Latest / Networking Unleashed: Building Profitable Connections / Networking Unleashed: An Interview with Joshua Richardson and Michael A Forman, Professional Speaker

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Networking Unleashed: An Interview with Joshua Richardson and Michael A Forman, Professional Speaker · Networking Unleashed: Building Profitable Connections

0:16
Welcome to Networking Unleashed, Building Profitable
0:20
Connections, the show where conversations stop
0:23
being casual and start creating real momentum.
0:26
I'm Michael Foreman, and today's episode is for
0:29
anyone who's tired of leaving growth up to chance.
0:33
My guest knows what it takes to move from word
0:36
-of -mouth wins to steady, reliable lead flow.
0:40
He's lived the mistakes that cost time and money,
0:43
learned the hard lessons, and now helps businesses
0:46
use automation and AI the right way so work gets
0:51
lighter and results get stronger without losing
0:54
the personal touch. We're talking about what
0:57
actually turns connections into consistency,
1:01
how to avoid the traps most entrepreneurs fall
1:04
into early, and why the right systems don't replace
1:08
relationships, they protect them. So if you care
1:12
about building growth, you can count on, you're
1:15
in the right place. So let's jump in. Josh, I
1:18
would like to welcome you to the podcast. Josh
1:21
is calling all the way from Australia. We have
1:24
a string that we attach and we pull them over.
1:26
But Josh, how about you introduce yourself? And
1:30
in a nutshell, what do you do? Thanks, Michael.
1:33
Thanks for having me. I guess in a nutshell.
1:35
i run a marketing agency so we do end -to -end
1:39
digital marketing and really helping businesses
1:41
scale and grow before starting the agency i had
1:44
a lot of my own startups that have been growing
1:46
for a very long time across e -commerce and also
1:49
lead generation so from that i realized a lot
1:52
of different issues in the marketplace and that's
1:54
why i've set up the agency and helped a lot of
1:56
businesses from there That's great. I think this
2:00
will be a really great conversation. Listen,
2:02
I developed about 10 questions that I'll ask
2:05
you. And let's start with the first one. Word
2:08
of mouth built your early growth, but systems
2:13
built your future. What made you realize relationships
2:16
weren't enough? And what changed when you added
2:20
structure? Okay, so I guess the main thing that
2:24
helped us really grow was... We had a lot of
2:27
leads coming in, but in the initial stages, we
2:30
had too many that we weren't getting back to
2:32
them fast enough. So we really knew, okay, we
2:34
can get a lot of leads in. We're obviously very
2:36
good at getting that demand, but now servicing
2:38
that demand and turning that into sales and even
2:41
for other companies, the same issues happen for
2:43
them. And that's where having a system come into
2:45
place where you know consistently that you're
2:47
following up at all the key stages and making
2:49
sure no one slipped through the cracks. That
2:51
really takes a business from doing six figures
2:54
a month to seven figures a month. That through
2:57
consistency and building out a team from there
2:59
and having a flow that can really scale beyond
3:01
just yourself as well. Yeah, consistency is really
3:04
it. It's getting the follow -up. I firmly believe
3:08
that the follow -up is in the sauce. It's more
3:11
important than actually meeting the person, right?
3:14
So if you follow up immediately and consistently,
3:17
I think you won. Yeah. People are meeting so
3:20
many people every day and you need to stand out
3:23
from that crowd. And the only way you can do
3:24
that is through multiple touch points. People
3:26
don't just buy from you from hearing about you
3:28
for the first time. It's all about the actual
3:31
value you add along the way. And that's through
3:33
follow up. So 100 % agree. Absolutely. Absolutely.
