Latest / Networking Unleashed: Building Profitable Connections / Networking Unleashed: S1E12 An Interview with Victor Catrina and Michael A Forman

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Networking Unleashed: S1E12 An Interview with Victor Catrina and Michael A Forman · Networking Unleashed: Building Profitable Connections

• 0:00
  to networking unleashed building profitable
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  connections. Come to the show folks. I'm your host Michael Foreman and you're
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  sitting to the podcast where networking is more than just an awkward handshake and
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  bad coffee. Yes, it's an art and a talent. But here's the twist. It's an art and talent
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  you can actually learn. Yes, even if you're the person hiding at every event
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  pretending to check emails. It's a game changer. When you get good at it, you'll
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  want to get it start sooner. More connections, more opportunities and more
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  profits. It's like unlocking a cheat code for life. So whether you're the life
• 1:50
  of the party or just the let me stay at home and text type, we've got something
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  for you. So stick around. Let's turn those awkward small talk moments into big
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  wins. And I have he he's quite an interesting young man. He's 29 years
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  old. First of all, his name is Victor. Victor Katrina. He's 29 years old and he
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  runs ready for this a seven figure coaching business. Now you might want to
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  know how he got here. Well, he's teaching YouTube automation. I'm
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  doing amazing Michael. Thank you so much for having the show. Great. So listen,
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  Victor, tell me it up with a brief bio of yourself. Why don't you tell me what
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  you're up to? Yeah, I mean, it's an interesting time. I've gone through a
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  lot of businesses like you mentioned and it's kind of led me up to where I am
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  now and I indulge a little bit more when I get into my story. But
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  realistically, yeah, I've gone to the point where I've really built this
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  coaching company. I've been able to make some massive impact influence a lot of
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  people, help a lot of people to generate income on the side or replace their
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  incomes with this YouTube business model. And it's really gone to the point
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  where I see massive vision, massive opportunity for the future where I could
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  really now go from, you know, hundreds to thousands of people and so on so forth.
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  So yeah, if you want to know what the future looks like, I really think it's
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  just continuing to do what I'm already really good at and what I'm seeing a
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  lot of impact on, which is just continuing this coaching company.
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  Well, that's an interesting segue because I want to know how you increasingly
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  digital. How do we build genuine connections?
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  We're a digital world. Now, I teach networking, networking events, feel the
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  vibe of the room, the vibe of the person, but how is it done digitally?
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  Good question. I mean, that's the big issue that's happening with the
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  evolution of the digital space is that the more connected we become, we
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  actually become more separated because the larger these networks get of these
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  conglomerates of people, the more difficult it is to connect everyone
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  because everyone's in their own continent and the influence of the world.
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  Now, what we do specifically in our community with our students is that we
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  have these live group settings. So these group calls have multiple purposes,
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  number one, of course, to be able to dissect everyone's YouTube channels and
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  analyze the statistics and strategy. But number two is to really bring people
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  together. So we have around nine group calls every single week with all of our
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  students. And that kind of opens up the doors for all the students to come
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  together to get to know each other on a face-to-face basis. Everyone has their
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  cameras on, everyone's engaging. And that in turn builds a lot of genuine
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  relationships. We've seen business partnerships come out of this and just
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  friendships and people connecting. I had some people meet up in person. The
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  requirement that we have where people have to show up to these calls has
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  actually opened up the digital space and brought it more into the material
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  plane, which is very cool. That's very cool. It's great the way that you're
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  bringing together, because across the YouTube channels and the way that you
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  bring the classroom setting, but you're teaching that one-on-one, which is so
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  important with the networking and networking world. Can you share a
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  specific example of a strategic networking relationship that impacted your
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  business? Yeah, I mean it would have to be, it was an intentional relationship,
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  which was actually me seeking mentorship. So me seeking mentorship directly
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  was how I was able to be under the influence of someone who had what I
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  wanted, right? They'd already gone through the process of building a seven-a-figure
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  coaching business. So I think that kind of strategic connection and relationship
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  was somebody who had the influence and the knowledge that I needed. And that's
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  just really the power of connecting with other people who have that influence or
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  knowledge base that you need, because they're able to really accelerate that
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  entire process. They have the roadmap, right? They know exactly what to do and
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  more importantly what not to do, which is very very important to learn from
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  other people's failures. But I'd have to say really I think it was my first
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  mentor who I hired and he was able to really streamline the entire process
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  and more or less open up my eyes and I was able to see things in a completely
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  different light and I was able to prioritize different things and focus
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  on the highest leverage levers that I had to pull to make the highest impact in
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  my business and with my community as well, which is a huge impact there. So I'd
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  have to say directly it was mentorship. So important with what we do. We handle
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  networking from different sides, but it's so important to find that person
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  or people to mentor you because listen, let's face facts, we don't know
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  everything, right? And we're trying to get as much knowledge as possible, so why
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  not go to somebody that has that knowledge and let us help us? So that's
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  very good. Some of the key elements, what are the key elements that you have for
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  effective communication with professional networking?
