CWJJ Episode 32: UPSCO, Connections for Life

Episode Transcript:

 [0:00] [music]

Jim Schauer:  [0:10] Good morning, LinkedIn community and energy community. OK, let’s take a look back. 1964, the World’s Fair Expo was held in New York. 1965, UPSCO was created. 56 years later, we’re having the first UPSCO Virtual World Expo. Coincidence? I don’t know about all this. I’m in the conspiracy theory.

[0:40] James, let me bring my brother and co‑host, James, to help me get back on track. Mr. James Cross, how are you this fine and beautiful morning?

James Cross:  [0:51] Like always, I’m just glad somebody else has to sit here and listen to your intros, and try not to laugh at them.

Joe Serrett:  [0:57] [laughs] I can’t even take him seriously.

James:  [1:00] Well, I don’t.

Ted Peet:  [1:01] That made my morning.

Chad Cuvo:  [1:02] [laughs] I don’t.

James:  [1:04] Yeah, I don’t anymore. I gave up a long time ago.

Chad:  [1:06] [laughs]

Jim:  [1:08] I’ll never stop. [laughs]

James:  [1:10] If it isn’t obvious…If it isn’t obvious by that intro, we have the guys from UPSCO joining us. You know, y’all have morphed into just one. It’s like Brangelina, just “The Guys from UPSCO and Connection for Life.”

Chad:  [1:22] Wow.

James:  [1:22] We’ll, we’ll come up with a catchy name later, but glad you guys are here. I know there’s a very specific reason, and I won’t steal Jim’s, probably, his first question, but…Welcome to the show, or welcome back to the show, guys.

Joe:  [1:36] Thank you, it’s good to be here.

[1:37] [crosstalk]

Chad:  [1:37] Yeah, it’s been a while too. It’s been a while since, since our…What was our last date? The “Let’s Make a Deal” date, I think, was the last thing we did combined together, really. It’s fun to be back though.

Ted:  [1:47] No, we did something after that.

James:  [1:49] Well, we didn’t tell our audience about that, so thanks, buddy.

Chad:  [1:51] And it went well. You were scared, and then you didn’t tell anybody, and it went amazing.

James:  [1:55] [laughs] I’m still scared when I watch it.

Joe:  [1:56] [laughs] I never watched it again. [laughs]

[1:58] [crosstalk]

James:  [1:58] Yep.

Jim:  [1:59] That was fun. That was SGA. That was a great event.

Joe:  [2:02] It was.

Jim:  [2:02] We had…We had just under 100 people on that event.

James:  [2:05] It was a great…It was a great proof of concept. It proved that you can pretty much do anything.

[2:10] [crosstalk]

Ted:  [2:15] I think it was impressive of us we each had the idea that it was capable to do our own.

James:  [2:19] Yeah, there you go.

Jim:  [2:20] All I can say is, do you guys remember my hair after Tammy put all that baby powder in it? Oh boy, took me three showers to get it out.

Ted:  [2:28] You don’t got to lie and say it was baby powder, Jim.

Chad:  [2:30] [laughs] It still looks the same to me.

Joe:  [2:33] [laughs]

Ted:  [2:33] I don’t notice any difference.

James:  [2:35] It looks the exact same.

[2:35] [crosstalk]

Ted:  [2:35] Anyways…

Jim:  [2:36] Anyways, let’s get on track. We are here today because UPSCO is holding their first ever virtual expo, which is going to be a fantastic event. I’m thrilled. James is thrilled to be…

James:  [2:50] This is my “thrilled” face.

[2:50] [laughter]

Chad:  [2:52] Then you get excited.

Jim:  [2:55] Joe, Joe, can you bring us up to speed with what the…Joe, do you want to speak first about what the expo is, when it is, some high‑level details?

Joe:  [3:07] About two months ago, Chad and I were on a conversation. We were talking about all the trade shows. I said to him, “We should just have a trade show.” He was like, “OK.” [laughs] This is where we are. We’ve taken the last couple of months, and we put together the platform. Everything’s going to be run off of Zoom. It’s a free event. It’s December 1st, 2nd, and 3rd.

[3:29] We have, I think, 26 different presentations lumped in there. We have a couple keynote speakers, which are some industry guys. Bill Cantrell from SGA, and Danny [inaudible] , our owner, are going to come, open off and kick off the event.