3:36
Looking back, which early mistake taught you
3:40
the most about networking, taught the most about
3:43
networking? how it really works in business but
3:47
not just socially or financially yeah okay so
3:52
i guess networking is about building your personal
3:55
brand and business brand across a lot of different
3:58
spaces people don't really know about you and
4:00
so it's how you stand out what i learned early
4:02
on is that you need to start building your brand
4:04
in multiple different spaces in order to stand
4:06
out the same way when you go network to someone
4:09
and you articulate your business it's very different
4:12
to the way some people even showcase themselves
4:14
on the website the different information they
4:17
talk through there I've been a lot of conversations
4:20
in networking events where people go into a lot
4:23
more detail about what they do as a business
4:25
and all their unique selling points as a business
4:26
but then you go look at their social media or
4:29
their website you don't pick up any of that information
4:30
there so the way you build a network doing networking
4:34
and talk about yourself in a physical presence
4:37
you need to translate to a digital presence as
4:39
well And I think that's really important to today's
4:41
society because people want to go check you out
4:43
on all these different platforms before they
4:44
start to engage with you. And even with networking,
4:48
when you talk to someone for the first time,
4:50
they're going to go check out your website and
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they're going to look for a lot more trust factors
4:53
to, hey, this person says they can do X, Y or
4:56
Z, but let me go back that up with more information.
4:58
And that's where having a really strong digital
5:00
presence backs up your social networking because
5:03
people start to trust you more. When you look
5:05
at someone's website, for example, all the different
5:07
brands they've worked with is such a strong indicator
5:09
of whether they're a reputable person in business
5:12
or not as well. Yes. Know you, like you, trust
5:16
you, then they'll do business with you. And it's
5:20
really easy for everybody to know you because,
5:24
you know, now know you, like you. narrows down
5:30
the field just a little bit because everybody
5:33
isn't going to like you. But the trust factor,
5:36
that's so important. And now it's so easy for
5:39
people to go and check you out, right? So I learned
5:43
this a while ago in speaking, you have to pick
5:45
a lane, right? I pick a lane. So I want steak.
5:50
I want steak. Now I can go to a place that sells
5:54
eggs and salads and chicken and pasta and steak
5:58
and everything else. Or do I want to go to a
6:01
steakhouse and order my steak? So that's the
6:05
lane that I chose. And so that's what I think
6:09
you're talking about. Yeah, and I can see that
6:11
from your website with all the different speaking
6:14
slots and all the brands you've worked with on
6:15
there and all the different publications you've
6:17
been on. You've established trust early on, and
6:19
that's very important for networking, for people
6:21
to hire you. hold you higher than someone else.
6:25
And some of the different businesses we go and
6:27
order and look at, they're missing all those
6:29
factors of those trust points or even reviews
6:33
are a huge thing that a lot of people are just
6:35
missing from their websites. And then there really
6:37
doesn't justify in their networking events, whether
6:40
they're an established person or not. So it's
6:42
very important in that regard. Yes, absolutely.
6:46
Absolutely. Many people rely on chance introductions.
6:50
What does it take to turn connection into a steady
6:54
flow of qualified leads? Chance is a great question.
6:59
So I guess one way we take the chance leads into
7:04
a scalable system is. To start with, a lot of
7:08
people don't have a lot of money when they're
7:09
starting a business. And so they have to rely
7:11
on being on the ground, physical one -to -one
7:13
connections. But as you start to scale up your
7:15
business and you start to have more money, you
7:17
can invest back into marketing. We really look
7:20
to businesses to go into Facebook ads and Google
7:22
ads where you can drive trackable growth month
7:26
on month. And as you want to build a system,
7:28
you need to know that you're going to have a
7:30
high volume of leads coming through every single
7:32
month. And you're not just relying on one person,
7:34
having a friend that's ready to now do something.
7:36
with their house in a service -based business
7:38
or ready to purchase a new vacuum and they refer
7:41
your business you need to know that you're getting
7:43
in front of the right eyeballs of the right people
7:45
and so you do that through digital advertising
7:48
where you can do hyper targeting and i think
7:50
that's a very important part to scale up from
7:53
referrals to having consistent system because
7:55
once you have that consistent system in place
7:57
and you know you're going to have 100 people
7:58
coming through your door every single month buying
8:01
from you you can with confidence you can hire
8:03
that next staff member and you can scale up your
8:05
ad spend to increase that demand even further
8:08
as your business starts to grow and it's a repeatable
8:10
system and when you back that up with a crm such
8:13
as hubspot to get that consistent flow there
8:16
so I might be sending you a hundred more leads
8:18
this month but if you're not servicing them or
8:21
getting back to them and taking them through
8:22
your sales process you're gonna be losing them
8:25
and it doesn't matter how many leads you get
8:27
from that point on so that's how i would see
8:29
scaling that side of things up from just the
8:31
one -to -one referral connections referrals are
8:34
super important as well because referrals have
8:36
a lot more trust than even ones you get from
8:39
digital social media but that's also where you
8:42
need to be building out your social media presence
8:44
to establish that authority and trust so that
8:46
eventually if you build out all the right pillars
8:49
of your business People come to you and they
8:52
already feel like they know you from your social
8:54
media. So even your digital advertising can sell
8:56
you in just as good as networking can as well.
