Networking Unleashed: Building Profitable Connections. An Interview with Matt Holman and Michael A Forman

 Welcome to Networking Unleashed, building Profitable Connections, the show where relationships turn into revenue and rooms turn into communities. I'm your host, Michael Forman, and today's episode goes straight to the heart of what's most professionals get wrong about networking. We're talking about connection, real connection, not name tags, not awkward, small talk, not hoping the right person happens to sit next to you.

My guest today is someone who knows how to bring business professionals together on purpose design, networking events that actually work and build in-person communities where relationships don't end when the event does. If you've ever walked into a room full of people and walked out with nothing to show for it, or if you've ever wondered why some events spark opportunity while others fall flat, this conversation is for you.

Get ready to rethink how connections are created, how rooms are designed, and how communities grow. I'd like to welcome to my podcast, Matthew. Matthew. This is such a, an advantage for me because you are, you talk about exactly what I do. I go on stages. I talk about networking. I have a networking group that I meet weekly.

I do everything that, that you're talking about, i'm very interested in what you have to say, so I'd like to welcome Matthew to the podcast. Matt, would you mind just giving us a little background and telling us how you got here today? Absolutely. I think the fun of story is I, my background is in, I've got a.

Bit of tech and digital marketing. I was working at a shipping technology company where I met my now wife. She happened to be the boss's sister, the CEO sister. And in order to preserve my own life and career, I branched and left that company and joined a little startup. So that little event, I started at a subscription software company as the only marketer, and I started a little meetup with some other marketer friends that were also.

Solo marketers at bootstrapped small technology companies, and those two things happen from that one decision and have subsequently grown into two businesses that I run today, which is I do a lot of work with subscription brands, but that small little marketing meetup has grown into a really large community here in Utah.

With monthly meetups, workshops, we do two annual conferences and it's all about putting people in rooms because I've always found, in my experience, I would rather learn from say someone like you, Michael, who's done it before than go watch a YouTube video from somebody that I have no idea what's true or what's not, so that's the whole ethos behind our community is you can get solutions from your peers. How do we get peers in a room so that they start talking? Is really what we do. It's, and that, that's perfect. It really is because I too believe that the one-on-one or the in-person networking is, goes far beyond that of Zoom or any, anything else.

And here's the biggest reason. You can't pick up the vibe of the person. You can't pick up the vibe of the room. You get a feeling of how the room is just by when you walk in and you don't get that through Zoom. Exactly. You're a nice guy. You're a great looking guy, but I don't know what's happening here.

All right. Exactly. So let me jump into the questions number one. Okay. When you're connecting with business professionals, what separates introductions that go nowhere? From ones that turn into real opportunity. I, this is so fascinating because I was actually helping my sister with this because she's in HR and I don't know a lot about hr, but I'm a, a connector.

And so I actually asked her this yesterday. I said. Can you tell me one thing about you that would make you stand out compared to somebody else that does hr and she started listing all the things that she doesn't, she's not necessarily super well trained in, and then landed on the one thing, which is I'm really great at hard conversations and helping people with management and interpersonal office relations.

And so I said, great. I then went into a group chat where I went in with a ton of other business leaders and said, Hey, I have an HR professional who's really great with. And I said, what she told me, and I got a response immediately from a leading HR person here in Utah to say, I'd love to connect with her.

And the reason is it's speci. It's being specific. I think one of the biggest mistakes that people make when they're networking is they think that, Hey, I want to be really general because I don't know what opportunity might come my way. I wanna be really open to opportunity, and I run into this all the time with people that are looking for jobs or looking to hire from somebody.

And the mistake is. That general is easy to forget. It's hard to remember. I meet so many people and in a room full of other people. When you're networking, the only people that are gonna stand out are people that are very specific in sharing what they do and in sharing what they need. And so my suggestion for any networking event is be really specific.

If you're young and you're looking for your first job, then be really specific about the opportunity you want. If you've been 20 years in the business and you've done a million different things. Be specific about the job that you want, because that's gonna make you feel remembered in people's mind. And they're also gonna immediately think of some That's, 'cause that's how we all talk to each other, right?

It's Michael, if I if you're saying, Hey Matt I'm having issues with HR because our current HR person can't deal with hiring and firing and all this stuff we're going through. Okay, boom. I think of the person I know if you say, Hey, I need a benefits person, I'm gonna wonder if I know a benefits person.