[3:46] It’s just been pretty neat. Like I said, we’ve done it all via LinkedIn marketing. Chad’s done some email blasts and things like that. The attendance seems to be pretty strong. We’re excited. It looks like it’s something that’s actually going to be…

[4:00] You have to figure when you start this, when we came up with this idea and we put the website together, Chad put the website together, and we put out the links, people start registering. We thought, “Oh my goodness, what’s going to happen if we get to December 1st, 2nd, and 3rd and we got four people per class?” It could be an absolute belly flop, but it hasn’t been.

[4:17] We’re really excited about it. I know you guys have more questions, so I don’t want to draw on and on, like Jim’s intro.

[4:24] [laughter]

Joe:  [4:25] We’ll move on. Again, we’re excited and thankful, and appreciate you guys bringing us on to do a little bit of conversation about it and promote it from your side of the industry and within your networks. Thank you, you boys both for that.

Jim:  [4:40] Our pleasure.

James:  [4:42] No, that was all the questions.

Joe:  [4:44] That’s it. All right. Thank you. That was great. Thanks for having us.

Chad:  [4:47] Talk to you fellows later.

James:  [4:48] It’s like having a [inaudible] . It was cool. You talk about all the logistics behind the scenes, where you know DWN were no stranger to putting on events as well. The devil’s in the details, and there’s a lot of details. I wish you guys luck on that side of it.

[5:09] When you talk about marketing this event, Chad, I’m going to look at you, maybe? Maybe not. Maybe I’m looking at Ted.

[5:16] [laughter]

James:  [5:19] When we talk about who you guys are targeting and who’s your ideal clientele to come in to this expo, where’s your head at on that?

Chad:  [5:31] Amongst the 26 people that we have presenting, we have a very broad spectrum of topics. They’re all very niche topics to the natural gas utility industry for the most part, but it’s anybody. We’re welcoming people that don’t know much about the natural gas utility industry to people that have been around for 30 years.

[5:53] A lot of these presenters are taking what they do and what their companies do and teaching about how their products solve a niche in the industry essentially.

[6:02] It could be a contractor. It could be a purchasing agent. It could be a safety guy. It could be anybody. We’ve seen a range of different departments, different gas companies, and different companies signing up for the expo so far. It’s going to be a broad spectrum. It’s going to be good for anybody especially because you don’t have to register for all 26 classes.

[6:26] You can essentially break them out. If you go on the website, they’re broken out, that you can register for each one you want to do. We didn’t want people to be tied down for two days, things like that. We try to be very mindful of time. We try to take a little bit of stuff from everything we did and add it to this to make it user friendly to everybody that could be involved.

James:  [6:46] Chad, you say it’s going to be on Zoom and managed through there. Having used it ourselves for webinar side, are you going to make those available on demand after the fact as well?

Chad:  [6:57] We are, once we do all of this and record those. We already have a login page on the website, which is upscoexpo.com, simply upscoexpo. I hope I said it right.

Joe:  [7:10] Wow, twice even.

Chad:  [7:11] I figured I’d get to two. Now, I got the third one done.

[7:15] [crosstalk]

Ted:  [7:15] of exercises.

Chad:  [7:17] There’s going to be a login page where we’re going to ask a small amount of information for anybody to see these presentations afterwards. There’s going to be some good stuff.

Joe:  [7:25] Again, keeping with the same methodology, it’ll be free. Anybody that can’t get to a specific title because there’s some tracks are going on in tandem with others, if you wanted to see both, you can view them after the fact. We thought that, that would be something to be able to promote afterwards and people can still get on at their own leisure.

James:  [7:42] Awesome. Thank you.

Jim:  [7:44] I like it. I like it. There was a little bit of a tidbit in there I think because Chad did a wonderful job articulating that very hard words before this all began, Irish wristwatch. If you say that three times, it’ll help your brain and your tongue.

Joe:  [7:59] Did not help me.

[8:00] [laughter]

Chad:  [8:01] I didn’t say [inaudible] to get it out correctly. Irish wristwatch.

[8:06] [crosstalk]

Chad:  [8:09] Go ahead, Jim.

Jim:  [8:12] You hit on a key point in my world when you started talking about people that were going to come on, whether you’re in the natural gas world or not. I see this as a great networking opportunity. That’s where a lot of us live in, in the natural gas utility pipeline world. Give us a little idea of who’s going to be presenting. Can you mention some names, so people can get an idea?

