Welcome back to another episode of Networking
Unleashed, the podcast where we turn conversations
into connections and connections into profits.
I'm your host, Michael Foreman, and today we're
diving into the future of networking, where strategy
meets technology. My guest today is a powerhouse
in client acquisition, known for helping businesses
create systems that bring in sales on autopilot.
We're taking AI automation and how to build real
lasting relationships in a digital world that's
changing by the second. If you've ever wondered
how to blend authentic networking with the power
of AI or how to make your client pipeline run
while you sleep, this episode is for you. Let's
unleash some next level strategies. Come on,
let's get into it. Hello, Chris. How are you
doing? I have Chris here today, and he helps
solopreneurs and small businesses save time,
nurture leads, and scale through smart marketing
and efficient automation. How's that, Chris?
How's that for beginning of a podcast? Michael,
you absolutely nailed it. Probably the best intro
I've ever had before. I'm stealing that if that's
okay with you. No problem. Go right ahead. So
excited to be on here. And I love both your intro
for the podcast, what it's about, because really
life and business is all about networking. It's
about making conversations into those connections
and how do we utilize those connections. So this
was my experience just from 11 years ago, starting
a wedding DJ business, being a solopreneur. Eventually
I grew and scaled a team. We became an award
winning wedding DJ service. And suddenly this
became my full -time income. I could quit my
job and just focus on that. During COVID is when
I... was finishing my degree in marketing. And
as we know, the world shut down, so we couldn't
DJ a lot of weddings. So that's when I shifted
and transitioned into starting the Automation
AI Technology Marketing Agency. It feels weird
to try to put it into a box because I always
feel like we're just helping our clients with
solving different types of problems all the time.
So we're just getting creative. But through that
experience, it's been incredible. I love nurturing
relationships, marketing, just business in general.
So I'm excited to nerd out about all that fun
stuff with you today. That's great. I love when
you have to nerd out of everything. Really, the
problems that you deal with, I think more of
the problems are outside the box. Nobody has
the same problem. There's always a little twist
on it. But let's kick things off. How has AI
changed the way professionals network and build
relationships today? Absolutely. So AI has been
an incredible tool. It's existed for quite a
few years, 10, 20 years in different forms. This
was more like computer machine learning and algorithms.
But just recently, we saw the introduction of
OpenAI's ChatGPT, and then many others followed
suit of these large language models where you
could basically ask. anything you wanted and
see what kind of result you could get. So first
it started creating copy, making conversation.
Then it was able to create websites and become
a programmer for you. And just recently OpenAI
released their updated. image generation model.
So I'm sure you've seen a bunch of people creating
fun little action figures of themselves, or maybe
a corporate professional headshot that takes
a regular picture and tosses a professional business
attire onto you. So it's been an incredible game
changer. And the way that we've seen this evolving
is now we can use AI to both engage in conversation
and personalized conversation. So now just as
an example, maybe you have a list of leads you've
been hoping to follow up on. Maybe your process
is that. You reach out to 10 people each week
and you probably go checked out. their LinkedIn
profile. Maybe you've scraped some data on them
so you can make them more personalized. What's
cool is that AI can now do this. So either through
a simple prompt or ChatGPT, you can do this manually,
or you can set up an automation system that is
now incorporating AI agents, LLM models to craft
the perfect opening sentence for your next email
and maybe even a personalized subject line. So
this is personalization at scale, which is really
cool. Something we haven't seen before. Of course,
we've had automation tools, MailChimp, CRMs that
would... allow us to scale, but nothing that
could really personalize this to this degree.
So it's an incredible way for people to now outreach,
connect with people, create meaningful conversations.
But I always recommend having that human touch
point follow up after. You generally don't want
the conversation to all be run by AI. Certain
instances it can, but if you're creating genuine
human relationships, there's a place for AI and
a place for the humans to take over as well.
Yeah, I know that there's... place in my heart,
of course, but where AI meets networking. And
you have to put that personal touch on it, that
relationship. If we were just client building,
AI could just hit it and let's go. But you have
to change it and do it. So you really have to
pay attention. But it's a good mix of both. You
specialize in client acquisition systems. How
important is networking in creating a lead generation
engine that runs on autopilot? Absolutely. As
a whole, lead nurturing is that middle of funnel.
This is how we get leads into the system after
that type of funnel strategy, right? So networking,
you're out there doing the groundwork, we need
you to be collecting those leads and then entering
them into the system. So that way the automation,
the AI can then take over to help you with those
touch points and follow up and nurturing them.