9:00
I've had that happen quite a few times where
9:03
they've recognized me off of YouTube and my website
9:07
and everything else so that it's almost as if
9:10
they know me. They say, oh, Mike, I actually
9:12
know you. And I'm like, really? Because I've
9:15
never met you before. But they know me from the
9:17
social media. I'm glad you said HubSpot. I happen
9:21
to use HubSpot as a CRM. And when I talk, when
9:26
I give the presentations, I say how important
9:30
it is to have a CRM. Some people, I gave a talk
9:35
this week, and I had somebody who, they met the
9:38
people, they put the information on the left
9:41
side of their computer. When they called them,
9:43
they switched it over to the right side of the
9:45
computer. And I said, That's not good. Really
9:49
not good. But it's neither here nor there. But
9:53
I thought it was funny and you would enjoy that.
9:54
Just on that note, when you're doing your networking
9:56
events, do you use anything to capture digital
9:58
business cards and get that into your CRM at
10:00
all? No, I don't. I looked into a few systems
10:05
like that. I will probably do that, but I don't
10:09
have it yet. Okay. We've just started working
10:11
at a company called Blink, which worked with
10:13
a lot of Fortune 500 companies in the States
10:15
that integrated. Yep. That's what I looked at.
10:19
As a matter of fact, I have a digital business
10:22
card with Blink. Oh, fantastic. Yeah. They're
10:26
growing very quickly at the moment. Yep. I'm
10:29
with you. I'm with you. Okay. What's the biggest
10:32
myth about networking that holds entrepreneurs
10:35
back from building predictable growth? biggest
10:40
myths I guess what I've seen is a lot of people
10:43
are very scared to start and I think people think
10:46
they're not going to be good at it and it's not
10:47
for them or it's not for their particular type
10:49
of business but I believe networking is about
10:52
getting out there and meeting a lot of people
10:53
and even if they're not your key demographic
10:55
that you're going to sell to they're going to
10:57
know people that are potentially going to be
10:58
that so it's about establishing trust in the
11:00
community and getting out there and just they
11:02
might not be the right person but By getting
11:05
multiple touch points and getting, I guess, even
11:08
looking back at how I treat digital advertising,
11:10
it's all about volume. And that's the same way
11:12
about networking. It's about volume, but then
11:14
also quality conversations that go beyond just
11:17
top level fluff and get deeper into individual
11:20
aspects of business or even people's personal
11:22
lives so they can get to know you and understand
11:24
you more and really helps you stand out. And
11:26
I feel like a lot of people... don't believe
11:29
networking can work for their business because
11:31
they're not going to the exact right event that
11:33
doesn't have all their buyers right there. But
11:35
I don't believe that's the direct case. And I'm
11:37
sure you've seen that from all the different
11:39
networking events you've gone to, speaking to
11:41
a variety of people as well. Absolutely. And
11:44
you have to remember that you're not talking
11:46
to just those people. You're talking to those
11:50
people and their networks. So you're speaking
11:54
to not 8, 10, 12, 15 people. You're talking to
11:58
45, 60, maybe 100 people. So it depends on how
12:01
you talk. Plus, you go in with what's called
12:05
a servant's heart. You go in looking to give,
12:08
not to receive. So when you're going around and
12:12
speaking to people, don't... Talk, shut up, let
12:16
them talk. And because people love to talk about
12:19
themselves, so let them talk and then just acknowledge
12:23
that. Okay. I'm sure you're very good at that.