[8:34] Again, I just want to preface that whether you’re in the natural gas industry or not, you want to do some networking, maybe you want to enter the natural gas industry, this could be great entry point.

Joe:  [8:42] Chad, are you going to cover that?

Chad:  [8:44] I think we could all cover just a little bit.

Ted:  [8:48] Every week, I’ve seen it shamelessly plugged, one class that’s going to take place for each of the blocks.

Joe:  [8:55] No one watches that.

[8:58] [laughter]

Chad:  [8:58] Today we ran out because we’ve done so many that we figured out that we don’t have any left. We have some industry experts, some people that have been around for years, and years, and years anywhere from Frank Rampton with Trenton Corporation doing it. His presentation is going to be absolutely fantastic.

[9:20] We got a little sneak peek of that completely outside the box thinking. All kinds of different people, Dan’s essentially going to come on. We’re going to have a live Connections For Life intro into the entire thing. We changed that up a little bit. We thought maybe he’d do a keynote and speak himself, but he wanted us to interview him. It’ll be fun.

[9:40] Bill Cantrell from SGA brings a ton of, I mean a ton of knowledge if I was the president of two gas utilities and the president of SGA. You don’t get much better than that. Joe, I know you have a few. Ted, you might as well name a couple. We do it every week.

Joe:  [9:56] Yeah. It’s a good cross‑section. One of the things we’re trying to do with this is a lot of times when you’ve been in the industry a long time, you have the assumption that people understand and know the terminology and the things. We wanted to dial this back down and make it educational, specifically like a 101 class.

[10:18] People could come in, learn, and get some of the terminology that they haven’t heard before or they have heard before, but they didn’t know what it meant. You go along with it sometimes when you don’t really understand it. For me, one of the coolest ones that we have is Dave Morrow from HaloValve or OPW.

[10:35] They have a brand new technology that was developed with GTI. It’s a breakaway connector for safety for shut offs for meter sets. It’s something that’s relatively new to the industry. I don’t think a lot of people have a ton of exposure to that. We’re excited to bring him on.

[10:50] We always have our good friends over at Footage Tools with their Squeeze‑Off Tools. You know, John Ryan with some innovative, you know, safety devices for tracer wire, and there’s just a whole gamut of different things.

[11:05] As Chad said previously, one of the things is we’re…UPSCO, as a company, is so diversified. We work in the underground construction and the fusion and cathodic protection markets, and we have a little element of all of that mixed in.

[11:20] So, the presenters are a wide array of people. People that we’re closed with and people that we, you know, some people that are relatively new to the scene. So, I think it’s going to be exciting [laughs] if our Internet holds up.

Chad:  [11:32] [laughs]

Joe:  [11:33] I mean, definitely our caveat, you know. If that dies, we’re in trouble but I think we’re OK.

Chad:  [11:37] I know Teddy wants…Teddy probably wants to pump somebody’s tires already. Look at him.

Joe:  [11:40] Chomping at the bit.

Ted:  [11:41] I got to make sure I do my part for, you know…We have…McElroy will be presenting. Mike Pacheco from McElroy will be presenting the natural gas system for McElroy.

[11:54] If you know anything about McElroy, they believe green. When you’re selling that thing as a system, specifically for natural gas, it looks much different than they do for the water market or other industries that they cross into. So, that’s a really exciting one I’m looking at, along with Todd Tannehill, CETCO.

[12:10] He’s promoting a mud school. Virtual mud school. He’s actually got the largest time slot of anybody during the expo. It spans over two hours with a half‑hour break in it so that he can really get into the minerals, and all of the things that go into making mud for the horizontal directional drilling process.

Chad:  [12:26] It amazes me that that two hours is normally, that two‑hour class is normally like a three‑day class as well.

Ted:  [12:32] Yes, three‑day class.

Joe:  [12:33] [inaudible] .

Ted:  [12:35] But speaking of horizontal directional drilling, we’re also going to have Milford Borzall. They’re going to be doing a presentation for their tool and equipment line in there. But I want to reiterate that, you know, all of these presenters that we have coming on here, this is an educational summit. It’s not a sales pitch.

[12:51] We emphasize that, that all of, all of the knowledge that they’re going to be putting out is for the betterment of the industry. It’s for the betterment of the natural gas society as a whole, so I’m excited for a ton of them.

Joe:  [13:05] Yeah. We all are.

Jim:  [13:06] That’s great.

Joe:  [13:07] And very nervous.