So we don't recommend people getting rid of traditional
networking. In fact, we want you to introduce
those leads into the automation and client acquisition
system. Just as a whole, it's a way for a business
owner to take a step back and really look at
how they nurture and bring value to their prospects,
leads, and clients. So we find a lot of businesses
are, unfortunately, their follow -ups sound like,
hey, are you still interested in buying or why
haven't you bought yet? As opposed to, I created
this blog post just for you because your story
reminded me of something or similar entrepreneurs
have this struggle. So it's just a clever way
where we can provide value. build and nurture
those relationships. And we use AI and automation
within this, but not to replace that human connection
and networking. We always recommend that as a
top funnel strategy as well. Outstanding. I couldn't
agree more with everything you just said. So
I really don't have anything else to say. When
someone is starting to automate their client
acquisition, what networking strategies should
they not forget to include in the process? Absolutely.
When we think of top of funnel strategies and
most people think of marketing, we think of advertising,
right? Paid ad placements, maybe Google putting
something up on Facebook. Those can be great
when you have a systematized process and really
dialed in on your audience, your offer and your
messaging. but that's a scaling that's a scaling
problem that you want to hit before you reach
that you really need a manual process that is
replicable already so you need to have some clients
in your system already you need to understand
what they're going through what their pain points
are so you can build this into a system now what's
cool is that at any time you can adjust and make
changes to your system as we do with many of
our automation email campaigns. Or I think this
process I feel like our clients are getting stuck
here. So I'm going to make this a little bit
easier. So we definitely recommend using these
automation tools, the CRMs, putting them all
together. But that type of funnel strategy It's
either getting found or get in front of the right
people. So getting found, you can either utilize
YouTube channels, social media, and search engine
optimization. So that way you're showing up for
the right keywords. People are researching solutions
to their problem. And if you happen to show up
and present yourself well with the solution,
now there are. they are pre -warmed and ready
potentially for that next step for you. But getting
in front of the right people can include networking.
It can include cold to warm direct messages with
a lot of individuals and businesses. Again, I
feel like if you focus on serving over selling,
you can easily find ways to provide value and
then nurture that relationship naturally. And
a lot of that can be done with AI, which is super
cool. Yeah, I always talk. Listen, I'm a public
speaker and I go coast to coast and I talk about
networking communication. But I always say, go
in with a servant's heart. Go in and say, what
can I do for you? How can I make you more successful?
And without even telling them what I do, that's
what I want to do. So that should be the beginning
of everything. You can use AI afterwards, but
after you get the feeling for the people, for
the person, then introduce AI. So it's a good
mix. It's a good mix. How can business owners
strike a balance between human connection automation
in today's AI -driven world? We just talked about
that a little bit. Absolutely. And it's something
important that we dive a bit deeper into because
I feel like today in 2025, we're almost bombarded
with AI. AI is now creating songs. AI is creating
images. It's taking a lot of the creative outlets
that we wanted. Originally, we wanted AI and
robots to do the laundry, maybe the dishes for
us. But instead, it's like writing songs and
poetry, the things that we wanted to do on our
free time instead. But again, trying to find
and strike this balance here. What's interesting
is I never imagined seeing AI. where it first
started and where it is today. I don't know if
you remember one of the first original AI videos
created, which was Will Smith eating spaghetti.
And it's probably the worst AI video you've ever
seen. Just very choppy. It's like they were copying
and pasting pictures of spaghetti into it, and
it just did not look natural. Fast forward two
to three years later, and this video is absolutely
incredible. So to see the evolution take place
over the years, but people need to be careful.
There are instances, like we mentioned before,
using human touchpoints that you can't really
replicate with AI just yet, or it needs that
human touchpoint that... ai just can't provide
yet but what's cool is that ai is more contextual
it's more flexible than previous automation or
reply follow -up systems before they would just
look for a generic keyword and maybe post in
a copy paste reply but today now it can have
natural more engaging conversations based on
previous conversations for example if you take
like you have an intake maybe you have a meeting
with a client just type their information into
a form here and now that ai when it provides
the follow -up three to seven days after, it
can use that previous chat as context to follow
up and say, oh, hey, you told me about this new
project you were working on. How is everything
going with that? So it's a great way to marry
those two elements together, but don't forget
that human connection element that needs to exist.
Absolutely. Yeah. You need that initial. natural
element just to say hello. AI can't introduce
you. On the computer, they can introduce you.
But you can't feel the vibe. Chris and I can't
go to a meeting and I can't feel the vibe of
Chris or the room and have that unique feeling.