12:27
Yes, I try. Once in a while it doesn't come through,
12:32
but it's all right. You've paid the price in
12:35
time and money. What lesson would you save today's
12:40
business owners from learning the hard way? yeah
12:44
so I think some of the key things I've learned
12:46
as a business owner is one spending a lot of
12:50
money on getting leads coming through that you
12:51
weren't servicing and they drop off and you try
12:53
and follow them up two months later thinking
12:55
oh they're my leads but unless you're contacting
12:57
them within the first couple hours or Really
13:00
the first 10 minutes of them coming through,
13:02
I think you're wasting money a lot of the time.
13:04
And I've seen a lot of business owners and even
13:06
myself where you leave them too long to get back
13:08
to them, especially in service -based businesses.
13:10
For example, we work with a lot of tradies and
13:13
they'll get a lot of inquiries coming through
13:15
online, but then they don't service them during
13:17
the day and they wait until the night and try
13:18
and call them at nighttime, which doesn't work
13:21
when you're dealing with... someone during the
13:23
day that needs something urgent so even in my
13:26
business as a marketing agency if people are
13:28
coming in and inquiring they're speaking to three
13:30
or four people at the same time or looking at
13:32
their websites at the same time so it's really
13:34
about that speed and having a proper process
13:37
in place to know how you're going to help them
13:39
understand what they need and audit where they're
13:41
at as a business to get to the facts faster than
13:44
leaving it months on end before you finally get
13:46
to where they need to be so that's one thing
13:48
i've learned as a business owner but i guess
13:50
the other thing was also what i touched on earlier
13:53
about building that predictability. We hire a
13:56
lot of staff. Last year, we grew from a team
13:59
of 13 to 30. And to do that, we needed a lot
14:02
of consistent lead flow. And so in order to have
14:05
that many people come on, I guess the mistakes
14:08
we made early on was that we would hire new people
14:11
in across different service lines and we didn't
14:14
have enough work coming through to them because
14:16
we weren't scaling our ads appropriately for
14:18
having that. extra new people in there or we
14:20
weren't going out and getting enough leads in
14:22
networking events or different ways in the community
14:25
we put in a proper roadmap and business plan
14:28
for ourselves to make sure that if we employ
14:30
a new person we've got enough work coming through
14:33
for them or we won't employ them until we have
14:35
overflow that we can really meet the demand with.
14:38
Or if we need to scale up to that place in time,
14:40
we use some contractors. And then once you have
14:43
enough work for those contractors, you can then
14:44
hire internally. So just making sure if you are
14:48
scaling that you can go from 1 million to 1 .5
14:51
million in one case. That's almost exactly how
14:55
I used to do it. I used to have brick and mortar
14:57
companies. When I got that busy, I would hire
15:02
a contractor. And when I got really busy, I would
15:05
hire that contractor if you wanted on full time.
15:09
And I would do that again. Okay, now we got went
15:12
to the next level. So we got more business. I
15:15
hire another contractor and bring it. So I do
15:17
that slowly. But that's exactly the process that
15:20
I would use. Fantastic. Where does automation
15:25
help relationships? And where does it quietly
15:28
damage when used the wrong way? yeah so i guess
15:33
with ai coming into the space there's a lot of
15:35
businesses that will go in and use ai to respond
15:38
to emails do outreach do a lot of different things
15:41
to build their network but they don't really
15:44
edit any of the ai content that goes out and
15:46
that's where it looks very robotic and builds
15:49
a lot of mistrust if you look at linkedin these
15:51
days as well and how people outreach on platforms
15:54
like linkedin you see a lot of robots you see
15:57
a lot of ai just slop really that goes out there
16:00
and there's no real human thought to it and you
16:02
can tell that's not the way humans talk m dashes
16:04
and a lot of different things and you can instantly
16:06
pick up whether that's just chat gpt out of the
16:09
box so i would say to really use ai but still
16:13
enhance human connection it needs to have a lot
16:16
of your pre -thoughts go into it and i'm not
16:19
against ai helping shape how things are written
16:21
and to clarify things and pull out the exact
16:24
details that you need to articulate but i think
16:26
it really needs to be pre -loaded with a lot
16:29
of your own context and knowledge first to really
16:31
help it stand out if you are going to use it
16:34
and i see ai being used a lot we use it with
16:37
our teams to help ideation phases and coming
16:41
up with ideas or helping with that first draft,
16:43
but never the end result. We don't use it to
16:45
replace anyone, but it's more to enhance their
16:47
capabilities. And it's the same way in how you
16:49
network and how you reach out to people and communicate.
