Hello everybody, this is Michael Forman.
I am with Networking Unleashed Building Profitable Connections.
And today I have an amazing guest.
His name is Jamie.
We've been friends for about 50 years.
But we both started in New York, worked our way down to Georgia.
And he started really as a creative director on up to his owning his own business.
But let me let me introduce you to Jamie and let him discuss everything with you.
Jamie.
Hi Michael.
So my background starts even earlier as an entrepreneur.
I started a law-mowing business with my brother, my twin brother, identical at the age of 13.
And actually ran that business for 10 years.
My brother and I put ourselves through school, had money to buy houses when we got married
later on in our 20s.
And kind of started the networking and relationship building on marketing our landscape business.
Basically really saying hello to people and explaining what we could do and letting the
work really prove itself.
Most of the work we got even starting then was referral due to the great work we did.
And that lesson actually has followed me throughout my life.
And I could elaborate a little more on that later on.
I went to Parsons School of Design for Communications and then VSA for additional courses.
My first job out of college was working, if anyone can remember, we used to do paste up.
And basically that's when you made a mechanical to go to the printer to get printing.
So the funny story is as I was working out of Parsons, there was a sign above this big
classroom saying computer room.
And I'm going, what was that?
What's going on?
And I learned later on at my first job that PCs, basically Macs were coming in and were
going to be used to actually create mechanicals.
So part of my networking, I got a job working for Timeplex in their production department
where we were doing a thousand page mechanicals, believe it or not, for all the instructional
books.
And I'm sitting there and I remember me, I see all these new computers.
There was five production people in there.
I was a freelancer and they liked my work and they said, Hey, do you know about computers?
I said, sure.
Of course, they didn't know a damn thing.
I picked it up very quickly.
Apple was very intuitive.
A matter of fact, in good corporate sense, we worked on six months on the application.
It was called Interlace.
And then six months later, they sent us a trainer.
And of course, we've been working six months in this platform and then started training
the trainer because we were doing things like illustrations in this basic page layout
system, the instructor home with a lot of hints and different aspects of the platform
that can be used in laying out these books.
So I know that was a long intro.
After that, I moved to Atlanta and started in a production house, a company called SFI,
Standard Forms Incorporated.
So you can imagine they were around for a long time and then making a shift like every
printer to digital.
And then I helped build their production studio and then became involved in sales and networking
and doing business presentations.
What do you think, Mike?
Was that what?
Let me ask you a question.
What personal experience impacted your business sense the most?
You know, I guess I had the right and left brain.
You know, most people have right, most people have left.
I definitely have the creative side, but I do have the business side since I ran my
own business.
So I was always aware of ROI.
Great.
You know, everyone wants ROI.
I was able to get into management and sales and not as a true salesperson, more as a
networking and kind of category expert.
So I would be brought in at the end to close the deal because I could speak to the marketing,
I could speak to the business, I could speak to the strategy, the planning, execution,
innovation and how all that happened.
And again, you know, in my career, it was always transitioning to digital and obviously
today it's 100% digital, but still back 20 years ago, it was a combination and evolving
that and then getting into social media in the past 10 years and working that how to
make themes and campaigns and actually reach the market and reach the people using my network
of people to do that.
So everything I've done, it's been a team effort.
And not only did I network to get business, I networked to have freelancers, everything
from writers, video production, illustrators, photographers.
So it takes a team just like any movie, if you see a thousand names when it's in the
credits, it does take a team to put together a good campaign, follow through and then report
back on success.
Well, you know, that's interesting.
But with everything you've done, what do you think is your biggest challenge or was your
your biggest challenge and how did you overcome it?
Sometimes the biggest challenge is internal with the sales force because they are always
afraid of something new and something that they can't control or manage.
So that would be my biggest hurdle of them selling marketing because it's kind of really,
it's kind of vaporware.
It doesn't exist.
You could talk about it, but it has to be created.
It has to be a collaboration with the client and the salesperson and the production team.
So that's probably the biggest hurdle of trying to get people to understand how the new technology
works and the investment and follow through.
So there's always been a fight of budgets that continue today.
It's just expensive and you have to have the fortitude to do a campaign.
When I mean a campaign, it's more than just one social media trying to go viral.
It's a year or 18 months of planning and then responding to that and measuring and every
quarter changing and pivoting if you have to.
One client, we did a kickoff and realized the messaging in the beginning was just slightly
off and we made a few adjustments and it exploded.
So just knowing to look at the data, seeing what's coming through and then pivoting is
also very important.
So that's the things I've learned throughout my career.
Yeah.
So it's really not a one and done type situation.
