Networking Unleashed: Building Profitable Connections. An Interview with Matthew Fornaro and Michael A Forman
- mforman521
- Mar 30
- 21 min read
Welcome to Networking Unleashed, building Profitable Connections, the show where smart conversations protect your business and help it grow. I'm your host, Michael Foreman, and today we're tackling a sign of networking. Most people ignore until it costs them. We all love making we're all talking about connections, collaborations, and opportunities.
But what happens after the handshake? What's real, what's risky, and what actually needs to be in place when relationships start turning into revenue? My guest today lives at the crossroads of law. Business and ai. He helps entrepreneurs, startups, and growing companies build relationships the right way without stepping into legal landmines or misusing powerful tools like ai.
If you're building partnerships. Using AI in your business or networking your way into your next opportunity. This episode will help you connect smarter, move faster, and protect what you're building. I'd like to welcome to the podcast Matthew. Matthew. I really am excited for this podcast 'cause I'm very interested in what you have to say.
Would you mind introducing yourself and how you got here today? Sure. Thank you for having me, Michael. My name's Matthew Firo. I'm a business law attorney. I'm in Coral Springs, Florida. I've been an attorney for 23 years. My practice focuses on helping small businesses, entrepreneurs, and startups with their various legal issues, whether it's litigation or transaction.
I got into this space by starting out when I was practicing law. I started out working for a boutique firm and then 2:00 AM law 200 law firms, and I focused on predominantly commercial litigation working for big companies. Banks and insurance companies. And then about 11 years ago, I had the opportunity to work for an even bigger law firm or, pivot and do something else.
So I went through a lot of thought and internal soul searching. Spoke to my wife, spoke to my family. And I decided that I wanted to go out and start my own law firm, and then I figured out in what my mantra or my focus would be helping. Small businesses that I felt were underserved by bigger law firms and underserved by local law firms here out in the suburbs and non, metro areas.
So that's how I decided to focus on helping small businesses, entrepreneurs and startups. And that's what I've been doing for the last 11 years. And that's what I am here today for. It sounds great. It sounds, it, the typical attorney I worked for an attorney for about four or five years.
I was a director of sales and marketing and brought them from a single single shop to four states. That's why I've seen the growth, but I also saw how the small businesses. The attorneys really didn't react to or really didn't want to go behind because I don't know if there was enough money or whatever the case may be, but they just were left out in the loop.
So I'm very interested to, to have you on and see what you're all about from a legal standpoint. What are the most common mistakes entrepreneurs make when forming partnerships or collaborations through networking? Sure. The common mistakes, a pretty common mistake. The entrepreneurs or the business people, the founders, whatever you wanna call 'em are always very eager to get into business and want to start their business.
And. Do a good job in everything. So they overstep and step past some very basic steps. To just get into business and start doing business. So what they miss out on is they don't do a written business plan before they even start their business, which is a necessity. And the written business plan tells you all about what your business is gonna be, what kind of structure it's gonna be, who, what, when, where, why, how about your business, how you're gonna spend money, make money, hire people, fire people, bring on people.
Get rid of people, lease property, have it, website, all that stuff is in your business plan. A lot of people just skip over that step. Then the next step they skip over is the next set of documents and papers that you need are your governing documents for your business organization. And this will also get into step three of what a lot of people miss out on, is that people are so excited.
To get into business and start up that they just go, for instance, I'm here in Florida. You can go online to our Secretary of State website and just kinda mess around and register your business like within five minutes. And then it gets approved like, a couple business days later and it's official.
And they think that's all that's required. So they don't really. Draft or have the operating agreement, if it's an LLC, the partnership agreement. If it's a partnership, the articles of incorporation or the bylaws, if it's a corporation, they just go online. They're like, Hey, the state took it.
I'm in business. And so that's the second thing they miss is all those governing documents. And the third thing they miss that kind of ties back into the first two is that. They miss collaborating with professionals who are there to help their business from before the start of the business through the life of their business.
And that includes people like myself as a business law attorney, an accountant, a commercial banker. Depending on what your business is like a, a commercial real estate agent or someone who's into SEO or internet stuff or technology stuff. So they try to take on the entrepreneur, the founder, whatever, tries to take on too much responsibility themselves and don't understand that it's a necessity, not a luxury to have your group of professionals who you call upon for their advice and their counsel to help you out.
They just try to do everything themselves and they do everything with whoever they're in business with and they try to do their best, but sometimes they make mistakes and it starts even before they start up. They pick the wrong business organization and they pick the wrong the wrong contract center into, or whatever, the wrong lease to enter into the wrong, services agree to enter into and.