And you pick up a lot of things from that. And
I can say, you know what, Chris, this is working
out. I'm going to go to another table and go
to another table. But in essence, it's really
that. natural feeling that AI, as of right now,
can't introduce. Totally agree. Absolutely. Can
you walk us through how a strong personal network
fuels or enhances automated sales pipeline? Absolutely.
Once you're trying to put yourself out there
and get your name out there, you start to create
these instances and examples of, okay, this is
my new process. This is who I'm helping. This
is how I help them. And these are the main pain
points they have. So it's kind of as you expand
your network and you start to learn a bit more,
you become more in tune with some of the problems
that they're experiencing, where they go to research
solutions to their problems. Where do these people
hang out? and have these conversations. So it's
just bringing this all together. So that way
you can, that way you can grow and scale your
business through, through that top of funnel
strategy. The more people you have knowing about
you and liking you, suddenly you can create some
brand promoters. These people are basically advertising
you for free and probably the best, best pre
-warmed lead other than search engine optimization
is going to be a personal referral, right? There's
less selling involved. People have already been
hyped up about who you are and how you help them.
So there's less barriers. It's less of a cold
introduction and it's way more warm. So now it's
much easier to build that relationship. But then
using that information, you can feed that into
your AI, into your LLM, into your CRM. So that
way it can. adjust itself based on maybe your
selling style, maybe your conversational style.
The best way to get a better output is to provide
examples to your LLM. So if you can provide past
blog posts that you've made, it can create a
better blog post. If you provide conversations
that you've had directly with clients, it can
better imitate and replicate your personal conversation
style. So this is a great way that we can use
kind of these top of funnel, mix them through
the community and just networking events, and
then build our better business. In the networking
world, there's a mantra. If they know you, if
they like you, if they trust you, they'll do
business with you. Right? So know you. Listen,
I know you. And we can know each other by Zoom.
But like us? No, that narrows the scope down
just a little bit. All right? And now trust,
that's the unlimiting factor. element of trust,
you can't get through Zoom. You can't get through
something else. You have to go there in person.
So know you like you, trust you, and then they
will begin to do business with you. Because you
know what? Nobody's going to do business with
you if they don't trust you. Okay? So now tell
me, Chris, now, before I finish with a few more
of my questions, you were successful. You were
successful as a DJ and successful now with AI.
Give me an idea. Give me what mistake you made
and how you overcame it. Absolutely. So throughout
business, plenty of mistakes, but through those
mistakes, those are all lessons that we can learn.
One of the biggest mistakes that I've made is
waiting too long, procrastinating with the idea
that I need to make it perfect before I launch,
or I really need some more insight, or I need
to watch one more video. I need to read one more
book from the bookshelf to really dial in what
I need to do. No, although that needs to get
thrown out the window, action is what is going
to create the end result for you. So without
the action, it's just an idea. People have plenty
of ideas and dreams that they want to implement
into business. Oftentimes, it's the execution
that is lacking. Now, I would rather see imperfect
action instead of not doing anything at all,
waiting for something to be absolutely perfect.
Because these things you learn through these
hands -on experience, you can't learn that. by
not acting on it yet. You can always update and
change things as you go along. So I definitely
promote people take action. Don't wait. This
was a mistake I made. The further you can hit
the ground running, the more hands -on experience
you'll get. And you can always adjust as you
go along. It doesn't have to be perfect. And
that's so right. When I tell people who are really
afraid to go out there and start networking,
the first thing I say is, just do it. Just go
out there and network. And listen, between you
and I, don't worry, because I know you're going
to suck. It's going to be horrible. You're going
to fall flat on your face. But the next time,
you're going to make a few less mistakes. And
then the third time, you can be a little bit
better. And a fourth time, you know what? Hey,
this is fun. I'm going to go out and try it.
You have to go through the first three times
before you get to that little bit of enjoyment.
I agree. But I think it takes the pressure off
them, too, when you just say, go get it. Don't
worry about it. You're going to fail. Hey, you
know what? Later down the road, it'll get better
and you'll improve. Look, you will fail. You're
going to suck. It's going to be horrible. Get
over it. And that's one thing you have to do
about getting over yourself. And another thing
is that will help build your confidence. So,
you know, the more confident you are, the better
you're going to be. Surprisingly motivational.
