Networking Unleashed: Building Profitable Connections. An Interview with Joshua Richardson and Michael A Forman

Welcome to Networking Unleashed, building Profitable Connections, the show where conversations stop being casual and start creating real momentum. I'm Michael Forman, and today's episode is for anyone who's tired of leaving growth up to chance. My guest knows what it takes to move from word of mouth wins to steady, reliable lead flow.

He's lived the mistakes that cost, time and money, learned the hard lessons, and now helps businesses use automation and AI the right way. So work gets lighter and results get stronger without losing the personal touch. We're talking about what actually turns connections into consistency. How to avoid the traps most entrepreneurs fall into early, and why the right systems don't replace relationships.

They protect them. So if you care about building growth, you can count on, you're in the right place. So let's jump in. Josh, I would like to welcome you to the podcast. Josh is calling all the way from Australia. We have a string that we attach and we pull 'em over. But Josh, how about you introduce yourself and in a nutshell, what do you do?

Thanks Michael. Thanks for having me. I guess in a nutshell, I run a marketing agency, so we do end-to-end digital marketing and really helping businesses scale and grow. Before starting the agency, I had a lot of my own startups that I've been growing for a very long time across e-commerce and also lead generation.

So from that I realized a lot of different issues in the marketplace and that's why I've set up the agency and helped a lot of businesses from there. That's great. That's great. I think this will be a really great conversation. Let's I developed about 10 questions that I'll ask you and let's start with the first one.

Word of mouth built your early growth, but systems built your future. What made you realize relationships weren't enough and what changed when you added structure? Okay. So I guess the main thing that helped us really grow was we had a lot of leads coming in. But in the initial stages we had too many that we weren't getting back to 'em fast enough.

So we really knew, okay, we can get a lot of leads in. We're obviously very good at, getting that demand, but now servicing that demand and turning that into sales, and even for other companies, the same issues happen for them. That's where having a system come into place where you know consistently that you're following up at all the key stages and making sure no one slipped through the cracks.

That really takes a business from, doing, six figures a month to, seven figures a month, and. That through the consistency and building out a team from there and having a flow that can really scale beyond just yourself as well. Yeah. Consistency is really it, it's getting the follow up.

I firmly believe that the follow up is in the sauce. It's more important than actually meeting the person, right? So if you follow up immediately and consistently, I think you won. People are meeting so many people every day, and you need to stand out from that crowd. And the only way you can do that is through multiple touch points.

People don't just buy from you from hearing about you for the first time. It's all about the actual value you add along the way. And that's through follow up. So a hundred percent agree. Absolutely. Absolutely. Looking back. Which early mistake taught you the most about networking? Taught the most about networking.

How it really works in business, but not just socially or financially. Yeah. Okay. So I guess networking is about building your personal brand and business brand across, a lot of different spaces. People don't really know about you, and so it's how you stand out. What I learned early on is that you need to start building a brand in multiple different spaces in order to stand out.

The same way when you go network to someone and you articulate your business, it's very different to the way some people even showcase themselves on the website and the different information they talk through there. I've been in a lot of conversations in networking events where. People go into a lot more detail about what they do as a business and all their unique selling points as a business.

But then you go look at their social media or their website and you don't pick up any of that information there. So the way you build a network doing networking and talk about yourself in a physical presence, you need to translate to a digital presence as well. And I think that's really important today's society.

'cause people want to go check you out on all these different platforms before they start to engage with you. And even with networking. When you talk to someone for the first time, they're gonna go check out your website and they're gonna look for a lot more trust factors to, Hey, this person says they can do X, Y, or Z, but let me go back that up with more information.

And that's where having a really strong digital presence backs up your social networking because people start to trust you more. When you look at someone's website, for example, all the different brands I've worked with is such a strong indicator of whether they're, a reputable person in business or not as well.

Yeah, so know you, like you, trust you. Then they'll do business with you, hundred percent. And it's really easy for everybody to know you because you know now know you like you. That narrows down the field just a little bit because everybody isn't going to like you, but the trust factor that's so important and now it's so easy for people to go and check you out, right?

So I, I learned this a while ago. In speaking, you have to pick a lane, right? I pick a lane. So I want steak. I want steak. Now I can go to a place that sells. Eggs and salads and chicken and pasta and steak and everything else. Or I want to go to a steakhouse and order my steak. So that's where I, that's the lane that I chose.

