Networking Unleashed: Building Profitable Connections. An Interview with Andrew Colsky and Michael A Forman
- mforman521
- Jul 13
- 19 min read
Welcome to Networking Unleashed, building Profitable Connections to show where the right perception creates the right opportunity. I'm your host, Michael Forman. Excuse something. Do people believe about you before you ever speak? Because in today's world, trust doesn't start in the conversation. It starts long before that.
Through what people see, hear, and assume about you before you ever meet. My guest today is diving into that exact idea. We're talking about how professional service providers build trust before the first interaction. How to make decisions when resources are tight, but the stakes are high, and a powerful question that cuts through everything.
What is the one real truth? This one, sorry. This isn't just about networking. It's about how you're perceived, how you've, how you're trusted, and how you position yourself before opportunity ever shows up. If you wanna understand how to build credibility before the conversation begins, this episode is for you.
So let's get into it. I'd like to introduce, first of all, I'd like to welcome all my guests. I'd like to welcome to my podcast, Andrew. Andrew, you are a professional in everything that I just talked about, and I happen to, I go on stages and I do workshops all across the country teaching exactly what you just said or what I said for you.
So why don't you, in a nutshell, gimme like the cliff notes of what, of how you got where you are today. Sure, sure. Thanks for having me on the show. Michael. CliffNotes version is this, I started off my career outta college. I went into law school. I in law school realized that I really enjoyed trial work.
The reason I enjoyed trial work is because it was all about working with the jury, understanding persuasion, understanding what people are thinking and how to, help them understand what you're trying to say. And I did that work for a while, and then I after several years I got smart and I realized that I wanted some of my own time back instead of all the pressures of law, and I had the opportunity to go for a mental health degree.
Because I wanted to follow that about understanding how and why people think and do what they do. And so through that I, I had two opportunities to build, two practices, a law practice, and then I had to build a mental health type of practice. So as a professional service provider myself. I learned that there's a lot that goes into trying to build a practice and what is necessary to do and so putting my legal hat on and my mental health hat on, I started to dig deep into what is really going on here. What's happening from a psychological perspective that gets you a client versus what doesn't get you a client. And through that research and through all of that, I built out a business.
I've written a book that's getting ready to come out in September called Left of Trust. And that's basically what got me here. So that's the shortest version I can give you, but we can talk about any of that. Okay. I'll take that as to cliff notes and hopefully we'll get into that a little bit further.
But I put together some questions for you and hopefully they align with what you want to talk about. Sure. You talk about building trust before ever meeting someone. What are people actually evaluating in that pre-conversation stage? So think about it when. A person trusts someone. There's a lot of factors that go into it, but in today's day and age, they don't really have the opportunity to meet you yet.
They have, they start off with a problem from the legal context. Maybe they've had a car accident, maybe they are having money troubles. Maybe they are fighting with their landlord. Whatever it may be, they have a problem. Problems make people. Very uncomfortable, right? It's pain that they want to resolve, so they start searching on the internet for solutions to their problem.
This is where the beginning of trust happens. If you are that attorney who wants to try and get this type of a client, and it is. In my opinion, it is your responsibility if you're gonna be getting the clients and building trust to understand where the client is coming from, what are their pain points, and then providing valuable information that's gonna help them understand that there is an out, there's a way, there's someone who can help them with that pain point.
And providing information that answers the questions they have, which is very different from just providing what degrees you have and what your law license is, but actually understanding the problem and addressing the problem so that a person can start to feel that degree of comfort. That's what's going to start the process of building trust.
That is that's a whole different way of thinking about it when you're dealing with somebody one-on-one. Like I said, I go across the country and I talk about the very same thing, but there's a mantra known in the networking. Genre. Know you, like you, trust you, they'll do business with you.
And without that trust factor, without that little, that, that little bit of trust, excuse me you don't go anywhere. You don't make it. Yeah. You don't make it outta the box, so you have to have that level of trust. And as you said, when you're online, how are you going to get that person to trust you?
It's by what you say and what you do and after, when they start talking to you and things like that. But it all works together. All right, let me, lemme go to the next question because I can talk like this for hours. Sure. What signals online through reputa, through reputation or through others, make someone feel credible before a single word is spoken.
