Welcome to Networking Unleashed, Building Profitable
Connections, the show where conversations stop
being casual and start creating real momentum.
I'm Michael Foreman, and today's episode is for
anyone who's tired of leaving growth up to chance.
My guest knows what it takes to move from word
-of -mouth wins to steady, reliable lead flow.
He's lived the mistakes that cost time and money,
learned the hard lessons, and now helps businesses
use automation and AI the right way so work gets
lighter and results get stronger without losing
the personal touch. We're talking about what
actually turns connections into consistency,
how to avoid the traps most entrepreneurs fall
into early, and why the right systems don't replace
relationships, they protect them. So if you care
about building growth, you can count on, you're
in the right place. So let's jump in. Josh, I
would like to welcome you to the podcast. Josh
is calling all the way from Australia. We have
a string that we attach and we pull them over.
But Josh, how about you introduce yourself? And
in a nutshell, what do you do? Thanks, Michael.
Thanks for having me. I guess in a nutshell.
i run a marketing agency so we do end -to -end
digital marketing and really helping businesses
scale and grow before starting the agency i had
a lot of my own startups that have been growing
for a very long time across e -commerce and also
lead generation so from that i realized a lot
of different issues in the marketplace and that's
why i've set up the agency and helped a lot of
businesses from there That's great. I think this
will be a really great conversation. Listen,
I developed about 10 questions that I'll ask
you. And let's start with the first one. Word
of mouth built your early growth, but systems
built your future. What made you realize relationships
weren't enough? And what changed when you added
structure? Okay, so I guess the main thing that
helped us really grow was... We had a lot of
leads coming in, but in the initial stages, we
had too many that we weren't getting back to
them fast enough. So we really knew, okay, we
can get a lot of leads in. We're obviously very
good at getting that demand, but now servicing
that demand and turning that into sales and even
for other companies, the same issues happen for
them. And that's where having a system come into
place where you know consistently that you're
following up at all the key stages and making
sure no one slipped through the cracks. That
really takes a business from doing six figures
a month to seven figures a month. That through
consistency and building out a team from there
and having a flow that can really scale beyond
just yourself as well. Yeah, consistency is really
it. It's getting the follow -up. I firmly believe
that the follow -up is in the sauce. It's more
important than actually meeting the person, right?
So if you follow up immediately and consistently,
I think you won. Yeah. People are meeting so
many people every day and you need to stand out
from that crowd. And the only way you can do
that is through multiple touch points. People
don't just buy from you from hearing about you
for the first time. It's all about the actual
value you add along the way. And that's through
follow up. So 100 % agree. Absolutely. Absolutely.
Looking back, which early mistake taught you
the most about networking, taught the most about
networking? how it really works in business but
not just socially or financially yeah okay so
i guess networking is about building your personal
brand and business brand across a lot of different
spaces people don't really know about you and
so it's how you stand out what i learned early
on is that you need to start building your brand
in multiple different spaces in order to stand
out the same way when you go network to someone
and you articulate your business it's very different
to the way some people even showcase themselves
on the website the different information they
talk through there I've been a lot of conversations
in networking events where people go into a lot
more detail about what they do as a business
and all their unique selling points as a business
but then you go look at their social media or
their website you don't pick up any of that information
there so the way you build a network doing networking
and talk about yourself in a physical presence
you need to translate to a digital presence as
well And I think that's really important to today's
society because people want to go check you out
on all these different platforms before they
start to engage with you. And even with networking,
when you talk to someone for the first time,
they're going to go check out your website and
they're going to look for a lot more trust factors
to, hey, this person says they can do X, Y or
Z, but let me go back that up with more information.
And that's where having a really strong digital
presence backs up your social networking because
people start to trust you more. When you look
at someone's website, for example, all the different
brands they've worked with is such a strong indicator
of whether they're a reputable person in business
or not as well. Yes. Know you, like you, trust
you, then they'll do business with you. And it's
really easy for everybody to know you because,
you know, now know you, like you. narrows down
the field just a little bit because everybody
isn't going to like you. But the trust factor,
that's so important. And now it's so easy for
people to go and check you out, right? So I learned
this a while ago in speaking, you have to pick
a lane, right? I pick a lane. So I want steak.
