And welcome to Networking Unleashed, Building Profitable Connections.
Welcome to the show, folks.
I'm your host, Michael Foreman, and you're listening to the podcast where networking
is more than just awkward handshakes and bad coffee.
It's an art and a talent.
But here's the twist.
It's an art and talent you can actually learn.
Yes, even if you're the person hiding in the corner at every event pretending to pick
emails, this is for you.
Networking isn't just a nice skill to have.
It's a game changer.
And when you get good at it, you'll wonder why you didn't start sooner.
More connections, more opportunities, more profits, it's like unlocking a cheat code
for life.
So whether you're the life of the party or the let me just stay in the corner and text
type, we've got something for you.
Stick around.
Let's turn those awkward small talk moments into big wins.
Now I've got a guest today, and his name is Dr. Richard Kay.
He's got an extraordinary background, a load of experience.
He's best known for working with entrepreneurs that help them accelerate the growth of their
businesses.
And for nearly 24 years, he's assisted people to improve their bottom line.
Now there's a whole lot more to this, but let him introduce himself.
Richard, should I call you Richard or Dr. Ken?
Please do.
Richard works great.
Had my patients call me Richard, you can call me Richard.
Okay, Richard.
Tell us a little bit about yourself.
Well, let's see.
I started out as an electronics engineer, decided that that wasn't my life path.
I got a BS degree in business management from New York University, Long Island campus.
And that's just what that is.
That was just BS.
And then I got a doctorate degree from the Columbia Institute of Chiropractic.
And I practiced chiropractic in San Diego for 30 years, Michael.
And because we're talking about networking, ladies and gentlemen, I'll give you a foundation
on growing your business with networking.
I shut my practice 20 years ago.
I was meditating quite frankly and heard, shut your practice and work with entrepreneurs.
And I looked around, there was no one there but me.
So I now live in Towson, New Mexico.
I already had 80 acres out here.
I left San Diego and 20 years ago, so I don't serve entrepreneurs.
So that's a quick background, Michael.
What do you do on the 80 acres?
Sold it.
Okay.
Yeah, my then wife and I were going to move out, be off grid, and I got a job as the assistant
district attorney.
She's obviously an attorney.
They said, be here in two weeks.
So we just moved out, bought a house, lasted two years than the divorce and now married
to the right woman.
So that's what I did on 80 acres.
Sometimes it takes to find the right person.
I found the right person 37 years ago.
And you're awesome.
I've been happy ever since.
Well, good for you.
Let's bring this into the networking world a little bit.
How do you approach building genuine connections in a world that's increasingly digital?
Be authentic.
The best way to build great relationship is be authentic.
I said, I'm going to tie the networking and that kind of authenticity into how I built
a practice.
When I moved to San Diego from New York, Michael, there were 300 chiropractors in town.
Ladies and gentlemen, how do you start or grow any business in a crowded field?
And no matter what we do, we are all in crowded fields.
Well, I networked, I met people, I went out, I schmoozed, I played around with people and
connected.
And I submitted an article which was published in the San Diego Tribune.
Then I found a connection to the Los Angeles Times and I got an article submitted.
All because of networking and the people I knew.
And I'm going to make that a distinction.
It's not who you know.
Michael, you've heard of it.
It's not what you know, it's who you know.
You know that expression, right?
Of course.
I'm going to take it to a higher level.
It's who knows you.
That's what networking is about.
One day I get a phone call and she says she's the producer of the ABC News in San Diego.
And she said, who are you?
We're seeing your name.
We're hearing your name.
We didn't know one another personally, but through the network she had seen and heard
of me.
Well, now I got a 630 News segment.
Then I got a similar phone call from PBS.
Similar kind of question.
Who are you?
She had known about me when I got a PBS segment.
And that's what we do in our business now.
Make the connections.
Do the networking that you may not have that we have with our connections to get you outstanding
publicity.
The power of networking is so remarkable.
It is.
It's great.
And really what you're talking about is branding.
You're branding yourself because the more your name gets out there, the more people
see you.
The more people see you, the better chance you have of getting noticed.
So that's absolutely great.
It's true.
And I have my whole career in speaking.
I try to tell everybody the authenticity is so important for you to be yourself is so
important.
You know, during one of my speeches, I say, inject a little humor and do a little story.
But if you're not a funny person, don't do it.
Be authentic.
Be yourself.
And it goes on such a long way.
Okay.
So can you share a specific example of how strategic networking significantly, significantly
impacted your business?
I'm laughing because I thought you were going to ask how it impacted my life.
And I'll answer that.
And then we'll get to the business because they're so intertwined, Michael.
I was facilitating a breakout room in a networking event.
A young lady is on that call.
