Networking Unleashed: Building Profitable Connections. An Interview with Jimi Gibson and Michael A Forman

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  Welcome to Networking Unleashed, building Profitable Connections to show where relationships create opportunity, both in the room and beyond it. I'm your host, Michael Forman. Here's a question. Networking is no longer limited to the conversations you have face to face. Today people are forming opinions, making referrals, and discovering expertise before they even meet you through search, through ai, through your digital presence, which means if you're in incredible in person, but invisible online, you may be leaving off half The opportunity behind my guest today believes that AI search is becoming the new layer of networking.

We're talking about how to show up when people are looking for answers, how to align your online presence with your real world relationships and why what he calls magic. Those small, memorable moments in conversation still matters more than ever. If you want to be found, remembered, and referred to in both worlds, you're in the right place.

So I'd like to welcome, first of all, welcome everybody to my listeners to my podcast. But I'd like to welcome Jimmy. Jimmy, you are the professional in what we're talking about. So would you, first of all, welcome to the podcast, but give us a, like the cliff notes of how you got here today. Sure.

Thanks Michael. Excited to have a chat with you. And I think everything that you said in the intro is certainly where we are right now and looking forward to digging in. My background is a little strange and how I got to where I am. I got a magic kit when I was a kid and just fell in love with it and in high school.

I met a guy who was an account manager for a Fortune 100 company. He worked for the ad agency that handled the account and they were looking for a promotional entertainer. And I guess I checked all the boxes. And so for the next 16 years, I worked for that agency doing shows for this particular client and.

Of course magic is a great icebreaker in any situation. So I was always able to rely on that. But as I hung out at the ad agency, I gotta see all the creative stuff that they were doing and really thought if there was a career that. It was most like a magic show. It would be marketing. And so yeah, I started working at ad agencies.

It was at the tail end of the madman years, and so the owners of the agencies that I worked for had that vibe, which was cool. And I guess I had a lot of questions and I kept asking like, why are we doing this? What does the client wanna accomplish? And so they just said, Jimmy, why don't you just go talk to the client?

And so I would go talk to the client and then I would come back and start to work through whatever that assignment was that we needed to grow their business or sell their product or whatever the case may be. And yeah, ended up being a creative director of an agency running an agency. And I'm just fascinated with learning about what people do and how they bring value to a customer.

And yeah, so I have been with Thrive Agency. We're probably one of the largest digital marketing agencies in the country, if not, probably in the top 25 in the world. And I came to them to lead up their strategy team. I believe if you don't have a good strategy, you're gonna end up somewhere pretty expensive and somewhere you don't wanna be.

So it's always good to have a plan. And then I started leading the teams that did all the work. And gosh, we've been around for 20 years and we've never really proactively told our stories and helped people understand all the smoke and mirrors to use a magic cliche there. About what's going on in the world today related to AI search and SEO and networking, and how do you get known as an individual and how's that attached to a company?

And yeah the owner came to me and I think this is an important point that we'll discuss today. Came to me about 18 months ago when we were seeing the shift in. How these AI engines were looking for people instead of logos. And he said, we gotta practice what we preach, so I want you to be the face of the company.

And so the founder asked me on the executive team, so I didn't found the company, but it's important to have somebody within an organization who's leading that charge and say, yeah, I write articles, I speak at events. I know you're a speaker as well. There are a variety of ways that you can become visible for your company and to create your personal brand, which is a little di bit different today than it has been in the past.

And so I would say that's the twisty turning path that got me on this show that we're having a chat about. Sounds great. It so sounds quite an eventful past that you've gotten it really reminds me 'cause my wife's a graphic designer. She wound being a creative director, a project manager heading the whole studio and everything.

So I know you're path. I'm sure it was not easy on one hand, but pretty easy on the other since it was something that you enjoy doing. And if you enjoy doing it, then really nothing is that difficult, that's what I've always found. If you really enjoy what you're doing, you're really not going to work.

You're just enjoying yourself. Okay. So I have a couple of questions for you. Sure. You say AI search is becoming the new form of networking. What does that actually mean for professionals who are used to building relationships face to face? Yeah. And I would say they're both important. And I was listening to a previous episode and the words that came outta your mouth like, hit me.

