Networking Unleashed: Building Profitable Connections. An Interview with John Follis and Michael A Forman
- mforman521
- Jun 13
- 20 min read
📍 📍 Hello and welcome to Networking Unleashed, building Profitable Connections. Welcome back to the show, folks. I'm your host, Michael Forman, and you're listening to the podcast where networking is more than just awkward handshakes and bad coffee. It's an art and a talent. But here's the twist. It's an art and talent you can actually learn.
Yes, even if you are the person hiding in the corner at every event, pretending to check emails. Networking isn't just a nice skill to have. It's a game changer. When you get good at it, you'll wonder why you didn't start sooner. More connections. More opportunities, more profits. It's like unlocking a cheat code for life.
I've got a guest today, John Fos. John fos, and I have to tell you, he is everything that I am striving to be. He is that he's got that type of background. I am a speaker and so is he, and he's at the, he says he is retired, which I personally don't understand. You could never retire from speaking. But let me just say that at 33 John co-founded a Madison Avenue ad agency that became one of the most successful in the country.
And before I butcher his background, I'm going to introduce John FLIs and have him give you a little bit more. John, welcome to my show. Hey Michael, so glad to be on your show. Thanks for inviting me. No problem. Tell us a little bit about your background. I, as you mentioned, I worked in New York City for most of my career, not all of it, but for about 25 years.
And worked for some of the big agencies on some big brands like Pizza Hut and Volkswagen. And then I switched gears and took an entrepreneurial route, started freelancing, and through that experience, connected with a business development guy. Who turned out to be my partner and because of the business that we were able to pick up pretty quickly after working together well, we soon found ourselves as a partner in an ad agency, and very quickly grew the agency and became one of the most successful.
In New York, we were winning all kinds of awards. We were beating out all the big agencies in the award shows, which was pretty exciting when you're just, 33, 34 years old. And I didn't have to worry about networking because he was such a great business development guy. He was doing all the required networking.
But shortly after that partnership started. I ended up branching off and starting another agency on my own. And at that point I really had to get my networking skills up to speed. So you and I talked a little bit prior to this interview. I shared a little bit of my perspective on that with you, which is why I thought, I think you thought I would have something interesting to share here.
That's good. It's good. And yeah I have told you, I'm very interested in what you would have to say, but let's just go right into my questions. How did you first discover the power of public speaking as a networking tool? I think everyone in business has had the experience of going to a big networking event that has a speaker.
And people do a little chitchat in the beginning. They have their bad coffee or their good coffee, whatever the case may be. And then everyone takes a seat and listens to the presentation, the speaker. And after going through that experience more times than I wish to recall I realized and not, and I should say, coming away from those experiences with less than positive experiences because as in those situations, you come across a lot of salespeople who within seconds are shoving their business card in your face and just going on and on about how great they are, their businesses. And it's really not a, I just found it's not, in most cases, not in every case, but in most cases it's not a very effective.
Environment to network. So what occurred to me after going through those experiences a number of times was instead of going to an event that had a speaker and listen where I could listen to the speaker, I decided maybe it would be good if I became the speaker, because I can't imagine any other better way.
Of connecting not just with a few people in the audience, but with every person in the audience then being the featured speaker, right? So once to me that was a game changing understanding. Then the question became, would I have the balls? To learn how to have the confidence to get myself up in front of an audience and do that.
But once I decided that was a strategy, that would be a good strategy to take. Because again, New York is a very competitive place and your success really depends on the connections you make. And so I felt like I had no choice. I wanted to, do whatever it took to make the connections I needed to make to be successful.
So I just made a decision. I had to become a good public speaker and do that.
Very astute. I, I. I have found really as of the pandemic, that the days of building your customer list is passe. It's building relationships and what you do with those relationships and how you follow up with those relationships is really key, and that's probably the re revelation that you. Came across you said, you know what?
I'm meeting all these people, but I'm not getting anywhere. So when you start to build those relationships, then you start getting a little traction. What are your top three strategies for turning a speaking engagement into valuable network connections? First of all, I would say to be talking about a topic.
That people give a damn about. That's the beginning. You don't wanna bore people and in addition to the topic, you've gotta make sure your presentation is engaging. I. Because you could be talking about something that everyone is interested in, but if you bore them in the first three minutes to that presentation, they're not gonna be listening to it.