I found out she's living in the Cotswolds and the UK United Kingdom.
So just networking.
I'm mentoring and coaching to a whole group of people and she asked some questions and
then she made an appointment for a 15 minute phone call.
Probably Skype way back then.
And that transformed not only her business and my business, but our lives.
We wound up getting married.
She ultimately moved here to the United States.
It was the networking that changed our lives.
Now to make it specific to the business, Angela writes fairy tales.
Her mission is to help kids thrive.
Michael, when kids fall in love with themselves and when adults fall in love with themselves,
they don't go out and shoot up schools and shit like that.
And they don't commit suicide.
She had gone through a couple of different publishers and they got very few sales basically
in her book.
Through our company, we got her the publicity because of the networking of the people who
know us.
And she's now a number one best selling author.
She has got three books that have all won about a dozen awards each.
And in her space, it's mom's choice award is one of the top awards for kids books.
So the networking helped her help Angela and ladies and gentlemen, if you have kids, Angela
Lee, A-N-G-E-L-A-L-E-G-H.com.
Go buy the books on Amazon.
They are absolutely amazing.
And how did we get there?
We know people and they know us.
And she knew me.
So it made it easy.
Well, you know people and when you're networking, you're not only talking with those people,
but you're speaking with their network as well.
Their network.
Yes, correct.
So they think about you and they'll say, well, you have to know them.
Go to the website, call something like that.
And all of a sudden, you're finding out that you're getting all these connections and you
didn't even know them.
So that's the importance of networking.
Yeah, I like what you said.
You're not just networking with one person.
You're networking with their network.
Exactly.
That's very, really good.
Thank you.
But what are the key elements of effective communication in your professional networking?
Be authentic.
You mentioned it before.
Be absolutely authentic.
Most of you know or at least know of Tony Robbins.
Sure.
And he makes a very profound, well, a lot of profound things.
He says, if I meet you in person, and we met at his place in Fiji a long, long time ago,
he's the same person in person as he is on stage.
And he's really clear.
He says, why?
Because Michael, if I become a different persona for you than everybody else, when I run back
into you in the airport or something, I've got to remember, who was I with Michael?
So if you are your true authentic self 100% of the time, you don't have to worry about
someone seeing, oh, this is a different side of them.
Hey, if you're nasty, you're going to be nasty.
If you're nice, you're going to be nice.
Show up in your authenticity whatever it is.
And that's where you connect on more than a person to person level on a soul to soul
level.
Soul knows people.
That's how my wife and I got married.
And obviously, you're together for 30, almost 40 years.
That's not a physical, that's a soul connection.
Soul knows.
So be authentic on every part of your being.
Absolutely, I couldn't agree with you more on every level, on every level.
I mean, it's your question.
I'm sure you've made stakes in your networking, communication in life, but were the big mistakes
and how did you overcome them?
Boy, if you don't make mistakes, are you still alive?
Making mistakes is easy.
I mean, I was on a Zoom call with someone just a few minutes ago, and I had the wrong person
in mind.
And I said, well, I sent the email to this address, and she said, well, that's not me.
Oh, shoot.
So we laughed, and I found because her name and ladies and gentlemen, communication, her
name on the Zoom was the name of her business.
She didn't have her.
Excuse me.
She did not have her name there.
I'm going to get some water.
So it was easy for me to screw it up and get the wrong person.
So what do we do?
Own it.
We laughed about it.
And that's one of the best ways to make up for a screw up.
Don't ignore it.
Be honest.
Say, hey, I messed up.
Too many people won't take responsibility for their actions.
They'll take responsibility for the good, but they don't take responsibility for the
bad.
Take total responsibility.
And it's when I'm in communication with someone, and I don't understand someone, I'm
going to use me as the metaphor here, but I'm going to turn it around.
How many times, and I just had this communication with another person this morning, I said,
what part of this am I missing?
Take responsibility.
I screwed something up.
And instead of blaming the other person, take responsibility for it.
As a matter of fact, it was the person who I screwed up with the name.
She said, let's get on Zoom.
She sent me a text.
We got on Zoom.
My text to her is, what am I missing here?
So clear communication.
Take responsibility for everything in your life, by the way.
It ain't the other person's fault.
If you are having an argument with someone, there's no need for arguments, own your part
in it.
You've got to part in it because the two of you are going at it.
Michael, you're in a relationship for almost 40 years.
If you're like a real human being, there are times you may have a different part of energy
than your wife.
And I've certainly been there and say, honey, what am I missing here?
What didn't I hear?
If she yells from the other room, I can say, you got to yell louder.
That makes someone wrong.
Honey, I can't hear you.
It's so simple, Michael.
And I realize I'm just going on about this.