And I'm like, of course. You said trust, but verify whenever you meet somebody you wanna make sure. That they are who they say they are. They are right. And so what do you do when you meet somebody, whether it's virtually or in person at a conference, at a networking event? You look 'em up and if they're invisible, then you scratch your head and you go I thought they had the credentials, but I'm not seeing anything.

And so there've been a lot of studies that have been done over the last few years where, when. An executive founder owner, CEO subject matter expert within an organization is visible online. Deals will close quicker. Referrals will increase. The deal size will be larger than if somebody starts from a position of a cold intro.

And so that has dollar value associated with it. And so one of the things that I was challenged with when the owner or the founder came to me and said, I want you to be the face of the company. I went to chat GPT and Claude and Gemini and Grok and copilot, and I just started typing in my name. Who is Jimmy Gibson?

And yeah, there were some references. I spell my name a little bit different, so it, it got some references to Jimi Hendrix and Gibson guitars and, things like that. And I said, wow. I said, I think I need to be coherent to these AI engines so that they know who I am. So that when I do reach out to someone and they do that research, whether it's before a meeting or if I meet them at a conference, so I took a year to try all these different things and I tracked what worked and what didn't work. And it's interesting on how these AI models, to pick up certain things and don't value other things as important. And then I said, about Q3 into four last year I started to really get scientific about it and I said I wonder if this is true for other folks.

So I did a study of 400 business owners in five different industries, and I wanted to see okay, I see the numbers. Search engine journal did a study back in November of 2025 that says if an executive posts 10 times a year, not a month, a year on LinkedIn. Your referrals will increase and your deal size will be larger.

And so that goes hand in hand with if an executive in a B2B relationship reads something from a thought leader, then that deal will close at a higher rate within a 90 day period. And I'm like, okay, this is an unlock for businesses all over. Like when you look at LinkedIn specifically, 2% actually post things 90%.

Lurk and don't do anything about, 6% engage it, so it doesn't take a whole lot of effort. The bar is subterranean at this point as far as if you want to make a difference. And I saw that 46% of businesses and business owners in those 400 businesses. By the way, that's like a 95% statistical relevant sample with about a 4% margin of error.

46% of those businesses and business owners were invisible. And so you're losing that ability to trust and verify whether it's in person, whether it's an online search. And so that got me fired up to go, come on. It's not something that is that hard. And we can talk about specific things that you can do, but I would say the difference in.

Where we're headed now with AI versus a traditional Google search is a Google search is keyword based, and it's basically looking for a page on the website, right? And so it's gonna present back the top 10 links that you know, earn page one, and you get to choose which of those links you want to click.

AI is different. It is fanning out. It is looking for who is the expert, who has the experience, who has authorit, who has trustworthiness? The word that you used, right? Trust, but verify. And these are signals that it's picking up in a variety of places to know whether it's gonna present you. Even if it, it may not even know you specifically, especially if you have a name that's common and you haven't really attached things to your name, that allows AI to understand who you are.

That's so true. And I really got into ai Oh, nice. And I want, I used it for branding, just branding myself. And if I have a quick story for you, I, was talking with somebody who has a partner in California, and the partner in California has a partner in Las Vegas. And I was just talking to the person in California and he said, I have to tell you something.

I said what's going on? He goes, my partner in Las Vegas stopped by our conversation and he goes, who's Michael Foreman? And he was blown away. He's what do you mean? He goes, who's Michael Foreman? Because I see his name all over. I want to know who he is. He goes, he's a speaker in Georgia, a solopreneur and just, but his name, but he's right, starts for me for AI and everything else. And I tried to get my name out there, but he wanted to know who Michael Foreman was. He was in Las Vegas. I was in Georgia. So it's, if you put my name in with professional speaker in Cumming, Georgia. You will get me in the top five. And all of that is because of what I'm doing and I'm trying to keep my presence known, but all of it works.

Yeah. Case in point. Yep. Case in point. Okay. I didn't mean to take that much time. No. Awesome. If someone is great in the room, but invisible online, what opportunities are they quietly missing? I would say that same behavior is happening. So if you are great in the room and you feel you can close that deal, then yeah, I would say there's still opportunity to do that.

But how many rooms can you be in? How many searches are happening outside of that room that you don't even know that you're being skipped over because your name is never showing up? And I think that's the fear of missing out or the FOMO acronym that you know is flying around that.

