Networking Unleashed: Building Profitable Connections. An Interview with Nina Cleere and Michael A Forman

Welcome to Networking Unleashed. Building Profitable Connections to show where conversations create opportunity and relationships grow business. I'm your host, Michael Foreman. Here's a question, what if people are forming an opinion about you before you ever meet them today? Networking isn't always, doesn't always begin with a handshake.

It often begins with a search. Someone hears your name, types it into a browser or an AI tool, and within seconds they decide whether or not you're credible, memorable, or forgettable. My guest today helps businesses understand how to appear when people, and now ai. Look for answers. We're talking about how your online presence supports real relationships, the marketing mistakes that quietly we can trust, and how positioning makes you easier to find and easier to refer.

If you want to, if you want introductions happening before you walk into the room, this episode just might very well be for you. I would love to welcome today to the podcast, Nina. I am happy you're here. And I understand you're a little bit under the weather, but That's all right. The information you have for us is very important.

So welcome to the podcast and why don't you give us a little bit of how you got here. Sure. Thanks for having me, Michael. I appreciate it. And I apologize for my voice. I do have a, I'm overcoming some illness, but and I have a cat I might be like throwing in a second 'cause she's trying to get in the screen.

Apparently I am in Georgia, but I grew up in Philadelphia and as an adult I lived all over the United States. I for a long time lived in Utah. I went to law school there, and when I was in law school, I discovered digital marketing. So a lot of people it was when we still had computer labs, and so you would go and you would study for hours and then you needed like a brain break, and I found beauty boards and I helped to grow one to a hundred thousand unique viewers a month.

Which this was way back in the late nineties when we didn't. That was huge. We had a huge audience. We created different meetups around the country. We worked with big beauty brands and things like that and that kind of. Lit the fire in me that, hey, this is fun and interesting. And I've worked as corporate counsel and vice president of a company that I helped double in size and revenue.

And when you work for entrepreneurs, if you're an entrepreneur, you yourself, there's not one role that you do. We need it done. So we do it. So things would happen oh, there's this. People are building these things called websites. And I'm like, I can do that. And and then my boss was like, there's this thing called Google and you run ads.

And I was like, oh, I can do that. And lost a lot of money on that. And then I just kept doing it and I started to study the greats. I really enjoy, like Jay Abraham and Dan Kennedy and Zig Ziglar, and people that. Achieved a lot in a different era, but. Even though technology changes, people remain the same.

And I love the psychology behind marketing and sales and how to get people to know and trust you. And so I really enjoy the problem solving of marketing. And then a few years ago I had family in different locations that needed me for different things. And I thought it's harder to move with your law license.

Than it is to do marketing. So I decided to go full-time into marketing and I've worked for myself and also as a marketing director for three law firms, and I've helped many different small to medium businesses grow their business by figuring out, refining what makes them the most money with the least time and effort.

And then we focus their marketing there.

Outstanding. If you don't mind me asking, what part of Georgia are you in? I am north of Atlanta, up by Lake Lanier. Oh, okay. That's very close to me. As a matter of fact, I live in Cumming. Yeah. So we're practically neighbors. Oh yeah. We're we. I just wanted to know 'cause I actually worked as a a as a sales and marketing director of a law firm in Alpharetta.

Oh, okay. And how was that? I was there for about four years, four or five years, and it was good. It was good until he made a few erroneous decisions and I had to leave. Oh, I'm sorry. One of those things. That's it. That's what prompted me to begin my journey here. Okay, so here I have some questions for you.

People think networking happens face-to-face, but now introductions often start in search. How has AI changed the way first impressions are formed?

That's a really good question. I think it goes back even before ai, that as people got more comfortable with the internet, they look online. Before they meet you right now, AI is giving a synopsis. So if you have enough trust signals, which is what AI calls it out there, you'll besides, besides just a whole list of things that people have to go through to get to know you, there will actually be a little bit a synopsis at the top of Google saying.

This person is, this, does this, and is known for this and has done this. And that really helps to build your reputation. And frankly, most people are a little lazy. So if they can get that, instead of searching everywhere, they're gonna, obviously reviews are still important. People are gonna look at those.

But interestingly, people usually ignore the five star and the one star, and they look at everything in the middle of those, right? We're all a little bit skeptical of the five star, like who is that? Give you that. But having reviews is another trust signal to AI that you're a person they should refer.

And you also have to be careful of those reviews to make sure they're real reviews and not bot reviews. That, that paragraph on top of Google, that's a, a very fine situation because Google first has to trust you and trust your site. Before that they will. Put you up on, on that upper paragraph.