[13:07] [laughter]

Chad:  [13:08] Yeah. Very nervous.

Jim:  [13:10] You guys got this.

Joe:  [13:11] Yeah, we keep telling ourselves that.

Chad:  [13:13] [laughs]

James:  [13:15] Well, you know, it’s kind of like planning this job party and hoping everybody brings their own booze, you know.

Joe:  [13:20] Yeah.

Chad:  [13:20] [laughs] That’s exactly…And they share.

James:  [13:22] Yeah.

[13:22] [laughter]

Joe:  [13:22] And they give us some too, yeah.

[13:26] [laughter]

Ted:  [13:26] [inaudible] , parties on the first 15 minutes of it like, “Nobody’s here.”

James:  [13:29] Yeah.

[13:29] [laughter]

James:  [13:30] Nobody’s coming.

Ted:  [13:30] [inaudible] hours later you’re like, “Why are there so many people here?”

[13:33] [laughter]

Joe:  [13:35] I’m hoping we have that, yeah.

James:  [13:37] In a little bit, I’m sure when y’all clicked the button Open Registration, there was a little bit of that fear of like, “What if 10,000 people signed up?”

Joe:  [13:44] Yes.

Chad:  [13:45] It was more my fear was what if three people signed up? Really. I mean, at that point, you know, when we came up with this idea and I bought the [laughs] domain the next day. Joe thought I was crazy and I started to build the website, and we were like, “What if we do only get three people?”

Joe:  [14:00] [laughs]

Jim:  [14:01] Well…

Joe:  [14:02] That was a fun time. We learned a lot, we learned a lot.

James:  [14:05] Guess what? You’ll be doing the same show, it’ll just be for three people. That’s what you’ll do.

[14:10] [laughter]

Chad:  [14:10] That’s exactly right.

Joe:  [14:11] Yeah, that’s true.

Chad:  [14:12] But we’re really happy with the attendance so far. One of the things that we didn’t get to mention, I wanted to mention before we, before we get closer to wrapping up was… That this is, we’ve said it a bunch of times, but this, this event, the whole thing, is free to people. It’s free to even our vendors as presenters.

[14:27] The one thing that we do have on the website, and that we are going to promote through it, is making a donation to our local town of Moravia for “Christmas in Moravia,” essentially it’s called.

[14:38] So, there’s a GoFundMe page that’s set up for it, and we’re just trying to raise awareness and trying to help our community that, that UPSCO’s so deeply involved with. So, I just wanted to mention that too, and if anybody attends the UPSCO, at the expo…Look, I can’t even say it then.

Joe:  [14:52] Oh, you got it twice.

Chad:  [14:53] [laughs] That was it. They’re…Essentially, they’re going to hear it before and after every presentation too. So, hopefully, we can drive some fundraising for the, for the town.

Jim:  [15:01] It’s great cause.

James:  [15:02] That’s awesome.

Joe:  [15:02] Especially in this day and age, you know. There’s a lot going on and a lot of people that are struggling. So, we thought if we could just up what…We’ve done this program in Moravia for years. This isn’t a new concept, but we thought if we could get some outside help and support, we could help the community a little bit more.

[15:15] So, every little bit helps, you know, and we’re just kind of excited to be able to push back some of that into the community. It’s a small little town, so.

James:  [15:24] Awesome.

Joe:  [15:25] We’ll see.

James:  [15:26] Yeah, that’s cool. Well, guys, it sounds like it’s going to be an awesome event. Again, what is it, upscoexpo.com?

Chad:  [15:34] Yeah. upscoexpo.com.

James:  [15:36] Yeah.

Joe:  [15:36] [laughs]

Chad:  [15:37] If you want to rename it the next day, and then I was like, “Yeah, I just spent 21 bucks on that domain. Sorry, it’s not going back now.” [laughs]

James:  [15:43] Yeah, and if you have any personal complaints about the website, send them straight to Chad.

[15:48] [laughter]

Chad:  [15:49] Yes, I don’t mind at all. It was my first attempt at a website, so. In that regard, if anybody needs some website marketing, I’m also…

Joe:  [15:56] [laughs] I know.

[15:57] [laughter]

Jim:  [16:00] No, no.

Joe:  [16:01] The entire problem is the website, maybe.

James:  [16:03] [inaudible] event coordination. I think UPSCO is now an event coordination and website development.

Chad:  [16:08] [laughs] At least our department.

