Latest / Legal Late Night / Lawyers, Stop Hating Sales! AI Emails, Legal Marketing & How to Get Paid (Feat. Melissa Rogozinski)

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Lawyers, Stop Hating Sales! AI Emails, Legal Marketing & How to Get Paid (Feat. Melissa Rogozinski) · Legal Late Night

• Jared Correia (00:00): Hello everybody. We've got a show that promises to be mildly interesting for your listening and watching enjoyment. First up, I've got loads of relevant advice for job seekers and a first of its kind monologue. Then we've got Melissa Rogozinski of R PC strategies to whom we speak about sales, the dirty word that attorneys never want to speak and cougars. Lastly, in the counter program, Melissa tries to guess how broke I am based on random shit I can buy online. Yeah, well tell it to the zebra that lives in my backyard. I get calls, emails, texts, LinkedIn messages every now and then from new lawyers who are looking for jobs, and they ask me if I have any suggestions and I say, I don't fucking know. I haven't looked for a job in 20 plus years. And the last time I had a resume, I can't even remember because I've worked myself for quite a while now. (01:16): But you know what they say advice is like assholes. Everybody's got one. So I offer some advice. So I thought to myself, let me commit some of that advice to the podcast medium. So I graduated from law school back in 2003 and I thought to myself, I remember it being really hard to find jobs back then. What was it like? So I googled the subject matter and I came up with the AI overview that Google is always providing now until it converts over into a fully AI search engine. Wait for it. And it said 2003, we were in a jobless recovery, which sounds like it sucks following the 2001 recession. Yeah, nine 11 happened when I was in law school and then the economy went in the shitter. Not surprisingly, there were no jobs. So I had some really interesting job searching experiences. So when I went to law school, I told them I didn't want to really be a lawyer. (02:23): I went to the career development office in my law school and I was basically like, Hey, I think it would be cool if I could do business management consulting for lawyers. And they said, get a real job. Who's laughing now? Bitches, it's me. I'm the one who's laughing. Anyway, I didn't do that right away and I thought to myself, that's some stage advice. I should go get a quote, real job. Made my parents proud have theoretically a stable income. So I started applying for lawyer jobs and I don't know if you know this, but lawyers are really fucking weird. So I had some really interesting job search experiences. So I want to throw out some red flags. I once interviewed with a solo lawyer who I want to say was located in Melrose, Massachusetts or something like that. And he literally had a throne in his office. (03:22): He had someone build him a throne, giant throne. It was wood. It wasn't like a big production like the Iron Throne and Game of Thrones or something like that, but it was a legit throne. It had those three little things on top and then parapets maybe, I don't know. And each of them were very ornately carved. And then when he got up after inviting me into his office with the throne, I dunno if it was his office, maybe we should call it the throne room. I noticed that he had his initials carved into the throne as well. And I said, is that a throne trying to make small talk? And he said yes. And he left it at that, didn't take that job. So I still haven't found out why this guy had a throne in his office. I'd love to know, 20 odd years down the line. (04:16): So red flag number one, if you're interviewing for a job and somebody has a throne in their office, probably a bad sign. There are probably some psychological constructs involved there that you don't want to be involved in. Next. I had a job interview with a small law firm and I had a suit and I had one suit. I'm a one suit guy. If you see me at a conference and you're like, I saw you at a prior conference wearing the same suit, that's because I was fucking wearing the same suit. I don't really feel the need to buy two suits. So there the secret's out. So I had to suit warranted to a few interviews here and there. So I get out of my car and I go and sit in the lobby and my fucking pants rip literally from my tailbone all the way down to basically my ankle, just an entire ripped on the back leg of the pants. (05:16): Fortunately, I wasn't wearing a thong that day, just box of shorts, but I'm fully exposed, flapping in the breeze, otherwise wind whistling through my pants and I haven't even started the interview. So now I got to figure out, okay, how do I manage this? And so I spent the next 45 minutes trying to angle myself effectively so that no one would see the back of me. So I go into the interview room kind of side saddle. I sit down leaning towards one side, I leave the interview, guess what? It was unsuccessful and I'm backing out of the door. So the people who are interviewing me are like, what the fuck is this guy's deal as I'm holding my pants together. So walk out of the office backwards all the way, all the way to the car, and these motherfuckers came out of the building to watch me leave. (06:14): I mean, they must have known. So I'm just walking backwards all the way to the car. Sheepishly grin, sit in the car. And then I did I throw my pants away? No, I didn't. I had my mom sew them up for me. Okay. So yeah, that one didn't go well. So just make sure your pants are solidly constructed before you go to an interview. I