I, I know because I've been put up on that paragraph beforehand, as a networking strategist. As networking expert. So I, and it took a long time to get there, but once I got there, I had to keep it. Yeah and one thing that's really important that people don't grasp is that if AI can't find information about you, it will make it up.

Yeah. Yeah. Like we've all used AI and we're like, that's a lie. It makes things up all the time. It's called it hallucinates, right? Yeah. And we sure don't wanna know hallucinating about us. No. And putting that information out there. So you almost have to be proactive in getting your information out there in the way that you want it to be out there.

If you don't mind, I'll share a really brief example. Sure, but I was a child welfare attorney, so I represented abused and neglected children in court and that made people unhappy sometimes. They lost their custody and things, different things. And so there was a lot, not a lot, but there was different people who had put things online about me complaining in my role as a child welfare attorney and.

For a long time, if you Googled my name, those are the things that would come up first, right? And one of my mentors, bond Halbert, his dad was Gary. He says that you should monthly run a Google sniff test on yourself. So you go in and you look what is Google showing people about me? And now when I do that, I, you can't even find those.

Blog posts and articles and things. It comes up that I'm a business strategist, that I help people with marketing and it's pages and pages of it. It's not a one-off and then they find all the bad stuff. So it's also reputation management for companies that. Because the bad stuff does come up, and unfortunately as humans, that's what stands out in our minds, right?

So you need to look at what's out there about you, and if what's, if it's not positive work to get positive out there. Absolutely, and you should really do that probably more than once a month because everything with AI is happening every day or several times a day. So it should be more like once a week or once every other week just to make sure that your information gets out there.

But also if you put on other reviews or other information that's positive, that will bury. The information that's negative, right? So the more you top load it, so that's very good. Before someone ever meets you, they may already know you from online results. What signals make AI and people trust a professional?

So there's probably about 25, but let me tell you the top ones that. Are almost so common sense that people don't grasp them. This is the number one that I tell people, check this because it's not always, they don't have it. It's a security certificate. It's called an SSL. It's literally 10 bucks. When you go to a website and it says H-T-T-P-S.

That means that they have that. If you've ever gone to a website and your internet or your, virus Protector says, are you sure you wanna go forward? This site doesn't seem secure. They probably don't have one, and that if you don't have that. Tells AI that you may not be trustworthy. So if you're gonna, if they're gonna refer somebody to someone in your field and you don't have that and somebody else does, they're gonna send them to them.

There's another thing called NAP n ap, which is your name, address, phone number, and you probably know this, Michael, having worked with law firms. But if you don't have a consistent. Name, address, and phone number everywhere. You seem less trustworthy and a lot of law firms get a lot of phone numbers, right?

Because and a lot of businesses do this, sometimes they wanna track their different marketing. And so they use a different phone number for every campaign, but that comes across as untrustworthy. So what you wanna try to do is go to all your socials, go to your website, make sure that your NAP and ap, your name, address, and phone number are consistent across the board.

And just. As an added bonus, these things not only help you with GEO, which is generative engine optimization, right? That's AI finding you, but it helps with your SEO too. So I don't want people to think, oh, ignore SEO now, because that's not the case at all. But a lot of the things that you'll do for one, will benefit you for the other.

Okay. Obviously reviews are going to having good reviews are gonna help you. And then having information on your site in a way that is readable by the internet. So what I mean by that is don't have a firewall that somebody has to pay for to get to your website, right? And then write things in a way that people are asking questions.

People ask questions differently with AI than they do when they go to Google. So Google, they used to go and they're like, I was, yesterday, I was looking for orange juice at Walmart, and I'm like, orange juice, Walmart. But if I went to AI, I might be like, if the Walmart, orange juice better than this kind.

And if you write your content in that way. AI is gonna pull up the one that's easiest to read, to answer the questions. I would focus on working with AI to come up with content that answers the questions people are asking in your field, right? You have to be more specific when it comes to AI and you don't, and when you write your.

Prompts into ai. You don't just take the first answer. You take what you want and say oh no I meant this. And you want to use your orange juice suggestion. You can say I want the orange juice. That's no pulp. That comes from Florida. That's in a box. That's it. And really.

Nailed down exactly what you want and AI will give you a better answer than before. And I have the term and I've used it for years. Garbage in, garbage out, so if you put in just a general statement, it's going to give you gen general statements back, right? Yes. So there are other things, so that's good.