I want steak. Now I can go to a place that sells
eggs and salads and chicken and pasta and steak
and everything else. Or do I want to go to a
steakhouse and order my steak? So that's the
lane that I chose. And so that's what I think
you're talking about. Yeah, and I can see that
from your website with all the different speaking
slots and all the brands you've worked with on
there and all the different publications you've
been on. You've established trust early on, and
that's very important for networking, for people
to hire you. hold you higher than someone else.
And some of the different businesses we go and
order and look at, they're missing all those
factors of those trust points or even reviews
are a huge thing that a lot of people are just
missing from their websites. And then there really
doesn't justify in their networking events, whether
they're an established person or not. So it's
very important in that regard. Yes, absolutely.
Absolutely. Many people rely on chance introductions.
What does it take to turn connection into a steady
flow of qualified leads? Chance is a great question.
So I guess one way we take the chance leads into
a scalable system is. To start with, a lot of
people don't have a lot of money when they're
starting a business. And so they have to rely
on being on the ground, physical one -to -one
connections. But as you start to scale up your
business and you start to have more money, you
can invest back into marketing. We really look
to businesses to go into Facebook ads and Google
ads where you can drive trackable growth month
on month. And as you want to build a system,
you need to know that you're going to have a
high volume of leads coming through every single
month. And you're not just relying on one person,
having a friend that's ready to now do something.
with their house in a service -based business
or ready to purchase a new vacuum and they refer
your business you need to know that you're getting
in front of the right eyeballs of the right people
and so you do that through digital advertising
where you can do hyper targeting and i think
that's a very important part to scale up from
referrals to having consistent system because
once you have that consistent system in place
and you know you're going to have 100 people
coming through your door every single month buying
from you you can with confidence you can hire
that next staff member and you can scale up your
ad spend to increase that demand even further
as your business starts to grow and it's a repeatable
system and when you back that up with a crm such
as hubspot to get that consistent flow there
so I might be sending you a hundred more leads
this month but if you're not servicing them or
getting back to them and taking them through
your sales process you're gonna be losing them
and it doesn't matter how many leads you get
from that point on so that's how i would see
scaling that side of things up from just the
one -to -one referral connections referrals are
super important as well because referrals have
a lot more trust than even ones you get from
digital social media but that's also where you
need to be building out your social media presence
to establish that authority and trust so that
eventually if you build out all the right pillars
of your business People come to you and they
already feel like they know you from your social
media. So even your digital advertising can sell
you in just as good as networking can as well.
I've had that happen quite a few times where
they've recognized me off of YouTube and my website
and everything else so that it's almost as if
they know me. They say, oh, Mike, I actually
know you. And I'm like, really? Because I've
never met you before. But they know me from the
social media. I'm glad you said HubSpot. I happen
to use HubSpot as a CRM. And when I talk, when
I give the presentations, I say how important
it is to have a CRM. Some people, I gave a talk
this week, and I had somebody who, they met the
people, they put the information on the left
side of their computer. When they called them,
they switched it over to the right side of the
computer. And I said, That's not good. Really
not good. But it's neither here nor there. But
I thought it was funny and you would enjoy that.
Just on that note, when you're doing your networking
events, do you use anything to capture digital
business cards and get that into your CRM at
all? No, I don't. I looked into a few systems
like that. I will probably do that, but I don't
have it yet. Okay. We've just started working
at a company called Blink, which worked with
a lot of Fortune 500 companies in the States
that integrated. Yep. That's what I looked at.
As a matter of fact, I have a digital business
card with Blink. Oh, fantastic. Yeah. They're
growing very quickly at the moment. Yep. I'm
with you. I'm with you. Okay. What's the biggest
myth about networking that holds entrepreneurs
back from building predictable growth? biggest
myths I guess what I've seen is a lot of people
are very scared to start and I think people think
they're not going to be good at it and it's not
for them or it's not for their particular type
of business but I believe networking is about
getting out there and meeting a lot of people
and even if they're not your key demographic
that you're going to sell to they're going to
know people that are potentially going to be
that so it's about establishing trust in the
community and getting out there and just they
might not be the right person but By getting
multiple touch points and getting, I guess, even
looking back at how I treat digital advertising,
it's all about volume. And that's the same way
about networking. It's about volume, but then
also quality conversations that go beyond just
top level fluff and get deeper into individual
aspects of business or even people's personal
lives so they can get to know you and understand
you more and really helps you stand out. And
I feel like a lot of people... don't believe
networking can work for their business because
they're not going to the exact right event that
doesn't have all their buyers right there. But
I don't believe that's the direct case. And I'm
sure you've seen that from all the different
networking events you've gone to, speaking to
a variety of people as well. Absolutely. And
you have to remember that you're not talking
to just those people. You're talking to those
people and their networks. So you're speaking
to not 8, 10, 12, 15 people. You're talking to
45, 60, maybe 100 people. So it depends on how
you talk. Plus, you go in with what's called
a servant's heart. You go in looking to give,
not to receive. So when you're going around and
speaking to people, don't... Talk, shut up, let
them talk. And because people love to talk about
themselves, so let them talk and then just acknowledge
that. Okay. I'm sure you're very good at that.