And so that's what I think you're talking about. I can see that from your website with all the different speaking slots and all the brands you've worked with on there and all the different publications you've been on, you've established trust early on, and that's very important for networking for people to, hire you, hold you higher than someone else.

And some of the different businesses we go and order and look at them missing all those factors. That of those trust points or even, reviews are a huge thing that a lot of people just missing from their websites and then they're, really doesn't justify in their networking events whether they're established person or not.

So it's very important in that regard. Yes, absolutely. Absolutely. Many people rely on chance introductions. What does it take to turn connection into a steady flow of qualified leads chance? This is a great question. So I guess one way we take the chance leads into a scalable system is. To start with, a lot of people don't have a lot of money when they're starting a business, and so they have to rely on being on the ground, physical one-to-one connections.

But as you start to scale up your business and you start to have more money, you can invest back into marketing. We really look to businesses to go into Facebook ads and Google ads where you can drive, trackable growth month on. And as you want to build a system, you need to know that you're gonna have a high volume of leads coming through every single month.

And you're not just relying on one person, having a friend that's ready to now, do something with their house in a service-based business or ready to purchase, a new vacuum, and they refer your business. You need to know that you're getting in front of the right eyeballs of the right people.

And so you do that through digital advertising where you can do hyper targeting. And I think that's a very important part to scale up from. Referrals to having consistent system because once you have that consistent system in place and you know you're gonna have a hundred people coming through your door every single month buying from you, you can, with confidence, you can hire that next staff member.

And you can scale up your ad spend to meet increase that demand even further as your business starts to grow. And it's a repeatable system. And when you back that up with. A CRM such as HubSpot to get that consistent flow there. So I might be sending you a hundred more leads this month, but if you are not servicing them or getting back to them and taking 'em through your sales process, you're gonna be losing them.

And it doesn't matter how many leads you get from that point on. So that's how I would see scaling that side of things up. From just the one-to-one referral connections, referrals are super important as well because referrals have a lot more trust than, even ones you get from digital social media.

But that's also where you need to be building out your social media presence to establish that authority and trust so that eventually if you build out all the right pillars of your business, people come to you and they already feel like they know you from your social media. So even your digital advertising can sell you in just as good as networking can as well.

I've had that happen quite a few times where they've recognized me off of YouTube and my website and everything else, so that it's almost as if they know me and say, oh, Mike, I actually know you. And I'm like, really? Because I've never met you before. Yeah. But they know me from the social media.

I'm glad you said HubSpot. I happen to use HubSpot as a CRM and. When I talk, when I give the presentations I say how important it is to have a CRM. Some people, I gave a talk this week and I had somebody who, they met the people, they put the information on the left side of their computer.

When they called them, they switched it over to the right side of the computer and I said, that's not good. Really not good, but it's not a here nor there. But I thought it was funny. And you would enjoy that. Just on that note when you're doing your networking events, do you use anything to capture digital business cards and get that into your CRM at all?

No. I don't. I looked into a few systems like that. Yeah, I will probably do that. But I don't have it yet. Okay. We've just started working at a company called Blink, which worked with a lot of Fortune 500 companies in the States that integrate. Yep. That's when I looked at as a matter of fact, I have a digital business card with Blink.

Oh, fantastic. Yeah. Yep. They're growing very quickly at the moment yep. I'm with you. I'm with you. Okay. What's the biggest myth about networking that holds entrepreneurs back from building predictable growth? Biggest myths? I guess what I've seen is a lot of people are very scared to start.

And I think people think they're not gonna be good at it and it's not for them, or it's not for their particular type of business. But I believe networking is about getting out there and meeting a lot of people. And even if they're not your key demographic that you're gonna sell to, they're gonna know people that are potentially gonna be that.

So it's about establishing trust in the community and getting out there and just. They might not be the right person, but. By getting, multiple touch points and getting, I guess even looking back at how I treat, digital advertising, it's all about volume. And that's the same way about networking.

It's about volume, but then also quality conversations that go beyond just, top level fluff. And get deeper into individual aspects of business or even people's personal lives so they can get to know you and understand you more and really helps you stand out. And I feel like a lot of people don't believe networking can work for their business because they're not going to the exact right event that doesn't have all their buyers right there.

