Latest / Networking Unleashed: Building Profitable Connections / Networking Unleashed: S1E18 An Interview with Nili Goldberg and Michael A Forman

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Networking Unleashed: S1E18 An Interview with Nili Goldberg and Michael A Forman · Networking Unleashed: Building Profitable Connections

• 0:00
  Welcome to Networking Unleashed, Building Profitable Connections.
• 0:19
  Welcome to the show, folks.
• 0:20
  I'm your host, Michael Forman, and you're listening to the podcast where networking
• 0:26
  is more than just an awkward handshake and bad coffee.
• 0:30
  It's an art and a talent.
• 0:32
  But here's the twist.
• 0:34
  It's an art and a talent you can actually learn.
• 0:38
  You even, yes, even if you're the person hiding in the corner at every event pretending
• 0:45
  to check emails.
• 0:48
  Networking isn't just a nice skill to have, it's a game changer.
• 0:52
  When you get good at it, you'll wonder why you didn't start sooner.
• 0:57
  More connections, more opportunities, more profits.
• 1:01
  It's like unlocking a cheat code for life.
• 1:05
  So whether you're the life of the party or the let me just stay in home and text type,
• 1:11
  we've got something for you.
• 1:14
  Stick around and let's turn those awkward small talk moments into big wins.
• 1:20
  Now I have a guest.
• 1:22
  Her name is Milly Goldberg, and she has quite a great background in network and influencing
• 1:31
  and everything.
• 1:32
  I wouldn't do it justice.
• 1:34
  Let me just start out by saying Milly Goldberg is a values expert, an entrepreneur, and now
• 1:41
  a published nonfiction business author.
• 1:45
  She launched her first startup in 2009.
• 1:49
  So before I go into the rest of the bio, I will say hello to Milly.
• 1:54
  Hello, Milly.
• 1:55
  How are you?
• 1:56
  Hi, Michael.
• 1:57
  Thank you for having me.
• 1:58
  Good morning.
• 1:59
  You're on your end, of course.
• 2:00
  Yeah, well, it is morning.
• 2:02
  It is morning.
• 2:03
  But, but I know there's just so much more to your background.
• 2:08
  And could you fill us in a little bit, please?
• 2:10
  Sure thing.
• 2:12
  I began my entrepreneurial career, as you mentioned, while sitting at the office listening
• 2:18
  to other startup pitch about their video solutions to me.
• 2:22
  And suddenly I had the entrepreneurial itch.
• 2:26
  And so ever since I've been connecting my passion for marketing and entrepreneurship,
• 2:32
  first was, as you mentioned, to launch one of the first influencer platforms on earth
• 2:38
  before even Instagram was on.
• 2:40
  So that was a bit of a challenge.
• 2:43
  I've been privatizing the social influencer, the micro social influencer markets and ever
• 2:48
  since, so for the past decade or so, I've been also investing in working with startups
• 2:54
  that sound have now IPOed on NASDAQ by now.
• 2:58
  So so so I'm very proud in order to help them fine tune their product market fit.
• 3:06
  Market fit.
• 3:07
  It was with the pitch.
• 3:08
  That's how it got all combined.
• 3:11
  And especially to help them overcome what I saw is that these to call me the messaging
• 3:15
  doctor.
• 3:16
  But as we dove into the messaging process says, it ended up being really a kind of alignment
• 3:23
  that got me to sit on the beach for a year and write and write this book for which I'm
• 3:30
  so proud of and excited about.
• 3:32
  It should be congratulations on the book.
• 3:36
  That is just a very good thing.
• 3:37
  Okay, so you you network, you have an increase incredible network of people that you stay
• 3:45
  in contact with.
• 3:46
  So now how do you how do you remain in contact or network with these people in a digital age?
• 3:56
  Well, that's a great question.
• 4:03
  And I will also add something to my bio that wouldn't have been relevant until this point,
• 4:08
  but that is the fact that I only found out that I have ADHD about three years ago.