Unfortunately, and so here's some other shifts that are happening. 60% of Google searches end in zero click. That means all the information is being displayed on that results page. And so you may go I don't even understand that. What does that mean? In the past you would search and then somebody would click through to your website, but now there's AI mode, there's various answer engines that are showing up.

There's a knowledge panel. If that business is qualified or that person is qualified, they're getting all that information on that page. So if 60% ends in zero click, what's happening? If your name isn't showing up, then that information, and there's usually potentially a click to call that may happen right there.

You're outta luck. You're not even in the conversation set. The other thing that's happening is because of that, traffic to the website is decreasing at a rate that, gartner says, this year it'll drop 25%, and by 2028 it'll drop 50%. Because people are asking these large language models like chat, GBT, and Claude and Gemini and Grok, and all of these other ones.

They're asking them questions. They're wanting to know who is the expert. So there was an acronym in 2016 that Google. Started it was EAT and they expanded it to EEAT back in the early 2020s. And it goes to exactly what I said before, right? Experience, expertise, authorit and trustworthiness. And so if you can't demonstrate that, you're not getting a vote, you just said that.

When people are asking who is a speaker in this particular area, you are showing up in the conversation set. And so unfortunately we talk to clients every day who are losing traffic on their website. They're invisible in ai, and the trajectory does not look pretty over the next three years. And so I think that there is an opportunity at this point where the bar is relatively low, but if you're just gonna ignore it and be the ostrich with your head in the sand.

In a couple of years, as these AI starts to grow its knowledge base, understand who are the relevant folks, these various citations or signals are established, those folks are gonna continue to be more visible. While you are gonna have a harder time climbing that muddy hill to, to get that visibility that perhaps you should have been starting on today.

That they make it much more difficult on themselves. Yeah. And it's really, it takes a little bit of time now to do everything through ai, write articles and everything else. Yeah. But it's taken you a little bit of time now, but. In the future, it'll take you less time because you've already made those headways.

So it is driving a car, you're going 60 miles an hour. How much gas do you have to put down to keep going 60 miles an hour? But if you're just starting out, then how much gas do you have to put down? So it, it's all relative. Yeah. Before. Someone ever meets you, they may meet you through search.

What determines whether that first digital impression builds trust or creates doubt? Woo. How many hours do we have Michael? Yeah. I would say one of the opportunities that people have to build trust. Is to have an opinion on something. What we've run into at this point is, and you call it the, chat GPT pile of garbage or folks are putting things in, they're writing blogs.

They're expecting these helper applications to. Produce magic, right? And so the problem is whatever industry you're in, your competitors are doing the same thing. And so it has learned a very impressive amount of knowledge, but it's generic. It doesn't know your bumps and bruises, your scars, your champagne, toasts of victory.

You have to layer that in so that you have a point of view. And what these AI engines are looking for is they're looking for somebody who stands out, somebody that has an opinion, somebody who has, again, expertise, trustworthiness. There's a vibe or a sentiment online, which goes back to your reviews, and they want to present the person who is the best result.

In a different way than, a Google search. But you know it, now you can meet somebody in person and if they're blowing hot air or if they've actually been there and done that. And so if you can't describe how you've been there and done that online. Number one, you're not gonna be in the decision set that's put out there.

Number two, when somebody reads it, they're gonna go and we've gotten pretty smart today and that poor M Dash has died a horrible death because everybody can recognize that, that's being produced by right. Usually Chad, GBT. When they start to read it and they go, okay, I met the person and they were very interesting in person.

But now I look at them and I go, this is pretty bland and generic. I guess they just got AI to write it. And so that builds some doubt and that builds some a little bit of a pause and you go I thought they were the expert. And so I think all of these things come together. And you talked about building your brand.

Your brand is not one thing. Your brand is the sum of all experiences somebody has with you. And so if they start to look around and there's a weak link in the mix, then it sort of triggers something to go I don't know, this might be just a poser or a little too fluffy. And yeah, I would say you gotta be careful and have a point of view and have an opinion on something.

Yeah, it all goes back because I bring everything to networking and it is the face to face. So for Zoom, it's ai, but if they know there's a mantra, if they know you, if they like you and trust you, then they'll do business with you and to know you well through AI and everything else, everybody in the country can know you.

