Hello, and welcome to Networking Unleashed, building
profitable connections. Welcome back 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 check emails.
Networking isn't just a nice skill to have, it's
a game changer. 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 just let me stay at
home and text type, we've got something for you.
Stick around. Let's turn those awkward small
talk moments into big wins. I've got an incredible
guest today. His name is Jack Sederlund, and
I hope I got the last name correct. Really, for
such a young man, he has an extraordinary background.
and he's a 28 -year -old entrepreneur from Milwaukee,
Wisconsin, began his business journey at the
age of 19 while navigating college and searching
for his life's direction. Now, I can go more
with his bio, but I'll probably butcher it. Let
me introduce Jake, and he'll fill you in a little
bit more. Jake, welcome to the podcast. Absolutely,
Michael. Thank you so much for having me, and
I'm super excited to be here. Good. Do you want
to give us a little bit more of your background?
Yeah, absolutely. I can talk all day about myself,
but I've been doing the business entrepreneurship.
I hate that word, but self -employment thing
for about 10 years now. I started in college.
A big part of my introduction into that world
was networking and just seeing what was out there
and getting into business, seeing different opportunities.
And I made a lot of good partnerships, a lot
of bad partnerships, and really has led to me
starting a few different, say, successful companies.
Some of them have definitely been failures, but
it's been a journey. I'm still here. I'm still
doing it and excited to share my experience.
Good. That's great. Okay, that's great. Let me
start off by asking you, how did networking influence
your journey in developing business growth strategies?
Absolutely. When I first got started, I don't
come from like that business professional background.
I didn't have parents that are out there being
like salespeople or business professionals. My
mom's side, they did have a small business, but
my mom's an accountant and she likes numbers
and everything like that. My dad's, you know,
a normal, typical corporate job. So I didn't
have a lot of role models in my day -to -day
life where I was like going out, making connections
and shaking hands. It was something that I had
to learn. I got involved first and foremost in
a club when I was in college called CEO, the
Collegiate Entrepreneurship Organization, and
really started just like meeting people, shaking
hands, seeing what everybody else was doing.
And at the time I was doing prototyping because
I had a background in engineering. So it was
like, I want to see what everybody else is doing.
How are they starting their business? We're all
the same age, 19, 20, 21. And then from there,
it really escalated into, okay, everybody's starting
out. I need to talk to people that actually have
real business experience. And I got really big
into LinkedIn and just connecting with people
in the Milwaukee area. That's where I'm from.
And I ended up just, I would connect with somebody
and be like, hey, could I buy you a coffee? I
just want to sit down and learn from you. My
first year in entrepreneurship business was just
doing that, just really meeting people. How did
you get started? How do you run your business?
Looking back at it, I was reaching out to people
that were just way above my level at the time,
but it really started from there. And then I
got into Facebook groups and I would network
in there. That's how I found my business partner
and really took off. So I could talk about that
all day, but it really started with me on LinkedIn,
just networking with individuals in my local
area that were clearly at a much higher level
than I was at the time. You always start off
with what you don't know, you don't know, right?
And you didn't know where these people were in
the spectrum of entrepreneurship. So you just
ask them. And I'm sure most of them said, sure,
I'll meet you. And that's the way you learn.
I love when people would ask me, when I had my
businesses and things like that, I would always
have somebody coming up and asking me, how did
I begin? How did I start? How did I do this?
I always gave them the answers. And I always
had them buy me a cup of coffee. But besides
that, everything was good. All right. So how
has AI changed the way you network and build
business connections? Yeah, that's a really good
question. That's a big one for me because we
do a lot with AI too in our businesses. But I
think the biggest is it really automates a lot
of the introductions. Before back in the day,
I would be on LinkedIn. I would scroll through
like search Milwaukee and then pick out the people
that I wanted to connect with and just click
connect. And then now with AI, I can just run
an automation. AI will automatically find people
that I'm interested in connecting with. And they
automatically sends the first message saying,
Hey, this is me. This is what I do. Would you
be interested in working together? And that's
the flow now. So AI is really streamlined. I
think a lot of the hands -on approach that we
used to have to do. And then now it's just run
this little software, run this program. And then
when they respond, I can pick up and start engaging.