Great. I think it goes along with the know you, like you, trust you. Mantra as you said first we have to understand in order to know what signals to put out, we have to understand who is our potential customer. What are their pain points and what are they trying to achieve? And I will tell you right now, regardless of any of the information, and without even knowing the person, I guarantee you the thing they're trying to achieve at its core is comfort.
And that is the one truth that I talk about. So when you understand that people are in pain and they're searching for comfort, then you can start to address it in the proper manner, and that means. Putting out, like I said, putting out this information that number one, captures what is their pain point and using the language that they would use, not your language, and then.
Understanding that you have to present a set of information, a set of facts. You don't necessarily have to say, Hey, yes, we can absolutely cure your cancer, but you can say, there are things that we can do with this type of cancer. Here's what some of them are. With the proper evaluation, we might find the thing that works best for you.
That's a lot more information than that person had when they first started searching online. So that's the way you start to build that trust and credibility. And the thing that makes them like you before they trust you is you've made yourself approachable, even though they've never talked to you, but you're approachable because you've displayed the information in a way that makes them feel understood and they feel that they can understand what you are saying back to them.
Yep. You are bringing. Some value to the relationship before you're giving anything else. So by you giving the value, you're gaining that little bit of trust and that comfort level that you spoke of. And again I'm gonna resort to something that I talk about. It's having a servant's heart. Whenever you go and network, you're going to see what you can do for somebody else before you look for what they can do for you.
And if you do that enough, listen, it's gonna come around to you, right? Yeah. It's always gonna come back to you, right? But you're always looking to do, you're giving value to the relationship before anything else. So that's spot on. A hundred percent perfect every which way can I give you a comment on that?
Just because it's so relevant and so timely. Absolutely. Absolutely. What you just said, I love, and here's why I spend a good amount of my time on LinkedIn. I know a lot of professionals do. I cannot tell you the slew of messages that I get that come to me immediately. Step one, some hardcore sales pitch immediately.
Step two is the block button to any professionals listening. Don't do it right. It is important that people get to know you before they can like you, before they can trust you. You come in with a sales pitch, you guarantee lost that sale. Absolutely. And what I tell my clients is that when you're dealing with LinkedIn, I'll stay with LinkedIn right now, but if you're going to make a connection and they connect with you, yeah, you can tell them what you do.
No sales pitch. You have to bring, as I said before, value to the relationship. So you set him, if he's a roofer, there's a difference between metal roofs and regular roofs, send an article, said, look, I was thinking of you and I thought you might get something out of this article.
Do that two and three four times and then say, what, would you like a cup of coffee? Listen, I'll buy, let's do that. If you go into it that way. You have a much better chance of them agreeing to, otherwise you're gonna hit that block button. I don't wanna do it.
I have to tell you one story. I was at a networking event at a table with three four people, and a guy comes walking up with his business cards in hand. Handed them out. Here. I want to contact each and every one of you. Let me have your business cards. I wanna do business with you.
I'll talk with you after. I have a lot of other people to go. And it was off and we looked at one another what the hell just happened, right? We all threw his business card away. Of course. That was the perfect, that was what you do when you don't bring value to the relationship.
I have to share, I hear how to share that with you. Okay. How can a professional intentionally shape how they're perceived before they even walk into the room? Okay. So there's a lot of things that a professional can do and in my opinion, should do. It's still any answer I'm gonna have for you is always gonna come back to that comfort.
At a core. They have to be thinking about, how am I gonna make this person comfortable? But here's one particular thing. So think about. You've never met this person. You don't know anything about them, and you, the consumer have the option of a reading some, blog article or reading their website.
And yeah, it provides good information if it's written properly. And yes, it can be helpful, but compare that to a YouTube video. The same person does on the same content. There is something about video where I can see you, I can look into your eyes, I can hear you. I hear the tone of your voice. I see your body language, and I hear the message that you're giving.
The credibility opportunities there are, tenfold. And I was telling a story to another podcast I was on just the other day because this is so meaningful to me. Probably 20 years ago or more, I had gone to this event at a hotel where there was a speaker and the speaker's up on, stage and we're all sitting there and all the chairs are way too close together.