Sure. So then it becomes a challenge. How do you interested And as an advertising guys a creative person, that was a challenge that I was I was more than happy to take because I was able to apply. My, apply my creativity using visuals or whatever it took in many cases it re, it involved a PowerPoint presentation or some kind of visual presentation that I felt could really help in keeping them engaged in the conversation.
So that would be another tip. And lastly, and I'm sure you can appreciate this is make it easy for them to get in touch with you. Make it and repeat it multiple times so it's not just up there for 10 seconds. That if they don't have their their phones ready to take a picture of it or a pen ready to write down your website or email that they're gonna be able to capture whatever information they need to follow up with you.
So have that information and repeat it. In fact, have it on every slide if you're doing a PowerPoint presentation. Have whatever contact information they need. It doesn't have to be big, it could be small in the corner, but have that easily seen in your presentation so they can follow up with you if they want to.
Very good. Very good. Okay. How would you define personal brand and why it's crucial for networking. If anyone understands the concept of a brand if they're in a business and if they are the head of that business, especially if they basically, the business is them, like in your case, right?
Your business is essentially you are the face of your business. Especially in a situation like that, your personal brand. Is critical and just the way a brand is important for any larger business. Apple has a brand, for example. That's how people are going to perceive you.
And just because you're one person, it doesn't mean that you don't have to think about a brand. Even if you're one person, you still have a personal brand. The more that you can develop not just a brand, but a positive brand, that's gonna be something that people are going to be attracted by.
The more success I think you're gonna have in business. That's very true. Because your personal brand. 'cause people think that your personal brand if you're a solopreneur then you are your personal brand, but you can have a team of people. Yet you are the face of your brand and still it's your personal brand.
But it's very important that you maintain that brand. When you look at the billboards nowadays. And accident attorneys. All is the guy with his name and that's it. No contact information or anything that is building his brand so that all you know of is him and what number to call.
Eventually, hopefully we can get to that point. Okay, so what steps can someone take to start developing their personal brand today? The first step is to decide what that brand is, because it's not gonna be the same for everyone. So a, a brand, whether it's for Apple or whether it's for you or I has to come out of something that's true about the product.
You can't say you are the best if you're not. You can't say so because people find that out pretty quickly if it's bullshit. It really has to come up from a a true essence of who you are and what you're about. For example when I. Split off from my business partner and all of a sudden had to start thinking of what my brand was going to be for my new agency.
It was pretty simple and that was that we did, our agency did work that got people excited. Just very simple very simple concept. That may have been true for. Other agencies, they just weren't saying it. And certainly many of them weren't proving it by their work. I wasn't going to say that, have that be my brand if I didn't truly believe.
That I could back that up with the work that I did for our clients. So on my business card I wish I had one handy. If you go to my website, the first thing you're gonna see is a visual of some crazy, excited eyes. And that was on my business card. So when I handed out my business card to anyone, it didn't look like your typical business card.
It, I don't know. This is gonna not be on video for a lot of people, but it's, it's not gonna look like your typical business card. It had these crazy, excited eyes on it, and in often cases it started a conversation because it was just so unexpected. That was just one example of how I focused on the brand and how I built.
My brand, but again, I had to back it up with everything I did. Absolutely. And you have to. The first thing that you say to somebody, a prospective client or somebody, it's that, everybody talks about that 32nd elevator speech, and I listen, I help people perfect that 32nd elevator speech, but I say no.
You should give it to them in five seconds. If you can't draw their attention in that first five seconds or first sentence, then what are you doing? You have to revamp it. Revamp it again, because the saying. Fake it till you make it. It doesn't exist. You have to know what you're doing because as you said, people can see right through you and see whether or not you're telling the truth or not.
Yeah. So it's very true what you were saying. It's true what you're saying. And I have a a great story about the elevator speech that relates to exactly what we're both saying. I met someone in an elevator that ended up in a meeting with that person and a couple of weeks later, which ended up in signing a deal for a $93,000 project.
That required four months of my time. So it came directly out of what you just said and what I shared about my business card because. She was a keynote speaker at this event that I had just attended, and when I was leaving that event, I found myself in the elevator with her. So I knew I had a 92nd opportunity until that elevator went from the 32nd floor to the ground floor to try to connect with this person.