Don't use AI to just have a one -on -one communication
with somebody because I think AI is not there
yet. But for the introduction and finding people,
it's definitely been a game changer for us. How
do you feel about that in -person networking,
going to networking events or networking with
this person one -on -one? I think there, it's
an absolute, I think there's a place in everybody's,
just day to day life that they should be implementing
that. I don't do it enough anymore. Unfortunately,
it's something that I've lost a little bit of
touch with. And I wish I still did. Because as
much as you can have meetings online with people,
it's not the same as one on one networking and
meeting somebody in your local community. So
I think there's a lot of power in it. I did it
for a lot of years. And Unfortunately, I'm a
little out of touch with it now, but I think
it can get you a lot farther because definitely
online too, people can put on a persona that
it's, I'm this person and are they really? But
when you're meeting with somebody one -on -one
in your local community, it's definitely more
genuine. And I think it can lead to more real
business opportunities than somebody just trying
to sell you something, which unfortunately you
get that a lot online. I wholeheartedly agree
with you. I believe in the in -person networking,
go to networking events. Now, there's a place
for AI and there's a place for online, but nothing
takes the place of that one -on -one to feel
the vibe of the person, to feel the vibe of the
room. You don't get that energy through Zoom.
You say, oh. I love it. But through computers
and everything. Yeah. But you don't have that
feeling that and you have a feeling of success
after you leave the event. Then, of course, you
move on to the follow up. But it's such a bit
more of a invigorating feeling when you're meeting
with everybody one on one. But let's just move
this on. So can you share an example of how networking
led to creating a successful, irresistible, offer
absolutely so the biggest like game changer in
my business in my career was finding the right
partner and for me i went into business always
just really wanting to find a partner because
i struggle with sales it's just not the type
of person i am i can do support fulfillment operations
systems all that stuff all day i just don't do
sales so I was always trying to find the partner
that could fill that role. And I was in Facebook
groups. I ended up networking and finding a guy.
We just chatted. We chatted eventually. We were
like, hey, let's do business together. And that
led us into the real estate space, specifically
doing marketing for real estate agents. And that
was our first big business together that we started.
We've went on now and started a bunch of other
really cool stuff. Him having that experience
in real estate, me having the marketing experience
and everything like that coming together and
really putting our brains together. I know marketing,
real estate, let's collaborate. And basically
had all these conversations coming up with an
offer of what are we going to offer to real estate
agents? And from there, basically came up with
our winning offer of at the time, which was just.
I call it a purple ocean offer, which it stands
out from what everybody else was doing in the
market. And together again, came up with this
winning offer that allowed us to have a lot of
success because again, I took what I knew. He
took what he knew about real estate, meshed it
together. Again, created a winning offer that
allowed us to scale. That's a great synergy between
you and your partner. You always look for that
partnership where you can compliment one another.
Because if you're competing with one another,
that's not a good recipe for success. I happen
to be on the sales side of things. I've been
doing sales for 100 years. So for me, it's everything.
But when you get to a partner, I would partner
with a marketing person or something else like
that. So that's a great synergy. How would you
use your networking to stay ahead of emerging
trends in business? Absolutely. So from now,
from where I'm at, the biggest way that we've
used networking to stay ahead of trends and just
everything going on in the market. Again, I still
own marketing agencies, so we're very big into
what's going on in marketing, what's new. One
of our biggest things over the last two years
was we implemented voice AI. into our offering
for our clients, which has been a success. And
that came from my partner was still in contact
with another agency, another marketing agency.
And they just stay in contact. They, Hey, how's
everything going? What are you seeing? What are
the trends? How are your show rates? Are you
closing people? Are you struggling? And they
just constantly in communication, not every day,
but every month, just checking in on each other.
And He actually mentioned, he sent it over to
us and was like, hey, check this voice AI thing
out. And at the time, it was very expensive to
get into. So he was like, hey, if you guys want
to hop in on this, that would be really cool.
We can do something together. And we ended up
buying a license together. And again, it's been
impactful, not only for our business being able
to offer it, but for our clients and able to
actually implement voice AI to their businesses.