So being that specific I think is the biggest difference in, in great networking. I can't agree enough. One thing I've always taught, and when I coach students, when I coach people, when I coach professionals, they always have all these things that they do. And I say, pick a lane. Right something. 'cause when you go out and you do your 32nd speech or whatever the hokey thing that is, right?

But if you do five things, don't come out and say all five things. You have to pick one. Pick one. Expand on it the next week. You can pick a different one and expand on it, but while you're talking, just pick a lane. So that's very good advice. Okay. You've created successful networking events.

What's the biggest reason most events fail? Fail to produce meaningful relationships? Yeah, I'd say that it's twofold. One is like with within individual events you need to really understand like the purpose of why people are coming, I think, right? If we're putting on an event to try to connect, say, legal professionals, that's not specific enough.

Like we were just saying what is the reason why somebody should attend? And if you understand that reason very clearly hey, we're trying to help. Le legal comp or law firms that are looking to expand into new markets, okay? That gives everybody a compelling reason to come. You can create content that matches that need and you can create other ways to facilitate that.

So I, I do believe having a very specific goal for why people should show up. Is an important way to do that. I then think the secondary thing is about consistency. I've seen too many times I've been doing the event, our event business for five, six years now, and there are plenty of times where people don't show up or nowhere near as many people show up as I thought would, and there are times when twice as many people show up.

And so I think the other mistake is not understanding how much consistency. And feedback are important in that it's not just, Hey, we're gonna do a networking event next month, and if it works. If it doesn't, we'll go onto the next thing. It's no, we're gonna plan. Networking events over the next six months, and this is our commitment to doing those things.

This is how we're gonna show up, this is how we're gonna try to get people excited, how we're gonna get people coming back. Because I have found the fun thing about it is if you, if people really enjoyed your event and you can't tell them that you have another one coming, you're missing that excitement.

Like you wanna capture that. So that's the, that, those are the two things is being really specific and building your events around those goals and doing them over and over again and not giving up just because it seems hard. Okay. So now the events that you've produced are they events like businesses have tables or are they just big networking events?

We generally we do a little bit of both. So we'll generally do say like a speaker or a panel around a topic. That's something I really like because people like to come out and learn from somebody they know or have heard of. For example. And it's generally around a topic. So for us in the e-commerce space, there's so many different version.

There's so many different aspects of e-commerce that we can pick a lot of things, but we generally say, try to start with something that appeals to a broader audience. We get a couple speakers, we have a panel, and our whole thing is. Again, our ethos is really about getting into the weeds. I just hate high level surface responses, right?

If you are trying to build an email newsletter for your business, which everybody here in some way, shape or form is probably trying to do. What landing page builder are you using? Are you running ads or not? What offer are you using to get people to opt into your email newsletter, right? I want to get into the weeds and so we make sure that the session content, the panels and our moderator or moderators are going.

Deep because that's what people really want. And then we leave time after for q and a and open networking. So we then facilitate conversations with everybody who's there. We don't necessarily do a ton with trying to make sure everybody in the room goes around. Although we do some things often with trying to get people to to show who they are for other people that want to connect with them.

But that's really what it's all about for us, is we wanna provide some content we give. That's the, a lot of the reason why people show up. But then networking is what everybody talks about. As being. The reason that they love it so much is the people they meet afterwards, the five to 10 people they chatted with after the event, and sometimes that's the speakers, right?

Sometimes I really wanted to connect with so and and they were so helpful. Other times it was like, Hey, somebody, two rows behind me turns out they're in the same position I'm in. I'm in, and we're now sharing notes and we're gonna get coffee next week. That happens all the time with our group.

That's. Excellent. In what? Because I, when I produce an event, I have an event coming up actually in March. People talk about what's happening with other people. Yes, they came to see all the businesses, but they wanna see other people having the same problems Exactly. That they're having and how do they get out of it?

So part of our event, part of our weekly network meetings is that we take the last 20 minutes, we'll take two people and say, okay. What problems are you having? Or who do you want to go and see? Who can't? Who can't you go in and see? Or are you, who are you having a problem going and seeing? And undoubtedly 15 people saying, I have a contact.

Yeah. And let me help you with that. And it goes a long way. But I love, it's so much more natural. It's so much more natural too, where you meet somebody, say that works on retention, but you're an ad buyer. They, the retention person, you become friends, they wanna introduce you to the ad buyer in their company.

Like it's just so much simpler where we just create a space. And I do think that there's a lot of as we've done it longer, we've consistently created spaces where people feel comfortable showing up to learn and connect. And those are the people that keep coming out. So if you're a really strong salesperson and you're viewing it as like potential legion for your service, those people do come, but they go most of the time because it's, you're not getting a ton there.