You have to constantly look at it and evaluate it and pivot where you aren't sort of speak.
Correct.
And I was heavily into B2B.
So it's not B2C.
It's not a product.
We did some product marketing, but for the most part, we were B2B, selling enterprise
accounts, get brand awareness for enterprises, for printers, things that are very hard to
market because you're competing against an industry that's been around a hundred years
and trying to introduce new technology.
Sometimes it's a tough sell that it's a little more expensive.
And again, it's the ROI is substantial.
Talk about the ROI often, but here you are.
You owned a business when you were 13 and networked and marketed everything you had to do on up
to CEOs.
So for somebody just starting out, what type of a networking tip or what could you suggest
somebody to do to really that they can start tomorrow and really just start networking and
getting out there?
Well, one of the best network is friends and family.
You just have to ask.
You just have to ask, do you know someone and just give me an introduction.
Cold networking today is tough just due to you could throw a resume out there and you're
competing against thousands.
And you're also competing against the bots that's really going to select you that may
or may not be a good fit.
So starting with friends and family, even after graduation, following your friends and where
they're going and seeing looking at their network and you're asking to share that network,
it's really right there in front of you.
You just have to ask and don't rely so much on actually the social network online and
so forth.
You really make a phone call, do an email, try to do a one on one and tell people what
you're looking for and how they could help you.
Again filling out applications.
Not a bad thing, but again, you're competing against so many when you have a warm introduction
saying, Michael, I have a friend who has a position open.
I'm going to connect you with him, whether it's a phone call, email or text is going
to go a long way.
And that goes to our business.
It's about relationships.
Starting new relationships is like starting a new friendship.
It's not easy.
You have to have the same legs or the same mind of what the target audience is as far
as selling and understanding that audience.
So having a warm introduction is really the best networking advice I could give.
And that's really how I've worked my whole career.
Not only with the corporate, but when I had my own agency, Atomik Wash, it was through
referrals, we were referral based.
We did try the social media.
My partner was kind of into that and we spent money, but our best success was me pounding
the pavement, calling your friends that moved to new businesses and had a new position and
say, all right, I'm going to give you two months and I want to knock on that door and
just get an introduction.
One of the biggest successes was just doing a quick presentation of a PowerPoint.
Now this wasn't an ordinary PowerPoint.
It was a video PowerPoint with a storyline and voiceover.
And it was kind of wowed the audience.
And when they started talking about how we could do this within our agency, you know
you have them one.
And that one presentation led to millions of dollars worth of business in a five year
relationship until they got acquired.
So you don't always have to have the biggest agency.
You just have to have really good content and really smart presentations that tell your
story succinctly.
Yeah, you would have to get to the know, like and trust, right?
You know, to know you to like you and to trust you.
But that trust factor is like the biggest factor because everybody knows you.
Listen, they love you.
You're a nice guy.
Right.
Now, do they like you?
Well, then you're kind of, you know, fit with a little bit, but trust you.
That's the number one thing.
So when you're making that presentation and you're getting to them and all of a sudden
they know you, they like you and all of a sudden trust you, you can do wonders.
Exactly.
And you really start off just as for a small project.
It doesn't have to be a hundred thousand dollar project or a ten thousand dollar project.
The first project that we did for that million dollar client was $2,500.
And we proved it ourselves.
We got it on time and they loved it.
And they gave us a few more than we got to a presentation, a PowerPoint presentation.
Then we got to trade shows.
Then we got to social media and then we got to branding.
So really the way we built trust was building success.
And it's really success for the client.
I'll tell you a story where I started in the production, worked my way up to VP of creative
services.
I had 14, over the 13 years, I had 14 bosses.
So every time I'd have a new boss, I'd have a meeting and I'm saying here, I'm here to
make you, that's what my job is.
This is what I did for your predecessor.
And we were making success.
Unfortunately, he made some other mistakes, not in marketing, but was replaced or moved
on in the company.
But I could do that for you.
And that was my pitch.
And every time I did that, I would go on and build success with that executive.
And that's kind of how we just built success.
Let us prove ourselves by showing you what we could do and how we never fail.
That's one of the things that we said, we never fail.
If it takes us 10 times to reach that goal and the expectation that you have, the price
is not going to go up.
We're going to get there because if we missed it, if we failed, that's on us.
It's not always on you.
Now, a lot of times, the clients didn't know what they want and they would give us misdirection,
but we would evolve it fairly quickly.
And you kind of learn that, all right, this one made what I would call, this is a marketing
project, so we didn't make any money on it.
But we proved that we could take something that's really difficult, that they couldn't
articulate and build success and have something that they could show to their executives and
superiors and be proud of.
