness and in the sufficiency of the Lord. He also makes a statement because Paul has gone through all these things. He says that in Philippians 4 he says be anxious for nothing but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving. Let your requests be known to the Lord. So you ought to do so. But notice what he says about that as he continues. He says finally brethren whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is right, whatever is pure. He says think on these things. Things I have learned and received and heard and seen me practice. Practice these things. Do this. Why? Because his focus is to be on him, not the circumstances, not the things. He says but I rejoiced in the Lord greatly that now at last you have revived your concern for me. Indeed you were concerned before but lack nothing. Here it is. But not that I speak from want for I have learned to be content in whatever circumstances I am in. And so that's the key. Before you worry about getting what you want to get or how long you ought to be praying. Make sure that you pray that you can be content in whatever the answer is. That whether it's a yes or no or if the time for getting it or receiving it is off in the future that you be content. That you have peace through it all. That's the most important thing. So your prayer should be Lord pray help me Lord to receive peace in whatever is I'm looking for whether I get it or I don't get it. Now how long should you pray? Because that's the question because still I hear what you're saying Corey, but I've got needs. I've got something that needs to be addressed and should I just move on from it? Let it go or keep praying. Well, Jesus actually addresses this in Luke 11.5. He says suppose one has a friend and goes him at midnight and says him friend. Lend me three loaves for a friend of mine has come in from a journey and I have nothing to say before him. And from inside he answers and says do not bother me. The door has already been shut and my children are in bed. I cannot get up and give you anything.  That's the key. He will get up and give him as much as he needs. So what does Jesus say? So I say to you asking it will be given seek and you will find knock and the door will be open. So we've heard this passage before seeking you shall find. But now we see the context. He just says to be persistent. Keep doing it. Keep doing it. Keep doing it. How long until you actually know definitively keep doing it? If you've been praying for the same thing for five years and nothing has happened. Keep praying. If it takes another five years, maybe another five weeks, maybe five minutes after that first five years it's going to happen. You never know, but keep praying. What's going to happen though as you get closer to God and asking for these prayers and submitting yourself before the Lord. You are also giving reverence to him because he is the one that can answer prayers. And even if he doesn't, as the Hebrew boy said, even if he doesn't, we know he can, but even still I'll rejoice because I've got him. That's why he can make this statement to Paul and Paul can understand that my grace is sufficient. The fact that I'm with you is more than enough.  Amen.