Then, they have all the best intentions and everything, but they're on the road to things not turning out well because they took a few missteps at the beginning. And that's probably the three biggest areas and common, or the three most common areas of mistakes that businesses make in their startup cycle.
It sounds if you follow what you just said, and you don't be pennywise dollar foolish. You should really just I've been in multiple businesses. I've had brick and mortar businesses, I've had virtual businesses. I've been the employee while I've had businesses, and I learned early on, get yourself a good attorney.
Get yourself a good accountant, get a business plan in place, and then start your business. So you have to get all those, so you have to pay a little bit to get in the right sphere, but you'll be thankful for it every year afterwards. Correct, and it's not just preventative maintenance.
It's necessary because little things that you can do at the inception are very preventative and proactive that prevent catastrophic, huge issues from happening later on in your business. Whether your business is successful or it's unsuccessful. You need all those steps and you need to interact with those professionals and stuff to avoid future issues, whether you're successful or not, 'cause issues are gonna arise.
So as I have found out multiple times, so I understand that completely. When business relationships move fast, where do you see handshake agreements quietly turning into legal problems later on? The issue is that any handshake agreement can turn into a legal problem, not just fast, slow medium.
It just happens over time. So everyone who goes into business obviously has the best intentions and wants to succeed. Everyone who goes into business with someone or something else obviously wants the best and wants to succeed. But sometimes things happen, whether it's good things or bad things, adversity hits your business and your handshake isn't gonna cut it.
When you're faced with a lawsuit, when you're faced with, like an IRS investigation issue, whether you're faced with some kind of EEOC employment claim or something like that, all of a sudden, person who you are buddy with or whatever in your business, all of a sudden. There's cracks in the relationship.
There's issues that can happen. So you always want to reduce your relationship with anyone or anything in business, into writing in the form of a contract. No matter how in substantial you think it is, it has to be in writing because if it's not in writing, it doesn't exist. And it's, he said, she said at that point.
And your memory and their memory are gonna be different, particularly when there's liability involved or when you're apportioning fault. So that's why you know, even though you start out with the best of intentions, you don't want to have adversity, you don't wanna fail. You don't want things for everyone's protection, for your protection, for the other person's protection, and then most only for the business's protection, you want to have a contract that's in writing that's clear, that says what the relationships between the parties are.
How everything happens and if there's a dispute, what happens? Yeah, I usually, when I was, went into a contract with a friend of mine, we wrote the contract out, we put it in the safe, and we left it there until there's a problem, then we can always refer it back to it. But I always felt that I, the best thing was to put everything on paper.
And we can put it away, put it in a safe, we don't have to look at it again, but put it all on paper in case anything should happen. So that's the way that I always thought about it. How should entrepreneurs think differently about trust in networking while protecting themselves legally?
It goes back to a little bit of what I just said. You wanna make sure everything's in writing. So when you're networking with people and you wanna either build business relationships with them or referral relationships or whatever, you wanna make sure that if it's a official legal relationship, you have it in writing.
So if you're networking with someone and you want to use them as a vendor, or you want them to use your services or your products, if it's. In official relationships, you wanna make sure you have a contract. If it's just a networking kind of relationship or referral relationship, you're fine just doing course of business.
But make sure that if you're, doing something where it's like you get a referral fee or you're, you get co fees as like a co party or whatever that needs to be in writing because. Again, if it's not in writing, it doesn't exist. So it's, he said, she said. So you just wanna make sure when you're networking or you're developing your business, that it goes back.
If you're in a business relationship, you wanna make sure it's in writing so that there's no discrepancies and there's no dispute as to what people are supposed to do, or, what businesses are supposed to do, not do. And then how things are resolved if there is an issue. Yeah, absolutely.
Absolutely. What legal conversations should happen early in a relationship, even when everyone feels aligned and optimistic. Sure, you gotta talk about what you know. You gotta talk about the foundation of your business, the direction of your business, how it's gonna run. It's all the things that go, that start out in your written business plan.
You need to have discussions about everything that's in there so that you have a cohesive written business plan. And then when you go to the next step, make sure that you have a cohesive set of governing documents for your business once it started. And then make sure when you go to the next step, you have your, open and very transparent and honest conversations with your professionals who help you to figure out what the best legal structure is, what contracts you need, what agreements you need, and then on the tax side, what business organization you should be from a tax perspective.
Because if you're one kind of organization, you should have been another, you're gonna get killed on your taxes. And then from a banking perspective, what kind are, do you need to borrow money? Do you have money? Who's contributing money? How are they gonna contribute money? Are you gonna have a checking account?