16:52
It's all about enhancing, but it has to be your
16:54
human effort to begin with. That's absolutely
16:58
correct. I write two articles a week for a platform
17:03
on the web and they have a component. It's You
17:08
can write it with AI, but they have a component
17:12
called something, I forgot what it was, but that
17:15
puts the human element into it. And it's combining
17:20
the AI and the human, so it looks as if, and
17:23
I pre -loaded it a lot with what I've written
17:26
before, so it has my tone. So that's what AI
17:30
really is missing. I still have to check it.
17:33
So when I write these articles, I say, no, you
17:35
don't have to change this or change that. And
17:37
I'll absolutely take out all the em dashes. That's
17:40
first and foremost. It takes a lot. But once
17:43
you train the AI, I work here in Georgia in the
17:47
States. And I work with somebody out in California.
17:51
And he's a genius. He works with Google and Apple.
17:54
HP and IBM, he's really up there. And he developed
17:58
this one section and it's worked out very well
18:01
so far. Yeah. Okay. How do you keep follow -up
18:06
personnel? Wait, hold it. Let me backtrack. How
18:09
do you keep follow -up personal when systems,
18:13
funnels, and AI are doing part of the work? Kind
18:16
of what we just talked about. Yeah. In particular,
18:19
we use a platform called Relevance AI for doing,
18:23
I guess, what we do. We go and do a heap of pre
18:26
-research on a person. So what I say with AI
18:28
is they'll do one look over someone's LinkedIn
18:30
and pull out some information and use that to
18:33
help contextualize or try and personalize some
18:36
automated responses to them in some businesses.
18:39
But a lot of the time that doesn't cut it. If
18:41
you're trying to... talk to someone about their
18:44
business you look back at their LinkedIn that
18:46
they've never updated and it has one post about
18:49
when they went to high school then that's not
18:51
really going to cut it so we developed a platform
18:53
in this AI tool that goes out and researches
18:56
you online to find some a lot of pre -context
18:58
and find out all different things about you some
19:00
are relevant some are not but then we can take
19:02
that we use AI and that shaves off about three
19:05
hours of research time if we're looking into
19:07
a big pitch to go find out a heap of different
19:09
information on the person and the business from
19:11
that we can then then go and it's just done the
19:14
research for us. So now it's the human follow
19:16
-up aspect that will go in and write those emails
19:19
or at least the context for these emails without
19:21
just taking all the information here and just
19:23
throwing it in and AI go do the rest. It's more
19:26
about, okay, AI has gone and done the pre -work.
19:28
We can now do the messy middle, the hardest part.
19:32
And then if you need to throw it through AI to
19:33
clarify it for you or shorten down your sentences,
19:36
sure. But you go do the middle part because you
19:38
know what's actually important and not important.
19:40
I don't believe AI is... bully at that stage
19:42
yet, especially when you're going for personalized
19:44
responses. It's very important that you have
19:47
someone sticking in the middle there. Yeah, I
19:50
agree. The main problem with AI right now is
19:53
that it's giving you all this feedback, but it
19:56
took all the emotional values out. It takes all
20:00
the emotion out. And when you're reading it,
20:03
that's what you're reading. So you have to put
20:07
emotion back in to it. And they haven't evolved
20:10
to put that back in automatically, right? So
20:14
it's just the combination of things. Even with
20:18
humans these days, you still get text messages
20:20
where people go, oh, it didn't come across the
20:22
way I intended it to. Well, with AI, it's coming
20:25
across even worse than you intended it to unless
20:27
you really think about it. That's because people
20:29
send it and they don't read it before they send
20:32
it. So it gets sent and they go, oh, damn, I
20:36
shouldn't have said that. And they quickly try
20:39
to fix it. Not that I would do that or anything,
20:43
but happens to me all the time. Okay, what's
20:46
one small shift professionals can make to turn
20:50
casual conversations into long -term opportunity?