Yes, I try. Once in a while it doesn't come through,
but it's all right. You've paid the price in
time and money. What lesson would you save today's
business owners from learning the hard way? yeah
so I think some of the key things I've learned
as a business owner is one spending a lot of
money on getting leads coming through that you
weren't servicing and they drop off and you try
and follow them up two months later thinking
oh they're my leads but unless you're contacting
them within the first couple hours or Really
the first 10 minutes of them coming through,
I think you're wasting money a lot of the time.
And I've seen a lot of business owners and even
myself where you leave them too long to get back
to them, especially in service -based businesses.
For example, we work with a lot of tradies and
they'll get a lot of inquiries coming through
online, but then they don't service them during
the day and they wait until the night and try
and call them at nighttime, which doesn't work
when you're dealing with... someone during the
day that needs something urgent so even in my
business as a marketing agency if people are
coming in and inquiring they're speaking to three
or four people at the same time or looking at
their websites at the same time so it's really
about that speed and having a proper process
in place to know how you're going to help them
understand what they need and audit where they're
at as a business to get to the facts faster than
leaving it months on end before you finally get
to where they need to be so that's one thing
i've learned as a business owner but i guess
the other thing was also what i touched on earlier
about building that predictability. We hire a
lot of staff. Last year, we grew from a team
of 13 to 30. And to do that, we needed a lot
of consistent lead flow. And so in order to have
that many people come on, I guess the mistakes
we made early on was that we would hire new people
in across different service lines and we didn't
have enough work coming through to them because
we weren't scaling our ads appropriately for
having that. extra new people in there or we
weren't going out and getting enough leads in
networking events or different ways in the community
we put in a proper roadmap and business plan
for ourselves to make sure that if we employ
a new person we've got enough work coming through
for them or we won't employ them until we have
overflow that we can really meet the demand with.
Or if we need to scale up to that place in time,
we use some contractors. And then once you have
enough work for those contractors, you can then
hire internally. So just making sure if you are
scaling that you can go from 1 million to 1 .5
million in one case. That's almost exactly how
I used to do it. I used to have brick and mortar
companies. When I got that busy, I would hire
a contractor. And when I got really busy, I would
hire that contractor if you wanted on full time.
And I would do that again. Okay, now we got went
to the next level. So we got more business. I
hire another contractor and bring it. So I do
that slowly. But that's exactly the process that
I would use. Fantastic. Where does automation
help relationships? And where does it quietly
damage when used the wrong way? yeah so i guess
with ai coming into the space there's a lot of
businesses that will go in and use ai to respond
to emails do outreach do a lot of different things
to build their network but they don't really
edit any of the ai content that goes out and
that's where it looks very robotic and builds
a lot of mistrust if you look at linkedin these
days as well and how people outreach on platforms
like linkedin you see a lot of robots you see
a lot of ai just slop really that goes out there
and there's no real human thought to it and you
can tell that's not the way humans talk m dashes
and a lot of different things and you can instantly
pick up whether that's just chat gpt out of the
box so i would say to really use ai but still
enhance human connection it needs to have a lot
of your pre -thoughts go into it and i'm not
against ai helping shape how things are written
and to clarify things and pull out the exact
details that you need to articulate but i think
it really needs to be pre -loaded with a lot
of your own context and knowledge first to really
help it stand out if you are going to use it
and i see ai being used a lot we use it with
our teams to help ideation phases and coming
up with ideas or helping with that first draft,
but never the end result. We don't use it to
replace anyone, but it's more to enhance their
capabilities. And it's the same way in how you
network and how you reach out to people and communicate.