And I, I was very sincere. I said, listen, I just heard your presentation. I was very impressed by it. Great job. To which these, she then said thank you, and who are you? What do you do? Which then prompted me to give her, I say what I just said I have a business that helps get your prospects excited.
And I handed her my business card and she looked at it. She looked at it for about five or 10 seconds, and then on the back of the business card I had a quote that said, if you want people excited about your business, you have to get 'em excited about your advertising. So that kind of summed up that excited.
Concept. And after about 30 seconds of studying my business cards, she said, you know something, this may be the best business card I've ever seen. I don't have time to chat now, but let's have lunch. And like I said, that lunch that we had, I. After the conversation we had, which probably lasted an hour and a half, where we got to, she got to know a little bit more about my business turned into a an offer to, to do this $93,000 project that really only took, actually was less than four months of my time.
So again, to your point, the power of, you know what I say when people say the elevator speech, the last thing it should be is a speech. That's the last thing, what it should be. There's a term in advertising, it's called a teaser, maybe you know what that is? So that's what it should be. The whole point of this elevator speech is not to tell them what you do, it's to tell them enough to wanna know more about what you do when they get off the elevator, I tell them just enough so that they have to ask you a question.
So they wanna know, so they don't want the conversation to end when you get off the elevator. They want to keep talking about you. And if you did that, then you won. You've achieved the goal of that elevator pitch, right? The elevator speech. But it's, that's very true. And that's quite a nice story.
So let's change a little bit and what were some of the obstacles you faced when building your network through public speaking, but how did you overcome them as well? Trying to think. So I don't know if your audiences are I. Seeing me, but I'm an old guy. It's been a while since I've done this. I'm 70.
I've been retired about 10 years. So you're asking me questions about things that were done, 30 years ago. Okay. So I'm trying to think of some obstacles. I guess there's always an ops. Anytime you're up, up in front of people speaking. You may have people talking, you may have some interruptions. It may not be the best environment to give a presentation. Maybe the audio equipment is not working the way it should be. So there are all kinds of things that can go wrong, right when you're giving a presentation.
And I think the challenge is if something like that happens is to just try try to ignore it as, as well as you can. And and just do the best job. You can under those circumstances. I've found when I've gone onto stages and something like that hasn't worked, whether it was the audio, whether the visual didn't work or something else like that, I owned it right away and I made fun of it.
I made a joke about it, and everybody had a good laugh and we moved on, but I moved on without the video, audio, whatever the case might be. There was one time where even the floor. Became unbalanced, so I had, I made a joke about that. So it's just a matter of what comes your way. You have to make a joke of it and just own it and move on.
That's all. Yeah. Yeah. You have to have the ability to improvise. Absolutely. And be prepared for any situation. And being a public speaker that's anonymous with that. Okay. Because Exactly. You have to be able to roll with this about everything. Exactly. Can you share a specific example of how a speaking opportunity led to a significant networking breakthrough?
I think your elevator story pretty much summed that up. Yeah. So do you wanna add something to that? I can't think of a better example than it's a prime example that it really is. I don't know that would ever happen again if I, had a career that lasted a hundred years.
That was just a very, and it just proves that you never know, when there's going to be an opportunity that you could benefit from, you just don't know. That's true. That's true. You have to, and it just, the point situation. Okay. Okay. Now I'm gonna shift this a little bit to an online question and tell me if it's a little bit past where you are, because I don't know how active you are online.
But how do you leverage social media and online platforms to enhance your personal brand and networking efforts? Sure. You're right. I don't need to be hustling anymore, but I can still answer that question. Okay. And maybe you can relate to this. I'm sure some of your listeners can relate to this.
It astounds me on how many people don't realize how important their LinkedIn profile is. And many of them, have nothing for the masthead that goes behind their photo. And they haven't maxed out everything you can do on LinkedIn. You can do so much on LinkedIn.
You could post images, you could post videos. You can really max out your LinkedIn profile and I just don't understand why anyone, especially if they're in a business, their own business, why they haven't done that. So that would. That would certainly be my first suggestion is if anyone wants to look at an example they could look at yours, they could look at my LinkedIn page and they can see and maybe takes, get some ideas from that.