suppose that's not a red flag, that's tip. Alright, last red flag. The last interview I think I ever took before I started working for law firms is I was like, fuck it. There's no jobs out here. I'm going to go see if I can get a job with the district attorney's office. So I got an interview with the district attorney's office in Brockton, Massachusetts, and Brockton is a tough town. I'm from New Bedford, fall River, all tough areas in Southern Massachusetts. (07:09): If you've never been, and I don't know why you would go Brockton home of Marvin Haggler and Rocky Marciano famous boxers. So I go to the DA's office in Brockton, they sit me down in a room and they throw a folder at me and they're like, open it. And I'm like, okay. So I opened the folder and there's a picture of somebody who was decapitated and I was like, oh shit, things just got real in the DA's office interview. And so the guy's like, are you ready for that? We see that kind of shit every day in Brockton. And so I said, people are decapitated every day in Brockton. I don't think I want this job. Needless to say, they did not find it funny. So make sure your jokes land, and if people show you crazy shit during the job interview, probably a good idea to tap out as well. I don't really know how to segue from that, but I hope if you're listening and you're looking for a job, this has been somewhat helpful to you. And my hope is that none of these things ever happened to you. Next up we got Melissa Rogozinski of RPC strategies and she's here to talk to us about sales and marketing cougars and cubs. You're not going to want to miss it. (08:39): Well, I've effectively run out of things to say, which is awkward because this is a podcast. So I will simply stroke my chin for the next several hours while looking pensive. Please enjoy. Now I'm just fucking with you. That sounds terrible. Let's interview our guest instead. Our guest today, I got a real treat for you is Melissa Rogozinski, the founder and CEO at RPC strategies, LLC. I like to get to the entity choice in there. Melissa, how are you doing? Melissa Rogozinski (09:08): Jared, it's good to see you again my friend. Jared Correia (09:12): What's going on with you? You got RPC strategies. What does that mean? What do you do? Just in case there's the off chance that someone is listening to this who does not know who you are, Melissa Rogozinski (09:22): That would be fantastic. RPC strategies is sales driven marketing. So because most marketing firms, marketing agencies, freelancers, they didn't really think about sales. And as clients were coming to us, I never really intended to get involved in websites. But as they were coming to us, they weren't set up for marketing, they weren't integrated with the CRM. There was just a whole bunch of things that were happening. And (09:50): I've had a 31 year career in law. I was a paralegal first, and then I went into sales for a legal technology company. And being at sales, there were just a variety of things that happened that I started learning how to work with my marketing department. And so I've always thought from the client's point of view, I was a client first and then I started selling the products that I as a client was using. And then I had to teach marketing, Hey, this is what's really important. So it just went, I started kind of backwards, client sales, marketing. So when I created RPC strategies, it was sales driven marketing. Jared Correia (10:27): Interesting. So you as someone who's been in a legal space for a while, know that lawyers do not like to talk about sales, right? I'm not hallucinating. That's like a thing. I rarely hear lawyers use the word sales. Why is that? What is their deal? Melissa Rogozinski (10:44): Lawyers just have not thought of themselves as sales representatives. They don't think about business development or sales in law school. They weren't taught that. They weren't taught how to run a business. They weren't taught about sales. And so they don't know to think of themselves as salespeople, but they are. You are selling your service, you were selling your expertise, you are selling your knowledge, and all of the time that you've put into it, you are selling the solutions, you know can deliver for the best possible outcome for your client. Jared Correia (11:15): That was pretty good. So I have a little bit of a segue. People probably think I do this podcast and I don't prepare for it, which is true. I largely don't. But I was on LinkedIn the other day looking at your stuff and you have this thing that is out now, I'm going to call it an ebook. It's called the proven sales email codex. This sounds like it's written on UNIFOR or something like that. And it was discovered in a pyramid, but it can't be that because emails aren't that old. So first of all, codex, kudos to you. Super underutilized term. And now what is this? How can people get it? What are they going to learn? Melissa Rogozinski (11:56): So that came up because my team wanted me to start selling my sales consulting and I didn't want to because it was just kind of coming up in client meetings and I was giving advice and clips on how to do things. And I was like, I don't want to teach people how to sell. So what we ended up coming up and we came Jared Correia (12:15): Up with, or at least let 'em know that you are right. Melissa Rogozinski (12:17): Yeah, well, they were like, why don't you develop some online sales training courses and the amount of time and energy that it goes into it, could I do it? Yes. But with everything else I have going on, I was like, I just didn't