Joe:  [16:10] [laughs]

Jim:  [16:11] And virtual conference hosts. Extraordinary.

Joe:  [16:14] Well, we haven’t done it yet, so let’s not…We won’t put that feather in our cap just yet.

James:  [16:19] All right, guys. Well, we’ve been aiming with one more question that we’ve been asking a lot of our guests. We added it since the last time you guys and us got together, so I’m going to ask it, I guess, to each one of you individually. So, the last two will get a little bit of a luxury to craft a message.

Joe:  [16:41] They’re going to make me go first. Oh, you do?

James:  [16:44] I’m going to choose our favorite person.

Jim:  [16:47] Who?

James:  [16:48] Ted. Ted? Yeah, man. He’s so quiet over there.

Chad:  [16:54] Yeah.

James:  [16:54] You can tell he’s thinking a lot…

Joe:  [16:57] Yeah.

James:  [16:57] about how many times Chad has sneezed on this…

Joe:  [17:00] [laughs]

James:  [17:02] video, but Ted, do you love what you do?

Ted:  [17:07] I do. I absolutely love what I do. I love that question, honestly, because very rarely do you…I guess, I’m probably going to go too in‑depth and you’re probably just looking for yes.

[17:19] Very rarely do you find a place as an organization that you work for, and co‑workers and colleagues that you work with, that it’s so harmonious and it’s all going towards one goal and it’s one directive. I absolutely love what I do and who I do it with.

[17:39] I’m privileged to have Larry and Curly as my colleagues in crime and to be together with the organization that we work for. Yeah, I absolutely love what I do. That’s a great question, thank you for asking.

Jim:  [17:51] I thought you’re Curly?

Joe:  [17:53] I know, I’m Moe. He clearly doesn’t know what’s going on.

Ted:  [17:55] You know which one of us is which. You made the thing.

Jim:  [17:57] I know. I think that Chad is Moe.

Joe:  [18:02] Oh, I’m Larry.

Jim:  [18:02] Joe is Larry, and Ted is Curly.

Ted:  [18:05] Which is funny because they both have curlier hair than me.

Joe:  [18:09] Yeah, but Curly didn’t have hair.

Jim:  [18:10] Yeah, he was bald.

Ted:  [18:11] He had the George Costanza on the side.

Joe:  [18:13] That was Larry.

Chad:  [18:14] You look like him.

Jim:  [18:15] That was Larry.

James:  [18:16] Yeah.

Chad:  [18:17] It’s unfortunate when you look in the mirror, that’s what you look like.

Joe:  [18:23] [laughs] Oh my goodness.

James:  [18:22] I will say that that question has never went down that trail before.

Joe:  [18:26] [laughs]

James:  [18:27] Three stooges past…path was left untouched before but…All, right. So, Chad, same question, man. Do you love what you do?

Chad:  [18:36] Yeah, I honestly…Like through the, through the years of being in this industry, because I’ve been in the industry since I’m about 20 years old. Which means I’ve been doing this for 21 years which is kind of crazy.

[18:50] I absolutely love what I do. I actually, through the pandemic, I love a little bit more what I do just because I’ve actually got to be a father and more of a husband too and I think that taught us a lot. It’s really as much as we say about the pandemic and things like that, and it’s stinking in not being able to travel, to me that’s probably one of the things that happened the most is a little bit less travel.

[19:12] Don’t get me wrong. I’m ready to go back out there [laughs] and start doing some stuff. It’s been really nice. I love what I do and I love who I do it for. Thank you. It’s been a pleasure.

James:  [19:20] My wife is ready for me to be traveling as well.

[19:22] [laughter]

Chad:  [19:25] I said it was my opinion, not hers.

James:  [19:27] Chad, you said you’ve been here for 21 years, basically, or 20 years. That’s something that I don’t have. I talk about people all the time about how great this industry is. I can’t hang my hat on 20 years or something like that that others can. Man, I got here as fast as I could for sure.

Chad:  [19:49] Glad to have you.

James:  [19:50] Hey, man, Joe, last question, man, can you say Irish…I can’t even say it.

Joe:  [19:56] I know.

James:  [19:55] Irish wristwatch.

Joe:  [19:58] I’m not even going to try. Irish wristwatch.

James:  [20:01] You love what you do, Joe?

Joe:  [20:03] No, I hate it. [laughs] No, I do. I just…

James:  [20:08] It shows. [laughs]

Joe:  [20:09] Thanks.