And I happen to be sitting in the front row. So the speaker is literally 10 feet from me. In front of me. They also have the big TV screens on the sides. The people in the back of the room can see, if they're not up front and he starts talking about. This concept, how people are just attracted to screens more so even if the live event is happening right in front of them.
And as he's saying that, I'm realizing I'm watching the screen and here he is literally right in front of me. So there's something about the credibility even that, that gives you. But it's being able to evaluate your body language your tone of voice, your eye contact, all those things I think are important.
First of all of that is extremely important. Your body, your, it tells the other person everything. Plus, there are things when you're in person that you pick up. Like you pick up the vibe of the person. I, somebody said can you write down the explanation of vibe? I really can't, because I need to pick up the vibe of the room, the vibe of the person I'm speaking with, because then I can get on a one-to-one with him.
And if I'm just talking to him through Zoom, I can see you, I can look into your eyes, but I can't pick up that vibe. And that's the only thing that's missing from that in-person thing. But I can definitely see where. Somebody would be looking at a screen, a big screen instead of one-to-one live, yeah. 'cause it's bigger, it's better. I dunno. Something like that. Alright. Where do people unknowingly damage trust before they even get a chance to correct? So it's some of the stuff we were talking about. Trying too hard and taking the wrong approach. If your belief as a professional is if they know that I went to this school and have practiced this many years and won these types of cases I'm gonna shoo in.
Of course they're gonna hire me. Those bits of information are pieces that can lead to building trust. But if you leave out all the other stuff we've talked about. They're gonna pick the other person because ultimately, again, giving information about your degree and whatever doesn't bring them the same comfort.
That understanding that this person is able to understand my pain point and is able to phrase it to me in a way that I feel like he's got my back and he knows what to do, even if he tells me that there's no guarantees that I'm gonna win. I feel much more comfortable knowing that this person is gonna be the one sitting next to me in court.
Absolutely. And it goes back to that level of comfort and you are always trying to achieve that level. And really, once you have it, it takes a little bit more to lose it, but you have to work at keeping, and that is so spot on your answer. I don't even have anything to say to that.
That's how you know it was that good. You've said. If you can't afford to do what you can't afford you, if you can't afford to do what you can't afford not to do, how does that apply to investing time and energy into relationships? Okay so what this refers to is we've now talked about the fact of how important it is to be creating that relationship to be creating the trust and the types of things that are necessary to do that, because you're not physically there with that person yet.
They're just somebody searching on the internet typically. The problem is when you're. An attorney, an accountant, a doctor any kind of professional service provider, you name it, you are doing your work because you don't have the funding typically to have this massive staff of people that are doing all this stuff for you.
You are trying to get work done and if you don't do the work, you're not gonna get paid. The problem is now somebody like me comes in and you think, oh my God, here's this marketing egghead. 'cause he doesn't understand the realities, which I do understand the realities 'cause I've done the work. He's telling me I gotta put out videos and blog articles and make myself credible and understand where the client's coming from and all this stuff. That's great, but when am I gonna do that and how am I gonna do that? Because I don't have the time to do it. I certainly don't have the time to research this SEO stuff and write a proper script, and then I gotta get a camera and lighting.
Edit videos and I can't do that. And then I try to hire people they can't make a video of me because I gotta be there and they tell me they're gonna write all this stuff and they want, at minimum, $5,000 a month to put out a couple posts on social media. I don't even know what they're writing. I don't want somebody writing something for me.
I don't even know what it is. So I know what I'm supposed to do, but I can't do it 'cause I can't afford the time and I can't afford the money. This is what my problem was. And so I developed a solution for my problem, and that's what I call the credibility generator. And the credibility generator took what I was spending hours and hours a day every single day doing, and I mechanized it.
Thanks to the beauty of ai. Now, it's not as simple as just going on chat GPT and asking it to do something. I put months and months of work into developing a very specific program. And what it does is I'll just walk you through real quickly what it does. Number one, if you're gonna build that trust, you gotta understand what the problem is a client has.