have time. So what I did decide to do, I said, look, I have all this content that I've developed over the last 15 or 20 years since I've been in sales. I have all this content from the round table, from RPC strategies. I've been asked so many times to help rewrite sales emails for both whatever. So why? And I've got all these blog articles. So I took everything that I had and I started repackaging it and pushing it into chat GPT. And I just kept iterating and it took three days, but all of that is my content. And I just used chat GPT to repurpose it, restructure it, reorganized it. And so what that, and someone else that reviewed it called it the sales email playbook Jared Correia (13:10): And you were like, no, fuck it. We're going with Codex. Melissa Rogozinski (13:13): It's a Codex damnit. So it lays out four pillars of really understanding your prospect, your client, your operation systems, your foundational strategy first so that you know how to put your messaging together. And then the last, it has 12 email templates in there anywhere from a cold outreach on LinkedIn to asking for a 15 minute coffee chat through discovery meetings, through deal flow, and even the handoff to client success once you've closed the contract. So there's 12 email templates in there. That's pretty cool. And I was telling somebody this weekend that when I use them to connect with people on LinkedIn when I'm prospecting and then getting the 15 minute coffee chat, I have a 20 to 22% ROI on converting connections to an appointment on my calendar. And once I've got 'em on my calendar and Outlook, it's synced to my CRM so that I can feed them into the CRM and start getting them into my nurturing campaigns. Jared Correia (14:12): That's pretty sweet. Hammurabi would be very jealous. So it sounds like you're using AI for your own purposes now. That's pretty cool. Melissa Rogozinski (14:20): So a few years ago we lost a client to ai, and when I had the debrief with the CEO, it was a great conversation. He is like, look, we love you. The team loves you, we love your team, we love your project management. And just went down the list of all these things that were great. And he said, but we trained AI to write our blog articles and I can't justify the cost anymore. And I know I've already been public with this story and I'm being public again. But I had to go back to the team and say, look, this is real and this is happening. So what are your thoughts? I did the research and I ended up writing an article on basically the ethical use of LLMs and AI and marketing things and you saw it and I got published, I did A CLE and all that. And since then, fast forward now, so first of all, there's a copyright issue. Can you use it for anything you want to do? Yeah, you can, but you don't own it. If you're using it to create anything original native, you don't own it. Okay, you don't have copyright. But since then, we now have a written policy here at RPC that I've had all the consultants sign on how we can and can't use AI and LLMs. Jared Correia (15:26): Oh, AI policy. Nice. Melissa Rogozinski (15:27): And it lists 10 ways where we know the LLM was used. We also have a running list of our own LLM prompts for probably 20 to 25 different functions that we have. We create all our own original content, but we use the LLMs to repurpose it in a variety of ways, and it makes us a lot more efficient. After we used it and practiced it on ourselves and felt comfortable with that, then we went to the clients and said, Hey, look, here's what we're doing. Here's how we're using it. We're still creating everything originally, but are you okay with us using it for these other functions in the work that we're doing for you and all of the clients? Were like, absolutely, yes. And even now we've got some ideas to when new clients are coming to, we will help them develop, say three to five LLM prompts based on sales and marketing functions that they need as well that we're supporting. Jared Correia (16:18): That's cool. And this policy is more paper than most law firm policies I find so I love that. That's great. Alright. The other thing I wanted to ask you about is you're pretty active locally in Florida. You are part of the Miami-Dade County Bar's Lawn Technology Committee. You run or involved heavily in something called so Flow Legal Tech. What's the scene like in Miami Melissa Rogozinski (16:45): Professionally or right now? Jared Correia (16:47): The weather looks good, a little hot, a little steamy. Let's do the professional angle first and then we'll do the social. Melissa Rogozinski (16:56): So I served with the Miami-Dade Law and Tech Committee for two years, and Jared Correia (17:02): That's over now. Melissa Rogozinski (17:04): Yeah, I pulled back from that to focus on RPC and then the new So Flow Legal Tech. But yeah, the bar wanted to develop the law and tech committee, and our goal was to be a resource to the rest of the bar. So the law and tech committee was not its own siloed practice area like other committees are. We did our own programming and we did a lot of programming on AI and the business of law and security and compliance. I wrote a blog article on AI security and we've had a questionnaire for that that we used. It's on my website. We used it for ACL E, what we did for the law and tech committee. And so we got that off the ground and now the goal is to start working with other committees. And that has been happening. They've done a lot of programs with the Florida law. I've been a of that for the last two years. Jared Correia (17:50): The scene seems pretty