• 4:15
  That's a year before I decided to write a book and which helped me understand why while
• 4:21
  I have many friends and acquaintance whom I love when I get when I connect with them.
• 4:28
  It's always extremely authentic.
• 4:30
  We dive deep either on the personal or business level.
• 4:32
  We always find various connections to what we do and how we do it.
• 4:36
  You know, we find our why's we find our why why we're connected, but then given the widespread
• 4:45
  of communities that I'm involved in, given the various startup verticals that I've been
• 4:52
  engaging with and the academic world and and and it became very hard for me to maintain
• 4:59
  that level of connection on social media because to get back to messages and to create connections
• 5:05
  that are there to last, I found I needed something different.
• 5:09
  I needed to have that kind of connection that if you and I are not going to speak to get,
• 5:14
  you know, we're going to go off this call and then follow up a few times, but then we'll
• 5:19
  all you know, we'll disappear into thin digital air.
• 5:24
  So what I keep looking for in my engagements on social media is to have the type of connection
• 5:30
  that when I meet these people again, because it's hard for me to maintain the personal
• 5:34
  contact in the deep way it was formed before, but it will feel for us as if we've just said
• 5:40
  good our previous goodbyes and that the mutual connection, it'll just like, you know, like
• 5:47
  you have these friends that you pick up your connection with them, even if you haven't seen
• 5:50
  them for a decade, and it's like as if you just said, you're goodbyes, and that's the
• 5:56
  kind of engagements I seek on social media.
• 6:00
  Okay, that's great.
• 6:02
  That's great.
• 6:03
  You know, I profess, you know, the in person, the networking so you can feel the vibe of
• 6:09
  the person and feel the vibe of the room.
• 6:12
  What type of networking in person networking events do you attend?
• 6:19
  Well, it's interesting for me, you know, these kind of questions on one hand, they're like,
• 6:27
  okay, so I go to meetups like I go to, and when I get invited as a speaker, so I get
• 6:35
  so excited to see the event itself and everything else.
• 6:39
  So you know, you get to spend time with people.
• 6:43
  On the other hand, it's, you know, for me, it's like what Brunet Brown refers to the introvert
• 6:50
  extrovert and vice versa.
• 6:52
  So I'm as much as I'm very passionate about what I do and about helping people and I dive
• 6:58
  in and it's like I morph myself into being part of the room in order to better understand
• 7:05
  the challenges I'm dealing with.
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  I shy away in other events.
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  So what kind of networking events I go to the ones that there's a bart enough.
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  The ones that now it's not my thing, but the ones that I can blend in and not feel uncomfortable
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  with, you know, not approaching people and saying, hi, my name is Nealey, how are you?
• 7:30
  I noticed, you know, what you do that.
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  And I like the small and more intimate events and meetups that eventually either have breakdown
• 7:40
  sessions or round tables.
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  And then I think that's a true way to get to know people.
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  So those are the events I would vote for.
• 7:49
  Okay.
• 7:50
  Okay.
• 7:51
  How about if you give me a few key elements in a key element of effective communication
• 8:00
  in your professional network?
• 8:03
  Some key elements.
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  What I would, I would, I think that my element for engaging on the professional level is
• 8:16
  not very different from the one on the personal level because what I, what I usually aim for
• 8:24
  is to have, you know, I've been working for so many years that I prefer, you know, only
• 8:30
  about good conversations over just conversations.
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  So a good one would be, or an engagement would be on the basis of a core or core values,
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  which means that if you and I connect and engage and we had a few minutes to talk beforehand,
• 8:51
  I was able to connect with you on a level of the empathy of the fact that both of us,
• 8:57
  it wasn't just the small talk of making it our business to feel comfortable with each
• 9:01
  other.
• 9:02
  It's the fact that we found the way to show each other, we know each other, that we get
• 9:06
  it.