You'll turn people off. It's a, you show up with your authentic self, you're gonna meet a ton of other people with our authentic selves. Absolutely. And what we do with our networking events is I am heading the whole event, but I say you go in with a servant's heart. You go in looking to give instead of receiving a hundred percent.

When you do that, you take all that pressure off your shoulders and you're just there. You all of a sudden you're have a good time, you're meeting some great people, and you're looking to see how you can help other people. So it's a great combination. It really is. Okay. So which responsibility does the event host carry for the quality of connections that happen in a room?

I'd say a hundred percent. That's what I feel. Anyway. Yeah it's really that's my biggest thing. It's if I'm there in a room when we got 50 people. Everyone that I've met there or that I know there, I am trying to. Connect with somebody else there. And that's me doing the manual work of doing that.

But it's also as I've said, like I, we want people to show up that want to hang out a little while after, or that, that view, that networking connection piece as being really valuable. 'cause that's what we're offering. So it's a huge thing for me. It's what gets me excited. It's what motivate.

Honestly, Michael, it's like what made me feel like this was a special calling for me was not just being a B2B marketer and trying to sell software or something like that. It's Hey, no, actually I can facilitate connections for a lot of people. It makes me feel really good to help people get, like we have people that have.

Bought and sold businesses out of our community that find their next job or that hire people like these are life changing events that are coming out of a simple networking group. And that's really important to me. And I wouldn't do it if it was just a profit motivation or anything other than that too.

Yeah. No, I'm with you a hundred percent. I feel a hundred percent responsible 'cause if they're coming to this meeting, I brought 'em all together. Whether it's five businesses, 15, 25 businesses, I brought them together, so I want them to get the most out of it. So I always feel a hundred percent responsible.

Okay. What small detail often overlooked has the biggest impact on whether people feel comfortable engaging at an event? For me I like love self-deprecating humor and I almost always will open. Yeah. I almost always will open with a joke making fun of some clothing choice or how my wife helped me dress or something like that.

I I really do believe in creating open spaces and I want people to feel like, not to make it political in any way, I just want people, regardless of your race, creed, gender, color, whatever, that you feel welcome and that you feel like it's a safe space. And that's something that it's a little nuanced.

We just try to make sure everybody feels like your voice matters. You can ask questions, you can be involved. And if somebody's like way off the rails, then I talk to them, one-on-one. But that's something that we've gotten a lot of feedback too, is that people feel comfortable, like. Being wrong.

So we've also done some events where I asked the panelists to share like the dumbest, like a finance panel. What's the dumbest blunder you made? What's the silliest thing you did or the thing that you are just, I wish I could go back in time and undo that because that makes the, everyone there feel like.

Yeah, we're all trying to, we're all making mistakes, all trying to figure out. So that's how I've approached it and I feel like that's a really good one. 'cause otherwise, like icebreakers and stuff like that are just a mechanism for trying to enable some of that. You you keep talking about vibe you, it's really hard to set a vibe, but people know when it's off and so you have to look at small ways.

You're positively influencing the vibe in the room. Otherwise people just will be turned off. That's, and that's so true. I didn't mean to turn away, but I wrote down the word blunder. Because in my next networking meeting, that is what I'm gonna break out. Okay? Yeah. I always start the meeting off with a self de deprecating joke or something, or well, whatever.

And it gets everybody a little laugh. Ha. But I'm gonna bring that up in the next time. So I wanna thank you for that. Okay. In your experience. How does the structure of an event shape the behavior and mindset of the attendees? Yeah. No, that's a great one. I'll tell you this, an event structure that we've tried a couple times and has not worked out well is, I keep thinking, I wanna do a real hands-on so let's say you're building a, an email like, Hey, come build your.

The emails you need for your business a welcome flow for new customers. And we want, we wanna lay it, set out tables and people could bring their computers and we're gonna go step by step. We'll have people in the audience to go to person if there's questions and people just don't want to open up their computers and do that.

They want to pay attention and take notes, but they wanna work on it on their own. And so that structure I've struggled to make happen because I'm trying what I think will be helpful. But people aren't wanting to show up in that way. And so for me, I've found that we just structure the content a little bit differently.

So if it's more about do I want somebody to show you their playbook? Hey, here's how we do emails and we're gonna step step by step. And for me, the signal is how many times are people taking their phones out to take pictures of a screen? That's okay I'm, I really wanna look at that later.