sweet down in Miami if you want to learn about Legal Tech now, what's the so flow thing all about that's new, right? Melissa Rogozinski (17:57): Well, that came from an Ari Kaplan thing. So Ari did a breakfast down here in Fort Lauderdale several months ago, and we had about 25 people show up from Miami, from Fort Lauderdale. We had people driving in from Tampa from all different places, and we all know each other. We're all in legal tech and we just like each other and we have a good time. Some of us are friends outside of our jobs and we had such a good time that when it was over, there's so much energy that one of them reached out to me and I brought in somebody else and said, Hey, let's keep the momentum going and let's develop our own group. And we told Aria we were doing this, but we weren't using, he's got Legal Tech Mafia trademarked, but we created the So Flow legal tech group. And so now we have this group of people that we meet once a month, whether it's in Fort Lauderdale or Miami for breakfast or happy hour and just to get together and have conversations and more introductions. I've already gotten a prospect out of it. Jared Correia (18:52): Somebody Melissa Rogozinski (18:53): Got a referral for a job out of it. There's really good networking that's happening. But one of the things is they were like, oh, but we still want cool mafia names. So when we set up the group and did I know, so we set up the group on LinkedIn, we did that and I pushed out a message, Hey, if you want to, let's create a bio card. So they're really cards, my Jared Correia (19:14): God, Melissa Rogozinski (19:14): But you would've loved this. Create your bio card and give yourself a mafia name and tell us three things that you do for work, but in mafia style. And so we came up with, I don't know, 15 or 20 of these cards and even people who haven't attended yet have been sending in their stuff. So we have mafia cards for the sofa, legal tech, and I'm the godmother. Jared Correia (19:35): Oh, nice. Oh, that's pretty good. So in terms of the social life down in Miami, we haven't covered this on this new show, but you taught me some terminology recently, Cougar I knew, but then there's also the term cub. So for the uninitiated, could you tell me how cougars and cubs interact in the wild? This is not a nature documentary. Let me preface it by saying that. Melissa Rogozinski (20:08): All right, so there's a feline scale first, and I'm going to start at 30 because I think anything younger than that just doesn't sound right. Jared Correia (20:17): 30 years of age we're talking about? Yes. Okay. Melissa Rogozinski (20:20): So from 30 every decade, starting at 30 to 39, you're a Puma, 40 to 59, you're a cougar, 50 to 59, you're a Jaguar. Oh damn. Jared Correia (20:30): 60 Melissa Rogozinski (20:30): To 68, you're a Panther. 69, you're a pussycat. 70 to 79 year olds, 80 to 89 leopard. 90 to 99 a tiger. And if you make it to a hundred, God love you, you're a lion. Jared Correia (20:44): That's just fucked up. I like how 69 has just one category. Melissa Rogozinski (20:52): Oh my God, Jared Correia (20:54): Cougar older ladies, Melissa Rogozinski (20:56): Deni Moore made it cool to be a cougar when she married Ashton Kutcher. Right? So Demi Moore made it cool, but men have been doing this since the dawn of time dating much younger women. And I was 42 the first time it happened. And I was on a bus. I had landed at LaGuardia and I was taking the bus to the train station and the bus was picking up people along the airport, whatever, and I was off Jared Correia (21:23): Phone. Little Cubs hopping onto the airport bus. Melissa Rogozinski (21:28): We stopped at one place. There were road people, line of people, and there's a really hot guy standing at the end and I'm on the phone with a friend. I'm like, oh my God. She goes, he look like, so I described him a pair of jeans, white button down, a shorter length, wavy, dark brown whiskey colored hair, closely face shaven, smoking hot. And I turn around and I look behind me so you can see my character, but I look behind me and I'm half the bus empty, so it doesn't even make sense that the bus is crowded and I have a seat next to me and Oh, you want to sit down? So there wasn't an opportunity for me to really do anything, make a play, but he gets on, right? So everybody gets on and he gets on the bus and no kidding, he stands across the aisle from me. I turn around again and I'm like, yep, bus is still empty. So he stands there, the kid starts talking to me and he has this very, I can't do it. He has a very deep rich German accent. He starts talking to me and he ask if he can sit down. And I was like, oh my God, yes, you can sit down. (22:35): He sits down and he starts talking, getting to know me, whatever. And as a southern girl or any woman in her right mind hears a man talking to her, and that kind of an accent, there are all kinds of things go through our Jared Correia (22:46): Minds. Oh, sure. Melissa Rogozinski (22:48): Which are not appropriate for anybody's podcast. Not even yours. Jared Correia (22:51): Are you sure about that? No, go ahead. Yes, Melissa Rogozinski (22:53): I'm positive. Yes, I am positive. So at some point we get into why are you here? Why are you in New York? What are you doing here? I was like, oh, well I have my own company and blah blah, but I'm visiting my dad for a weekend. My dad's here for a convention and he knows I love New York. So he's like, Hey, let's have a father daughter weekend. So that's what I was there for. And I said, well, what about you? And he's like, well, I'm