• 9:07
  We get a specific experience or feeling or, you know, it was even a tiny bit of, you
• 9:13
  know, not anxiety, but anxiousness and looking forward and being very curious about every
• 9:18
  one of us on two sides of the world about what's going to happen.
• 9:23
  We are, we do take note of the global effects that are currently taking place on various
• 9:33
  levels.
• 9:34
  So that is why I feel that in addition to the world of communication, of course, I felt
• 9:39
  that I was very much at ease to talk to you and to dive into a podcast being the introvert.
• 9:46
  Okay.
• 9:47
  Okay.
• 9:48
  Well, here we go.
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  Since you said that you were an introvert, all right, how would you recommend people
• 9:56
  overcoming a fear or discomfort about networking?
• 10:05
  Take a friend.
• 10:11
  Okay.
• 10:12
  But that, the truth is because the conversation, it's like, to me, the way to overcome the
• 10:19
  anxiety is to make it less about me.
• 10:23
  And in that field, everything is, any tool that I have is relevant.
• 10:30
  So it's either I will introduce someone else into the crowd or I will create a discussion
• 10:37
  about like blend into a discussion about something else.
• 10:40
  So if I fear the situation of introducing myself and putting myself out there, I will
• 10:47
  find ways to create an engagement that puts myself out there next.
• 10:52
  I was like, oh, right.
• 10:55
  So you ski, you do this, you're used to windsurf.
• 10:58
  Oh, you wrote a blog.
• 11:01
  Right.
• 11:02
  Well, you know, it's funny you say that because listen, I was in the Air Force, so I call this
• 11:10
  a wingman.
• 11:11
  But when I'm up on a stage or doing a workshop or something like that, I am always asked
• 11:19
  the difference between extroverts and introverts.
• 11:23
  And everything we talk about is about an extrovert, nothing about an introvert.
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  So you know, my main thing with an introvert is listen, I mean, let me back up with an
• 11:34
  extrovert.
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  I always say go alone.
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  This way you don't have to share your attention span with anybody else.
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  When you're an introvert, however, it's you bring a wingman, somebody that knows you,
• 11:48
  that you trust, and that can introduce you to every table and everything else.
• 11:53
  And of course, that just makes things easier.
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  So you're right in line with what I have been talking about.
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  So that's very, very good.
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  You know that we could also add, given your experience at the Air Force.
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  My experience is in the intelligence force.
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  So the more we do our homework, and again, to me, it's to get more of the experience,
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  the vibe of who are the people that I'm meeting and what kind of event I'm going to.
• 12:20
  It helps me better set myself in advance to the vibe that I would like to be in, to put
• 12:29
  myself in the setting that is best for me for that kind of an event and for the people
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  I meet.
• 12:35
  So even if it's a networking event and you've been to a gazillion of them, the better, the
• 12:40
  more you're prepared, the more you're going to ace it.
• 12:43
  And if there's a specific target, then by all means, there's that movie on Apple TV
• 12:49
  with WeWork, WeCrashed, of how the entrepreneur got the funding round from the Asian parties.
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  Like the second.
• 13:00
  Exactly like that.
• 13:03
  Knowledge is power.
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  Knowledge is power.
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  So if you're going to go to a networking event, you're going to investigate all about that
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  event, not only the event itself, but the people that go to that event, because you
• 13:17
  have to see whether or not it's for you.
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  Are you one of those people that are going to go to that event?
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  And you're right.
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  When you walk into the room and you pick up the vibe of the room, that's so important.
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  Now when I do anything, my wife absolutely goes crazy about this, but I do that everywhere
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  we go.
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  I always have my back to the wall.
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  I, you know, everything because I was a police officer with the Air Force.
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  I'm always armed.
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  So, you know, it's always, that's where my brain works.
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  But you have to pick up the vibe of the person you're speaking to and the vibe of the room
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  for it to work out.
• 13:57
  Okay.
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  So what would you say is a mistake that you made in networking and how did you overcome
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  it?
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  Oh, I make so many.