So we start off, if you log into this program, we start off with, we've already searched the internet for what are the top five questions this week that people have about this particular issue? And it says, here you go. Here's what they wanna know. So you don't have to go figure that out. You pick one, you click it.
When you click it. It automatically is trained in the background for your SEO AI search optimization, all this stuff, and it will write you a blog article. You then can take it as is. You can modify it, whatever you want to do. Once you're good with it, you click, agree. It will automatically post that blog article for you.
And then it moves on to the next step, which is it creates a LinkedIn post for you and images to go with that. Again, you can modify it or you accept it. You click yes, automatically post it for you. Then it creates a listing for your Google business page, which is super important to have one and to keep it active.
You cannot let these things sit static and it will automatically post it to the business page. And then my favorite part is the next step if you choose. You can upload your picture and a voice sample, and my program will create a real life avatar of you. It will write a properly scripted YouTube video.
You can choose the setting, the background, the clothing you're wearing. You can choose all this type of stuff, or you can just use one of hundreds of other avatars in case you want your. Marketing person to be talking for you or whatever, and then it will record that video for you. You never have to step in front of a camera, you never have to edit a thing.
It does the whole thing, and then again, automatically post it for you on your YouTube channel. What took me hours and hours now takes a matter of minutes and I get much better coverage and it's consistent and it's all scripted out properly. So that it's gonna get the maximum type of exposure.
So that's what we do with the credibility generator. That sounds great. That sounds great. And if somebody is looking to release all that time so they have it to do other things. I would highly suggest talking to Andrew and seeing what he has to offer, because it sounds like it's the answer to a lot of your questions.
So here, let's go a little bit further. Sure. What role does Clarity play in building immediate trust in a conversation. Okay. So think about it. Think about, if you're talking to somebody. You can see this today. I happened to just be driving in my car and got here and I was listening to some congressional hearings.
'cause that's what you do when you live in Washington, DC Okay. How many times have you heard somebody ask a witness a question, and the witness gives every sort of evasive type of answer they possibly can to a simple, yes, no question. Are you hungry? Let's talk about food security and are you hungry?
Like I said, we should be honest. Be direct. Look them in the eyes. This is the part that's important. Yeah you know what? If you can get somebody with those congressional hearings whether it's Republican, democrat, independent, I don't care. Anyone pick one and have them answer honestly, I'll give you a hundred dollars.
Just, it's right there. I wouldn't do it unless you would give me $10 million and I still would lose you. Still would lose. Still would lose. Okay. You ask. What is the one real truth? How does that concept apply to how someone presents themselves professionally? Yep. So I am going to share the science behind this thing.
'cause the one real truth, as we've said is that everybody ultimately bottom line is always seeking comfort. And here's how I know we go back to the 1950s. It's the University of Wisconsin, and there's a professor at Harry Harlow. And what did Harry Harlow do? He did an experiment. He took a group of baby monkeys and they did not have their mother, and so he created two surrogate mothers for them.
One surrogate mother was made out of wire, but provided food and sustenance. The other surrogate mother was made out of cloth, didn't provide any food or sustenance, and then he watched. And what he found was the baby monkeys spent all of their time pretty much with the cloth mother seeking comfort. And only when they were hungry and needed food would they go to the wire, mother, get their food, and turn right back to the cloth mother.
And then he did an experiment where he put them out in the big open field where they were on their own. If they did not have a mother to go back to, they would actually curl up in a fetal position and suck their thumb. When there was a mother to go back to, they would always go back to the cloth mother whenever they needed reassurance.
So that was the beginnings of this understanding that comfort is the thing that we all are seeking, whether we be human or even in this case, monkeys. Yeah. Yeah it's so true because first of all, we're human beings, right? We need that physical. Necessity that touch and, the wire frame it just, that's not gonna cut it.
You need something soft and cuddly that you can cuddle up to and listen, I'm 64 years old. I still need that. Ask my wife, so it it's the same thing. So I understand that completely. What happens when someone is unclear about their own value before trying to connect with others? As we talked about body language before, don't you think that comes out, if you're unclear or unsure or lacking confidence, people smell that a mile away, right?