here for a job interview. I just graduated college. And I was Jared Correia (23:16): Like, oh, hell yeah, now we're getting somewhere. Melissa Rogozinski (23:18): And I was like, exactly, how old are you? And he says, 23. I do the math. And I was like, I'm a freshman in college, the year born. And he was such a sweet kid and he was a gentleman. When we got to the train station, he carried my suitcase for me. We get on the train, we're talking, I completely missed the stop where I'm supposed to get off to go meet my dad. So I'm late getting my dad. By the time I show up, my dad is pissed off and I'm definitely not telling him was because of a boy. Jared Correia (23:51): Oh, really? Should've been like, Hey, let me tell you German guy, whiskey hair. I'm like, is whiskey a color? I dunno. The Melissa Rogozinski (24:00): Dad, it was an option. It was you or him. I mean, come on dad. Jared Correia (24:04): He would've understood. Let's do something that's completely different. Let's talk about technology. I know something you chat about as well. Let's talk about marketing, technology, sales, technology. What do you, what do people need? What are they not utilizing correctly? The floor is yours. Melissa Rogozinski (24:23): I think the biggest thing is that people aren't integrating their systems correctly. Jared Correia (24:27): Oh, good one. Melissa Rogozinski (24:27): Yes. They're either not integrating them at all or they're not integrating the correctly. I've seen a lot that come in that they have a good idea for a product, they get excited about it and they get funding, but they don't know sales process. They don't know how to prospect. They don't know how to set their systems up for prospecting. Who are your ICPs, your ideal client personas? How do you do outreach? How do you do? They're definitely not prepared for their sales meetings. And I hear this a lot from people in law firms, and it's going to be an episode in one of, I'm doing a six month series on sales Jared Correia (25:01): Coming Melissa Rogozinski (25:02): Up and we've got one is persona fatigue sell to problems, not titles. Because I get people that are from the, so Florida Legal Tech group, they're like, oh my God, let me tell you what the number one problem is. They see my title and they don't even bother to research me. And they come and they keep calling me, they keep emailing me and I'm not even the right person to talk to. (25:23): So there's a lot of problems with just sales process. They're not doing their research, they're not preparing for the sales meetings. I promise you your features and benefits, that doesn't matter. What matters is who's your target, what are their business goals, what are their challenges? And then tell the story. And you can use your product and features as part of the story to make them the hero and help them win. So not having the technology set up, not having set correctly, not understanding process, not preparing and doing that kind of discovery work and then doing appropriate closing. And those are the biggest problems that I see. And you said technology, but you have to understand all of those processes in order to set your technology up correctly, Jared Correia (26:10): Setting it up, understanding your own processes. Yeah, I think that's good advice. Are there tools that you, like particular tools? You can feel free to reference stuff if you want. Melissa Rogozinski (26:20): We use Zoho one to run our business and we've set clients up on Zoho before for them as well. We are using different, like I said, we have an internal written AI, LLM policy. We also have a running list of our own prompts on how we use that. And people ask me this a lot on how I use the LLMs. I use chat GBT to repurpose content. I use perplexity for research and Gemini is my therapist. Jared Correia (26:51): I feel like a lot of people are saying that. Those are all good suggestions. All right. Last question for you. I noticed you were doing this too. You put some stuff out there in terms of how businesses can manage all this tariff stuff. Have you been able to make heads or tails of this shit? Because I haven't think there's any kind of plan. Melissa Rogozinski (27:11): That's a really broad question. Jared Correia (27:13): I know I did it intentionally. Melissa Rogozinski (27:17): I got two or three things I want to put out there. So one, we did just write a really brilliant white paper on Trump tariffs and trade and its impact on workforce and risk management. We wrote that for a client of ours because businesses have to think about this. It's volatile right now Jared Correia (27:38): To say the Melissa Rogozinski (27:39): Least. Well, with the pandemic and the trade wars in the last, what both of these have happened within five years of each other. Everything has changed in the global economy and the global workforce, how we work, the technologies we use and what's available to people and how you can and can't control things. That white paper addresses a lot of those answers and questions. So I can provide a link. The other thing too is a couple of weeks ago I attended two events with exit planning groups. I attended a breakfast about your exit planning group, your team, and how to put it together. And then I attended a lunch that was a midyear economic global outlook. And one statistic I learned was in 2019, the year before the pandemic consumers had $14 trillion in cash on hand at the banks in 2025. Jared Correia (28:32): I'm guessing that's lower Melissa Rogozinski (28:35): In 2025, it's 27 trillion, twice as much Jared Correia (28:39): Higher. Oh my god. Melissa Rogozinski (28:41): Here's what I think has happened is the pandemic and the tariffs, trade wars are two massive global economic disruptors. And I don't even like using that word, but there's got to be a stronger, almost an apocalypse. But in 2019, no one was prepared. There wasn't a playbook for that. There wasn't a playbook for what happened with the pandemic. We didn't know what to expect. We didn't know what would go as long, and we had no idea that we'd have the impact on the economy that it did. Jared Correia (29:09): So Melissa Rogozinski (29:10): Like in 2020 was my second year in business. We had tons of clients, but then clients started running out of money. So it came down in 21. Well, with Trump getting elected as president, he'd already talked about all these. We knew he was going to keep good. A couple things happened. I think people expected business to be much better in the first six months of 25 than it was. The stock market is doing great, businesses are really struggling, but the businesses are holding onto just as much cash as the consumers are because they learned their lesson from the pandemic. You ran out of money this time. Everybody saw it was coming. They have just held onto their cash as long as they can until they figure out what's going on. And I think what's happening now, we're starting to see signs across the board in different industries and in different ways that people are starting to spend again. Companies are starting to spend again, and I think it's still volatile and people are still concerned about the uncertainty, but people and businesses have gotten to the point that I can't stay paralyzed forever. I have to move forward. Jared Correia (30:19): Yeah, I mean, whatcha going to do, wait four years for the shit to settle down? Probably not. So you got the white paper that people can take a look at if they want to learn more about this, it sounds like as well. Melissa Rogozinski (30:31): Yeah, I would love to help get that out. It was really fun working on it with the client. When we pitched it to the client, they were really excited about it and they thought it was a good idea too. And we did this for them a year ago into something else, and sure enough, we had the message right out of the gate because the conferences that they have later on in the year, you look at the agenda, that's all they're talking about. So we put them ahead in their history. So it's a win. So yeah, it's going live this week, but it's, oh, Jared Correia (30:59): It's not even live yet. Okay, awesome. Perfect timing. Melissa Rogozinski (31:02): It'll be live by Wednesday. Jared Correia (31:04): It'll be live by the time we published, Melissa Rogozinski (31:06): By the time we publish this. Yes. Yeah, for sure. Jared Correia (31:09): Awesome. I got to say we covered a lot of ground. Not Melissa Rogozinski (31:13): Bad. We did. We did. Jared Correia (31:15): Do you want to hang on and do another segment? It promises to be really fun. Melissa Rogozinski (31:20): Jared, tell me when and where. Which body do you want buried and which mountain do you want moved? Jared Correia (31:26): Whose car are we taking? We'll be back momentarily. Welcome to the counter program. It's a podcast within a podcast. This is a conversational space where we can address usually unrelated topics that I want to explore at a greater depth with my guests today. You may expect no rhyme and very little reason. That's because Melissa we're talking about the website. This is why I'm broke. Are you familiar with this site? Melissa Rogozinski (32:16): No. That sounds interesting. Jared Correia (32:18): You're going to love it. Melissa Rogozinski (32:18): Do I need to look it up? Okay, Jared Correia (32:20): You can look it up as we talk. I'm going to explain it to the audience. (32:24): This is why I am Broke is a great website. It's basically a list of all kinds of crazy shit that you can buy to run down your bank account. They have phenomenal product descriptions and it's stuff that costs multimillions of dollars and stuff that costs 2 99. I would buy stuff from this web store all day if I could, and it's really more of an aggregator site. So I want to launch a new segment with you today that I'm calling just how broke am I? So I'm going to do is I'm going to tell you the name of a product on the site. I'm going to read the description. I'm going to give you some price points, and then you just select the real price point. It's like the price is right. I've got eight of them that I picked out for you. (33:15): The last two were a little saucy. It's probably Jaguar level so we can get to those or not depending on how you feel, depending on what our time looks like. But let me begin. I'm starting out with pet hair dye, pet hair dye. Here's the description. Turn your pet into a walking art project with pet hair dye. Whether you're aiming for unicorn glam or punk rock poodle, this long lasting non-toxic dye makes tails wag and heads turn. Warning neighborhood dogs may get jealous. First of all, have you ever dyed any of your pet's hair before? Melissa Rogozinski (33:57): No. Jared Correia (33:58): Okay, Melissa Rogozinski (33:59): I have cats with claws. They would win. Jared Correia (34:02): Okay. Melissa Rogozinski (34:02): No, no Jared Correia (34:04): Pet hair dyed. Melissa Rogozinski (34:05): I did use to put pink kitty caps on Leo when he was bad. Jared Correia (34:11): What are kitty calfs? I don't even know what those are. Melissa Rogozinski (34:14): You Jared Correia (34:14): Buy them on buy on. This is why I'm broke.com. Melissa Rogozinski (34:16): I know he had his back claw. He didn't his front claw and if we make me mad, I would put pink kitty caps on him. Jared Correia (34:22): Oh, piss him off. Boy, I got, I got you. Melissa Rogozinski (34:25): But that's as close as I got to any color on my animals. Jared Correia (34:28): Pink is in now for boys. That's like, I learned this the other day. If you were going to buy pet hair dye, what do you think it would cost? One bottle? 