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  I think it really boils down to intentional question asking. Everything
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  comes down to how effective you can be in the communication through questions,
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  seeking to understand. We kind of emphasized it before, like we don't
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  know what we don't know. And so through intentional question asking, we're able to
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  harness other people's knowledge and then again, through effective application, use
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  that for our own instances and businesses. And so I think the most power comes
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  from your ability to ask the right questions. Asking questions in general
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  is a great thing, but how effective your question asking is really going to
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  influence the output that you get from any interaction with someone who you
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  want to have influence from or gain knowledge from. I think that's
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  kind of my opinion. That's great. Okay, so how would you recommend that somebody
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  who is afraid of networking, how do they go out there, jump in the game and
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  say, look, for my business, I need to network and I need to get my word out
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  there or I need to go out and find a mentor, but I'm afraid of going out there
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  and beginning my networking strategy. How would you recommend that a person does
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  that? Yeah, great question. I mean, if you are really introverted and you have
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  money, I would just go directly and pay someone and just have them teach you.
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  You know, if you want to gain the respect and trust of a mentor to have them
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  come to you or, you know, build some sort of relationship where they can be
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  influencing you and teaching you, I think there needs to be an exchange of value.
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  That's just my opinion. I really think that if you want someone to invest into
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  you, there needs to be some sort of mutual exchange. You just have to show
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  that you've done your due diligence. So by that, I mean spending the time, you
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  know, the private victories, like spending time to actually educate yourself, to
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  really just level up your knowledge base, to feel, to come to a place where if you
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  have a conversation with somebody that you want to be influenced by or taught by,
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  that you can actually hold a conversation and that requires you to go into the
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  darkness and spend time there to just educate yourself, read the books that
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  they're reading, right? Watch the videos that they're watching, read the articles
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  that they're reading, like basically at least have a way to connect with them on
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  a level where you're not just completely in the dark when they say things and you
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  have this mutual connection and you can relate and relay off of their
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  conversations. They will feel that you've done your due diligence and you're at
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  least in a place where you are privy and subject to their teachings versus if you
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  come and you're completely in the dark and you haven't done any work and they're
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  trying to give you information, they're not going to be as interested to be
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  vested in you if they haven't seen you've done anything. But if you've done some
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  due diligence or a lot of due diligence, it's going to give them a lot more
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  reasoning and desire to spend an input there at the time.
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  That's great. You know, when we first began the podcast, you spoke of failures, how
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  you really look at failures more so than what you've done well. So give me an
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  example or two of your major failures and you found a way to overcome it.
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  Yeah, you're absolutely right and that's something I love to emphasize is the power
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  of failure and I think it's really just something that's not emphasized enough.
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  It's such a thing that people are fearful of, I mean naturally failure, but
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  really it's such a building block to success. Success is not a straight road
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  as anyone who's been successful would tell you. So one thing just kind of an
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  analogy I like to bring up and I think it was from Mozi who brought this up but
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  every single failure acts kind of like a bridge that you're building across.
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  You have this river, this rocky river and you want to build a bridge across and so
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  each business that you have is like a stone that you place which eventually
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  failure after failure after failure. People look at it like the last brick was
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  late and that was the successful business and every other business was
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  irrelevant and not necessary but in reality each one was that building block
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  that led to the evolution and building of that bridge that got you there.
