Networking Unleashed: Building Profitable Connections. An Interview with Sean Boyle and Michael A Forman
- mforman521
- 2 days ago
- 22 min read
Hey everybody. Welcome back to Networking Unleashed, building Profitable Connections. I'm your host, Michael Foreman, and today we're diving into the intersection of technology and human connection. Let's be honest, social media is louder than ever. Google decides who gets found, and now AI is writing half the internet.
So where does that leave real connection? How do we build relationships, not just reach? My guest today knows that better than most, he's mastered how to combine social media strategy, Google Business profiles, and AI to protect. Sorry to help pro professionals stand out, stay visible, and most importantly, stay human in a digital world.
If you've ever wondered how to turn your online presence into genuine opportunity, this is the episode you'll want to lean into. So let's get into it. I'd like to introduce Sean Boyle. He is my next guest on the podcast. I am so happy to have you here, Sean, and please introduce yourself and tell us how you got here.
Thank you Michael. Wow, that's quite an introduction. I appreciate that. Yeah co-founder of Momentum. We're a marketing company based in Philadelphia. Seven figure company. Been around for a decade. This is actually our one year anniversary this month, which is super, super exciting. And yeah, we actually help Michael, a lot of small businesses, primarily service businesses with their overall digital marketing.
So I'm really excited to chat with you about that today. Great. That's great. And I get you're, what you do is so needed in today's society because of what's happening with ai. AI is a new buzzword, and everybody don't, they don't know how to use it as a tool, but how to remain human. And that's really what you're all about.
So I have about 10 or so questions. In an era where algorithms decide who sees what, how can business owners make sure, real people, not just the platform, see and connect with them? It's a good question. If we're talking overall digital presence, I think it really just starts from a fundamental reason of if you need a plumber, God forbid, if you need someone to fix your roof, whatever it is, I think the majority of people, Michael, are still going to Google to find that.
And then if you're able to be found on search. If I was to do a Google search, for instance, best plumbers in Philadelphia, right? Something like that, and I can find a business that is having a lot of good reviews, that's posting into the profile that's topical. Maybe they've won a couple awards and they're very high.
A lot of the times I'm actually gonna contact that business first. So it's one of those things that we can go into it, there's so many different things that a business can do to actually get a higher ranking locally on Google. But I think, with all this ai, it, it doesn't matter really.
Local search is still one of those things that people are gonna manually search it or maybe do a voice search, and that's how they're gonna be able to be found. Do you find that a lot of people are searching on, let's say, chat GPT first and then going to Google? It's an interesting thing, right?
Because Google has their own AI platform with Gemini, and if you were to Google, best plumbers in Philadelphia with chat GPT, it's probably gonna give you a list of about five plumbers in Philadelphia with all their accredited ratings and whatnot. Gemini is gonna do the same thing too and even more.
What's interesting, Gemini on Google is going to give you the pros and the cons of that business. Maybe there's a review that's buried, that the businesses try to cover up, which actually is a really helpful review. Oh, maybe they're actually not the company you thought they were.
So it's interesting, man, for chat GT. People are starting to search more on ai. I personally am myself. I think it just has a better overall playground of more resources that's gonna pull more resources out there for you, obviously. But the kingpin is still Google until chat GBT takes over, but I think we're heading that way.
It's really interesting. I think so, I think we're moving closer and closer. I deal with an AI person and his partner's out in California and everything, and I write articles for them. But he works very closely with Google and Gemini, and he's telling me all about how people are beginning to search.
On Gemini or chat GPT before they search on regular, they search on regular Google. And that just blew my mind, that they've come such a long way. Okay. So you've worked with both Google business profiles and social media. Where do you see the biggest missed opportunity for professionals trying to build relationships online?
Not just visibility. That's a great question. If you're not just talking about visibility and you're just trying to become more authentic, I think social media is the biggest miss on a lot of service businesses because a lot of the time, and I don't know how you feel about this, Michael, but when I see a service area business, for the most part, they're just posting pictures of before and after photos, which are important.
Don't get me wrong. To actually be able to have the owner of said business, make content head talking reels of them saying, Hey, here are like five ways you can actually save 10 grand on your roof, or something like that, right? If they're a roofer. That's gonna mean so much more to build that relationship rather than just seeing a bunch of posts, graphic design posts, static posts that really don't do much for you.
So I think business owners need to get outta their shelf, so to speak. I, it's funny, I was talking to an earlier the other day, and the only thing that's holding them up from doing social media is their own fear of, oh, how am I gonna be perceived? And I told him, listen, his name's John.