It's all about enhancing, but it has to be your
human effort to begin with. That's absolutely
correct. I write two articles a week for a platform
on the web and they have a component. It's You
can write it with AI, but they have a component
called something, I forgot what it was, but that
puts the human element into it. And it's combining
the AI and the human, so it looks as if, and
I pre -loaded it a lot with what I've written
before, so it has my tone. So that's what AI
really is missing. I still have to check it.
So when I write these articles, I say, no, you
don't have to change this or change that. And
I'll absolutely take out all the em dashes. That's
first and foremost. It takes a lot. But once
you train the AI, I work here in Georgia in the
States. And I work with somebody out in California.
And he's a genius. He works with Google and Apple.
HP and IBM, he's really up there. And he developed
this one section and it's worked out very well
so far. Yeah. Okay. How do you keep follow -up
personnel? Wait, hold it. Let me backtrack. How
do you keep follow -up personal when systems,
funnels, and AI are doing part of the work? Kind
of what we just talked about. Yeah. In particular,
we use a platform called Relevance AI for doing,
I guess, what we do. We go and do a heap of pre
-research on a person. So what I say with AI
is they'll do one look over someone's LinkedIn
and pull out some information and use that to
help contextualize or try and personalize some
automated responses to them in some businesses.
But a lot of the time that doesn't cut it. If
you're trying to... talk to someone about their
business you look back at their LinkedIn that
they've never updated and it has one post about
when they went to high school then that's not
really going to cut it so we developed a platform
in this AI tool that goes out and researches
you online to find some a lot of pre -context
and find out all different things about you some
are relevant some are not but then we can take
that we use AI and that shaves off about three
hours of research time if we're looking into
a big pitch to go find out a heap of different
information on the person and the business from
that we can then then go and it's just done the
research for us. So now it's the human follow
-up aspect that will go in and write those emails
or at least the context for these emails without
just taking all the information here and just
throwing it in and AI go do the rest. It's more
about, okay, AI has gone and done the pre -work.
We can now do the messy middle, the hardest part.
And then if you need to throw it through AI to
clarify it for you or shorten down your sentences,
sure. But you go do the middle part because you
know what's actually important and not important.
I don't believe AI is... bully at that stage
yet, especially when you're going for personalized
responses. It's very important that you have
someone sticking in the middle there. Yeah, I
agree. The main problem with AI right now is
that it's giving you all this feedback, but it
took all the emotional values out. It takes all
the emotion out. And when you're reading it,
that's what you're reading. So you have to put
emotion back in to it. And they haven't evolved
to put that back in automatically, right? So
it's just the combination of things. Even with
humans these days, you still get text messages
where people go, oh, it didn't come across the
way I intended it to. Well, with AI, it's coming
across even worse than you intended it to unless
you really think about it. That's because people
send it and they don't read it before they send
it. So it gets sent and they go, oh, damn, I
shouldn't have said that. And they quickly try
to fix it. Not that I would do that or anything,
but happens to me all the time. Okay, what's
one small shift professionals can make to turn
casual conversations into long -term opportunity?
Yeah, so I guess to turn it into a long -term
opportunity, it's about, I guess... building
out your process of how you take a conversation
to a next stage. And I believe unless you really
thought through either your referral opportunities
and how you want to nurture a referral from casual
conversations, depending on what you're having,
the ways you can do that is if you can give someone
free information, as you said before, more having
a servant heart with networking, if you can provide
someone additional advice or any sort of value
before even asking to sell anything or trying
to really push anything that really establishes
that connection and it takes it to that one step
further from that initial conversation to a next
stage where you're delivering value you're justifying
yourself and then if you build out a process
of how you follow up on that from there you can
turn into a long -term business partnership or
a long -term sale but not always going for the
Going to sell straight away off the bat, as you
said earlier, it's never going to get you anywhere.
Sorry. No, this is saying that people love to
buy, but they hate to be sold to. So if you can
try to sell them without selling them so they
can buy it, they don't realize they're buying
it. So it's a whole psychological thing that's
behind it. But that is so true because if you
think about a car dealership, do you want to
walk into that dealership where the salesman
comes up to you and says, hey, this is great.