The other thing I would just say is take advantage of every social media. Channel that you think your prospect might be looking at? I again it's not that hard to post content on any social media platform. You just have to be willing to take the time to do it. I would just encourage everyone to, if you don't have an Instagram page or profile put one up.
If you don't have a YouTube channel, I think that's important too. I think video is really more important than it has ever been. Facebook there's, every month there's a new social media channel. It's easy to get overwhelmed by it, but there are certainly. Three or four of them that you can't ignore that you have to just take advantage of for sure.
Sure. And it's true that there's something new coming out every month, but I believe that really that all my listeners, that they should only really pick one or two of them that they're really gonna fully get behind. Listen, I. Post every day on LinkedIn. Facebook linked Instagram and YouTube.
Okay. I post a reel. Wow. But I do that twice a day. Wow. Every day. Wow. So it's just, and it's how you get a lot of traction and really by them, by you posting as often and as consistently, that's the key word, consistently as possible. Then the algorithms start to include you and you go further and further out.
But LinkedIn is business, that's strictly business. Everything else, just really stay out of it. Instagram and YouTube, that's great for reels and short videos and things like that. Facebook, some people use it for ads, some people don't. They use it for family, they don't, so that's up in the air, but that's what I do. I am consistent every day. The first thing in the morning when I get up is I post on all the medias. Now I say it like it takes me, an hour. It takes me 30 seconds. Okay? Because I use a program called Opus Clips, and I just break apart whatever video I have and it gives me for 10 days.
And that posts on all of them. You know that's what I do and I think that's a very good option for you to work at. I would just add, I would add one more media platform to that. Sure. As I said, I'm an old guy, but if I was active right now in my business, I would also be on TikTok.
Yeah I think that is probably the fastest growing social media platform. So you could argue, ah, that's just teenage girls dancing. But actually it's not, it's become, that's how it started. But now if you go on TikTok, you see a lot of very serious businesses using that platform to, to market themselves for good reason.
As it's not that hard to just reform that your video, if you already have the content. It's just a matter of maybe reform, reformatting it so it works for TikTok and just uploading it. Yep. Absolutely. And you're right, I didn't think about that because I am just recently getting everything together for TikTok.
'cause I was really waiting to see whether it was gonna happen with it bought, sold, whatever. But it seems like somebody's gonna buy it and it's gonna remain in the country. So I'm gonna get behind that as well. Yes, that's, it's a very good idea. Let's talk about authenticity. I. How do you balance being authentic and crafting a polished professional, I'm sorry, a polished personal brand image?
They're not mutually exclusive. They should be the same thing. And I think it, it goes back to what we just talked about. People are going to judge. Your image or your brand or learn about you by what it is that you put on the internet.
Unless you know they're seeing you in person most of the people are gonna know about you by what you post. I call it G cred. I came up with this term in 2006 called G Cred, which is your Google credibility. Do you have it, do you have G cred? And, the better your content on the internet, social media platforms defines your image.
I think the more that they will, your audience will have the image of you that you want them to have. So it all comes down to, your ability to reinforce that image you just described by the video, the writing, the the interviews, these podcasts, all, there's so many ways, there's so many ways to create content and all of it has to funnel into that brand image that, that that the way that you wanna be defined, it's gotta continue to reinforce that.
That's right. That's right. And it is all it makes you what you are. On the internet, it's, it makes you are the way that you want to be perceived. And you don't have to be afraid, because people ask me all the time, oh I want to do a podcast, but I was afraid to get started and things like that.
And I said, look don't be afraid. Just do it. Just get started. Start with a phone, start with whatever, and just start podcasting because after a while you'll get better. I. Better. And by the 10th, 12th, 15th podcast, you look back at the first one and say, oh my God, I sucked. I was so bad, come on.
Michael, you don't know. You don't know this because I haven't told you. I used to have a podcast, when my first podcast, I was called The Marketing Show with John FLIs. Do you know when it went up? You want to guess? Just by the way that you're talking, I'm gonna say 2000. Hey. Hey, Michael.
Podcasting didn't start until mid 2005. I know that. So I had a podcast went up in early 2006. Yeah. And I did it for seven years. See that and that's what it's all about. And now I think I read a stat that there's 4 million podcasts and it's growing every, at every year at least. It's just a matter of if you want to do it.