I said, John, listen ma'am. I've probably made a couple thousand videos, and I'm not Joe Rogan over here. I'm not, the best public speaker in the world, far from it. But we all stink when we first start. So as soon as you can get over that fear and just start, you're gonna immediately start to improve.
Know your cadences on how you talk if, and go from there. And that kind of set 'em over the edge and we're gonna be doing some work with him. Yeah, it was a great question. I can't believe you said what you said because you were so on point with it. I'm a public speaker. I go out and I teach, I go into workshops and I teach them about truly networking and what you said falls right in line with everything just like that.
And I tell everybody, look. Go out and start networking. Just go out and start. Doesn't make a difference how good you are because the first and second time you go out, you're gonna suck. It's gonna be horrible. You're gonna be bad, but you're going to learn from those mistakes and you'll get better and better.
And that's why I agree with you 100% on what you were saying. So that's very good. Many people post content but never actually connect through it. Sound familiar? What separates social posting from social networking and how can someone bridge that gap? I dunno where you got your questions this morning, but I love them.
They're actually making me think, which is good. It's a new thing. So picking up where I left off, I think to take it a step further. It's one thing to make that relationship right, but to have a networking component to it as well. I think the next step with social media, not just posting, is really engaging your audience and drawing new potential people to it.
And I'm not just talking about leads for the business, I'm talking about potential connectors, potential partners, even just people who are maybe entrepreneurs or people who like your content, right? What I have done myself, and there's really three things that I think you can do. First thing you can do is go live.
Go live on your social media platforms. I personally, myself, go live on YouTube at least twice a day. And it's not a huge, crazy audience, but it's one of those things where I actually do love to interact with people. I feel like you do build a good relationship and a couple people actually tell their friends and then it starts to accumulate, right?
So that's the first thing. Second thing is you gotta get, you have to get in the dms and you have to, respond to questions and build relationships that way. I see far too many business owners. When I go to their social media profile and they've been doing it for years, I can't tell you how many times Michael, I've actually seen probably close to dozens of messages that are unread and ONM messaged of potential leads, potential connectors and stuff like that.
And it's absolutely crazy. And then the third thing I think is, and this might go a little kind of tough to do if you're like a typical service area business, but host somewhat like of a workshop. It doesn't need to be in person. It can be like another live stream, but host a workshop on, okay, here's exactly how you can save money doing this.
Or Here's where you wanna look out doing that. I think it's so imperative to just go beyond the scope of. Just posting to post. You wanna put your live stream out there. You want to connect with your audience. And I feel as time goes on, if your content is good, you're gonna get people to talk to their friends, talk to their family, and they're gonna be able to join your live streams and be one of your audience members too.
I absolutely agree. Again, I absolutely agree with what you're saying because that interactivity between yourself and your either client or proposed client, or to be client, you have to give them a little something. You have to give them value. You have to say, you need to trust me because of this, and how can somebody turn around and trust you if they don't know about you?
So if you do these live workshops, you're giving them something. Look, you're telling me how I can save money if I change this switch out and I do it like this, that's free. That's all the work you have to do. But I have so much more to give you. That's why I want you to call me. Yes I agree a hundred percent.
So if you're gonna continue to do this, and I'm gonna continue to do agree a hundred percent, this is gonna go nowhere. All right. So let's get controversial here, Michael. Let's let's get controversial. Okay. A AI has made content creation faster than ever, but often less human. How do you think entrepreneurs can use AI without losing their authenticity or voice?
Can I curse in the show or No? Go ahead. No. Yeah. I think it's total bullshit on how AI kind of works, man. And let me just get this off my chest. I feel like business owners, they rely way too much on AI to do so many different things with the business. And let me explain it. One of to directly answer your question, one of the main things that I think people miss on is language, just personal language that we're using now and make it feel like you're actually talking to a human being with AI specifically, i'll tell you one of the clients I was just. Talking today, before they came onto us, Michael, they used every single blog and every single webpage with chat GPT. Now, don't get me wrong, chat, GPT is good to have somewhat of an idea. I'm not saying it's terrible to use, but you do get penalized with Google.
You do get it has almost like a robotic voice to it. There's no personality to it, really. Truth be told. In my opinion maybe some of it's good, but I don't know. It definitely could be better. I think AI is way too much overused with that. Specifically business owners need to use it as a little bit of a guide and then go back in and essentially reword certain things to make it sound more like them.
And I think over time. I don't know. I, it's probably gonna be just as it's gonna sound just like us. We're gonna put out the words that we use, our cadence, our vocabulary, and it's gonna sound exactly like us, but for the time being, I think they need to switch that a little bit. So it sounds just a little bit better and come off more authentic.