Like you that kind of narrows down the, just a little bit. But that trust factor that's so important because nobody's gonna do business with you if they don't trust you. Yeah. So you're doing everything just to gain that little bit of trust, and then they can go through AI and everything and then see what you've written, see what you've done.

But it all comes down to that trust factor. Okay. What does it take to become someone AI tools naturally recommend when people are looking for expertise in your space? Yeah, I would say try to be in the right places. And AI loves certain places that it looks for. And then again say things that demonstrate what we've talked about, EEAT and then I have a real easy framework for people to.

Be able to speak into that and so I'll start with the places and then I'll talk about the framework that people can use and literally it will give you about 80 or 90 things that you can talk about that will magnetize you to these AI engines. So I would say in the top five right now are Reddit threads.

We've all seen that about 40% of ai. And I would say, there, there is a knowledge base that happens and so AI has cataloged its knowledge base. And if you think about a pizza that's the pizza dough, but then it goes out and it looks for current. Or timely information. And those are the pizza toppings.

So the mushrooms and the pepperonis and the green peppers and whatever your favorite topping is. So number one, you wanna make sure you're included in that knowledge base, which is a little bit different than the toppings, but I'll talk about the pizza toppings for now. So Reddit is an interesting place.

If you have not been on there, might be worth investigating that, but. LinkedIn, we mentioned that earlier. LinkedIn is number two at this point, and so it will understand your post. Remember, only 2% of people post, so if you post, you're in the, small majority and articles have become way more popular now because they stick around longer, and so I would say.

Talk on LinkedIn. The third one, Wikipedia. It's kinda hard to get a Wikipedia page. There are companies that can help you with that if that's appropriate for your industry. Investigate that. Medium. Medium is a platform where you can write. So yeah, I would say write on your blog, but then also you might wanna look at Medium.

It's a free platform. Put information up there. It loves to look at that. And then YouTube you have this podcast on YouTube. It is scraping these transcripts. It understands that you're interviewing people who have an expertise in certain areas. So perhaps you could either start a podcast or you could be a guest on a podcast.

And so these are probably the top five areas. There's also other areas that you know, you can focus on, but I think that gives a good baseline. And then, if you have a blog on your website, I would say that's a little bit lower in the tier. If you can connect with your local media, radio station, TV station newspaper and become a columnist, or they can interview you, that would be amazing because that's also a very high signal of trust and authorit.

But then you go, okay, I gotta write all this content. No, you don't. 10 articles or 10 posts. Year on LinkedIn. You don't have to write it yourself, but make sure it has your flavor. The other thing is knowing that if you're gonna use a tool like chat, GBT, it's gonna be very safe, so you have to add in some spice, right?

You don't want the pizza to taste bland. So I'm holding up my left hand. I'm gonna give you a real quick run through of each finger, and if you can remember. One or more of these fingers, you literally will have enough content for the rest of the year and beyond. So the first one is the pinky. You probably remember the pinky promise that you did on the playground, right?

I pinky swear to do this, and you didn't break that promise okay. Now you're in business. What are you promising your customers? Do you have a guarantee? Do you have some sort of risk reversal? What is your opinion on things that you should stand behind, that you will not budge because you believe it's the right thing to do?

If you have a product, does it go into a. You know the raw materials that you use. What about your customer service? What do you promise to do in customer service that's different from your competitors? What promise are you making from a culture perspective to the people that are on your team? What about your vendors?

So just on the pinky. You can have an opinion and have a stand, and I've just given you 10 or 12 things that you can talk about that will show that you're an expert and you're committed to being the best. The next one is the ring finger. And you might think that's a promise, but it's actually a relationship.

How did that relationship start? What was the passion? Why are you doing what you're doing? What is the origin story, the founder story of your business? Why do you do what you do if it's not about the money? And then the relationship. Are you in it for the long haul? Are you gonna stick with your customers?

Do you have partnerships that have lasted for many years because you believe that's the best way to do business? It's the. Ring finger because most people in Western culture wear their wedding band on that finger. Don't ask a prospect to marry you on the first date. Respect that courtship.

So all of these things are important. And again, there's another 10 or 12 things you can talk about. The next one is the middle finger. And no, I'm not giving Michael the finger. I'm holding up all my fingers if you're listening to this. Usually that's considered a vulgar gesture.