Look at this Mustang. Oh, it's great. It's got
this and this and this. And oh, let me show you
this. Oh, you have to see this. Don't worry about
the price because it's all involved. Or do you
want the guy walking up and say, hey, how are
you doing? My name is Josh. I'm right over there
in case you need me. It's two separate things.
I'm going to buy, but I hate to be sold. So it's
a long process, but it works. Okay, so when you
think about conversion, what role does trust
really play before anyone ever looks at an offer?
Yeah, I think trust is one of the biggest things
that differentiates you as a business. There's
a lot of competitors in any industry. If you
look at property development, if you look at
service -based businesses, plumbers, a lot of
them, people looking at you all at the same time,
and they don't know enough about you to tell
the difference from just looking at your website.
And I've seen some people's websites, like just
the way they're laid out. That establishes trust.
There's some beautiful websites out there. Like
we build one for a company called Everlab, which
is a longevity clinic. They wanted a really beautiful
website with animation and different things because
they were going for high -end CEOs and they needed
to look premium. And that's a portion of building
trust there to go, well, if their website looks
as good as this, I'm sure their service is as
good as this. And then there's coming to that
next stage of looking at the... different businesses
people have worked with. So even on our website,
for example, we mentioned companies we worked
with like Mrs. Fields and Business Insider and
some really big establishment businesses across
the world to establish that next level of trust
to go, wow, this isn't a small business that
built one website in their lifetime. It's a highly
credible business. And then the next stage is
looking at your reviews of what customers are
saying about you and then also talking deeper
into your service offering and what that actually
provides. I think it's... you need to provide
a lot of that upfront value because no one wants
to even go talk to you if they don't trust you
to begin with. And that's why Google My Business
listings are so big and people looking at reviews
on there is like the first point of call when
looking on Maps. And if you have a one -star
review on there, no one's going to really get
to your offer. So it's about establishing that
first, then looking at the rest of your business.
Absolutely. Okay, so let's bring this podcast
full circle. If someone wants to grow faster
without losing their reputation, what principle
should guide every connection they make? So I
think to grow without losing your reputation.
You need to make sure you scale at a pace that
you can keep up with. And that's where I think
systems are very important to help you scale
in a repeatable way without losing your mindset.
Because if you're shifting screens from left
to right as you're going through your different
leads, that's not a scalable approach. You will
burn reputation by not getting back to people
fast enough. You will miss things that you're
supposed to deliver. That's why you need a system
that can consistently follow up for you or set
you tasks automatically like HubSpot and like
many different. And I think that's the most important
process that people need to get in place to scale
and not burn themselves out. Absolutely. Follow
-up is the key. Follow -up, I feel, is more important
than actually meeting the person. It's all in
the follow -up. And it's what makes or breaks
people around here. When I go to a networking
event and I'm talking to somebody and say, hey,
how are you doing? Oh, it's great. How do you
follow up with these people? He goes, I'll send
an email tomorrow and the next week I'll just
make sure they got it and everything else. And
in my mind, I'm going, I won. Okay, that's fine.
That's great. You don't have a system. I have
a secret sauce, a system that works, that brings
your email responses from 2 % to 75%, right?
Looking forward to a response, positive or negative,
right? I just want them to respond to me. And
so the follow -up is key. Okay, so that's what
real progress sounds like. Growth doesn't come
from luck. It comes from clear thinking, better
habits, and learning faster than your mistakes
repeat. If today's conversation sparked a new
way of looking at your network, take one idea
and put it into action this week. See what changes
you can stop hoping for referrals and start creating
a path for them. If this episode helped you think
bigger and how connections lead to revenue, share
it with someone who's building something of their
own. And don't forget to follow Networking Unleashed,
Building Profitable Connections, so you never
miss a conversation that helps you grow smarter,
not harder. I'm Michael Foreman, and remember,
your next breakthrough might not come from a
new contact, but from using the ones you already
have in a better way. Joshua, I want to thank
you. If somebody wants your talent, if somebody
wants to connect with you, have you coach them,
have you do something, have business for them,
where would they contact you? They can contact
me at qagency .com .au. Fill out the inquiry
form there, and I'll be the first one to be in
contact with you. Perfect. Perfect. All right,
Josh. Again, thank you so much for coming on
the podcast. Thank you for having me. Cheers.
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Remember, networking isn't about being perfect.
It's about being present. So take what you've
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