Are you gonna have a merchant services account? What are you gonna do with it? So those are all, conversations that need to take place even before the foundation of your business, but especially during the foundation of your business, because it's gonna dictate how things turn out afterwards.
Absolutely. Absolutely. And as you're speaking, I'm just thinking back of all the businesses and the partners and the, all the documents that my, I had I was safe filled with documents and each one was from a different business from a different year, I understand everything that you're saying.
AI is changing how professionals connect. What new legal risks are emerging or emerging from AI driven outreach contacts and commu contracts and communication? Sure. So you know, one of the things with AI is I'm very into ai, both in the practice of law, in the actual running and development of my business.
But the first thing I always say. Is that I am in charge. The buck stops with me. I am at the top of the pyramid. Whatever metaphor you want to use, I make sure that I review that and approve every single AI created thing that is attributed to my business. And that's what the main issue is with AI, is that people just take it for face value.
And put it out there without properly vetting it or properly researching it or properly making sure that it's correct because they just think the AI is probably correct. And then that's where people in businesses getting too huge issues. And I can tell you from a legal standpoint, from an attorney standpoint.
There's a lot of attorneys who just go with the flow and, use AI for like legal research or legal drafting. They don't do it responsibly. They don't review the work product. They don't confirm, case in a rule of citations and law citations. They just take it and throw it out there and they get in major trouble in litigation.
They get in trouble with courts, with, bar associations and things like that. And then with other parties or other their clients or whatever, the work products, if it's like from a transactional standpoint, may not be correct. And they're gonna get major issues from that point for, lay people.
Let's say, just the average business person or whatever, it's just like the same issues when you. For the last 25, 26 now plus years of just using Google, doing a Google search, looking for a document, you're gonna find a document, but you don't know if it's right or wrong, or if it's correct or incorrect, or if it applies or not, because you're not the subject matter expert.
You're just the lay person who's taking what you found on the internet and alls AI does is takes that to another level and another crescendo of. A much more refined, cohesive product that you pull off of the internet that you don't know if it's right or wrong, or if it applies or not, or what the consequences are.
And business people just throw around contracts that they get off ai, business people throw around research that they get off of AI because I guess, they're trying to do it yourself and save money or save time. And the issue is, it's just like with everything else, you get what you pay for.
And you're putting out material that could be right or could be wrong. And if it's right, great, you dodged a bullet. But if it's wrong, it's gonna be catastrophic because there's major consequences if you're putting out a contract there that you know doesn't have what it needs in it, or actually has the wrong stuff in it.
Or, material like soliciting material, whatever. Just, you don't know what's right or wrong because you don't know what you don't know. So obviously AI is probably the most significant technological change to come along, maybe ever. Who knows at this point, because it's limitless potential, limitless, productivity, limitless, time saving, limitless force multiplier.
But. With anything, you have to take responsibility and ownership of it. And a lot of entrepreneurs, a lot of business owners or whatever, like I said, are just throwing stuff out there that they get from various AI platforms, not just general platforms like, chat GBT, or something like that.
But specialized platforms too that, they don't know what they're putting out there. So obviously. I encourage people to use ai. It's a godsend as far as running your business and doing things. It can do things that are just revolutionary, that are time saving, that are, resource optimizing and force multiplying, and all those cliches or metaphors you want to use.
But you have to make sure that you take responsibility and ownership over it because you're responsible for what you're putting out there, whether the AI made it or not. It's your name on it and it's your thing. And it applies to all industries. I encourage people to use ai. I just encourage people to use it responsibly, which is what the issue is that people aren't using it responsibly.
They just take it for face value and put it out there. They, they always said that, everything that's online, they always, if it's online, it must be true. Because everything online is factual. It's a hundred percent correct. Now, you and I both know that's not true and that you really have to be careful what you read online.
But chat GPT takes all of its information from online, so it brings all this information together for you, but it may be putting together something that is erroneous. So it may save you time in collecting all this information, but you have to do your due diligence and you have to trust it. But verify everything that's in there so you're not back to square one because you got all the information, but you have to verify everything that you get.
Correct. And then also another thing with the AI is that it's biased because it wants to get you the right answer. It wants to get you what you're looking for. So it's gonna try to engineer the data and the information it gets to make it appear like it's what you want. And there's a big, not just misinformation issue, but there's a big bias issue because if you.