It's actually a gesture of defiance. And so if you truly believe your product or service can save your customer or help them get to where they want to be, then you have to name the villain. Who are you flipping off? Who is the villain to your. Customer. And again, there's nice ways to do it. You don't have to be rude or divisive.

A little tongue in cheek, a little snark. If people are investigating other options, then you should tell why you're different and why you are the best choice for them. I think people are afraid to do this, but you can't rally your community around you, your team, around you or the product or service if you don't name the villain.

Who are we after, right? Look at any sports team. We just went through the final four. That's a friendly way and. Every team your team was up against or your, your picks for the brackets were the villain. The next one is the pointy finger. And I say pointy finger because you have to know who you're talking to.

You have to know exactly who that person is. What are their pains, what are their fears, what are their dreams? It's also the symbol for number one. Do you wanna be number one? What is it gonna take to be number one? Why should you be considered to be number one? And then you should be able to say effectively on any communication, the one thing that you solve.

The one pain that you remove, you should have one solution and one call to action, and that keeps it very crystal clear. And the next one is the thumb. And again, if you don't know who you're talking to, you can't talk about those previous three fingers, right? The next one is the thumb. Universal symbol for thumbs up or thumbs down if you turn it upside down.

We've seen all these things in magazines, do this, don't do that. Okay, how are you guiding your customer? Do this, don't do that. Goes back to the villain. But it's also your thumbprint. It's unique to you. What thumbprint are you leaving? On your customers, on your community, on your world, on your industry and then what's unique to you that's different?

What combination of things. You heard me tell my story about starting out as a magician. That's unique to me. I see the world through a different lens. You're gonna attract people who. Like the story that you've told and what's unique to you and how this combination of things has brought you where you are today.

And yeah, five fingers. There's about 80 or 90 things you can talk about. You carry it with you every day. If you get stuck, just look at a finger. And that should give you plenty of things that will make you unique enough to number one layer on top of whatever comes back outta chat, GBT to make it sound like yourself.

And then. Trigger that uniqueness in how it's looking at other businesses who are satisfied with just taking something that's very bland and vanilla and generic.

You hit across so many points that I don't have time to go over each and every one of them. But there are all. So valid. And if my listeners would just listen to what you said about all five fingers, and if you took one thing away and put it towards a client and just started to go through those fingers, you'll get to the crux of their problem almost immediately and it'll make you that much better and put you more of an expert in that field.

So I agree with you wholeheartedly. So one thing I did wanna bring up, Michael, and I know that took a little bit of while to go through, but people asked me this question a year ago and I had a random answer that I would say, and then I started thinking about my magic career and I thought magicians do magic tricks with their hands, right?

There's manipulation and sleigh of hand and all of that. And I said. I bet I could attach it to my hand. And if you go into chat, GBT or Claude or Gemini Orrock or any of these right now and you type in Jimmy Gibson five Finger Method, it will give you a summary of exactly what I went over because it loves organized, structured content.

You do something and you just take it for granted. But if you could name it, if you could put it and package it. Then repeat that over and over. It is going to love you. And so I don't wanna skip over that point because it's an important difference in the way that you attach frameworks to your name or your business or whatever the case may be.

Absolutely. And I. I personally did that about six months ago, and I created the foreman method. And what that is when I coach my executive coaching business, when I coach, I teach the foreman method, which is connection, CON and E-C-T-O-N. It's all part of it as one package, and it's what I am.

Teaching. And when I put that into chat, GBT, the foreman method comes up. So it seems, 'cause you're the expert and you have pulled that together and that separates you from somebody who says, oh, I just chat and we work through their problems. Absolutely. That's so good. Okay.

What are the small amounts? Sorry? What are the small moments in a conversation that make someone feel remembered, understood, or valued? Yeah, and again, I'm gonna keep going back to my years as a magician. So in a magic show or even in an interaction, that's just one trick. You are trying to have them suspend disbelief and see something that is physically, intellectually through physics impossible.

And so the first thing that I have to do is I have to magician walks out on stage. They greet the audience, they have to establish some sort of connection. And I'm sure in any networking opportunity, this is, table stakes for don't sit there and spit out your resume. Be genuinely interested and the other person, right?