Again, really supplementing. what assistant or
some kind of receptionist would be doing for
their business. So that's really been the biggest
thing is that we're able to stay in touch with,
you could say that there are competitors. At
the end of the day, there are peers in this industry
and networking with them, staying in touch with
them. And again, we wouldn't have adopted voice
AI so quickly if we wouldn't have had those connections
and we're in constant communication with them.
That's all right. That's all right. So tell me,
as your business scaled, how did you maintain
and grow your professional network? Absolutely.
So I feel like it's something that it comes with
scaling because as you scale, you look for different
businesses that you might want to plug in as
far as contractors or hiring different employees.
And as we grew, we ended up just connecting with
higher level individuals. We ended up one of
the biggest turning points in our business was
hiring out a sales team. And we ended up finding
somebody to build it out and implement it for
us. But that connection with that person that
provided that initial salesperson was and has
now become like one of the leading industry experts
in sales. And that was all from hiring him as
part of scaling, being a client of his. And then
now he's a peer. We have one -on -one communication
with him. Everything that comes from scaling
and in a network aspect of people I can reach
out to, different resources, have just been from
having different conversations about, hey, would
you be interested in doing a little bit of work
for us? Would you want to collaborate on this
project? Hey, this is a cool offer you might
be interested in. this specific thing so it's
really again come from just the natural progression
of growing meeting new people and entertaining
different aspects in the business even if you
end up working with them or not it's still somebody
that i feel like at a certain level you have
a mutual respect for people and you know i'm
big on not burning bridges and you know just
having open communication with everybody that
i meet and referring other people like you know
connecting individuals And it's that reciprocation
that eventually it'll come back to you. But yeah,
as far as networking goes with scaling, it's
really just been meeting new people and staying
in touch with them and trying to connect individuals
and not burning bridges as well. Yeah, no, I
understand completely. That's as a corporate
speaker and I do workshops and things like that.
So I'm always referring. somebody to somebody
else. I'm always the bridge that connects the
other two people. And I do that almost for a
living, because I feel what goes around comes
around. But I too never burn any bridges. And
you never know who you're going to collaborate
with. So I'm always out there when I coach one
of my students. I'm always emphasizing how important
that is for a relationship. And you hit the nail
right on the head. Okay, so what strategies do
you use for effective virtual networking? Figured
this is right in your cup of tea here. What strategies
do you use for effective virtual networking in
today's digital age? Absolutely. As of right
now, it's been all about value. and giving value
and being active as well. As an example, I'm
still active in a lot of Facebook groups just
because that was just naturally where I was drawn
towards when I was first starting. And people
are always asking for help, referrals, things
like that. And with where I'm at in business,
I can, for the most part, say, hey, like check
this person out if you're having issues with
your email setup or if you're having issues with
Facebook ads. Hey, talk to Andrew because Andrew
is a Facebook ads genius. And it's really been
staying active. And again, like taking that whole
aspect of giving back, giving value, sharing
wins, sharing strategies, and just implementing
that online. Not asking, not expecting anything
in return. If I go out there and say, hey. This
helped us improve our show rates for our clients
by 20%. If people are, I'm just giving away value
and I'm giving away the strategy. I'm not saying
DM me and then trying to sell them something
or it's $100 and I'll tell you what it is. Not
doing that by any means. It's literally just
sharing wins. Again, and taking that whole networking
approach that's more one -on -one and just applying
it to groups and trying to be as value as possible.
Now, I'm not in there every single day, every
hour of the day, but just checking in, seeing
what's going on. And again, we talked about how
do you stay at the peak of your industry and
seeing like what's going on in your industry.
That's also another way is as much as I'm giving
value and I'm networking and sharing with those
people. I also get to see what everybody else
is doing and what's going on in our industry
so that we can improve as well. That's good.