What marketing mistakes quietly damage credibility, even when someone is active and visible online. So I always use attorneys as this example, is that most attorneys market to impress their competitors rather than attract their ideal customer. And they, if you go look at their websites, they almost all look the same, which could be that they're hiring the same building, but.

Usually what they do is they go and they look at their competitors, and then they send that to the web builder and they're like, I wanna look like this, and I want this video and I want it to say this. And for a long time, SEO was all about getting the keywords in, which it still is. And I'm not knocking SEO in any way, but AI.

Honestly trying to help you make your site more human right, and to be talking in a way on there so you're not talking, but that people are asking and the way people read it and it answers it for them. So I have this, I do this with all of my writing. So I would highly recommend, even if you use ai, do not use whatever it spits out as the final product.

It has to be edited, and for me as a writer, I write for people. I write blog posts, I do videos, things like that. Editing something takes me longer than just writing it myself. Like it takes a long time to tweak it and make it sound human and make it, not slop, which is a word that's of art that's out there.

That's what AI produces when it's not edited well by humans to be. Impactful to people's psychology and what they're looking for. And so I, I think that in some respects, the bad thing about AI is people think I can get this done fast and cheap, and they lose the humanity of it almost, aI is a tool, right?

It's not going to replace anybody if you use it as a tool. So if you use it as a tool, you take what you have and then you have to edit it. And a little thing that I came across about a year ago is before I go into JA Chat, GPT, perplexity, anything like that, I always put a slash human and then I put my prompt.

And what that does is that humanizes what the response is. So it's a, now it doesn't take away the editing 'cause I still have to go in and edit it, but it does a lot of the work for me. And what I do probably, 'cause I enjoy writing, is I write what I want and then I usually am like, but I want a few more sentences here.

Or I need a PS or help me come up with subject lines for this. And so I put what I've written in. Then I help, AI helps me refine it. And I just I think that I would never start at ground zero with ai. 'cause again if it doesn't have information, because anything it gives you, it's taking from somewhere else, it's then gonna make stuff up.

And it just, you can always tell when people don't edit things like. I can't tell you how many websites I've reviewed, and I'm like, you're really not empowering people. Stop using that word, but it's because AI uses it, right? There's a certain number of words that you just know AI did it, or I could tell you one time I went through a thousand.

Websites. I was working with another marketer and we were just running through them to get some information and I was like, I'm so embarrassed that I said I was different because everybody else says that too, right? And I was like, there's no way that 90% of us are totally different than the others. And so I think that we have to recognize the re repetition that's out there and.

And just really make things. I think if you personalize it, and read it out loud is a really good way to make sure that whatever you're writing and putting out there flows and makes sense. Because here's the thing about AI is it's really good at putting out a lot of words, but the words don't always make sense when they're all put together.

And you read a sentence and you're like, what does that even mean? And I try to finesse it and then a lot of times I'm just like deleting that sentence I can't even make it work. You really your goal is to make the person think you're speaking directly to them, right?

That's your goal as a marketing person. Say, look, you're speaking to really. 10,000 people, but your goal is to make the one person think you're talking to them specifically. And if you can get that done, then I think you hit a home run. I think you've done what you had to do. Okay, so how can a business owner position themselves?

So AI tools naturally associate them with their expertise? The thing is you have to put yourself out there with those trust signals we talked about. But the other thing to keep in mind is that AI doesn't care what you say about yourself as much as it cares about what other people are saying about you.

And if more people talk about you, the more AI is gonna. Bring up what they say because someone else saying it for you is a trust signal, hence me being on a podcast, right? Or I do PR for myself and for my clients, and I get them quoted in different publications because then that shows AI that they are a subject matter expert in this area.

And all of these other publications talked about them, right? And so that's a really good way to do it. You could do blog guest posting, guest blog, posting on other people's websites. Because again, if you're posting on their website or they're quoting you, you are seen as being like a referral if you think about it, right?

If somebody refers you. To someone, you're more likely to get hired than if you just cold find somebody yourself. Absolutely. And AI is not any different because frankly, AI has been coded by people. So think about how people build trust up in others. It's by someone else saying, oh, I use this person, and they were good and they did a good job.

It, it falls back to know you like you and trust you, right? Everybody knows you. You're a nice person. Not so many like you. That kind of narrows the field down a little bit, but trust, that's a main factor. And unless you have that trust with the person. You'll never get anywhere because you'll never do business with somebody you don't trust.