So how to win friends and influence people has been around for so long because what it's focused on the other person. And before we got on the show, we talked about how was the weekend you were sharing that your son. Had just gotten married and we had a little chat. And so what happens in those interactions, whether it's across the screen, whether it's in person, is there's a release of oxytocin and that oxytocin is a neurotransmitter that floods your bloodstream with, oh, this is nice.

This is going we have some comradery, or things are going well. Let's see where this goes. That gives you the permission. To then move to the next stage. And the next stage is basically a listen, curiosity. And I would say that's the one thing that is missing in professional relationships.

Personal relationships, because we all wanna establish that connection. And then what do we want to do? We want to go for the close. Oh they like me. And you said, no and trust. And so they know me, they like me. Let's just go for the close. And it's interesting we talking about LinkedIn.

It's called a connection request. What happens when you accept that connection request? Immediately, somebody hits you up for some offer and you're sitting there going, Ooh, that's icky. They don't even know me. Like, why are they doing that? Because we have an established the trust through that curiosity.

And so what does that mean? Curiosity is actually a release of dopamine. And you may have heard, dopamine, oh, you're addicted to social media. No, you're not addicted to social media. It's the addiction. Not the addiction, but it's the expectation of a reward or that you're moving in a direction of closure.

And so again, a magician will go in just a minute, I'm gonna have this woman float in the air. Your brain goes, how is that possible? What in the world? And so you're expecting either it's gonna happen or it's not gonna happen. And then when the person floats in the air, they come back down, everything is fine.

That's a release of serotonin, which is a neurotransmitter that says, Hey, everything's right with the world. This worked. And in business, we can structure that in a way. That if you know what their fears or their pain or their goals are and you know that they have been looking at some other opportunities, back to the middle finger, the villain, you should know all about whoever your competition is.

Then the two magic words that you can say in any interaction that will elicit a high level of curiosity are the two words. What if and if you know that the traditional path to get to this goal is A, B, C, and you say, what if I could provide you that same outcome at half the cost and half the amount of time with no effort on your part, whatever the contrarian perspective is based on your offer.

Remember we said solving one problem with one offer? So that's one. What if combo. You go, what if? And so all of a sudden that person is disoriented and they go, I don't know what if, and you start to explain it. What happens at that point? You go, wow, this person is the expert. They know exactly my situation.

They know that what I've tried in the past isn't gonna work. They know that. Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. On and on. Then they're actually gonna bring you to the point of the close or the conversion and ask you, how do I get that? How much does that cost? When can we start? And then you don't ever have to.

Feel icky or do the close because they're asking for it because they have completed and they have a need for closure that you have already worked. And so that is a three step process, connection, curiosity, and conversion that you can use, whether it be leading your team motivating them to beat last quarter's sales goals, a blog post, a social post, an interaction.

If you follow those three phases, you're naturally going through the brain chemistry that gives you the best opportunity for success. Absolutely. And again, I have to tell you that you hit on so many points and you were so on point with those points. In networking, everything you'd said, it really revolves around the rapport that you've built up.

And I have certain little things that I do to gain that rapport and have the outcome, as you had stated, everything you had stated. But that rapport is so important, such an important cog in the wheel that everybody goes about it differently, but it must be done in order for them to trust you. So everything leads into one another.

Alright. Where do people unintentionally break trust between their online presence and their in-person interactions? Yeah, I think we've hit on a couple of them today. Relying on some tool that does not express who you are. I post a lot on LinkedIn, and I see LinkedIn is transforming from, a place where you go if you're looking for a job and everybody wants to put their resume up there.

Again, when you move into content creation, you wanna make sure it sounds like you, if you meet me in person, I'm pretty snarky. I'm pretty like, matter of fact I've told you how it is today and when you read something from me. It takes, I use tools like Chat, GPT, and Claude and some of these other tools, and you'll find one that you can work with, but it takes a lot of effort to strangle and pull and tug to get it to be snarky and to get it to be sarcastic and but it's worth the effort because I get comments back to go, oh my gosh, I could tell you wrote this because it sounds exactly like when I met you at such and such a conference. And so again, it's the sum of all experiences that you have. I, we're sitting here visually, I spent a lot of time figuring out what's the best camera, what does my lighting need to look like?

What does the background need to be? Because I want a, I want it to convey the professionalism and the. Passion that I have for communicating a message. I could have been in a dark room and back lit in front of a window and you couldn't even see my face and, all of these types of things.