Yeah. Absolutely. AI has to be used as a tool, right? And in, in our work belt and when we need to use ai, we can bring out that tool, use it, but then we have to change it. It's a good base, right? And we have to add what we really wanna do or add our own being as part of it. And then it becomes.
A true article or something that you're trying to post about. I write for several articles. Ai it's known throughout speaker edge.io is one of them. I write an article for them three times a week and it's all AI generated, right? But I have to go out of it and I have to put in a little bit of what I do make it me, so it gives me a good base, but I can't just print it and let it go out.
So it, it's very useful. For what you for what you want to use it for. But you need to use as a base, not anything else. And you need to put in your own words, but that's me. Okay. How important is Google business? Is that true? Okay. How important is a Google business profile today For personal brands and small business owners who rely on networking and referrals.
I like to make the analogy, and this just came to me I really haven't used it before, but I guess I'll use it on the show. It's like having a website back in the nineties or early two thousands. It's one of those things that this is you have to have it. You absolutely have to have a GP, and if you don't have it, you're gonna severely get left in the dust.
Right? And to use any example ever, it's okay, if you're out with your wife. Girlfriend, whatever it is, and you're looking to get a nice Italian restaurant. I think we all like Italian food for the most part. And if you try to find a nice restaurant, what do you do? You go on Google, you find a bunch of Google business profiles that are nice Italian restaurants.
You check up the ambiance, the vibe, the food, maybe the menu, right? And I think, you can apply that to so many other businesses. I. The thing that I wouldn't recommend is if you have more of a product type company maybe you can have a Google profile for like your hq, which is still, maybe applicable.
But I recommend everybody get one. Truthfully told. I have one. I have a Sean Boyle, one marketing consultant in Philadelphia, and then I have a Momentum one in Philly as well. That's like the main agency one. So if you're an owner. Specifically with marketing or anything with like marketing or branding, I would highly recommend it to make a company one and then potentially even make a personal one as well.
If you have a service area business, and you're not in marketing like myself, just make one for the business and you'll be good to go. And you're speaking basically for the owners of the business, right? You don't want all the employees to make one for the company also and make them make one for themselves.
So it's strictly for the owners to do that. Am I correct? Correct. Yeah. You don't want the employees to make their own, company profile. 'cause that's, they're all gonna be suspended. You might not be able to get back in the day. You might be able to get away with that, but not anymore.
Yeah, that, that's a good distinction. Yeah. Google's getting a little smart for that. Okay. What does Consi, I'm sorry. What role does consistency play in digital marketing? I'm sorry, lemme start again. What role does consistency play in digital networking and what's a realistic rhythm for busy professionals who don't want to live online?
Another good question. I'll just tell you from my own experience, Michael. After COVID, things got weird, right? With networking, I think we can all agree where we have these kind of, like in the past I would've actually gone to your maybe studio or whatever. And this is fine.
Like I love this kind of environment. But what I like to do is this, I like to hop on one digital podcast, like the Self Great show every week. And then I also like to do one networking event every single week as well. And it just so happens there's actually an event later on. That's why I'm all suited up and but.
I think it's very important to do both at the same time. You wanna leverage the technology that we have, but you also wanna get out there in your neighborhood. You can't grow your business if people don't know who you are. Crazy statement, right? But it's like you gotta get out there and post COVID.
I think so many people just rely on. The virtual like speed networking sessions, but it really doesn't get anywhere. Maybe it will, but it's not as authentic as going to a bar and having a beer with somebody. Going to a, a restaurant where there's an event and like eating with somebody and actually knowing and getting to know them.
I think that's so important to be able to get outta your shell a little bit on both sides and do something in person and then do something digital as well. I think that's a great way, and when you're brought up the pandemic, that really, for me as a public speaker, I used that as a line in the sand before the pandemic.
Things were transactional, right? They, you have three widgets, I have $10, I'll buy the three widgets. I built my customer list and things were going great after the pandemic, when people were shut inside and slowly getting back out. It's become more relational. And people you have to get to know, I used to be in a marketing in the mortgage business, and I used to go to a networking event, come home with a shoebox, filled with business cards and say, look how good I did.
When really it was horrible. I have to now, and now when I teach, when I coach people, when they go to a three hour, four hour event, I tell them, look, come back with 15 business cards, maybe 20. Because that will tell you that you had a real conversation with them and there's things to do with the business card and how to follow up.
Follow up is so much more important than actually meeting the person. It's unbelievable, but that's where businesses fail. They don't follow up properly, and half of my workshop is helping them how to follow up. But getting back to my point, the relationship side of things and you go out and you network every single week.