Frame your prompts in a certain way. You can essentially get whatever answer you're looking for. 'cause it'll find exceptions or it'll find whatever, and then it'll frame it as something that stands for something that's not the actual proposition. So another big thing about AI that I should have mentioned is that the prompts that you generate are probably the most important thing that you can do because it establishes your guardrails and establishes what goes on with the ai.
Absolutely. And I was going to bring it up 'cause but you didn't bring it up until the very end. And I was gonna say, garbage in is garbage out. So you have to really put your prompts together properly and what it takes to put the prompts together. You may ask a question depending on the answer.
You'll have to revise that prompt like 2, 3, 4 times until you get. To the, what you're actually after. So you have to really have to drill down and figure out, you can't just, talk about emails. You gotta say, make my email better. That's everything, you have to really, when you're trying to create a slide, you have to tell him, act as a, a.
Whatever an event planner or a design manager for 15 years and that you want to create a slide for X, you have to really get down into it. I've done a lot with ai, if you can tell. But I I trust, but I verify. No, I do too. Yeah. And so should everyone. Every, everybody should.
That's, first and foremost how can business owners use AI to strengthen relationships and operations without crossing ethical or legal lines? Sure. You can be much more productive and proactive doing things with ai, and it becomes easier every day because there's more and more.
Specific AI tools out there to help you strengthen your business relationships and, things like that. And you just pointed out there's so many AI programs, apps, bots, whatever you wanna call them. Websites that help you do things like, help your social media, help your internet marketing, help your email campaigns, help your, just your visibility help you, do business planning and execution. So those are all out there to help you. And it's the same adage, you can use them. I use some of them, like I said, on the business side of my business. But like I said, the buck stops with me and I need to take ultimate responsibility for that stuff.
And it's a very. Time saving. It's very resource rich and it helps a lot of things, but you gotta make sure that you're in charge of it. And don't be afraid to use it, but don't, cavalier use it and just, I'll just see what happens. Or you gotta make sure you're in charge of it, but it can totally revolutionize your interactivity with other people in other businesses.
'cause you can just. Put in, your whatever, your thoughts or whatever, and then it'll send out social media, it'll send out email contacts, it'll send out, virtually anything you need to maintain business relationships and further develop things. Correct. Very good. Should entrepreneurs know about ownership data and confide confidentiality when AI tools are involved in collaborations?
Sure. And the easiest thing to remember is that anything, unless it's unequivocally specified in your particular AI program, and it will be the first thing that it tells you about itself, you, that you data is secure, which is very few AI platforms and very few AI apps, and very few AI bots. Most of it's unsecured, so you need to act as if.
You're handing your confidential data and your personal information or whatever, you're handing it to a third party, and it's just as if you were to hand it to someone off the street and ask them to, put it together and hand it back to you. You've lost confidentiality. You've lost exclusivity, you've lost everything.
So the rule of thumb is don't put that into the ai. Keep, confidential information people's. Personal contact information or, sales figures or, information that you want to keep secret that you don't want out there. It's not necessarily gonna get leaked if you put it in ai, but legally speaking, you've given it to a non-confidential third party.
So now it's out there. So don't put it out there. Don't use the AI to do things with confidential information. Use it for non-confidential information and then take it, and then if you want, put the confidential information in it yourself. If you need to have that in there. It's not just don't do it. And that's probably the easiest way to avoid, dealing with confidential information issues or confidential data or business processes or trade secrets or whatever it is you want to, characterize it as.
Absolutely. Absolutely. You've seen both startups and established businesses grow through networks. What legal foundation must be in place before growth accelerates? It goes back to the first thing we're talking about, making sure you have all your documents in place and your governing documents and your business processes and everything.
But you wanna also make sure that you have. A culture to your business or a mantra to your business that you uniformly and objectively conduct your business in a, straightforward and transparent manner. That you follow all the laws and rules and that you uniformly do that, because if you don't do that, you're gonna maybe run into issues later on down the road.
Because if you don't, always comply with business formalities, then you're gonna run into a problem when you know you didn't do your annual report or you didn't have. An annual corporate meeting or, you didn't do something with your taxes or whatever. So you always wanna make sure that in addition to all your basic documents and everything that you're comporting yourself in a, in compliance with rules and laws and just, norms regarding business and don't, vary or don't swerve off of that, that platform because if you do, you're gonna run into problems. 'cause if you don't uniformly do things, you don't objectively do things, then you know the time that you didn't do it or whatever is gonna become an issue. 'cause it could be a major hurdle down the road or it could, explode into a very bad situation.