20:55
Yeah, so I guess to turn it into a long -term
20:58
opportunity, it's about, I guess... building
21:00
out your process of how you take a conversation
21:03
to a next stage. And I believe unless you really
21:06
thought through either your referral opportunities
21:09
and how you want to nurture a referral from casual
21:11
conversations, depending on what you're having,
21:13
the ways you can do that is if you can give someone
21:16
free information, as you said before, more having
21:18
a servant heart with networking, if you can provide
21:20
someone additional advice or any sort of value
21:24
before even asking to sell anything or trying
21:26
to really push anything that really establishes
21:29
that connection and it takes it to that one step
21:31
further from that initial conversation to a next
21:33
stage where you're delivering value you're justifying
21:36
yourself and then if you build out a process
21:39
of how you follow up on that from there you can
21:42
turn into a long -term business partnership or
21:44
a long -term sale but not always going for the
21:47
Going to sell straight away off the bat, as you
21:49
said earlier, it's never going to get you anywhere.
21:51
Sorry. No, this is saying that people love to
21:57
buy, but they hate to be sold to. So if you can
22:02
try to sell them without selling them so they
22:06
can buy it, they don't realize they're buying
22:08
it. So it's a whole psychological thing that's
22:11
behind it. But that is so true because if you
22:15
think about a car dealership, do you want to
22:18
walk into that dealership where the salesman
22:22
comes up to you and says, hey, this is great.
22:23
Look at this Mustang. Oh, it's great. It's got
22:25
this and this and this. And oh, let me show you
22:27
this. Oh, you have to see this. Don't worry about
22:29
the price because it's all involved. Or do you
22:32
want the guy walking up and say, hey, how are
22:35
you doing? My name is Josh. I'm right over there
22:37
in case you need me. It's two separate things.
22:42
I'm going to buy, but I hate to be sold. So it's
22:47
a long process, but it works. Okay, so when you
22:53
think about conversion, what role does trust
22:58
really play before anyone ever looks at an offer?
23:04
Yeah, I think trust is one of the biggest things
23:06
that differentiates you as a business. There's
23:09
a lot of competitors in any industry. If you
23:12
look at property development, if you look at
23:14
service -based businesses, plumbers, a lot of
23:18
them, people looking at you all at the same time,
23:20
and they don't know enough about you to tell
23:22
the difference from just looking at your website.
23:25
And I've seen some people's websites, like just
23:27
the way they're laid out. That establishes trust.
23:30
There's some beautiful websites out there. Like
23:33
we build one for a company called Everlab, which
23:35
is a longevity clinic. They wanted a really beautiful
23:37
website with animation and different things because
23:39
they were going for high -end CEOs and they needed
23:42
to look premium. And that's a portion of building
23:44
trust there to go, well, if their website looks
23:46
as good as this, I'm sure their service is as
23:48
good as this. And then there's coming to that
23:50
next stage of looking at the... different businesses
23:53
people have worked with. So even on our website,
23:55
for example, we mentioned companies we worked
23:57
with like Mrs. Fields and Business Insider and
24:00
some really big establishment businesses across
24:02
the world to establish that next level of trust
24:05
to go, wow, this isn't a small business that
24:07
built one website in their lifetime. It's a highly
24:10
credible business. And then the next stage is
24:12
looking at your reviews of what customers are
24:13
saying about you and then also talking deeper
24:16
into your service offering and what that actually
24:18
provides. I think it's... you need to provide
24:21
a lot of that upfront value because no one wants
24:23
to even go talk to you if they don't trust you
24:25
to begin with. And that's why Google My Business
24:27
listings are so big and people looking at reviews
24:30
on there is like the first point of call when
24:32
looking on Maps. And if you have a one -star
24:33
review on there, no one's going to really get
24:36
to your offer. So it's about establishing that
24:39
first, then looking at the rest of your business.
24:42
Absolutely. Okay, so let's bring this podcast
24:44
full circle. If someone wants to grow faster
24:48
without losing their reputation, what principle
24:52
should guide every connection they make? So I
24:57
think to grow without losing your reputation.
25:02
You need to make sure you scale at a pace that
25:05
you can keep up with. And that's where I think
25:07
systems are very important to help you scale
25:09
in a repeatable way without losing your mindset.