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  That's usually the answer, but you know, let's try to narrow it down.
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  Oh, it's like sometimes I'm like, did you just say that?
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  Are you like?
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  I think that one of the mistakes I made a few times was the understanding of the follow-up
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  process.
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  Because on the networking front, you know, you hit and miss and then you come back for
• 14:45
  round two, three, four, if that's what's needed.
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  You pick yourself up and try again, but when you leave the room, or by the way, a Zoom
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  call or a live call.
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  It's crucial to follow up in a certain way.
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  And in a way that, as I said previously, creates a continuum.
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  It continues the vibe of the previous engagement, which requires a lot of time and attention,
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  by the way.
• 15:08
  So, and you know, there's that kind of cycle after a networking event, there's like the
• 15:12
  hype.
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  And then it maintains for a day to five days.
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  And then you start, you know, spreading the follow-ups and mutual connections that you've
• 15:21
  promised to create.
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  But then there's, there is that continuous follow-up of living up to your promise.
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  And then some, because otherwise it's transactional.
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  And then that is, I make my business to give value.
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  It's important to me.
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  So, I'm on the lookout for that.
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  It should be.
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  And over-delivering is the key.
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  The follow-up, I feel, is almost more important than actually meeting the person.
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  So I have a secret sauce for follow-up and for two weeks after.
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  And I find out, A, whether or not you're really interested or B, you just, it's fluff.
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  Okay.
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  And it's all right if you weren't really interested in what I had to say or have to
• 16:10
  offer, because I'll put you on a drip campaign within my CRM and everything else.
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  But with that follow-up, it's very, very important that you follow through with your follow-up
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  and what you said is very important.
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  You have to make good on what you promise.
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  Because listen, know you, like you, trust you, then they'll do business with you.
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  And know you and like you, that's really the easy part.
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  Because everybody knows you, but like you, well, that narrows down the field a little
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  bit and trusts you, you have five seconds, 30 seconds, a minute, 10 minutes, a half hour.
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  You don't know what you have for them to trust you.
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  So when you walk up to somebody and you're letting them talk, their level of trust is
• 17:02
  increasing and that barrier between you is decreasing.
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  Okay.
• 17:07
  So I just mentioned that trust is crucial.
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  How do you establish and maintain authentic relationships with fellow professionals?
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  I say, I say what many of the relationships I have are either with founders or investors
• 17:30
  in either private equity or VCs.
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  So the level of trust I have to maintain is extremely, extremely, it's very high up there
• 17:42
  because they tell me about challenges that they're facing with their portfolio or a specific
• 17:48
  company and I help them or the reason they're either chatting with me at an event or following
• 17:55
  up is because they would like to get a second opinion on either, get a second opinion on
• 18:02
  what may really be taking place there and then we, because based on the core four, there
• 18:08
  may be misalignment inside the company between the vision and the core values or the core
• 18:15
  values and the mission or the promise and therefore I've gained their trust by being
• 18:26
  pretty accurate.
• 18:28
  But they would also ask me about companies, about, you know, whether when they're contemplating
• 18:33
  investment rounds or changes in the board or the leadership teams, that's one hand
• 18:40
  or they call me and ask the doctor to help and then I need to gain trust from the CEO
• 18:45
  and the leadership team because they bring me into their temple.
• 18:50
  They take me on an offsite that is a leadership offsite and there has to be a very, very,
• 18:56
  very strong element of trust because first of all, no one is allowed to prep for the
• 19:00
  offsite as opposed to any other offsite in the world and no one's, you know, you don't
• 19:04
  prepare your decks in advance and then because then it gets everybody biased and defensive
• 19:13
  and you go nowhere there if you really want to solve a business strategic issue, not just
• 19:19
  a cultural, you know, kumbaya kind of thing.
• 19:23
  So I need to live up to my promises, they trust me to say what I think and to know that
• 19:30
  it's in their favor.
• 19:31
  So if it's not a win-win, they know I'll say it.
• 19:35
  That's great.