Networking is the base of all businesses and it's how well you network. And that's where I make my money of course, it's what you have to do. Let's talk connection versus conversation. How do you design online content that builds trust first and still drives business? I think when I'm creating content, I'm always trying to have my client's mind when I'm making content.
So for instance, talking about Google business profiles, right? For me. I don't care what really, is in it for me, it's what's in it for the client, or what's in it for the person viewing my stuff. So I try to make my stuff as valuable as possible to answer said questions. So a perfect example of that, Michael, would be, if I'm making a reel, which I, I do a lot about suspended Google profiles, right?
The most viewed re and YouTube video I think I have currently on my page is talking about, Hey guys, here's a free way where you can actually reinstate your suspended Google profile. Give three things. It's 10 minutes long on the video, about 30 seconds short on the reel.
And it's actual value. It's stuff that genuinely works. I can't tell you how many times, and not to toot my own horn, I've gotten comments that say, oh my gosh, thank you so much. I don't know what I would be able to do. Now I'm able to get revenue. I'm able to have the business. Continue. Before, if we didn't have the profile, we would've been, garners, we would've been, out of business.
So it really gives me a lot of joy to be able to build that trust with somebody because I'm giving that value. And then what I like to do is just keep adding as much value as possible. And then at the end of my content, which I don't do often, if people are watching my stuff, what I'll do is I will then say, Hey guys, if you need professional digital marketing that you can't do yourself, 'cause it's a time versus money thing.
If you have the time, save your money, do it yourself If you don't have the time. I think some owner operators who run service area businesses, Michael, don't have that time. Then it would be a good way to explore a conversation about marketing, and then I'll give my email and phone number and then we'll schedule a call.
So I think that's how I like to tailor content. Way too many people, I think just don't they? They either do these like silly TikTok trends. They focus more on their accolades instead of like actually answering questions. And I think if the business owner is able to pivot and add just more value and think of the end consumer first.
They're gonna be surprised how many clients they actually end up getting. I think it, it's starting to move in that direction. It's starting to move okay, look, I do my social media, I post on social media four times a day, right? I use a program called Opus Clips. It breaks up the podcast that I've been on and I break it up and I post to them four posts per day, and it takes me about.
10 minutes total for me to do all that posting. So it doesn't really require a whole lot of time, but it's me interacting. It's me talking like with you and, giving great advice and things like that. I'm not just saying, Hey, look at me. This is me. This, it's a picture before and after.
You don't wanna see a picture before. I'm horrible. But you have to realize that, and I say this in jest, but it's so real because I think it's coming around. I think business owners are looking to it, saying, okay, you know what? I see this. I trust him. Now networking is very big. Know you, like you, trust you.
They'll do business with you. Know you is easy. Everybody knows you like you, eh, that narrows it down a little bit, but trust you. That's a big thing. And the more that the person can trust you, the more the wall between you comes down, then the, then that's where you're gonna find your business. Okay?
You've been the ri you've seen the rise of AI tools promising to automate connection. Where should we embrace automation and where does it destroy the human side of networking? I think probably the biggest misfire with AI is probably on LinkedIn. It's tough, right? Because for me, and probably for you as well, like I am inundated with messages, Michael, on a day-to-day basis of an AI tool, sending a message through some hot woman's hot girl's profile that I'm like, oh yeah, I see what they're doing.
And I've done a similar strategy in the past and it just, sometimes it works. Sometimes you get people, there, there's, in my opinion, going back to your point on when you're networking, come home actually with less cards, meaning you had more of a conversational relationship.
In my opinion, and maybe I'm a little old school with this for better or for worse, I like to pick maybe, whatever number you wanna throw out. And I like to just generally have a connection with that person and talk with them and actually have a conversation specifically on LinkedIn, I think for other tools like cold email. Yeah, AI is great. You can use Apollo. Apollo has a lot of great tools. It's a cold email sender. You can scrape data from that. That's for cold email. I think that works and answers your question fine, but specifically for LinkedIn, if you're trying to build connections and if you really talking about liking and trusting the person, I'm not gonna have much trust from getting like a very generic message.
And I, I can just clearly see that it's, AI for the most part. Now, granted. To play devil's advocate, some of those messages are very captivating. They are very good. They do take time to, to put out, and sometimes I have a hard time actually understanding what's AI and what's not. But the ones that I know are AI are really bad.
They just completely turn me off. So I think. To answer your question, I don't have honestly the best answer for that on LinkedIn. I have more of a manual approach, but I think both things are needed. I think you need to have some AI automation, some sort of capacity, as well as the human element too.