But I don't believe that's the direct case. And I'm sure you've seen that from all the different networking events you've gone to, speaking to a variety of people as well. Absolutely. And you have to remember that you're not going to, you're not talking to just those people. You're talking to those people and their networks.

So you're speaking to not 8, 10, 12, 15 people. You're talking to 45, 60, maybe a hundred people. So it depends on how you talk. Plus, you go in with what's called a servant's heart. You go in looking to give, not to receive. So when you're going around and speaking to people, don't talk. Shut up. Let them talk and because people love to talk about themselves.

So let them talk and then just acknowledge that. Okay? I'm sure you're very good at that. Yes, I try. Once in a while does it come through, but that's all right. You've paid the price in time and money. What lesson would you save today's business owners from learning the hard way? Yeah, so I think some of the key things I've learned as a business owner is one.

Spending a lot of money on getting leads coming through that you weren't servicing and they drop off and you try and follow them up two months later thinking, oh, they're my leads. But unless you're contacting them within the first couple hours or really the first 10 minutes of them coming through I think you are wasting money a lot of the time.

And I've seen a lot of business owners and even myself, where you leave them too long to get back to them. Especially in service-based businesses, for example we work with a lot of tradies and they'll get a lot of inquiries coming through online. But then they don't service them during the day and they wait until the night and try and call 'em at nighttime, which doesn't work when you are dealing with someone during the day that needs something urgent.

So even in my business, as a marketing agency, if people are coming in and inquiring, they're speaking to three or four people. At the same time, or looking at their websites at the same time. So it's really about that speed and having a proper process in place to know how you're gonna help them understand what they need and audit, where they're at as a business to get to the facts faster.

Then, leaving it months on end before you finally get to where they need to be. So that's, one thing I've learned as a business owner. But I guess the other thing was also what I touched on earlier about. Building that predictability. We hire a lot of staff. Last year we grew from third, a team of 13 to 30.

And to do that we needed a lot of consistent lead flow. And so in order to have that many people come on I guess the mistakes we made early on was that we would hire new people in across different service lines and. We didn't have enough work coming through to them 'cause we weren't scaling our ads appropriately for having that extra new people in there, or we weren't going out and getting enough leads in, networking events or different ways in the community.

We put in a proper roadmap and business plan for ourselves to make sure that if we employ a new person, we've got enough work coming through for them, or we won't employ them until we have, overflow that we can really meet the demand with, or we if we need to scale up to that place in time, we use some contractors.

And then once you have enough work for those contractors, you can then hire internally. So just making sure. If you are galing that, you can go from, 1 million to 1.5 million in one case. That's almost exactly how I used to do it. I used to have brick and mortar companies.

It was, I, when I got that busy, I would hire a contractor. Yeah. And when I got really busy, I would hire that contractor if you wanted on full time. And I would do that again. Okay, now we got when to the next level. So we got more business. I hire another contractor and bring it. So I do that slowly, but that's exactly the process that I would use.

Fantastic. Where does automation help relationships And where does it quietly damage when used the wrong way? Yeah, so I guess with AI coming into the space, there's a lot of businesses that will go in and use AI to respond to emails, do outreach, do a lot of different things to build their network, but they don't really edit any of the AI content that goes out.

And that's where it looks very robotic and. Builds a lot of mistrust. If you look at LinkedIn these days as well and how people outreach on platforms like LinkedIn, you see a lot of robots. You see a lot of AI just slop really that goes out there and there's no real human thought to it. And you can tell that's not the way humans talk.

M dashes and a lot of different things and you can instantly pick up whether that's just chat, GBT outta the box. So I would say. Two, really use AI but still enhance human connection. It needs to have a lot of your pre-thought go into it. And I'm not against AI helping shape how things are written and to clarify things and pull out the exact details that you need to articulate.

But I think it really needs to be preloaded with a lot of your own context and knowledge first to really help it stand out if you are gonna use it. And I see AI being used a lot. We use it with our teams to help. Ideation phases and coming up with ideas or helping with that first draft, but never the end result.

We don't use it to replace anyone, but it's more to enhance their capabilities. And it's the same way in how you network and how you reach out to people and communicate. It's all about enhancing, but it has to be your human effort to begin with. That's absolutely correct. I write two articles a week.