Versus say like a panel is more like sharing ideas. Or we'll often do like round tables where we're facilitating like discussions amongst the group. So that type of format does change how people show up and how they engage. Am I taking notes furiously as you're walking through your playbook?

Am I just getting some really great ideas here from the panel or, hey, I can actually ask questions for my specific problems. In this round table format is how we've been figuring things out and are continue and we do those formats at our big conference. I try to do a version of each of those things because it's just a different layer of.

Of information and how people can digest that. 'cause it's really hard to say be at a, on a full day workshop where you're taking notes furiously the entire time. You need to break it up for people. Yeah. My workshops are about three hours, so it's a half day workshop. But that's how I can tell if I'm getting the point across by how many times people take the cameras out and take a picture of my slide.

So I'm a decent judge of that, and when nobody did it, the, my entire workshop, something was wrong. I did I messed up on somewhere some somehow, but I'll go back and I'll check that and I'll change that and correct it. But that's how I can tell, you focus on building communities in person, what changes When people see each other regularly instead of just one-off events, it's relationships and those connections.

You start hearing about, personal things like, I'm having a baby, I'm getting married, I. Moving to this new company. And the fun part about that is that does deepen like the connection, but it also actually just creates more context for, Hey, I'm moving to this new company. Do you know anybody who's doing X, Y, Z?

Because we're hiring for that too, right? It's hey we're starting this new initiative, like I do, you wanna partner on it with us? That kind of thing. That's what I find when more and more people show up. They become resources for each other. Like early on our community I spent a lot of the connection was just me connecting people.

And we have a Slack community with about 1300 people in it. And a lot of early on was me just trying to poke the. Audience to get with some fake questions, to get some people to respond. And now when you're talking about a community, a real community is not based off of Matt's network of relationships.

It's based off of the relationships in the group. And so that doesn't happen without. Seeing people regularly or interacting with them on Slack in addition to seeing them regularly. And so now there are people that are solving each other's problems, and I have no idea that it's happening. There are people that are inviting people to upcoming events, and I have no idea that it's happening.

So that's the beauty that you get when you start. That's why that consistency matters, matters not just for your content, but for the people. I agree. A hundred percent. A hundred percent. What's the difference between a group of attendees and actual, and an actual business community? Yeah, I think it's are people, what are people doing when they're not there?

And that's like similar to what I was just saying, is it I come here to learn and then I go back to my business. I come here to learn. I'm gonna go talk to so and so and so because they can help me in my business too. And that's, I think that, that's that secondary one of feeling like you're connected, that you have friends and allies.

Again our whole biggest thing is like if you've been using a tool or you're struggling with a landing page builder or an email builder. Okay, I can hop onto my Slack group and ask this question and then I get four or five responses and Oh, yeah. I remember Jenny, she actually was on a panel about this two months ago.

I'm gonna, I'm gonna pay attention to this, or somebody else is gonna jump on there and say, if you haven't heard from Jenny before, she's a real pro and she knows what she's talking about. And that's happening all the time because of those connections. Okay. Do you encourage collaboration instead of competition when you bring professionals from similar industries into the same room?

Yeah, it's, that one's a little tricky because sometimes we get, if we have sponsors involved, we have to be a little bit more careful, right? If a, if I have a sponsor on email, I'm not gonna bring in an email expert from a competitor. But other than that. We just push really hard on that collaboration element that if you feel threatened by other people that do what you do, this probably isn't gonna be the best space for you because that's a really bad vibe.

The vibe should be, I do A, B, C, you might do A, B, D, but that's okay. We have some overlap and we have different opinions. The audience, because from my perspective, the audience actually needs. Different and sometimes conflicting opinions, because if they hear the same thing and they hear the same thing online and the same thing when they're hitting chat GPT, they're really not learning and they're not being pushed to try to test that as a hypothesis for their own business.

Because as we all know, there's no real universal rules that work for everybody in every place and every time. And so competitive views are important, and we often will try to balance that with say a panel of three people might be, a person who's say I'll use hr, say an HR representative from a company, an HR representative from a company, but then they have an HR consultant.

And so that way we can get different perspectives. Hey, in our company of this size, these are our pain points and what we're doing well, our company's a little bit of a different size and we're using a different software and we have some of these other concerns. And then the third person's yeah, I've seen those two things and 50 other things.

And here's a lot of things to keep in mind. And those different perspectives are, I think what's most valuable when you have a room full of 50 people and you're not exactly not everybody's has the same problems that need to be solved. Companies vary in size, obviously, and you use different size.