I think we lose that with all this technology that we have. I always found that on LinkedIn. I don't have a very big following. I have about 9,000 connections on LinkedIn and whenever I try to approach anybody that I'm interested in I always try to bring value to the conversation. I never talk business.
If I'm trying to, let's say I'm trying to get into this roofing company, I'll always bring in oh, here's the difference between metal roofs and not non-metal roofs. And I'll, it's a very interesting article. I will attach that and say, Hey, I thought of you when I was reading this. Here's this information, and that's it.
And I'll do that two or three times and then I'll say, Hey, did you like those articles? How about a cup of coffee? It's just, and solely work into it. I found that was the best way to approach a business that I'm trying to get work from. So yeah, I think that's a great idea. And sometimes I do too.
Michael is very much similar to what you just do, is almost like a lead magnet. Give value, like if someone, for instance, is. Maybe they're a service area business and they don't have the best website or they don't have the best Google profile. Say, Hey John Smith, ball is here's a, quick video I made on how to have a better Google profile.
I think you might, need it. I checked out your profile and there's a couple of things wrong. Here's a free video where you can just do it yourself. And, I've seen a lot of people take a lot of, advice from that video and just, build a better relationship with me and be able to trust me.
Yeah I love your strategy. That works. That works. How do you personally use your own content and Google presence to initiate conversations that turn into genuine business relationships? Yeah I like it. I'm gonna enjoy answering this question, so I'll give you the whole rundown of what I do, like the whole funnel, right?
So a majority of the leads I get that are organic, if they're not coming to the website. I'm not talking about referrals, just talking about like YouTube and the content I'm creating are from social media and YouTube specifically. YouTube in general, right? Someone will find one of my videos using the suspended Google Business profile example.
They'll go to my video. They'll watch it perhaps, maybe they'll try the strategy and maybe a couple days later they're like, shucks, this is like really fricking hard. And I don't have the time to deal with this. Let me call Sean up. Let me see how this goes. I'll get the phone call, I'll put them into our CRM and then I'll kinda walk them through the next step in process and.
That's really what I've done for the last kind of several years, Michael, is offer that value where people can then go and contact me and then it's Hey like I said earlier, it's a time versus money thing. If you have the time, go and try to do it yourself. If you don't have that level of expertise and you have a little bit of money, but you don't really have that time, then let's have a conversation, but.
I always try to advise on what the owner can do for free first, rather than just go and, pitch my product or service on that call. So that's really what I do. That's a great way to be. Great way to be. Okay. Let's bring this podcast full circle. Looking ahead, where do you see the balance between AI driven visibility and authentic people-driven networking?
What should professionals start doing now to stay ahead of the curve? That's a great question. There I contemplate this a lot of what AI looks like in the future, and it's somewhere between. Robots attacking us or what we have now, or something in between. But I think really what you should do is if you're not really up to speed with ai, even if you don't own a business, even if you aren't really in the know, get in the know because it's going to be something very prominent that's going to pop up.
It's like the ai.com bubble. It's like the Google business profiles and how important that is. AI is the next thing and it's not just the next thing. It's gonna be with us for. Forever moving forward in my opinion. So read up on articles, go on chat, GBT, and maybe you can do this weekly.
This is what I like to do myself, Michael, to stay in the know with my busy schedule is I'll just type in chat. GBT what does AI look like in the future for 2026? Or how is AI gonna be used for Google Meta apple? How are all these things gonna come together? And maybe just wait one week, maybe on Saturday morning, whatever, when you have time.
Drink your cup of coffee in the morning and just read. And I think that's one of the best ways where you can stay informed. It's pretty obvious, but I feel like if you don't know, one of the easiest ways is to get informed, make your own decision, make your own opinion, and try to use AI however you see fit.
So getting in the know is the first step in my opinion. That's great. That's great. Okay. And there it is, proof that real networking isn't about chasing clicks or followers. It's about creating connection with intention. Big thanks to my guests for dropping serious insights on it today. If you found value in this episode, share it with someone who's ready to elevate their online presence.
Make sure that you're subscribed so that you never miss what's next on networking unleashed, building profitable connections. Until next time. Get visible. Get connected, and go make it profitable. So before we leave, Sean, if somebody wants to get hold of you because they need your wonderful marketing strategy, how can they get hold of you?
So what they can do is just go to YouTube. It's obviously trying to pump up my YouTube subscribers and just type in Momentum 360 on YouTube, but we have about 7,000 subs. Get a bunch of free value. Watch my videos. I put my phone number and email so you guys can contact me if you need, but get a lot of free value.
Enjoy my content and hopefully you can grow your business. That's great, Sean, and thank you again for coming on my podcast.
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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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