That's excellent. You're going to fail and it's
going to be great. I feel good about that. That's
right. You feel really good about that. What
role does trust and credibility play when you're
leveraging AI tools in networking or client acquisition
strategy? It's a great question. Trust and credibility
factor is huge. I'll be honest, most people don't
trust AI. Many people don't even know what AI
is or what it's capable of. So we can't trust
what we don't know. And if people are having
a... difficult time understanding or grasping
how impactful or positive it can be, or if we're
only looking at just the negatives. It's kind
of like, would I be afraid to ever fly a plane
if all I knew was plane crashes? But if you look
at statistics, say, okay, wow, probably the safest
form of travel. It's going to get me there quicker.
So I feel like AI is kind of like the plane of
modern technology now. So it's just another tool
in our toolbox that we can use to go a bit further,
a bit faster. But the trust and credibility factor,
you really, I don't know how AI and technology
incorporate specifically to that because the
trust and credibility, this is how you present
yourself. The words that you say, if you're just
a good natural person, I feel like people will
connect and resonate with that. And there's no
way that AI could really, AI can't make you a
good person. So it can make you a better copywriter.
It can make you a better programmer. It can teach
you a lot of things, but for you at the foundational
level, it really can't. change who you are, right?
That trust factor, that credibility. If you're
not trustworthy, if you don't follow through
on your promises and your word, people aren't
going to trust you going forward. But what's
cool is that the AI automation piece can help
you become more trustworthy in the way that...
If you're able to systematize your follow -up
process, now you have more time to be able to
follow up with your clients, to dive in deeper
into specific questions, to give them more attention
to detail as opposed to not having it at all.
So I feel like that's a great way they can help
build the trust and credibility aspect. But again,
you as a person, you need to put yourself out
there to build that trust. And you said so many
things that were good points that I didn't know
where to start, but where to comment. AI is a
tool. It's a tool in your belt and take it out
when you need it. And I personally have found
AI to be great. It'll free up some of my time
so I can delve a little bit further into my clients
and I can help them just that much more because
I have more time to do that. I love that. How
do you recommend using AI to stay top of mind
with connections without coming off as robotic
or salesy? Absolutely. So that natural relationship
building, I think, again, goes back to what we
discussed a little bit earlier is just the serving
over selling. When we focus on serving, this
becomes a value add. It becomes conversational.
When we're focused on selling, it comes off as
desperation. It's like, I have nothing of value
to bring to you, but I just wanted to check in.
So there's a couple of ways you can now use AI
for this. The systems that we create with AI
agents, they replicate what a person on your
sales team might do or a person in your customer
service department might do. you can preset specific
follow -up dates. I want you to follow up twice
in the first week. I want you to follow up once
in the next two weeks and then maybe a final
check -in at this point. During those points,
you can feed your AI LLM different blog posts
and content that you have that bring value to
their journey that help nurture them. And so
we can now create these AI agents that follow
up with more natural conversation specific to
that client based on the contextual conversations
that you've had, as opposed to pre -written automated
email that is written for everybody, right? I
find myself doing this with my automated email
follow -ups is it sounds like it's for everybody,
right? So you can find different ways to marry
that together. Take your regular template, put
that at the bottom. You have words that the phrasing
and how it's put that you don't want to change.
What I change is have AI craft the first two
sentences of your email and possibly the subject.
So once you have that little bit of opener, that's
how you make it sound more personalized. This
was written for me. And then the rest of the
email can then continue on into the rest of your
lead nurturing strategy. So I feel like combining
those two methods is a great way to not come
off too salesy, but be more conversational with
people. It's almost exactly how I use AI in my
emails. You're using it. I don't believe it.
You're telling them exactly what I do. I didn't
mean to give away the secrets here, but how has
it been for you? How have you seen that change
with your typical pre -templated email versus
the more contextual follow -up? The emails, it
has been crafted because it sounds like me. Okay,
so it sounds like I'm responding to their email,
but my follow -up, my secret sauce, I'll say,
is a little bit more in -depth than what you
just described and a little bit more often. But
I actually can change your follow -up to get
it from a 2 % response rate to about a 75%. Holy
cow. Yeah, it's incredible. But the response
rate, when I say response rate, it's just to
have them give you a feedback. Positive or negative,
that's feedback. But that's all that I'm asking.
It's a positive or negative. And it's about 75%.
So about 75 % of the time, you're getting feedback,
which is really good. And that I teach all of
my clients. That, when I do a workshop or something
else, this is what I'm teaching them. I've gotten
so many emails back saying, oh my God, Michael,
this is fantastic. Why haven't I done this before?
