Speaker Spotlight
Most Networking Keynotes Tell a Room to Go Meet More People. He Has Recorded More Than 100 Episodes on What Happens After the Handshake.
Michael A. Forman — Author of Networking Unleashed and From Airwaves to Income · Host of the Networking Unleashed Podcast · Best Business Communication Expert of 2024 · U.S. Air Force Veteran of Desert Storm
Almost every professional in the room has already met enough people. They have a phone full of contacts, a stack of cards from the last conference, and a LinkedIn network in the hundreds. What they do not have is a reliable way to turn any of that into business.
Michael Forman built his entire body of work on that gap. His book Networking Unleashed, his podcast of more than a hundred episodes, and his coaching practice all circle the same question: what actually happens between meeting someone and doing business with them, and what can a person do differently on purpose.
He is not a motivational speaker and he does not run a room through icebreakers. He teaches language. Attendees leave with specific things to say, a follow up that people answer, and a habit they can run every week.
Where the Material Came From
Michael served in the U.S. Air Force and is a veteran of Desert Storm. The standard he came out of the service with is three words, honor, respect and trust, and that is not a line he saves for Veterans Day programming. It is the argument underneath everything he teaches about business relationships.
That sentence has been on the bottom of his emails for years, and the whole keynote is really an unpacking of it. Know you is a first conversation that gives someone something worth remembering. Like you is what happens when a person stops performing and starts listening. Trust you is built in the follow up, which is where he says most relationships quietly go cold, not because anyone did anything wrong but because nobody did anything at all.
The volume behind the material is what separates it from most networking content. More than a hundred published podcast episodes means he has interviewed and studied working professionals about how their best relationships actually started, over and over, for years. Networking Unleashed came out of that. So did From Airwaves to Income. In 2024 he was recognized as the Best Business Communication Expert, and his work has been covered in CEO Weekly, New York Weekly, US Business News, Atlanta Wire and ValiantCEO.
The Rooms He Fits
He is a strong fit for sales kickoffs, chamber and association conferences, real estate and mortgage organizations, franchise events, professional services firms, and any room where the pipeline comes from relationships rather than advertising. He also works with student and early career audiences on how they present themselves heading into the workforce, and his service background makes him a natural fit for Veterans Day programming that still needs a business takeaway.
The feedback that repeats is about what people did after the session rather than how the session felt.
He is a weaker fit if the brief is a big emotional story to close a general session, or a keynote whose job is to make several thousand people feel something before the evening event. That is a different booking. Michael is at his best in a working room, where the audience came to get better at something specific and will actually use what he hands them. A number of his engagements turn into coaching relationships afterward, which is usually the sign that the content had somewhere to go.
He is available for keynotes, half day workshops, breakout sessions and sales team training, and he customizes to the audience and theme. Michael lives in Cumming, Georgia.
Book Michael Forman
Available for keynotes and workshops on business networking, communication, relationship building and sales.