7 99. 1799 or 27 99. What was the price for Melissa Rogozinski (34:45): 1799? Jared Correia (34:46): Ding, ding ding. 1799 for pet hair dye. Melissa Rogozinski (34:54): Beautiful. Have you seen pets that had their hair dyed? The pets don't care and it looks ridiculous. Jared Correia (34:59): It looks really bad. Really bad. Okay, I've got another one for you. This, Melissa is the booty twerk planter. I mean it's self-described basically, but I'm going to read it anyway. Turn up the sass with the booty twerk planter, because nothing says plant parent pride like a ghost shaking. Its spectral cheeks, perfect for air plants and awkward dinner conversations. This cheeky pod brings spooky charm and twerk tastic flare to any shelf. And don't you want twerk tastic flare on your shelf? Do you own one of these already, is the question I want to ask? Melissa Rogozinski (35:52): No, and I know this is coming up. I would show you, I have a little vase of a man's six pack abdomen and a little bit of Jared Correia (36:01): Top Melissa Rogozinski (36:01): Part of his booty on the back, but that was worth $30 to me. I call him Francesco. His name's Francesco, and he sits at the front door. Yes. Jared Correia (36:15): Trying to figure out what's that called. Have Melissa Rogozinski (36:17): He used to have an airplane in him? Airplanes die. Jared Correia (36:20): Oh, I don't even know what an airplane is. What is it? Melissa Rogozinski (36:23): They're all over Florida. They just randomly grow. There's no roots. They just grow in the air. They grow on trees on Z, and there's like no roots. They just grow though. They are. Jared Correia (36:32): I'll be damned. All right. I'm learning a lot today actually. If you wanted to buy the booty toric planter instead, do you think that would be 21 99, 31, 99 or 41 99. Melissa Rogozinski (36:45): 31 99. Jared Correia (36:48): 2199. Melissa Rogozinski (36:50): I was going to say Jared Correia (36:51): What a bargain honestly Melissa Rogozinski (36:53): Was. Francesco was $35. I think I said 30. He was between 30 and $35. That was worth it. Jared Correia (37:00): I bet you could have gotten in more cheaply on. This is why I'm broke.com problem. (37:06): Let's move on to the next one now that I figure out screen sharing. This is a sad tiny violin, an actual violin ready. Have a laugh at the expense of your friends, which I mean honestly, why wouldn't you want to do that with the sad tiny violin? Now, whenever you're hanging out with the type that constantly likes to whine and complain, you can just pull out your pocket-sized violin to show just how much you care about their piddly problem. I actually wish I had one of these. So now the question is what would I pay for a tiny violin that I could play? $14, $24 or $40? 14. 24 or 40 for the sad tiny violin. Melissa Rogozinski (38:06): 14. Jared Correia (38:07): Yes, correct. Two for three. Very Melissa Rogozinski (38:09): Impressive. I was also thinking about which of the six credit cards I have that has a zero balance and how many can I get for $14? Can I max out the credit card I got? I want to keep these around with me for years to come. If I can just hand 'em out, I'm tired. I'm over 50. I don't care. I don't have the time for this. I don't care. Jared Correia (38:30): I got you. I got you. Okay, Melissa Rogozinski (38:32): I'll go broke for that one. I like that one. Jared Correia (38:35): I got another one for you. How about Melissa, a high pressure flamethrower for you? Don't take any chances when a brown rec loose spider is spotted inside your home, your only option is to burn it down to the ground. And there's no better way to accomplish that than by doing it safely from 50 feet away using a high pressure flame thrower. How could you not want one of these? Melissa Rogozinski (39:16): But the question is, do you want earth? Do you want to give me prices? Jared Correia (39:18): You want to give me your guess? Give me your guess. Or do you want to tell me something about a flame thrower? You can guess the price right off the top. Melissa Rogozinski (39:25): Three different ways we could be using the flame throw. First of all, the, I love the iguanas down here, but some of my female friends at other places, and they sent me a picture of a flame thrower one time when I shared a picture of this beautiful orange iguana, right? I'm like, no, I love them, but here's how I would use it. I will order one. Let's find out the price and I will order one Jared Correia (39:43): Because Melissa Rogozinski (39:43): I'm wondering, I'm on the 11th floor. Is that close enough to the street below that? On the occasion, somebody in their twenties who has done something to their muffler and it sounds like a machine gun Jared Correia (39:59): Iron Melissa Rogozinski (39:59): Off every time it goes down the road. I want my flame thrower. I don't want the person to be hurt. I just want your car to be destroyed so you can never do it again. Jared Correia (40:07): Good use of a flame thrower. I love that. Melissa Rogozinski (40:09): Yes. So how much do I need to pay for a flame thrower, Jared? Jared Correia (40:13): 1,015 hundred, 3000, 1000, 1500 3000. What do you think for your own personal flame thrower 1500 is correct. That's correct. It's a bargain if you ask me Melissa Rogozinski (40:27): A bargain. Jared Correia (40:28): All right, I got two more for you. Melissa Rogozinski (40:30): Okay. Jared Correia (40:31): This one is sort of work related, but I liked it. So we're going to share with the public, this is like a great coffee table book. Ways to tell employees they're stupid. Let out your workplace frustrations without it ending with a call from hr, by relying on the teachings inside, ways to tell your employees they're stupid. You'll learn how to say horrible things in a not so horrible way so that you can maintain professionalism. How about that cover as well. What a classy book. So what Melissa Rogozinski (41:08): Would, I'm going to order it for Joe Kraut on my team because he that Jared Correia (41:14): Now, the good news is it's relatively inexpensive, is ways to tell employees they're stupid. $4, $8 or $12, $4. Melissa Rogozinski (41:25): $4. Jared Correia (41:27): $8. Melissa Rogozinski (41:29): $8. Jared Correia (41:30): Yes. Melissa Rogozinski (41:31): See? Is joke worth $8? Yes. Jared Correia (41:35): Joe Crow. Okay, Joe Krt is worth $8. My Melissa Rogozinski (41:37): Best. Yeah. Joe Crow is worth $8. Jared Correia (41:39): Alright, you want to do one more? This is a fun Melissa Rogozinski (41:41): One. Let's do one more, Jared. This is fun. Let's do Jared Correia (41:42): It again. This is one for the Cubs. Melissa Rogozinski (41:45): Okay, Jared Correia (41:46): So I'm just going to say that right off the top so people know. And for the cub in your life, this may be something you'd like to purchase. It's called the bro romper. Melissa Rogozinski (41:57): My Jared Correia (41:57): God, that's step aside ladies. It's the guy's turn to stay this summer. Oh, excuse me. Step aside ladies. It's the guy's turn to slay this summer. How did I fuck that up with the romp Him? The only romper designed for men. This bro, one piece features an adjustable waist zipper fly deep front pockets and seductively short shorts to show off those killer legs. Now, what would we be doing for a gift of a bro romper for that special man in your life? Melissa Rogozinski (42:38): Pull the picture back up. Pull up. I need to do this again. Jared Correia (42:43): You want to buy it right? Don't you? Melissa Rogozinski (42:45): I'm placing people in Jared Correia (42:47): The, are you ordering the bro romper right now Melissa Rogozinski (42:51): In my brain? I might be pull the pre back up. Jared Correia (42:54): I'm bringing it up. I'm bringing it up. Here you go. The bro romper. There it is. In all this glory. Look at the different styles. You've got a little bit of peach there. You got pink blue. You want to hazard a guess as to what the bro Melissa Rogozinski (43:08): Romper my legs. I'm a leg girl. I love legs. Jared Correia (43:10): Yeah. Look at these dudes. They pick these guys for a reason. My, you're trying to sell a bro romper. You have to sell the dream, I feel like. So what would you pay for a bro romper? You think it would cost you $50 per romper? A hundred dollars or Melissa Rogozinski (43:27): $150? Are you kidding me? I was thinking 1499. Jared Correia (43:32): Oh no. Oh wow. 5,000. It's a, it's a hundred bucks. A hundred bucks. No kidding. Per romper. Maybe there's a volume discount. I'm not sure. So I hope you enjoyed our tour through That's why I'm broke.com. That's why I'm broke Melissa Rogozinski (43:55): The violins. I'm thinking of a particular credit card right now. Jared Correia (44:00): Yeah, absolutely. All right, thank you. Thank you for beta testing this segment with us. I think we'll bring it back. And thank you for being on the show today. I had a blast. Melissa Rogozinski (44:08): Thanks for having me. I always enjoy being here with you and it's a lot of fun. And there's no rules with you, Jared. No rules. And I appreciate that. No rules. Jared Correia (44:16): You didn't expect Ro romper today, did you? Melissa Rogozinski (44:19): That was a little bit shocking. And I think the Miley Cyrus like, screw you, Jared. I can't get Miley Cyrus out of my brain now. Jared Correia (44:28): That's not a bad thing. Melissa Rogozinski (44:31): You Jared Correia (44:31): Can have her, we'll have you back on to talk tariffs and sales and whatever else comes to Melissa Rogozinski (44:36): Mind. Let's do it. Let's it, Jared Correia (44:37): Thanks for doing this. I appreciate it. Melissa Rogozinski (44:40): Right. Always fun with you, Jared. Jared Correia (44:42): Thanks again to our guest, Melissa Rogozinski of our PC strategies LLC. To learn more about Melissa and RPC, visit RPC growth strategies.com. That's R pc growth strategies.com. Now, because I'll always be a nineties kid justified in ancient, I like to roam the land as the Kayla predicted I would, whose true passion is burning CDs for anyone who would listen. I'm now just doing the modern version of that, which is creating Spotify playlist for every podcast episode that I record where the songs are tangentially related to an episode topic. This week's playlist sees us leaning into great cats, cougars, cubs, lynxes, teeny others'. It's the Cat's playlist, but not cats the musical. And it's sponsored by Meow Mix. I'm just kidding. By the way, our friends at Meow Mix having sponsored shit. But I wish they would hit me up. I'm not above eating dry cat food, not wet cat food. Join us next time. When I do not eat dry cat food. I eat dog food instead. No, I don't.