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  So all these failures really do act as prerequisites and fundamental knowledge
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  and so much like theory and application that's done through these failures that
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  you don't know when it's going to be used until the final thing, one thing that
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  finally takes off and that's kind of how it was for me. So I had all these
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  multiple businesses that I tried and I failed one and then I failed the next and
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  then the next but each one I learned something. I learned web design, I learned
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  ads, I learned something and each of these skill sets on their own didn't serve a
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  purpose but then finally I built a marketing agency where I needed all
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  those skill sets and they just came in perfectly because I just I had built
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  them and I was knowledgeable in them and I was able to scale my first company to
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  30,000 a month from never having seen really any money in any other business.
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  So I could have looked at it like wow I should have just done marketing this
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  whole time but I would have never made that money if it wasn't for everything
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  else that built up these skill sets. So that's kind of why I see this as
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  definitely the necessity, not for everyone maybe it's just me and a lot of people that
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  I know as well, failure but it's a powerful thing that you can really
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  harness because number one it's going to teach you a lot about yourself and
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  number two is going to build a massive amount of resilience if you allow it to.
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  It can tear you down or it can build you up and you just have to always look at
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  failure as an opportunity to go into the next thing or just grow. I truly
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  believe that failure is there for a reason to teach your lesson not to tear
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  you down typically and so the last thing there too is like failure is only when
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  you stop there's no such thing as failure until you quit that's the
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  definition of failure so no one really fails until they give up. That's
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  exactly the story where a gentleman had a pencil company and while he did
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  was make pencils and one of his workers said how difficult is this? I can make a pencil,
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  I can make the eraser, I can make the lead, I can go into business for myself.
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  Wait a second he's not paying me enough to do what I do I think I'm
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  just gonna quit or I want a piece of his profits and he brings it to the owner
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  and the owner said well you're talking about this business but what about all
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  my years of looking up how to do the business and all the money I lost after
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  doing the business so you're not looking at how I got here you're looking at once
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  I got here and that opened his eyes and said well you know what maybe he's right
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  okay what would you say you built up a lot of networking relationships how do
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  you stay in touch with them?
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  Yeah first of all I just want to say that was a great story it's definitely a
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  perfect example of why you know employees and business owners are paid
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  differently you know entrepreneurs are taking on a different level of risk that
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  the employees aren't and that's just you know risk compensation differences
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  we'll call it you know but yeah that's a great story how do we nurture
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  relationships I mean it's an active effort just like anything just like
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  nurturing relationships with your family and your friends it's just keeping a
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  close eye on your network so I have a pretty large network myself with some
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  pretty high-level entrepreneurs and I want to make sure I stay in touch what I
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  do really well is that I'm able to provide enough value through the
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  interactions that I have and they also know I'm very very busy so you know I do
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  make it known that I'm alive of course I post actively and stuff like this and
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  so they know I'm there and I try and just engage with them as well so social
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  media does really help kind of keep an eye on each other and kind of bump each
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  other a little bit so I like their stuff or I'll comment on their posts and then
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  vice versa so we don't actually have to have too many conversations to keep in
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  touch unless again it seems like there's a good vibe going on and we can kind of
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  find some mutual exchange then we kind of have some more active conversations but
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  I love to have connection calls with people I'll find an entrepreneur I'll
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  reach out and just say hey seems like we're in the same space love to just
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  get on a call see if we can exchange some value that is a great way to for me to
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  just kind of break that first barrier and if I feel like there's just more that
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  needs to be said and more conversations to be had we of course book more
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  otherwise is that like kind of small little I got on Facebook he used to be
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  like this person poked you they're just like keeping pokes on each other to let
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  each other know you're still thinking of each other and that's just how I keep
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  my relationships more or less active because it's difficult to maintain a
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  lot of relationships while still running the business we have hundreds of
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  students it's definitely a lot of conversations and then my have to keep
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  my girlfriend very very busy as well so that's an important one very important
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  always keep them happy yes within the networking world if there's a saying
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  that's very important if they like you and trust you they'll do business with
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  you right it becomes like okay yeah everybody does that well let's break it