So that a, that aids in that, that, that trust factor. Very important, especially in networking. Okay. What is the connection between clear messaging and getting recommended by search engines? AI assistance, or just referral partners?

Again I don't wanna. Bore people by saying the same thing again and again. But if AI doesn't know, if it's not out there for them to read it, they will make it up. And if it's not understandable to them, so if it's not clear, they will put weird meanings into it. So you just have to make it like, I can't tell you how much I tweak my own.

Description of what I do because. It. Like you were saying, it's like you wanna have a conversation with people, but you want what they are saying to themselves in their mind, and when they read your, whatever you have out there, you want them to say, yes, that's what I want. Yes. That's what I've been saying to myself.

Yes, that's the problem I'm having. And so you just have to keep working with it until you get people responding and then you know, okay, this appeals to people. It's like placing either a Facebook ad or something. You put in like 10 different ads and you see what works and all of a sudden you see, oh, these two out of 10 work, so let me just retool these and forget about the other eight.

Exactly. And I'm constantly retooling what I do, or how I express what I do. I don't change at what I do, but the way that I promote it. Is different. And, it's very different. How can someone use content to support networking conversations instead of replacing them?

So for me. Almost every conversation I have with somebody, I think I can use this in content, right? So when you talk to people at networking events, if, depending on how long the conversation is, if they share with you a problem that you can solve or you have solved, then you go back and talk about that in your content, right?

When you. Here's the thing. Everybody looks for some problem to solve, right? And you always want to be that problem solver, but you don't wanna stop there, right? Because if you solve their problem, they're done with you. So you solve their problem here, but you're wanna meet them here. You wanna meet them where they're going because they'll get a lot more out of it than you.

And so that's what you have to do, at least to, to perpetuate your business, to keep your business model going. At least that's what you do. And when you go to these networking events, you go in with what's called a servant's heart. You go in thinking, what can I do to make you better? What can I do to make you more successful?

Let them tell you and then you try to do it. Once you go in with what's called a servant's heart, then you have all the pressure relieved off your shoulders. You don't have to worry about going in and doing anything. You're going in trying to help. And as Zig Ziglar would say, or John Maxwell or something like that, what goes around does come around and you will be better off because of it.

Yeah. Okay. What should a professional do online immediately after a meeting, after a meet, after meeting someone in person to strengthen that relationship?

I think. And this is hopefully you already have a CRM. Yeah. Which is a, customer records management, customer relationship management, however you wanna phrase it. And basically that's just like a online Rolodex, right? But then it also should have sequences built in where you put the information.

Of the person that you've met, and obviously you would get their permission to do that. And then you can add them to a, oh, I met you at sequence. And then if they're open to it and you have a newsletter, which everybody should have a newsletter, then you could add them to your newsletter. If you have, I always.

Tell my clients like, we're, we don't wanna just sell, so we wanna educate people. So I try to be very educating in my newsletters. And then we make sure that we just say things like, happy Easter, which is coming up. Happy St. Patrick's Day, happy birthday. There's a guy. Joe is his name Joe Gerard.

I think his name's Joe Gerard, and he was the top car salesman in the United States for. 12 or 13 years. And the way that he got to that was sending a handwritten card to his customer after they purchased a car and for their birthday and for anniversaries, graduations, anything like that. Like he literally had to hire a team of people to help him.

But he was selling up to four cars a day because all. He would send this card, he would say thank you, but he would also just say, I like you. And that was it. He wasn't sending it to me like, here's my sales, here's this, here's that. It was, I'm thinking of you. Congratulations, here's this. And and I think that human touch and just connecting with people, if there's a different way you wanna do it, go ahead.

But that one we know works. So why not try that? And all of my listeners know this of me, but you don't. I, when I coach anybody, when I teach, when I do workshops, your follow up is the most important thing of that whole transaction, whether you bought something or not, but I always, 100% of the time include a handwritten thank you note.

The next day, so you can, I always say email as soon as you get back to the office get back to your house. You can just email and say, thank you to whomever you want to. The next morning you write almost the same thing, but in a thank you note, you put your business card in and you send it.

And I have every one of my students send me a thank you card because I always wanna see what they write. And then I'll correct them, not correct them. Say, that was great, it wasn't great, but you can't forget that fact. I speak on stages, I do workshops for companies and I just did one yesterday and this morning the first thing that went out was that thank you note.

So it's so very important and I'm so glad you brought that up because it is so very important to the whole networking scheme. What online behaviors create trust faster. And what behaviors unintentionally create doubt?