You want to get your word out, get your word out. Most people just have fun with it. I love doing a podcast because I'm speaking to you. I spoke with somebody in Israel yesterday, somebody from Australia, somebody, someone from the uk. Yeah. It's great. So it brings everybody together.
Okay let's, I have two more questions for you, and this one is concerning your success. What metrics or indicators do you use to gout the effectiveness of your networking and personal branding efforts? What metrics? There's different metrics that people can use for success.
For me, I'm not, I didn't. Graduate with a business degree. When I walked out of my partnership with a guy who was a business guy when I was 35, I wasn't sure that I could even survive. I'm a create, my background is creative and try to find a business partner. That I thought I needed in order to continue, work.
Having a business in New York is not a, an easy thing to do. It's probably the most competitive city in the if not the world, certainly the country. And just the fact that the network the benefits that I got, the results that I got as a result of the networking that I did. The fact that it enabled me to continue to have a successful business for as long as I did, which was about 20 years in, in the, in New York City, I think was a real testament to the power of good networking.
So that's one metric that I used. I also got a fair amount of press. I won some awards. I was invited to get speaking gigs at prestigious places like the World Business Academy and Yale University. Those were all, I think metrics of the success that I had.
Absolutely a absolutely. Not to mention being invited to the White House in the un. That I thing is pretty big. Who was the president? So when I got invited that was in the Dark Ages 1991. And George Bush, the first was the president back then. Yeah. I was in Desert Storm in 1991.
Ah, okay. So that's what I was doing. Wow. What's the one piece of advice you'd give to someone looking to use public speaking to expand their professional network?
One piece of advice for someone using public speaking to expand their professional network. I'm trying to think of a good answer to that. Michael other than stealing a tagline from Nike, which is just do it. I think I say that because there's so much fear associated with public speaking. It's easy to talk your yourself out of doing it. Sure. And as I'm sure you would agree the more you do it the more confidence you'll have in doing it and the better you'll get at it.
So I would say just the best advice is just get started, right? Because that's the hardest step. Yeah, that's, once, once you, you take that leap and listen also, do what you need to develop your confidence. Here's a great piece of advice. Maybe you can appreciate it.
You're familiar with Toastmasters, right? Sure. Yeah. Okay. A lot of people aren't, and I wasn't when I was in my twenties, but Toastmasters, for anyone who doesn't know is an international public speaking organization that's been around for, I don't know, 60 years at this point. I. And anyone can join it.
They have one in every city, and it gives you an opportunity to practice your public speaking skills. So that's certainly one thing you can do to gain confidence in public speaking as well as of course, hiring you, Michael. Absolutely. When. When I said for the podcasting, just get started, when I just got started, I did, of course it was free then, but I just did it to practice what I was talking about and I changed it every time.
So eventually I did, 50 or 75 speaking gigs. For free. And people were ecstatic. They go, oh my God, this is free. It's wonderful. But then, you start to charge and you charge a little bit more and more. Of course I'm not up to the Tony Robbins stage yet. But you had to start somewhere so that.
That piece of advice of just do it. Just do it. Just get off your rear end and just start talking. Go to a Chamber of Commerce and begin your speaking career and see whether or not it's for you or not. But that's all Great. That's great guys. Another thing I'll just add Michael, I was try to have fun with it.
Do you know what I'm saying? Always. Always have fun if you stop having fun, get outta business. Okay. Always have fun. Always have a good time. John, this was absolutely great. Because we are very much alike and I really enjoyed our conversation. If somebody wanted to get hold of you, what's the best way that they can get hold of you?
The simplest way, if they know how to spell my name, is to just pop me in Google because I have been. Posting content on the internet since the internet began. In fact, one of the things I enjoy most is doing podcasts like this. I don't have to work, but I love talking about the business.
I love having conversations with people like you, people all around the world. In the past couple of years, I've done, at this point over 80 podcasts. So if anyone just pops my name. And the last name is F-O-L-L-I-S. First name John. And on the internet they'll see all kinds of stuff come up. Good.
Actually, I can't wait. I'm gonna actually do that myself. John, thank you so much for coming on my podcast. I'm sure my listeners got a lot out of it and and I'll speak to you soon. Thanks Michael. Great chatting with you.
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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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