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  down just a little bit further if to know you well everybody knows you because
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  you're out there and they see you now they like you well that's a different
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  story because not as many people are gonna like you as know you right easy
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  part of the three but trust you that trust factor is a major factor have to
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  build that trust in whatever time that you have now I talk about networking
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  events about how you have 30 seconds to build up that trust but you may have
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  five minutes on a on a phone call on a podcast whatever the case may be but you
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  need to build up that level of trust before you go any further so that level
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  of trust is it's crucial okay let's bring this to a different a little
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  inundating for an introvert it'll basically crush them but do you have
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  any tips or tricks that you use when you go to a networking event yeah I mean a
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  couple things great question a couple things you can do number one going back
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  to the original statement I made come prepared you know come prepared to have
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  conversation topics to be able to relate to people and levels really do do
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  diligence as well I go find out who's gonna be at that seminar and again
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  try and study their life a lot of times you can see what people are what they're
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  reading on social media what they're watching what was their political
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  opinions right educate yourself so you can have these initial conversations and
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  break the ice really easily so that's a diff that's a whole different level of
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  diligence is going and stalking people but it actually pays dividends it's a
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  crazy crazy way to just be proactive versus reactive really and secondly you
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  coming with someone really helps to you know if you come with a friend a best
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  friend or your partner or something you having someone else there that can just
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  push you a little bit from behind and say hey I know we're both terrified but
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  if you go together it won't be as intimidating so I really think yet
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  double-teaming it could be in a great way to overcome some of the initial fear
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  and then again coming prepared as a friend agree with you if you're an introvert
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  you need that person you need now I'm from the Air Force so I use an Air Force
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  term wingman and kind of push you when you need to be pushed but if you're an
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  extrovert if you're going out to do networking I always suggest go alone
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  don't go with somebody you don't want to use that crutch or you know if you if
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  you find a little weld in the excitement you're going to speak with that
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  person and take your mind away from networking when you're networking yet
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  be focused you have to treat it like it's a job and you have to be organized
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  that's intact and when you're keeping in touch with your relationships I would
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  suggest using a CRM because that way you can organize all of your
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  relationships so to bring this down a little bit give me a little tip that you
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  would give someone that like to improve their networking or sales skills okay
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  on someone trying to improve their networking I want us to speak one last
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  thing because the last point you made is really really intelligent to have this
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  CRM so what I have done for myself is I built a Rolodex and I did that actually
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  on chat GPT so basically when I have connection calls with people I because
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  you can go into chat GPT you can say something and you can say can you please
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  store this in your memory bank so I'd say this is the person and this is all
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  their qualities what they do for business their annual income any connections
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  that they have what they're good at and what they might need help on and you
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  just fill up that Rolodex and then I can pull it up at any time and populate it
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  and say I know this person who has this is anyone in my network able to help him
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  with this problem and it can sift through all those people and if you want to
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  kind of create that connection with somebody it's really easy to just
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  happen to say is so very important because one thing I stress is whenever
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  you go to one of these networking events you're looking to give not receive how
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  can you put two people together and you can bow out gracefully all you're doing
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  is putting them together so one of the things that I always recommend whenever
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  you get that person that prospective client you say to him I like you I like
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  how you do business how can I make you more successful how can I be good
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  referral source for you but you always look to give not receive so after
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  after everything we've discussed what's your favorite meeting again you kind of
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  kind of marketing tactic for what specifically marketing myself for my
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  business or your choice your business for my business specifically again being
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  social media based we like long form is I can't stress the importance of long
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  form with anything so we do short form with Instagram we do long form
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  marketing obviously through YouTube and it's statistically proven long form
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  will convert at a 30 to 60 percent rate higher than short form just because
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  people are able to spend more time with you on that content the longer they
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  spend watching you the more authority that you build the more you can
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  edify yourself and the more trust is built so by far you know long form
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  content is always going to be the winner is always king and then of course in