And you hit something right on the head because
whenever I go to a networking event or I'm speaking
at a networking event or I'm coaching somebody,
I always tell them that you have to go in with
the mindset to give, not to receive. If you go
with the mind, because some people have said
to me, oh, that's crazy because you're going
to a networking event. And what are you going
there for? Because you're going there to get
business. Yes, you are. But if you look to give
rather than receive, you will get a whole lot
more than when you started. It's a mindset. And
that goes along with there's a mantra. There's
a mantra for networking. If they know you, if
they like you and trust you. they'll do business
with you and know you. Listen, you're very well
known, okay? So everybody knows you and likes
you. Well, that narrows it down just a little
bit because everybody doesn't like you, but trust
you. That's such a crucial factor. And if you
can gain their trust and you're looking to give,
not receive, you'll go light years ahead of just
about everyone else. Absolutely. OK, so let me
ask you a question. How do you leverage your
network when implementing new business scaling
strategies? That's a really good question. So
for me and what we've been able to do, it's two
sided. So on one side of it is actually partnering
with those individuals. So I'll give you an example.
A little bit ago, probably like a year. ish we
started a new marketing agency and we were in
need of an operations manager for that agency
And we had done a little bit of work with an
individual in the past, again, never burned the
bridge, never always kept in contact with him.
And we offered him like, hey, do you want to
come on as a partner and be the operations manager
and help us build this thing? They're directly
that somebody and he obviously said yes, and
we're working together. And that was a way that
we were able to leverage our network of individuals
to be able to scale because we're only a couple
people. If we can bring somebody else on that
we know and we trust to help us scale that business,
it allows us to do less work. Obviously, we're
giving up less profit. But at the end of the
day, we're able to have another successful business.
So that's definitely one of the ways. It's like
that direct impact of having that network of
individuals. But then also the other way has
really been. with individuals that we're able
to have conversations with before we actually
even start. So I'll give you another example.
We were playing around with starting a LinkedIn
advertising agency. And it's something we obviously
know we do on a day to day. But we didn't really
know if that specific, because that's very specific.
We didn't know if that would work. Andrew, our
media buyer, we ended up having a conversation
with him and really hashing it out and being
like, what does this industry look like? What's
our upside? What's our downside? What issues
are we going to run into? So we were almost able
to have like a consulting session with him in
a sense. Obviously, again. We didn't have to
pay him. We didn't have to just find some random
person. We knew who he was. We've worked with
him. We trusted him. So we were able to go to
him as an advisor and just be like, hey, what's
your thoughts on this? Is this valid? Is this
not valid? Because when you start a business
or when you're doing anything just with your
job, you can get blinders that it's, I'm so focused
in. This is going to work. This is going to be
great. But it's hard to sometimes to really look
at the big picture and allowing us to bounce
ideas off of just our network. work in general
can help us sometimes look at things from a different
lens. And again, that's obviously going to impact
your ability to scale. That's right. That's you,
you, again, you hit on so many different points
that is spot on. But you told me how successful
you've become, yet you've had a series of challenges.
What's a significant networking challenge you
faced while growing your business and how did
you overcome it? Yeah, so I think it was, you
know, I touched on this a little bit before where
I've gotten out of touch a little bit with networking.
You know, now it's something that I really try
to actually structure into my day to day and
just reaching out to people and, you know, saying
hi. Thankfully, we have an online group now where
we're able to do that. But for a long time, I
fell into just and again, it's not a physical
hole, but it's a mental hole where you're in
this room with all these walls around you and
you're just looking everywhere and it's just
me and I'm just building this business. kind
of interacting with everybody inside of our business,
but I'm not looking at what's outside that room.
I'm not opening the door and seeing what is everybody
else doing? How's it going out in the real world?
And I fell into that trap for about two to three
years where we were just so focused on what we
were doing. And we weren't really, again, taking
a look up from our desk and looking what everybody
else was doing. And I think that can be definitely
one of the biggest challenges that you can face
as you get into business is. Just being so absorbed
in what you're doing and not really taking a
step back and looking at what is everybody else
doing? How's everybody else growing their business?
Are there any other strategies that we could
be implementing? And unfortunately, the repercussion
of that is we scaled our business, but then it
actually, I don't want to say failed. We had
a time period of probably six to eight months
where we were losing money every month because
we weren't actually looking at. What was the
market doing? What was the marketing industry
like? And we really had to open the door of the
room we were in, look around and see, okay, like
we need to change things up because the marketing
industry moved so fast that we had become like
old in a sense. Like we were doing, an example
would be like doing advertisements in the newspaper.