[20:09] [laughter]

Joe:  [20:09] The guys stole my all answers so I had to do it last. One of the biggest things for me is my life has changed dramatically since COVID. For those that don’t know, I went through a lot of crazy, personal stuff. It’s like God’s given me the opportunity to get my feet back underneath me. I don’t know if that makes any sense.

Chad:  [20:34] Grounded.

Joe:  [20:34] Totally, and as Chad alluded to, my relationship with my children is a thousand times better. That’s all COVID stuff. My work, I love it. I get to work with my best friend. Obviously, I love Ted. Chad and I are outside‑of‑work best friends. I get to every day go to work and work with my best friend. Not a lot of people get to say that.

Jim:  [20:52] I do.

James:  [20:52] I don’t.

Jim:  [20:55] What?

[20:55] [laughter]

Joe:  [20:55] It’s incredible. Sorry, Jim. You too.

[20:58] [laughter]

Joe:  [20:58] You too, Jim. You’re second on the speed dial.

Chad:  [20:59] Excuse me. Jim is blown away. Poor Jim.

Joe:  [21:02] I get to go to work and share ideas and do fun things like this expo and everything in collaboration with my best friend. I think it’s a thing that most people don’t ever get to have. For me, I feel very fortunate that I get to do that.

[21:21] The industry is awesome. The people are awesome. We can’t do this expo without 26 other awesome people that wanted to be part of it and be right onboard with us and walk hand‑in‑hand through it, and thought that it was a good idea and have been gracious enough to give us their time to be able to do this. We just couldn’t ask for a better group people to work with, including yourselves.

[21:43] Honestly, boys, you guys reached out to us and said, “Hey, you guys want to do a little, whatever you want to call this, a little tire pump for your show?”

Chad:  [21:53] Tire pump?

James:  [21:54] That’s what we call it every time we talk about this about it, whatever it is that we’re doing next.

Joe:  [21:57] Whatever it is we call this. I just think it’s crazy from when we started back in the beginning and how we’ve all evolved. I just want to personally say to you guys thank you.

[22:08] I think in a time when we are all trying to figure it out, the whole let’s make a deal thing that we did together as, I think it just gave us a little more confidence and understanding that we all are still in this together. The fact that you guys reached out and wanted to do this for us and with us, we just want to say thank you. Thank you.

James:  [22:24] Thank you. Jim used a flashlight as a microphone, remember?

[22:28] [crosstalk]

Jim:  [22:29] Easy, let’s take it easy.

[22:30] [laughter]

Jim:  [22:33] After Joe’s I might need a tissue. James, are you welling up a little bit or is it just me?

Joe:  [22:38] Just you.

[22:39] [laughter]

Jim:  [22:43] Guys, as usual we could go on for hours. Somebody in the other room, Tammy, would come and say, “Aren’t you guys done yet? Is James still going up with you?”

Ted:  [22:51] [laughs] Please leave.

Jim:  [22:51] The whole thing. We’ve got to wrap this up. First of all, to the audience, being serious, as you can see, from Joe, Chad and Ted, these are real guys in the industry, engraved in the industry.

[23:05] This expo’s going to be really fun and exciting. There’s things to learn. There’s thing to share. There’s things to network. The whole bit. I would encourage everybody to connect with Chad, Joe and Ted as well as James as myself too. Please follow us, sign up for the expo at upscoexpo.com.

Chad:  [23:25] You couldn’t do it.

Jim:  [23:27] What?

Chad:  [23:28] You couldn’t do it. UPSCO Expo. You’ve got to do it slow kind of like the Irish wristwatch thing.

Jim:  [23:33] I almost didn’t get that. It’s hard.

Joe:  [23:35] I accidentally coined that phrase in the very beginning, and I was like, “No, we’re not going to name it that,” but here we are.

Chad:  [23:40] I bought it.

Jim:  [23:43] Upscoexpo.com.

Chad:  [23:44] Connections For Life, don’t forget to follow Connections For Life, too.

Jim:  [23:47] Connections For Life too, absolutely. Please, spend some time. Like the guy said, if you go in for a session or a half a day or one hour or five hours or two days, do whatever’s comfortable for you. Just attend, get something good. Mr. Cross has something to say.

Chad:  [24:04] Uh‑oh.