I think the, let me start with the doubt first, if that's okay. I think what, I have seen, especially in the legal field like, or actually just talking to a lot of business owners is a lot of people want to have faceless brands and they want to be able to, they have this dream of passive income of just laying in bed and money just pours in from.

Them a bobbing head, not them a bobbing head talking on YouTube for them. And unfortunately as humans, we connect to humans. And so if people are seeing your content out there and you're not. There that's going to create doubt for them. If you have, and I'm not saying in any way that a business owner should do their everything a hundred percent of the time, definitely hire a team, but there should be branding guidelines and there should be a voice that they talk in and people think they're interacting with you.

Even when they're not, and I know that a lot of people are like, I don't wanna be the face of my business. But unfortunately, that is what people connect with. They connect with a human. Okay. So when they don't connect with a human, when they feel like they're being talked to with AI or.

Like a number of other people that don't represent you well, then that can create doubt. And so do the opposite. If you can, I highly recommend everybody create. Personal videos. I had a client who would do a 30 minute video every week and then we would break it into smaller videos throughout the week.

And there's not ever been a person who's I saw that clip in that 30 minutes, right? No, that never happened. So you don't have to worry that people. Always want something brand new. You can reuse your content, but and just use what people ask. That's the other thing, right? Like we talked about earlier.

People want to hear what you're saying, that's what they've said in their mind. So when you start to get, when people, a lot, here's what I see that people do wrong too, is they're like, oh, I need to be on Facebook. So they just start putting posts out and they never go. And they never check, are people liking this or they commenting, they don't interact with it.

And let's remember that social media starts with the word social. It's all about building relationships, and you need to interact with people. If people like and share your posts, go and thank them. Go and make sure they know you matter to them. Invite them to like your page. If they're leaving comments, comment back, go on to other people's posts and comment, just, create these quasi relationships, but that's what helps people to feel like they're, they know you and they can trust you and like you and wanna hire you, absolutely. That's very good advice. Very good. Okay, let's bring this podcast full circle. If a listener wants to become easier to find and easier to refer within the next 90 days, what's one step they should start today

besides the ones we already reviewed? So we'll say you already did those. The.

I guess the next one that I have people do which actually seems counterintuitive besides just putting yourself out there and being seen is make sure that your website is in compliance, right? So we have the security certificate, we have the, making sure that it reads easily, and then make sure that you have like your privacy policy and things like that, and that they're written in a way that is compliant.

Because all of those things are big trust signals that makes AI wanna refer you over somebody who doesn't have that. And also helps your SEO also helps your ads, also helps you be able to. To be approved for texting people and interacting with people. So that's one of the next big things that I see that people do wrong, is they don't have, I didn't, when I started this, I didn't have a compliant privacy policy.

I had it up in my dropdown menu. By law, it's supposed to be in your footer, right? And it's supposed to have different parts to it that a lot of people don't have, and so you just. It's little things that you don't realize aren't just nice to have. They're actually required by law. And AI is a robot that basically checks a checklist, so make sure that the checklist is checking all of your. Things are in there. So the, those are things that are really fast and easy to do in. And then just start creating content and ask ai, what are people asking about in my field, and answer those questions. Ask AI for the top 10 questions in my field.

What did people ask this week? And then go ask AI every week and create content based on that. Very good. Nina, this was great. I'm so glad I had you on the podcast. If anybody wanted to get hold of you either to be coached by you or just to say hi, how can they get hold of you? Yeah, absolutely. My website's Harrow Helper, so HARO helper.

Harrow is helper, reporter out, so I help people with press, and my email is Nina, my first name, NINA, at hero helper.com. Beautiful. This conversation reminds us that networking has two stages, the digital introduction and the real conversation. When those two align, trust forms faster and opportunities come more naturally.

Take one simple step this week. Look up your own name and business the way a stranger would. What story does it tell? Small adjustments there can strengthen every future conversation you have. If you found value in this episode, make sure you like, follow and subscribe to Networking Unleashed, building Pro Profitable Connections, so you continue getting practical insights on networking and communication, and share this episode with someone who wants stronger credibility and better connections if you want help in proving how you communicate.

Position yourself and build professional relationships. Visit michaelaforman.com to learn how I work with professionals, teams, and organizations. Until next time, be visible, be clear and build communications that start before the introduction and last long after it. Nina, thank you again for coming on the podcast and I hope to talk to you soon.

Very welcome. Thank you.

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 Folks. 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 michaelforman.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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