Okay, so how can professionals spot red flags during networking conversations that signal future legal or financial trouble? Sure. So when you're networking with someone or a business organization or whatever, obviously if they make specific outcome guarantees or promise things or whatever, it needs to be in writing and it needs to be substantiated.
And not only does it need to be in writing substantiated, but you need to independently verify that it's actually feasible and not just take their word for it. So you need to do your own due diligence. That's always a red flag when you're networking is if someone's legit and you know they're promising you a lot of stuff, that they can substantiate it and show you, in an objective format.
They can show you the data or the metrics that support what it is they're referencing to you, and that they're not afraid to have it committed to writing in the form of a contract. If they're promising you something that they're gonna deliver, and if they don't promise you, then there's consequences. So if someone wants, is networking with you and promises you a lot of stuff, that's great.
Can they substantiate what they're promising and are they willing to reduce it to writing? And, stand by. And if the answer's no, then that's a red flag. Usually with, when it comes down to networking with any industry, that's really not the place for those exact numbers, those guarantees.
And if you're networking with somebody and they're guaranteeing a certain number, you don't have the time to, challenge that I just, as a rule, I dismiss that person because during a networking event for him to come out and say, oh, I can guarantee you X amount. I don't put a lot of credence behind what he's saying.
I think he's full of castor oil if would think that, so that's what I try to do. Okay. Let's bring this podcast full circle. If you could give one rule for building profitable relationships that stay clean, compliant, and drama free, what would it be?
Sure. Just going back to what I've been talking about, reduce it to writing and make sure that the relationship is clearly expressed in objective terms. Everyone understands what is supposed to be done, how it's supposed to be done, and if it's not done, what the consequences or remedies are for, and make sure that you apply that to every opportunity or business relationship that you have.
And then in doing that, make sure that you do it in a cohesive, objective fashion every time. And you're gonna avoid a lot of problems that you could have had if you do things that way. Absolutely. That's a, that's great. Great advice. Matthew I'm so glad you came on my podcast. You gave me a lot to think about, but I hope all of my listeners has something to think about.
But if they want to contact you, even just to speak with you, get advice, or to hire you, what's the best way to get hold of you? Sure Michael. The best way to get ahold of me is just go to my website, which is for narrow legal.com, just my last name, legal.com, and it has all my contact information. It has all my social media, it has all my blogs, it has all my white papers, it has all my podcasts, it has all my videos, it has all my free guides.
So it's a really good resource for people with questions because a lot of the answers are right there. And then if not. Feel free to email me or call me. That's great. This conversation is a reminder that great networking isn't just about who you meet. It's about how you protect relationships that matter.
The strongest connections are built on clarity, smart conversations, and knowing when to move fast and when to slow down and AI into the mix. The stakes get even higher if today's episode changed. How you think about partnerships, agreements, or AI in your business, share with somebody who's building something real right now.
Make sure you're subscribed to Networking Unleashed, building Profitable Connections so you don't miss conversations that help you build opportunity without unnecessary risk. And if you want to sharpen your communication, strengthen your relationships or business connections that actually pay off. Head to michaelaforman.com to learn how I work with professionals.
Teams and organizations. So until next time, connect with intention. Protect what you build and keep your relations profitable. Matthew, thank you again for coming on the podcast. I hope to talk to you soon. Thank you, Michael. Thank you 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.
Matthew Fornaro
Please share a brief Bio.
Matthew Fornaro has been a business law attorney serving South Florida, including Coral Springs and Parkland, since 2003. Before starting his law firm, he was an attorney at two prestigious AmLaw 200 law firms focusing on civil litigation. Matthew practices complex commercial litigation, including contract disputes. Matthew, a member of the Florida Bar and District of Columbia Bar, also practices construction law, intellectual property law, homeowner and condominium association representation, and drafts and revises of business documents, including the formation of business organizations. Matthew assists new business owners in choosing and drafting all legally required documents. Matthew is involved in mentoring new attorneys, as both a graduate and instructor of the Kaufman Foundation’s FastTrac NewVenture Program, presented by the Broward County Office of Economic and Small Business Development and the City of Hollywood, as well as a graduate and instructor for the Florida State University College of Business Jim Moran Institute for Global Entrepreneurship Small Business Executive Program. As a small business owner himself, Matthew is proud of his representation of businesses in our community and is also available to assist in all transactional and litigation needs.
What are 2-3 things you would love to talk about?
Legal issues that affect businesses, entrepreneurs and startups, Use of AI in law and business
What are 2-3 things you would like to gain as a result of being on this podcast?
Knowledge imparted to audience, increased exposure
Any website you wish to share with the audience?
Any social media links you wish to share with the audience?
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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