Jim:  [24:03] Do you…

James:  [24:04] No, this is how I virtual conference. I’m going to spoil it for the world. I go sign up for absolutely everything and then I don’t attend anything.

Joe:  [24:14] [laughs]

James:  [24:16] Then I get all the emails with the on‑demand and I watch it while I do other…or listen to it while I do other things.

Chad:  [24:23] It makes me feel better now that you didn’t sign up for anything.

[24:27] [laughter]

Joe:  [24:28] Yeah right.

James:  [24:31] It’s the truth. It just allows us that ability. It’s a gift and a curse.

Joe:  [24:34] No, it does. That’s one of the things we wanted to make…We wanted to make that very important that it was accessible afterwards. We thought that was really an important part of the whole thing.

[24:44] [crosstalk]

Jim:  [24:45] We’ll be accessible afterwards too, besides going live. It will be excellent. That’s excellent.

Joe:  [24:50] For $49.95. [laughs] No, I’m just kidding. It’s free.

James:  [24:56] It’s twice the price.

Joe:  [24:57] [laughs]

James:  [24:57] Jim, I wanted to say one thing to Chad before we left. Chad’s absolutely terrified right now but…

Joe:  [25:05] He’s always terrified.

James:  [25:06] You’ve always made such a big deal about it. We’re in the final stages of what will be our new swag for 2021. It’s killing. It’s killing, isn’t it, Jim?

[25:17] [crosstalk]

Chad:  [25:14] Is it good?

Joe:  [25:22] Can we use your old stuff? [laughs]

Jim:  [25:25] You have enough of it, don’t you?

James:  [25:28] Pass it out.

[25:28] [crosstalk]

Ted:  [25:29] James, speaking of that what you said last time when it was supposed to go to Joe and me.

Joe:  [25:33] My hat’s starting to wear out. I don’t even wear it now any more.

James:  [25:37] Hang tight. It’s coming.

Joe:  [25:38] I know.

James:  [25:38] Not to bait anybody but it’s going to be cool. I’m sure about it.

Joe:  [25:43] I’m excited. It’s like that’s the best thing you’ve told me all day.

James:  [25:46] Merry Christmas.

Joe:  [25:48] One, last thing I wanted to add and we didn’t touch on it is that everybody that enters has an opportunity to win a brand new, Series 6 Apple iWatch. It’s just going to be picked at random. We’ll do it during the very last episode. It’s going to be one of those “spinny” wheel deals like we did for last…

Chad:  [26:01] James just signed up for everything.

Joe:  [26:02] You have to be in attendance to win.

Chad:  [26:05] [laughs]

Joe:  [26:07] I just wanted to say that. We’re going to that as well.

James:  [26:09] I keep trying to go to the website though, Chad. Does it have a space in it or not?

Chad:  [26:14] No. It’s just…

James:  [26:16] Is it like Jim said?

Joe:  [26:18] Upscoexpo.com. [laughs]

James:  [26:22] Is that an underscore?

[26:23] [crosstalk]

Ted:  [26:23] Irish wristwatch.

Jim:  [26:24] Be kind. You guys know that I’m shy.

Chad:  [26:27] We’re just going to scan the chatbox with upscoexpo.com.

James:  [26:31] I think we’re done, Jimmy.

[26:33] [crosstalk]

Jim:  [26:33] Let’s wrap this up. Thanks guys for joining us. We really appreciate you doing this for the industry, having this expo. We do encourage our audience to please take advantage of its sign up and attend what you can. You should be very well‑pleased with it. These are great people, great organization. We’ve known them for a long time. We’re thrilled and happy that they’re doing this.

Joe:  [27:00] Next time you guys are in it.

Jim:  [27:03] If it wasn’t for a very special event, I…

Joe:  [27:05] We understand. I’m not giving you a free pass on this one.

Jim:  [27:09] All right.

Chad:  [27:10] Maybe.

Jim:  [27:11] LinkedIn community, thank you for joining us. Please, connect with all of us. Follow us, follow Connections For Life. Go to the expo, get something out of it. Network, learn a tip or trick.

[27:22] Let’s keep safety number one with everything. We will see so many safety messages at the expo too. Let’s do that. Until next time on Coffee with Jim and James, be safe and have a great week. Take care everybody.

Joe:  [27:36] Love you guys.

Chad:  [27:37] Thanks guys.

Ted:  [27:38] Cheers.

James:  [27:38] Bye‑bye.

[27:38] [music]