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  person is the best but it's just you can't multiply in person as much as you
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  know a video that can be sent out to millions of people at the same time so
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  that's one thing but if I have to of course in person is on absolutely
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  unshakable after that would have to be long form content because it's getting
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  long form and podcasts podcast is really nice too because the longer they can
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  spend with somebody the more they get to like know and trust them is really the
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  essence that's the essence of networking it really is how you slice it to know you
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  like to trust you that's how they're gonna do business with you okay yeah one
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  takeaway from everything we said that somebody within my audience can use
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  tomorrow what can they do yeah I think you said it before I did and I'm so happy
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  you did it's such a beautiful thing you said and that the supplies way beyond
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  networking way beyond business is life in general it's not about what we get
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  it's about what we give like you said it so beautifully and if you use that and
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  allow it to transcend into everything that you do especially business and
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  networking you'll be extremely successful you know so I do the exact same thing and
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  I ask a very similar set of questions which is you know once you've gone
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  through introducing each other like how can I be of service like how can I how
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  can I provide some value I want to just do something you know and that genuine
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  kind of without any expectation in return just very kind of altruistic
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  emotional you know messaging goes such a long way because people especially
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  people who have something to give if they're an eight figure entrepreneur or
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  something you're trying to connect with them a lot of people think when you want
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  to connect with them they want to leech off of you these people think that people
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  want to leech off of them and so when you are that one person that comes to them
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  and does the opposite wants to provide value and wants to give he usually takes
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  people off of there's not what people expect it's not what these entrepreneurs
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  and people expect and that's a beautiful thing to be that one person who just
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  when everyone goes left you go right so you set it perfectly and that's probably
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  the biggest takeaway when it comes to networking and it's a combination of the
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  two which is coming prepared because you can't just say I'm gonna give value and
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  have nothing offer right so that second part is the byproduct of the first so
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  really has to be due diligence is being intentional about educating yourself
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  putting yourself having the right kind of knowledge base so networking books is
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  great leadership books are amazing to read you know business acumen books are
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  incredible mindset books and just spending some time with yourself and
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  reflecting on learning like figure out who you are and just getting a good grip
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  on who you are so a lot of personal development has to go into networking I
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  don't think you can do effective networking if you haven't done effective
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  self-development that's part one then part two good value that's perfect Victor
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  I can't tell you this whole session was because you showed us what after you have
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  made it as a seven-figure entrepreneur moving it to a YouTube and showing
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  people how to do a YouTube company and everything else you're showing us network
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  why you've networked and so this is all been fantastic if somebody wanted to get
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  hold of you or wanted to hire or hire your company how would they do it
• 26:12
  yeah my primary place for communication would be Instagram it's my full name so
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  Victor Katrina Katrina with a C would be the way to find me and it's YouTube
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  automation is what it's actually called and what's really cool and unique about
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  it is that we're able to create videos without showing our face or creating the
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  videos ourselves the essence and the beauty of the business is that we don't
• 26:35
  create the videos we actually delegate that entire creation process out to
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  freelancers we use AI to create these videos and then when we create these
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  videos we post them and accumulate hundreds and thousands of millions of
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  views and then the ads they get placed on our videos and every time as an ad
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  that's played YouTube compensates us which is a really interesting business
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  model because again going back to the introverted people you know a lot of
• 26:58
  introverted people don't want to show their face or put themselves out there
• 27:01
  this is a really unique business model that's brought a lot of people who are
• 27:04
  just afraid of the traditional business into business and able to make a lot of
• 27:09
  money so it's a lot of introverted people let's just say it's a it's a hot
• 27:14
  business model for them and it's it's opened up a lot of doors for people it's
• 27:17
  a very interesting business model but yeah if you guys are interested in
• 27:20
  learning a little bit more about it I do offer consultations and discovery calls
• 27:24
  if you're at all interested in learning more so just message me on Instagram we
• 27:28
  can set up a call see if it's a fit and go from there thank you very much this
• 27:32
  has been wonderful Michael thank you so much been pleasure
• 27:41
  well that's a wrap folks a huge thank you to our special guest for sharing such
• 27:47
  incredible insights today and of course a big shout out to you our amazing
• 27:53
  listeners for tuning in and spending your time with us remember networking isn't
• 27:59
  about being perfect it's about being present so take what you've learned
• 28:03
  today get out there and make some meaningful connections if you enjoyed
• 28:08
  this episode don't forget to subscribe leave us a review and share it with
• 28:13
  someone who could use a little networking inspiration let's keep the
• 28:17
  conversation going you can find me on Apple Spotify YouTube or my website
• 28:24
  Michael A. Foreman doc remember until next time keep practicing keep connecting
• 28:30
  and keep building those relationships this is Michael A. Foreman signing off
• 28:35
  take care and happy networking