The bottom line is, ladies and gentlemen, take responsibility for everything.
It doesn't mean you're wrong.
Just take responsibility for it.
Like in a relationship, do you rather be right or would you rather have the relationship?
You're right.
But that is so difficult for some people to do to own the mistake.
And when I'm up on a stage and I usually inject humor or whatever else, and if the
joke falls flat and it's death science, which is deadly for a speaker.
But you know, I'm like, and what I did last time, because I've done it so many times before,
I've taken a microscope and I've said, OK, well, that joke didn't work.
So next time, you know, and I made itself deprecating and people laughed about that
and we moved on.
But the whole idea was that I took the ownership of that mistake.
And I didn't blame anybody else.
I didn't blame the equipment, you know, but it was all just me.
But that's very good.
Take ownership.
OK, so what you said is people blame, you know, hey, it's a dumb audience.
No, it's not.
It's we who are the speakers who screwed up.
We misread the audience or whatever it is.
So I honor you for that, and then you get the audience involved.
And as a speaker, you know that get the audience involved.
Absolutely.
It's that interaction.
OK, so let's say let me ask you a question.
What role does the follow up in follow up?
What is the role of follow up have to do with when you meet somebody?
And how are you following up with them?
There's a classic expression in business.
The business is in the follow up.
The money's in the follow up.
We as human beings have remarkably short attention spans.
I'm sure you're afraid they say a goldfish has a longer attention span than a human
being, which is about seven seconds.
We forget things.
We're human.
I don't care how perfect your memory is.
Ladies and gentlemen, you're going to forget things.
There's a distinction between following up and being a pain in the butt, by the way.
One of the things I teach people, they learn how to make the connection, how to get on
radio as a guest on terrestrial radio, talk show guest, how to pitch the guest, and how
not to be a pain, and then how to get invited back.
A first connection is it's sometimes not even a handshake.
It's high.
It's, do we have anything in common?
From a business perspective, you want to go from a suspect.
In my world, everyone's a suspect.
What does that mean?
I deal with publicity.
Our company gets people featured in big city media.
We get them interviews.
We get them on stages.
Every entrepreneur needs that.
When I meet an entrepreneur, I'm going to say, well, is this person a candidate?
Then they become a prospect if they say, yes, I'm interested.
Now the next part is the follow-up.
We get on a phone.
We get on Zoom.
We do email.
We do text.
That's the follow-up.
Otherwise, it's a nice conversation.
I'm not saying you do this with everyone.
You do this with people who you have a connection with.
Then your job is to turn them into a client.
The next part, Michael, is to turn them into raving fans.
They go out and they tell everyone about you.
The follow-up, and today it's so invasive.
You get off the phone with any high-tech business.
I was just on the phone with my doctor's office.
I get a text.
I was to service.
It's a pain at this point on personal interactions.
Always follow-up.
I'm going to be very transparent, ladies and gentlemen.
I'm just checking to make sure I have it, Michael.
As a guest on your program, Michael's going to get a thank you email from me for the opportunity
to be here.
I'm not looking for his business.
He's giving me the opportunity to serve him and you as the followers.
How cool is it to send a thank you?
When was the last time you sent a thank you?
Even a physical card?
An email, a text?
Acknowledge people.
Don't do it from a business perspective.
Don't give them your elevator pitch, which most people don't know how to do that anyway.
Michael, you're going to look forward to it after this.
It's just going to say thanks.
That's follow-up.
What you say about follow-up is what I've been doing for about 10 years.
After I send the initial email, thank you, I have in my briefcase a stack of thank you
notes.
I handwrite a thank you note.
Your name and address goes on it.
A business card goes in it.
All I did was thank you for your time and your effort.
I hope to do business with you soon.
I write a thank you.
He writes a handwritten thank you anymore.
It's like a lost art.
That's one of the things that I'm trying to bring back.
Good for you.
Within networking, there's a mantra.
There's a know you, like you, trust you.
They'll do this with you.
Trust is a crucial part of networking.
How do you establish and maintain that level of trust with fellow professions and clients?
You maintain a level of trust.
I'm going to go back to what we talked about earlier.
It's by being authentic.
Don't exaggerate.
Demonstrate.
How can you demonstrate?
Today it's easy.
Testimonials, videos, proof.
It's so easy to get video testimonials.
Again, it's so pervasive.
I got off the phone with some software company and I got a survey.
On a scale of zero to 10.
I want to say the service was great, but the follow-up sucks because it's automatic.
It's not authentic.
Be authentic with people.
You noticed there's an underlying theme here.
Be authentic with yourself.
It doesn't make a difference if you're an introvert or an extrovert.
If you're doing business, and by the way, it's the same thing in your personal life.