And so I think you have to look at all the touchpoints and those are all reflections of the brand. And you want people to go. Oh my gosh. Like when I get on a Zoom call with somebody, they go, oh my gosh, that looks, I like the video that I saw you put on YouTube or LinkedIn, or whatever the case may be.

And yeah, so you just kinda have to step away from yourself and you go, is that really what I wanna do? Is that really sound and smell and look like me? Yeah. No I agree with you a thousand percent. I, part of what I do is I post. Probably four times a week on YouTube, on LinkedIn, on everything else.

And that helps me get where I want to go. But it's, you can, if you train, if you put a prompt in. You don't get back the results you want. You have to put in another problem and another problem, you have to train ai. So it gets to that point where you are. And for me, it takes five or seven prompts to get to about where I want it to be, and then I'll begin, right?

But first I have to train ai, whatever search engine I'm using, whether it's Chap, bt, GPT, Gemini Rock, whatever. I have to get to that point and it's usually after five or six prompts that I can get to it. So you do have to train it so it takes a little bit of work. Okay, we're gonna bring this podcast full circle.

If a listener wants to become both highly referable online and unforgettable in person on the, in the next 90 days, what's one habit? They should start immediately.

Wow. Again, I think we've had this through line all the way through the process. If you are not visible online, then you're not visible. And so how do you get visible? You have to start creating something that is visible. And so look at. Where you're most comfortable at this point, I'm not gonna tell you to go shoot a video if that has got you sweating profusely.

Even thinking about sitting in front of a camera, right? But the interesting thing is you could probably get on a Zoom call with somebody and be perfectly natural. So why don't you record that? Why don't you have a professional conversation on Zoom? Record it and post it, and it can be like a little podcast.

And, it could be a friend, a colleague that you've worked with for a long time, you know how to poke each other's buttons and y'all laugh. Maybe you wanna write something. And so I would say the first thing to do is look at your own website. It might need a refresh. If you have blogs that have no author attached to them, put your name as the author, right?

And so then that's gonna create. Coherence to your name and that person. I would say go to LinkedIn. We mentioned that LinkedIn is the number two place. Polish up your about section. Spend some time making sure you have a professional image. Everybody's got a thousand dollars camera in their pocket as their smartphone, and it has all sorts of settings.

If you don't know the settings, find a 10 or 12-year-old. They'll show you all the settings right to get a good picture. And so clean up your LinkedIn post something. And I tell you, it's scary to post something because you're thinking that your whole network is gonna see it all. I hate to tell you the algorithms are not in your favor.

And it's gonna be invisible. Find something safe to talk about. Again, make it professional. Make it something about your expertise. And yeah, I would say those are good places to start. I. Hopefully that's helpful to get people off of square one. I believe it would be. Jimmy. This was absolutely great.

I learned so much and I thought I knew so much, but I learned so much from you. What, listen, if somebody wanted to either hire you, get some information from you or just say hello, what's the best way that they can get hold of you? Yeah, sure. As I said before, I'm on LinkedIn. I publish about five times a week, Monday through Friday.

DM me. If you have a question about what we chatted about, I'm there. I'm available. Would love to answer any questions, comment on my post, whatever the case may be. If you're interested in figuring out your visibility go to thrive agency.com. There's a whole lot of information on there, articles, so forth.

You can fill out a request to have a meeting with one of our marketing consultants, or if you want to do the warm, want me to do the warm introduction and have a chat with me first. Happy to chat with anybody yeah, that's great. This conversation is a reminder that networking today happens in two places, the room and the search bar.

When your presence is strong in both your opportunities, expand ways most people don't even realize. Take one simple step this week. Look how you show up online and ask yourself, does this reflect how I connect with people in person? When those two align trust forms, fa trust forms faster and conversations carry more weight.

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 great in the room and ready to be just as strong online.

If you'd help strengthening your communication, your visibility, and the way you build meaningful relationships, visit michael a foreman.com to release, to learn how I work with professionals, teams, and organizations. So until next time, be present. Be visible, and build connections that people can find, feel, and trust.

Jimmy, again, thank you so much for coming on the podcast. You were great. Thanks. It was fun, Michael. Thanks for having me.

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  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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