All that stuff comes across. It's important to be confident in yourself and to be confident in the person you're thinking of hiring. And the way that you deal with that confidence is through information that the person is providing. Knowing that you know your stuff, not trying to pretend to guess and whatever, which I see more often than need be.
And now I'm speaking with my attorney hat on, watching people like take important actions 'cause they assumed something and never bothered to go get the information is mind blowing to me. Now I've talked myself into a corner. I forgot your actual question. Okay. All right. I read. Read it one more time.
What happens when someone is unclear about their own value before trying to connect with others? Ah, okay. So someone is unclear about their own value. Think about how they're gonna act to someone else. They're probably gonna be trying way too hard. To convince and in a somewhat evasive way, 'cause they don't have direct information or answers that they can give.
And that's all gonna come across in, in, in their message, in their body language, in their tone. So it's really not going to go well, I guess is the best answer I have for you. Ab Absolutely. Absolutely. So let's bring this podcast full circle. If a listener wants to become someone people trust before they ever meet them within the next 90 days, what one habit should they start immediately?
Great question. So the most important thing is to identify what is your biggest weakness given the types of things that we've talked about here and. I created a tool to help them do that so that they know where to start. And the tool is a 15 question assessment. It's free. It's on my website, which is www.be picked, P-I-C-K-E d.com, and you answer this assessment and then you get.
The response breaks it down into categories of areas that lead to trust. And it will tell you, you're high here, you're low here, so it'll tell you exactly where you need to start. So that would be the very first thing that I would say someone should do. And then the second step would be when you find the area of biggest weakness none of these things are terribly difficult to do, but you gotta figure out.
How am I gonna have the time and resources do it? Do I need to use some other type of program? Do I wanna do it myself? Those are only questions that you can answer for yourself. Absolutely. Andrew, this was great. I feel that we can have a podcast that goes on for two or three hours because we talk the same language.
We, we look for the same things, we teach the same things. If somebody wanted to get a hold of you either to be mentored by you to be coached by you to buy your products, how would they get hold of you? The easiest thing they can do, I tried to make it all available to them on that one website, the www.be PICK d.com.
You can learn about the credibility generator there. You can get on the list to be notified when the book comes out. We're supposed to release it in September. We're gonna put it up for presale pretty soon. I can do one-on-one coaching, so you can use that one website to get access to pretty much everything you need.
That's perfect. This conversation is a reminder that trust isn't built in a single moment. It's built over time, often before you even realize it. The way you show up, the clarity of your message and the consistency of your actions all shape what people believe about you, and those beliefs determine whether opportunities move towards you or pass you by.
Take one step this week. Look at how you're being perceived before you walk into a room. Are you clear? Are you consistent? Are you someone who people feel confident about before they even meet you? If you found value in today's episode, make sure you like, follow and subscribe to Networking Unleashed.
Building profitable connections. So you keep getting the best insights on networking and communication. And share this episode with someone who's ready to build trust before the first conversation ever begins. If you'd help strengthening your communication and positioning so you're trusted before you're even introduced, visit michael a foreman.com to learn how I work with professionals, teams, and organizations.
So until next time. Be clear, be consistent, and build connections that start before the introduction. Andrew, thank you so much for coming on my podcast. You are a wonderful guest. Thank you for the opportunity, Michael. I really appreciate it.
A huge thank you to our guests for sharing such incredible insights today, and of course, a big shout out to you, our amazing listeners, for tuning in and spending your time with us. If you're interested in my digital courses being coached or having me come and talk to your company, just go to MichaelAForman.com and fill out the request form.
Remember, networking isn't about being perfect. It's about being present. So take what you've learned today, get out there and make some meaningful connections. If you've enjoyed this episode, please don't forget to subscribe. Leave us a review. Share it with someone who could use a little networking inspiration.
Let's keep the conversation going. You can find me on Apple, Spotify, Pandora, YouTube, or my website michaelaforman.com/podcast.
Michael is a business networking expert specializing in enhancing professionals' networking and communication skills to drive profitability. As a leading authority in this field, he is highly sought after for his dynamic presentations and workshops. His extensive experience has consistently led to significant improvements in corporate profitability by empowering individuals and organizations to connect more effectively and efficiently.
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