Be authentic.
And follow-up.
Demonstrate what you can do.
Now, in our business, we laugh.
We have a problem.
We always over, under promise.
But then we over deliver.
Now, why do we do that?
It's not a business gamble.
It's I want to make Michael, if you were to engage us, and this happened with a high
school colleague of mine, she reached out and said, can you get an article in a newspaper?
And conversation, of course, we signed the contract, and I promised her I'd get her in
at least one newspaper.
What's it like to be featured in a big city newspaper?
That builds your leverage.
It builds your credibility.
I wound up pitching it and getting it into three different newspapers.
Now, what would have happened if I promised a three and I only got one?
So under promise and over deliver and be so real.
That's what that's about.
Sounds like a good rule to have.
OK, so let's circle this back.
Let's close this out.
Give me your favorite marketing tactic.
Well, I don't know if I have a favorite because I'm on networking events.
I'm all over the place.
I'm visible.
And OK, here it is.
Ladies and gentlemen, instead of pitching and selling, attract and enroll.
I'm going to say that again instead of pitching and then begging and asking for the sale.
And we've all had salespeople like that.
They're in scarcity.
I need I need to close this deal.
They may not say those words, but you can feel that energetics.
Just let people know what you do and then let them come to you and enroll them in your process.
It's their decision.
Let it be their decision.
Don't force anything on them.
People.
That's my best.
Attract and enroll.
People love to buy.
They hate to be sold to.
Absolutely correct.
So let them buy.
You have to have that in the back of your mind.
OK, so give me one takeaway that my audience.
Could utilize tomorrow.
Boy, I'm going to give you the same thing.
I've said be authentic.
Be whom you are.
And if you're not who you want to be, then figure out how to be who you put on this on this planet to be enough.
Done a soul to soul level.
Be with people.
Don't pitch.
Say I'm here.
I have nothing to sell you.
You're not going to get.
I hope you buy my midnight tonight.
You're going to get a 12 and a half percent.
No, that's not that's selling.
What I will give your audience, Michael and ladies and gentlemen, publicity again is what we do.
If you would like to have outstanding publicity and you want to know how to leverage it doesn't make a difference.
What you've got Richard K.com forward slash leverage.
You're going to get about a five or six minute video how to leverage.
For example, this podcast for me and for Michael can be leveraged so other people say, oh, this is what these guys do.
And there's no place on that to buy anything.
That's right.
That's not selling.
Well, stop selling.
Richard, let me ask you a question.
If somebody wanted to get ahold of you, what's the best way to get ahold of you where they want to buy your services or just learn about you or whatever, but they want to contact you.
Talk about publicity.com.
No punctuation or one word, which brings up another thing.
Communication, Michael, make it easy.
Make it easy for people to get in touch with you.
If your website has a form, Michael, have you ever filled out a form on a website and then you pray to God that someone's going to get back beyond the order responder?
Yeah.
Absolutely.
Yeah.
It's a challenge.
Put a phone number if you're OK with that.
But at least an email address or a scheduling thing.
Make it easy in the networking.
Make it easy for people to connect and find and get in touch with you because, Michael, you know, we live in a one click world.
What does that mean?
Next.
And you only have a few seconds because whenever you go to a web page or something and they have everything to figure out how long somebody was looking at these web pages.
If you don't get their attention within the first two or three seconds, they're on to the next one.
So you have to really think about that.
And my wife and I have kind of translated.
We hardly watch television.
I had a picture tube television till about six months ago.
We finally said, OK, we'll get one.
And we sit down and watch Netflix.
And I got this from my son.
Dad, if it doesn't captivate you in the first 10, 12 minutes, why?
So we go through the listing, we'll pick something.
And how many of us have sat through movies that are like really bad?
So now 10, 12 minutes.
If it's not grabbing next, and that's our whole culture, Michael, a whole society is next.
And attention span is so freaking short these days.
So absolutely.
Absolutely.
Richard, I have to tell you, it was an absolute pleasure speaking
with you, having you on the podcast.
And I hope to speak with you again, sir.
Michael, it's my pleasure to serve you and ladies and gentlemen, talk about publicity.com.
Do you want to explore how to get you so that people would say, I choose you,
create top of mind awareness.
Thank you, Michael.
OK.
Well, that's a wrap, folks.
A huge thank you to our special 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.
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 enjoyed this episode, don't forget to subscribe, leave us a review and share it with someone who could use a little networking inspiration.
Let's keep the conversation going.
You can find me on Apple, Spotify, YouTube or my website, MichaelAForman.com.
Remember, until next time, keep practicing, keep connecting and keep building those relationships.
This is Michael A. Foreman signing off.
Take care and happy networking.