• 19:36
  That's a great answer, by the way.
• 19:39
  Okay.
• 19:40
  So what are, give me some common challenges that you would face and how would you overcome
• 19:47
  them or how did you overcome them?
• 19:51
  Are we talking networking or are we talking business challenges?
• 19:55
  Let's stick with networking.
• 19:57
  Okay.
• 19:58
  So I'm sorry, I'm trying to think of something but eventually I, the challenge I always have
• 20:12
  is approaching people and my challenge is always as much as, again, it's very personal
• 20:19
  but it is putting myself out there.
• 20:21
  So it's like I'm the entrepreneur who always creates a product and then as many in Silicon
• 20:28
  Valley say, if you've launched a product you're proud of, it means you've launched too late.
• 20:32
  So I have a gazillion products just like I wrote the book and I have tons of war-trops
• 20:37
  that I've created and launched and worked with them but I never put myself out there
• 20:41
  and say, hey, this is my whole portfolio and this is my umbrella because then I would feel
• 20:46
  with, given my Russian background that I'm chasing some, you know, you don't chase in
• 20:51
  that as opposed to the American culture that it's like, I'll put myself out there.
• 20:56
  No worries.
• 20:58
  So that is a continuous challenge for me and as I shared before then I either have my
• 21:03
  wingman or my surfer dude in my case.
• 21:07
  I love engagements with students so I teach a lot and again, I stopped making promises
• 21:14
  that would exhaust me to live up to.
• 21:16
  Okay, that's all right.
• 21:18
  All right, so let's bring this full circle and give me your favorite marketing tactic.
• 21:33
  These weren't really hard questions, I want to tell you.
• 21:37
  So I am a very, very, very strong believer in cherry picking and it doesn't matter whether
• 21:46
  you have, you know, you have a hundred service slots to sell in a quarter or 10 partners
• 21:54
  or customers that you would like to serve given service businesses or product businesses
• 21:59
  that is very scalable as opposed to the service businesses.
• 22:03
  So that's a lot of customers.
• 22:05
  I believe that the best way to get your customers is just like in, as we talked about before,
• 22:10
  an electric, like a campaign.
• 22:13
  Like if you're running for president, you're running for office, you got to shake a lot
• 22:16
  of hands.
• 22:19
  No more hugging a lot of babies, but you know, you got to shake.
• 22:24
  Now the, the, any marketing tactic I use is like, even if I need to approach a hundred
• 22:30
  thousand people, I will always start with my hit list with it, which is my 30 preferred
• 22:36
  customers or the people I would like to serve as now with the accelerator, the core for
• 22:41
  accelerator that we're launching.
• 22:44
  So I create that hit list of 30 of 100 and then I test those, that audience or sometimes
• 22:52
  I have a few of them in order to, to crystallize the promise I give them being able to deliver.
• 22:59
  By the way, product and service alike.
• 23:02
  So testing the audiences, but in a way that you really know those people that, that, that
• 23:08
  if I asked my team who is John Salman, they're going to tell me exactly who he is, not just
• 23:16
  because they're going to the CRM and see their details, but rather they've been on his Facebook
• 23:21
  profile on Instagram, TikTok, whatever, LinkedIn, depending on the, on the target audience.
• 23:27
  But that to me is if I had to choose one, it would bring me back to the intelligence
• 23:32
  force.
• 23:33
  Okay.
• 23:34
  Okay.
• 23:35
  Kind of close to your heart.
• 23:36
  Okay.
• 23:37
  You make those clusters and then you can really reach a wide audience because you've already
• 23:42
  lived up to your promise.
• 23:43
  You know, you can keep it, then you grow.
• 23:45
  Yes.
• 23:46
  Absolutely.
• 23:47
  Absolutely.
• 23:48
  And that goes back to keeping your promise and keeping your word and, and that's all
• 23:52
  very important with the trust factor and everything else.
• 23:55
  So you brought everything together, which was very, very nice.