25:13
Because if you're shifting screens from left
25:15
to right as you're going through your different
25:16
leads, that's not a scalable approach. You will
25:19
burn reputation by not getting back to people
25:20
fast enough. You will miss things that you're
25:23
supposed to deliver. That's why you need a system
25:24
that can consistently follow up for you or set
25:27
you tasks automatically like HubSpot and like
25:29
many different. And I think that's the most important
25:32
process that people need to get in place to scale
25:34
and not burn themselves out. Absolutely. Follow
25:37
-up is the key. Follow -up, I feel, is more important
25:41
than actually meeting the person. It's all in
25:44
the follow -up. And it's what makes or breaks
25:47
people around here. When I go to a networking
25:51
event and I'm talking to somebody and say, hey,
25:54
how are you doing? Oh, it's great. How do you
25:57
follow up with these people? He goes, I'll send
25:59
an email tomorrow and the next week I'll just
26:01
make sure they got it and everything else. And
26:04
in my mind, I'm going, I won. Okay, that's fine.
26:07
That's great. You don't have a system. I have
26:10
a secret sauce, a system that works, that brings
26:14
your email responses from 2 % to 75%, right?
26:19
Looking forward to a response, positive or negative,
26:22
right? I just want them to respond to me. And
26:26
so the follow -up is key. Okay, so that's what
26:29
real progress sounds like. Growth doesn't come
26:33
from luck. It comes from clear thinking, better
26:36
habits, and learning faster than your mistakes
26:40
repeat. If today's conversation sparked a new
26:43
way of looking at your network, take one idea
26:46
and put it into action this week. See what changes
26:49
you can stop hoping for referrals and start creating
26:52
a path for them. If this episode helped you think
26:56
bigger and how connections lead to revenue, share
26:59
it with someone who's building something of their
27:01
own. And don't forget to follow Networking Unleashed,
27:05
Building Profitable Connections, so you never
27:08
miss a conversation that helps you grow smarter,
27:11
not harder. I'm Michael Foreman, and remember,
27:14
your next breakthrough might not come from a
27:17
new contact, but from using the ones you already
27:19
have in a better way. Joshua, I want to thank
27:23
you. If somebody wants your talent, if somebody
27:27
wants to connect with you, have you coach them,
27:30
have you do something, have business for them,
27:33
where would they contact you? They can contact
27:36
me at qagency .com .au. Fill out the inquiry
27:39
form there, and I'll be the first one to be in
27:40
contact with you. Perfect. Perfect. All right,
27:44
Josh. Again, thank you so much for coming on
27:47
the podcast. Thank you for having me. Cheers.
27:53
Well, hold on, folks. Don't go anywhere. Let's
27:57
hear from our sponsors. David Neal, co -founder
28:00
Revved Up Kids. Revved Up Kids is on a mission
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to protect children and teens from sexual abuse,
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exploitation, and trafficking. They provide prevention
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training programs for children, teens, and adults.
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To learn more, go to revvedupkids .org. Henry
28:19
Kaplan, Century 21. When it comes to making the
28:23
biggest financial decision of your life, leave
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it in the hands of a proven professional, Henry
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Kaplan. Henry is a global real estate agent with
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Century 21, celebrating his 41st year in business.
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No matter where you're moving, Henry has the
28:39
right connections for you. You can contact Henry
28:42
at 561 -427 -4888. A huge thank you to our guests
28:49
for sharing such... insights today. And of course,
28:53
a big shout out to you, our amazing listeners,
28:56
for tuning in and spending your time with us.
28:59
If you're interested in my digital courses, being
29:02
coached or having me come and talk to your company,
29:05
just go to Michael and fill out the request form.
29:09
Remember, networking isn't about being perfect.
29:13
It's about being present. So take what you've
29:16
learned today, get out there and make some meaningful
29:19
connections. If you've enjoyed this episode,
29:22
please don't forget to subscribe. Leave us a
29:25
review and share it with someone who could use
29:28
a little networking inspiration. Let's keep the
29:31
conversation going. You can find me on Apple,
29:34
Spotify, Pandora, YouTube, or my website, foreman
29:39
.com slash podcasts.