For a platform on the web. And they have a component. It's, you can just, you can write it with ai, but they have a component called something, I forgot what it was, but that puts the human element into it and it's combining the AI and the human, so it looks as if, and I preloaded it a lot with what I've written before, so it has my tone.

Fantastic. So that's what AI really is missing. I still have to check it. So when I write these articles, I say no. You don't have to change this or change that. And I'll absolutely take out all the AM dashes, that's first and foremost. It takes a lot. Once you train the ai I, I work with here in Georgia in the States and I work with somebody out in California and he's a genius.

He works with Google and Apple and HP and IBM he's really up there. And he developed this one section and it's worked out very well so far. Yeah. Okay. How do you keep follow up personnel? Wait, hold it. Let me backtrack. How do you keep follow up personal when systems funnels and AI are doing part of the work?

Kind of what we just talked about. Yeah. In particular, we use a platform called Relevance Ai for doing, I guess what we u we go and do a heap of pre-research on a person. So what I see with AI is they'll do one, look over someone's LinkedIn and pull out some information and use that to help contextualize or try and personalize some automated responses to them in some businesses.

But a lot of the time that doesn't cut it. If you are trying to, talk to someone about their business. You look back at their LinkedIn that they've never updated and it has one post about when they went to high school, then that's not really gonna cut it. So we developed a platform in this AI tool that goes out and researches you online to find some, a lot of pre-con and find out all different things about you.

Some are relevant, some are not. But then we can take that we use AI and that shaves off about three hours of research time if we're looking into a big pitch. To go find out a heap of different information on the person and the business. From that, we can then go and it's just done the research for us.

So now it's the human follow up aspect that will go in and, write those emails or at least the context for these emails without just taking all the information here and just throwing it in and AI go do the rest. It's more about, okay, AI's gone and done the pre-work. We can now do the messy middle, the hardest part, and then if you need to throw it through AI to clarify it for you or shorten down your sentences.

Sure, but you go do the middle part. 'cause you know what's actually important and not important. I don't believe AI's fully at that stage yet. Especially when you're going for personalized responses. It's very important that you have someone sticking in the middle there. Yeah. Yeah I agree. I the main problem with AI right now is that it's giving you all this feedback, but it took all the emotional values out.

It takes all the emotion out, and when you're reading it, you, that's what you're reading. So I, you have to put a motion back in to it, and they haven't evolved to put that back in automatically. Yeah. So it's just, it is just the combination of things, even with humans these days you still get text messages where people go, oh, it didn't come across the way I intended it to.

Or, with ai, it's coming across even worse than you intended it to, unless you really think about it. That's because people send it and it'll read it before they send. So they, it gets sent and they go, oh, damn, I shouldn't have said that. And they quickly try to, fix it. Yeah. The, not that I would do that or anything, but happens to me all the time.

Okay. What's one small shift professionals can make to turn casual conversations into long-term opportunity? Yeah, so I guess to turn it into a long-term opportunity, it's about, I guess building out your process of how you take a conversation to a next stage. And I believe, unless you really thought through, either your referral opportunities and how you want to nurture a referral from casual conversations, depending on what you're having, the ways you can do that is, if you can give someone free information, as you said before, more having a servant heart with, networking. If you can provide someone additional advice or, any sort of value before even asking to sell anything or, trying to really push anything.

That really establishes that connection, and it takes it to that one step further from that initial conversation to a next stage where you are delivering value, you're justifying yourself. And then if you build out a process of how you follow up on that, from there, you can turn into a long-term business partnership or a long-term sale but not always going for the going to sell straight away off the bat.

As you said earlier. It's never gonna get you anywhere. Sorry guys. Oh, it's it? No it's, I, there's a saying that people love to buy, but they hate to be sold to. Yeah. So if you can try to sell them without selling them so they can buy it, they don't realize they're buying it.

So it's a whole psychological thing that's behind it. But that is so true because if you think about a car dealership. Do you want the, you wanna walk into that dealership where the salesman comes up to you and says, Hey, this is great. Look at this Mustang. Oh, this is great. It's got this and this and this, and oh, let me show you this.

Oh, you have to see this. Don't worry about the price because it's all in involved. Or do you want the guy walking up and say, Hey, how you doing? My name is Josh. I'm right over there in case you need me. It's two separate things. So you're both, they're both. I'm gonna buy. But I hate that guy.