• 23:58
  Let me have, give me one takeaway that my listeners could use today.
• 24:03
  Give me just a takeaway.
• 24:09
  Many people talk about, like, I think there's this manifestation trend manifest and it shall,
• 24:17
  you know, and, and it'll happen.
• 24:20
  You have to vision it.
• 24:21
  Now I'm a very strong believer in visioning because it's the, it's, it's a very substantial
• 24:25
  part of the core for.
• 24:28
  And that goes the same for, for the prep work I do, you know, while going up the elevator
• 24:33
  into, into events and, and when I work either being the presenter and the keynote or the,
• 24:39
  the offsite facilitator or as part of the networking crowd and there is that is, I do
• 24:45
  create a vision and setting within myself of the kind of engagements I'd like to have.
• 24:51
  So I bring my best self into the room based on person I'd like to the value I would like
• 24:58
  to provide.
• 25:00
  And I guess it's, I guess it's working.
• 25:03
  Okay.
• 25:04
  Okay.
• 25:05
  Well, that's a good thing, by the way.
• 25:07
  Okay.
• 25:08
  So, Nilly, if somebody wanted to get in touch with you, either use your services or learn
• 25:15
  about you or just give me everything.
• 25:18
  How can somebody get in touch with you?
• 25:21
  And if there's anything else you want to add as kind of like a conclusion, please tell
• 25:25
  me.
• 25:28
  My conclusion is that is not a conclusion.
• 25:31
  I think it's a blessing.
• 25:32
  I mean, we, we, we were kicking off the year together and I truly hope that with dedication
• 25:41
  and work, of course, we will find ourselves more at ease and in some kind of a flow state
• 25:47
  mentally and with our business.
• 25:49
  That's my vision for 2025.
• 25:53
  And I, again, as I said, I would really, if, if, you know, if people get curious, I think
• 25:58
  I respond personally to my LinkedIn profile.
• 26:03
  So I can give you all those, the phone numbers and, and emails and, and you know, they're
• 26:08
  all, I shared them with you, but I like getting in touch personally on LinkedIn.
• 26:13
  Okay.
• 26:14
  That's great.
• 26:15
  That's great, Nilly.
• 26:16
  And I just, I can't begin to tell you how I enjoyed this podcast listening to you and,
• 26:22
  and everything that you're, you're doing and especially about your, your military background
• 26:27
  because I really enjoyed that.
• 26:29
  But I hear what.
• 26:31
  So I'm just going to sign off and tell everybody if they want to get in touch with you, please
• 26:37
  do so.
• 26:38
  She's a wealth of knowledge and she has a wealth of experience.
• 26:42
  And I just thank you again for coming on, on the podcast.
• 26:46
  Thank you, Michael, for having me and for spending, as you can see, the evening with me.
• 26:51
  And I look forward to sharing all of your insights and words and comments on LinkedIn
• 26:56
  with all of my followers really soon.
• 26:59
  I had a wonderful time.
• 27:00
  Thank you.
• 27:01
  My pleasure.
• 27:02
  My pleasure.
• 27:04
  Well, that's a wrap, folks.
• 27:07
  A huge thank you to our special guests for sharing such incredible insights today.
• 27:13
  And of course, a big shout out to you, our amazing listeners for tuning in and spending
• 27:19
  your time with us.
• 27:20
  Remember, networking isn't about being perfect.
• 27:24
  It's about being present.
• 27:26
  So take what you've learned today, get out there and make some meaningful connections.
• 27:31
  If you enjoyed this episode, don't forget to subscribe, leave us a review and share
• 27:36
  it with someone who could use a little networking inspiration.
• 27:40
  Let's keep the conversation going.
• 27:43
  You can find me on Apple, Spotify, YouTube or my website, MichaelAForman.com.
• 27:49
  Remember, until next time, keep practicing, keep connecting and keep building those relationships.
• 27:57
  This is Michael A. Foreman, signing off, take care and happy networking.