I'm just using your HR thing, but you can't compare a company that has 50 employees to one that has 15 employees to the one that just has a mom and pop, so different needs for different people. And they, different people, they, they promote exactly what they're after. Which is, oh, I just like companies that are 50 people and above.

I only like people, I only like companies from 20 to 50 employees. I only, and they have their differences. So you get a completely different perspective on the same issue. But from different companies, so yes. Okay. So what habits should attendees adopt after an event to turn good conversation into lasting relationships?

I think it comes back to this specific thing. I always it's not just how you show up when you're being like, I'm specifically this is what I'm, how I'm showing with this event. But also specific asks. I think for the hard part is when you meet somebody new, they're doing cool stuff.

You think maybe you could be friends or that you should collaborate on something. Can you think of a specific next step? Hey. I'd love to pick your brain on this one area of your business. Can we get coffee sometime or do a Zoom call or something like that. I think that's really important, is just being really specific in how you show up, but also what you ask of other people.

And then, yeah, I think it is just like looking for I always like asking other people too what other events are you going to what other things like this are going on? Because there might be stuff that you know, that maybe I didn't know about so that I could show up to that too.

And that's another touch point. Yeah, my, my biggest thing with when I go on stages or I do a workshop or even coaching, I always tell them that the follow up is so much more important than even meeting the person. Your follow up is just so important. And it's not only that you follow up, but how you follow up when you follow up.

What do you say when you follow up? All of this is so very important. Whether you're going to turn the other person off or to say, Hey, that's a great idea. Let's grab a cup of coffee. There's so much involved with that. It really is. Okay let's bring this full circle. If someone wanted to build a strong, trusted business community from scratch, what's the first decision that they must get?

You gotta understand the need. It's really easy to see a community or, people look at my business and they go, oh wow, if I could get. 50 of my customers in a room every month voluntarily. That would be amazing. It would be amazing. That's not how the world works. So understanding a real need.

And so for us, like I've said, that need is around people really wanting insightful. Information on what they could do inside their business and also the power of community. So you need to be thinking really clearly about what problem you're solving and also think through all the other ways that people are answering that problem.

I think the hard part is like entrepreneurs and business owners, is that we think that what we're coming up with is unique. When the reality is, 55,000, 5 million people are already thinking of that same problem and have different opinions on it. So you come up with that idea and then test it.

It should be like any other business idea or any kind of experiment. You have a hypothesis, hey, we think that, we're struggling to get operations people, like people that do sourcing and fulfillment. They're typically not big networkers like marketers or networkers usually in our experience.

We're trying to get, create more opportunities for those operators to come out because we think that they would actually appreciate. Connecting with their peers. There's just not really a format for them to do that. I might be totally wrong in the next couple of months and we'll pivot into something else for that part of our group, but that's how you gotta evaluate the pain point and think if your solution will actually answer that.

And then it, again, it comes to everything else I've already said about, you have a goal now for the event. You need to make sure that you're managing everything related to the event so that goal can be achieved. It's great. Valuable information. You, this is such golden information I can't begin to tell you, and I'm saying that from somebody who knows.

Okay. So obviously you just know what you're talking about. If somebody. Wants to contact you about an event or they live in Utah, or whatever the case may be, what's the best way that they can get a hold of you? Yeah, you can find me on LinkedIn, Matthew Holman on LinkedIn, or come check out our website c catalyst.co if you want to.

Come to an event in the future. We're open willing. When you were asking that competition question earlier, I was smiling, thinking like there are other communities and events and conferences that have come and gone in Utah and we love working and collaborating with anybody because our whole mission is just to connect and empower people.

So we don't view anybody as a competitor in that space. So that's great. This is the difference between attending events and belonging to something bigger. Real networking isn't accidental. It's designed. It's guided, and when it's done it creates a momentum that carries long after the room emptied.

If today's conversation made you rethink how you show up at events, who you connect with, or how you would build relationships over time, take one action this week. Reach out. Follow up. Be intentional. Share this episode with someone who hosts events, builds communities, or wants stronger business relationships.

Make sure you subscribe to Networking Unleashed. Building profitable connections so you don't miss conversations that help you connect smarter and grow stronger. And if you're ready to build relationships that actually move your business forward, visit michaelaforman.com to learn how I work with professionals, teams, and organizations.

So until next time, show up with purpose, connect with intention, and build communities. That last. Matt, I want to thank you again for coming on the podcast. You are a great guest. Thanks. You're a great host.

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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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