I I hate to be sold, so it, it's a long process, but it works. It does. Okay, so when you think about conversion, what role does trust really play before anyone ever looks at an offer? I think trust is one of the biggest things that differentiates you as a business. There's a lot of competitors in any industry.

If you look at, property development, if you look at, service based businesses, plumbers a lot of them, people looking at you all at the same time and they don't know enough about you to tell the difference from just looking at your website. I've seen some people's websites, like just the way they're laid out, that establishes trust.

There's some beau beautiful websites out there. Like we build one for a company called ever Lab, which is a longevity clinic. They wanted a really beautiful website with animation, different things because they were going for high end CEOs and they needed to look premium. And that's a portion of building trust there to go, wow, if their website looks as good as this, I'm sure their service is as good as this.

And then there's coming to that next stage of looking at, the. Different businesses people have worked with. So even on our website, for example, we mentioned companies we work with like Mrs. Fields. And, business Insider and some really big established businesses across the world to establish that next level of trust to go, wow, this isn't a small business that have, built one website in their lifetime.

It's a highly credible business. And then the next stage is looking at your reviews of what customers are saying about you, and then also talking deeper into your service offering and what they actually provides. I think it's a, it's. You need to provide a lot of that upfront value because no one wants to even go talk to you if they don't trust you to begin with.

And that's why Google my business listings are so big. And people looking at reviews on there is like the first point of call when looking on maps. And if you have a one star review on there, no one's gonna really get to your offer. So it's about establishing that first, then looking at the rest of your business.

A absolutely. Okay, so let's bring this podcast full circle. If someone wants to grow faster without losing their reputation, what principle should guide every connection they make? So I think to grow without losing, your reputation, you need to make sure you scale at a pace that you can keep up with.

And that's where I think systems are very important to help you scale in a repeatable way without losing your mindset. 'cause if you're shifting screens from left to right as you're going through your different leads. That's not a scalable approach. You will burn reputation by not getting back to people fast enough.

You will miss things that you're supposed to deliver. That's why you need a system that can consistently follow up for you or set you tasks automatically, like HubSpot and like many different CRMs. And I think that's the most important process that people need to get in place to scale and not burn themselves.

Absolutely follow up is the key. Follow up I feel is more important than actually meeting the person. It's all in the follow up and it's what makes or breaks. People around here when they, when I go to a networking event and I'm talking to somebody and say, Hey, how you doing? Oh, that's great.

How do you follow up with these people? He goes I'll send him an email tomorrow and the next week I'll just make sure they got it and everything else. And in my mind I'm going, I won. Okay. That's fine. That's great. You don't have a system. I have a. A secret sauce a system that works, that brings your email responses from 2%.

75%, right? Looking for is a response positive or negative, right? I just want them to respond to me, and so the follow up is key. Okay? So that's what real progress sounds like. Growth doesn't come from luck. It comes from clear thinking, better habits, and learning faster than your mistakes. Repeat if today's conversation sparked a new way of looking at your network.

Take one idea and put it into action this week. See what changes. You can Stop hoping for referrals and start creating a path for them. If this episode helped you think bigger and how connections lead to revenue. Share with someone who's building something of their own and don't forget to. To follow networking unleashed, building profitable connections so you never miss a conversation that helps you grow smarter, not harder.

I'm Michael Forman, and remember, your next breakthrough might not come from a new contact, but from using the ones you already have in a better way. Joshua, I want to thank you. If somebody wants your talent, if somebody wants to connect with you, have you coach them, have you do something, have business for them.

Where would they contact you? You can contact me@qagagency.com au. Fill out the inquiry form there and I'll be the first one to be in contact with you right there. Perfect. Perfect. Alright, Josh, again, thank you so much for coming on a podcast. Thank you for having me.

 Well, hold on folks. Don't go anywhere. Let's hear from our sponsors. David Neal, co-founder Revved Up Kids. Revved Up Kids is on a mission to protect children and teens from sexual abuse, exploitation, and trafficking. They provide prevention, training programs for children, teens, and adults. To learn more, go to RevD up kids.org.

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You can contact Henry at 5 6 1- 4 2 7 -4 8 8 8.

  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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