And that's what we did.
And then the ROI would be better.
So it was really, again, collaboration and coordination with our clients and with our
staff, the dedication of working late, working weekend sometimes, just an agency life, and
the highs and lows are really busy.
And then sometimes we'd have a gap, but Chris and I built a business and our practice was
to have enough money in the bank to support all payroll and all expenses for a year.
It took us about three years to build that.
So we were confident that even in a low, we could support our staff.
We had a staff of 10 at the highest point, and we could support them for a year.
Of course, knowing we would get more business, we were confident we could do that, but we
never wanted to lay anyone off.
We all were in that position, and we were not going to do that.
And we did not do that.
And then we got acquired by a business and sold and then worked for another five years
for that corporation.
So let me ask you a question.
So you've told me all sorts of networking and marketing ideas, how you made it and everything
else.
Tell me, what's your favorite marketing tactic?
You know what?
Getting someone out to lunch or dinner kind of breaks the barriers.
For me, it's always around food.
Take a minute to dinner.
Exactly.
You know, have drinks, have coffee.
It just takes it out of the office and you can have a conversation.
You can talk a little about families and get a little more history about them.
Get some of their true pain points and how we could provide solutions to those pain points.
And that's what our job is.
We're there to help them.
That's the number one thing.
Everybody's got a problem.
Every business, everybody.
And what you have to do is you have to find a solution to that problem.
And if you do that reasonably priced, you're going to make it.
Yes.
You know?
So it'll have everything.
I'm trying to close this up here a little bit and give me your number one takeaway that
my audience can start doing tomorrow if they want to start networking.
That's a big question, by the way, Chris.
I would recommend doing a few different things.
You know, social media, as far as your social media, your friends and group of family is
a good place to start.
You can always tell people that, hey, I'm looking for a job or I'm looking for a project.
This is my skill set.
Just get me introduction.
That's really, again, I'm going to really harp on that.
The other one, I would recommend, depending on where you are, now I'm coming from a creative
aspect, right?
I would get a headhunter if you're looking for a higher level position because they really
could actually position you for a project as freelance headhunters or a full-time position.
They really help and I've had great success actually hiring from them over the past 30
years.
And it's a great way to expand your network that you would never be able to get to.
So they're getting you that warm introduction, saying, I have a perfect person for your firm
and they have this skill set and keep your resume current and to the point because that's
what people want to see.
They want to see what you can do, how you could think.
And I was always looking for thinkers, by the way.
That was my main thing when I was hiring people.
I could always train someone to work on a platform, but I can't train them to think.
So if you can think and show them that you could think, you will be hired because that's
what they want.
And that's how I'm working as problem solving.
And if I get someone to solve a problem, I could sell that, whether it's design, whether
it's a trade show, whether it's promoting a new product or how to promote a new product.
If I get someone to offer a unique view on how to sell that, that's a winning networking
proposition.
So when you speak to people, you just can't say all the successes I had.
You tell them how you did the success.
It's like a case study of yourself.
That's going to help people how you came up with it.
And by the way, show them the sketch that you started.
If you started on a napkin, great idea.
I do that all the time.
We even go back sometimes and say, because we sketch on the whiteboard and then we don't
take a picture, we say, we shouldn't have taken a picture.
So if you did it from a sketch, just show them.
This is where I started.
And here's the end result, whether it's a paper, whether it's a magazine ad, whether
it's a video, whether it's social media.
Show them how you developed that kernel of an idea and actually expanded it to actually
promote a product or service the client was asking for.
And people like that.
That's what I look for when I'm hiring.
So you can show me the process.
Absolutely.
And that's what I was looking for also when I was hiring.
I would also look for the same thing because I can teach them how to use a piece of equipment
or how to do anything else, but you can't teach them to think.
Right.
So Jamie Lim is your question.
If somebody was interested in Jamie Kazman, how could they get in touch with you?
They could email me at Jamie Kazman at gmail.com.
That was good.
Are you able to get that?
Yeah.
Jamie, J-A-M-I-E-K-A-S-M-A-N at gmail.com.
And I'll get back to them.
And even if they're just asking for advice, anyone in your audience needs help, feel free
to email.
And I will get back to them right away.
Right.
Jamie, I want to thank you.
You are a wonderful guest.
And I look forward to talking to you again.
Thank you, Michael.
Okay.
Bye-bye.
Oh, my God.
This has been another episode of Networking Unleashed, Building Profitable Connections.
First of all, to all my brethren, to all the veterans of these United States, thank you
for your service.
Second, if you'd like to offer me a call, I always give to Tunnel.org.
That's t2t.org.
Thank you.