Over those two years, we had fallen so behind
in what was relevant. that, again, it impacted
our business. So that's probably one of the biggest
examples, I would have to say. That's good. That
also showed how you pulled the blinders off and
you got yourself able to open the door and actually
see that light that says, you know what? There's
other things out there and it's working better
than ours. So we have to change it, but still
keep our... our name speak. But yeah, but it's
very good that you were able to do that because
there's a lot, face it, there's a lot of companies
that just have those blinders and then before
they realize it, they're out of business. So
that's very good. Okay. So working on the AI
tools, which AI powered networking tool or platforms
do you find most valuable for your business growth?
That's a good question. So as of right now, I
would say, and I mentioned it before, but LinkedIn.
And it's funny because LinkedIn back in the day
was like very popular and it went away for a
little bit. And now it's almost become, again,
Instagram is super big for like these personal
brands, but LinkedIn has almost become that.
But from a professional sense, you see a lot
of people starting to give value. I actually
saw somebody. from college that I networked with
in that CEO group back in the day. She's starting
to post on LinkedIn as just giving value. This
is why I bought a business instead of starting
one, et cetera, et cetera. So it's really cool
to see LinkedIn starting to have this comeback.
So that would be my number one as of right now.
And again, I, and how does that relate? It has
to 100 % be. Again, automating the connection
process and the conversation starting process
with AI. And then obviously you pick it up after
they respond or something like that. But LinkedIn
has been really the biggest and the coolest platform
that I've definitely been using the last year.
It sounds like LinkedIn did what you did. They
got so involved in what they were doing. They
didn't see everybody else and they were losing
traction. But then somebody. opened the door
and said, look out there because they're making
it and we're not. So they changed. And I was
aware of the change also because I'm a very big
LinkedIn user. So they saw it and now they're
expanding. So it was a very good thing. And rightfully
that you picked up on it. How do you envision
networking evolving for entrepreneurs in the
next five years, especially with the advanced
AI? That's a good question. I think it'll be
good for the people that use it properly. And
I think there will be some bad eggs or maybe
it's not bad eggs, but I think there will definitely
be some ingenuine networking and connections
and things like that. And where I'm going with
the ingenuine part is just allowing AI to completely
automate your introduction, your conversation,
and there's no real meaning behind it at all.
I definitely see, again, I mentioned LinkedIn,
but even just on all platforms, being able to
use AI to find like -minded individuals that
are in the same industry that you're in and being
able to use AI to, again, identify them, connect
with them, interact with them, which I think
is great. But when AI comes to that conversation
part and starts to take over the one -on -one
conversation you're supposed to be having, I
think that's where we can get down that road
of, It not being the best option for us as a
society, especially from a networking perspective.
So that's where I see it. Again, I see a lot
of benefits of it, but I also definitely see
some potential issues. Yeah, you have to train
AI to speak like you do. You can't just say,
oh, look, I want to send an email out and just
fix it. You have to give it very exact directions.
And then you can't just post it the way it is.
You have to change it a little bit so it thinks
the way you do. And AI isn't there yet. They
haven't. But it's a tool to help you write something.
And it'll give you the gist of it. But you still
have to do that writing, that main writing. Jake,
I'm telling you, this was fabulous. I loved listening
to everything that you went through, what you're
going through. If somebody wanted to get hold
of you, either to buy a service or talk to you
about entrepreneurship or just to call you and
talk to you and say, hey, I need help with something.
How would they do it? Absolutely. So just my
name dot com. So Jake Sutterlin dot com. We have
all of our offerings, all of my social medias
on there. And then. phone number and email that
if you want to get in contact with me, you absolutely
can message in. Would love to talk to anybody.
Again, always interested in growing my network.
Yeah. If you want to reach out, definitely do.
It's just jakesetterlin .com. That's great, Jake.
Thank you so much for coming on. And I hope every
one of my listeners listened to what you had
to say because it was very interesting. Thank
you so much, Michael. Well, hold on, folks. Don't
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-E -V -V -E -D -U -P -K -I -D -S dot org. 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. 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.