I said, because you didn't know me before. So
let me finish out these two. Tell us about a
time when networking opened the door to a major
opportunity and how you use tech to scale that
relationship. Absolutely. So a couple examples
here. One was just in -person networking. I joined
a local networking group. So this was just hang
out, have a cigar, maybe some drinks, your classic
networking group. From that, I was able to get
these new relationships that people were now
promoting my services. I was able to get one
client and one referral just from this networking
group. Now, it did take over a year. for this
relationship to form. But I think most of us
know in the B2B world, it can take eight to 15
months plus for someone to finally make a purchase
decision for your product or your service. But
this is a great example of just in -person networking.
put a proposal out there, let people know who
you're about. And when the time is ready, when
they feel like it's right, they can come around
back to you to sign up for your services. And
that has then led me into becoming a subcommittee
for a board member on a nonprofit that helps
with mental health. So that's been a great way
for me to feel like I'm doing marketing for something
good and to show how impactful that could be.
That gave me the confidence to then make a post
in a Facebook group about. being available as
a guest for podcasts. Suddenly a doctor from
a nonprofit summit reached out and said, you
sound like a great guest. You can provide a lot
of value. Would you be interested in speaking
at a virtual summit coming up in April? It's
actually this week here in April 25. So I was
like, wow, that's incredible. So this one little
opportunity that led me into some sort of interest
for continuing nonprofit work. turned into a
Facebook post that turned into a relationship
that now we're following up. So now we swap podcasts.
We're helping build and nurture each other with
our systems and relationships. So now I'm using
that as a template. How do I follow up naturally
after I meet someone in person? I created a form
and a button that gives me that context that
provides that nurturing relationship follow -up.
And then once I have more examples of working
with the nonprofits directly, I can then create
a system and template for that. So that way I
don't have to manually be doing it, but I need
that personal conversation first to know how
the conversation might go until I hand it off
to an employee or an AI. And I think you need
not the one person, but two or three. So you
get a better idea of it and then you can hand
it off and everything else. But yeah, but AI
is a tool that you're using. And that was a great
idea with Facebook, by the way, to get that.
I may have to use that. Please do. Please do.
Knowledge is power. We share it. That's right.
That's right. All right. So let's bring this
conversation full circle. Looking ahead, where
do you see the biggest opportunities for professionals
who want to build strong networks and leverage
technology for growth? Absolutely. So I think
AI and technology right now is allowing us to
produce more and go faster than we could before.
So this just means you're able to do more networking
events without having to be stuck in doing admin
work. You're able to make more attempts to outreach.
And again, like you said, improve the reply rate.
I see a lot of people, they focus on, hey, book
a meeting or do this next step when really we
just need. conversation. One, we want to confirm
that it's a real email address. Is there a real
person? And like you said, the positive or negative
reply, we just use that information to help build
and nurture. So overall, it saved me tons of
time. This has allowed me to grow a six figure
plus wedding DJ business with a team of DJs and
not feel like I'm constantly coming up for air,
like I'm drowning. This just allowed me to create
systems and templates that I use to run my business.
I use that experience then to move that into
the automation agency as well. So all of the
efforts that I've been running for 10 years with
marketing and search engine optimization and
processes, I use all that experience into the
agency and then therefore my clients as well.
So one of our clients, a dentist, she's a B2C.
her get six to eight new patients per month.
So we solve different problems as they come.
Once you got too many patients, then she was
like, okay, maybe we need to pre -qualify them
a little bit more. Or how do we follow up with
them? Because maybe the show up rate is lower
than other channels. So this is just about providing
solutions to problems that they have. So as long
as you're someone who can think outside the box,
think creatively, you're able to provide value
for others. So that's what I focus on. That's
how I'm using AI and technology. to help me build
my business better and help others as well. Chris,
that's great. And I feel as though I could talk
to you for two more hours. All right. Cause that's,
I really feel that we have a kindred, a little
kinship here. If somebody wants to get hold of
you for a number of reasons, how can they get
hold of you? Of course, people can Google my
name, Chris Troka, T -R -O -K -A. Otherwise,
people can visit my website, christroka .com
or focus -biz .com. That's great. Chris, it was
a pleasure speaking with you, and I'm sure we'll
talk soon. Sounds great, Michael. Thanks for
everything. I appreciate it. Well, hold on, folks.
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-U -P -K -I -D -S dot org. Well, that's a wrap,
folks. A huge thank you to our special guest
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, Michael. Remember,
until next time, keep practicing, keep connecting,
and keep building those relationships. This is
Michael signing off. Take care and happy networking.