The Hidden Power of Networking That Many Professionals Miss

Economic Insider Staff on July 16, 2025

By: J. Michael Fischer Jr.

Many people treat networking like a checklist item: show up to an event, shake a few hands, maybe send a follow-up email… and then wonder why nothing meaningful ever comes of it.

But here’s the truth: networking isn’t about transactions. It’s about transformation.

I’ve built my life — not just my business — through relationships. Real ones. The kind rooted in trust, consistency, and generosity. And I’ll tell you right now: if you want to build something that lasts, you don’t start with your pitch. You start with people.

The Three A’s of Networking: Access, Affinity, and Advocacy

Many people stop at the first layer of networking. But if you want to build something lasting — real opportunity, real deal flow, and real trust — you’ve got to understand how relationships evolve.

I call it the Three As: Access, Affinity, and Advocacy. Each stage has its place, but they’re not equal. And if you stay stuck at the first, you’ll miss out on everything that follows.

Access: Getting in the Room

This is the entry point. You go to the big events — conferences, galas, trade shows, large-scale networking sessions. You shake hands, exchange cards, maybe connect on LinkedIn.

You’re in the room, which matters. But it’s surface-level. No one’s advocating for you yet. At this point, you’re just another name tag. Access is important, but it’s not where the magic happens.

Affinity: Getting Known and Liked

This is where things start to get interesting. You move beyond the crowd and into smaller, more intentional settings — intimate dinners, curated groups, one-on-one coffee meetings.

Now people start to see who you really are. They begin to understand your values, your approach, and how you think. You’re building trust. You’re finding common ground. You’re not just showing up — you’re standing out.

This is the space I live in often. Whether it’s the MM Collective dinners I host or a quiet one-on-one with a founder, Affinity is where the foundation of real partnership gets built.

Advocacy: Getting in the Deal

This is the game-changer. Advocacy happens when you start working together. You’re on the same side of the table — helping each other close a deal, solve a problem, or serve a client.

When that goes well, something powerful happens: you start advocating for each other in the market. You share wins. You make introductions without being asked. You become part of each other’s ecosystem.

This is the highest level of networking. And the beautiful part? Once you hit this level with a few great people — and you keep showing up — the compound effect kicks in. That’s when the flywheel starts to spin.

Access gets you in the room. Affinity gets you remembered. Advocacy gets you results.

Stop Keeping Score

One of the biggest mindset shifts I had to make early in my career was letting go of the scoreboard. Stop keeping track of who owes you what. Give without expectation. Offer support when there’s nothing in it for you.

That kind of generosity? It builds trust faster than any elevator pitch ever could.

People remember who showed up for them, not just in the deal, but in the moments that mattered. And when you show up consistently, that reputation compounds.

From Networking to Net Worth

Let’s zoom out for a second. Networking isn’t just a business strategy — it’s a life strategy.

The Harvard Study of Adult Development, one of the longest-running studies on human happiness, found that strong relationships are the single biggest predictor of long-term well-being and success.

Let that sink in: it’s not money. Not titles. Not LinkedIn followers. It’s relationships.

That’s why I created the MM Collective — a private dinner series where operators, advisors, and entrepreneurs come together for conversations that go deeper than deal flow. I also host “Going Beyond the Deal,” a podcast where I sit down with founders and executives to unpack the relationships that have shaped their journeys.

Because when we talk about success, we should be talking about people.

How to Network Like It Matters

If you’re ready to build something real, start here:

Be the First to Give. Make the intro. Send the thoughtful message. Share the resource. Give before you’re asked — and don’t keep score.
Stay in Touch. Relationships are built over time. Check in. Follow up. Be present — even when there’s no immediate ROI.
Know What You Stand For. People can’t refer you if they don’t understand you. Get crystal clear on who you help, how you help, and why it matters.

It’s Not Who You Know — It’s Who Trusts You

Anyone can collect business cards. The real question is: who’s willing to put their name next to yours?

If you want to build a legacy — not just a career — start by becoming the kind of person others want to build with.

Give first. Stay consistent. Craft a meaningful life — one relationship at a time.

Disclaimer This article provides general networking insights, strategies, and personal development tips but does not guarantee any specific outcomes or results. Individual experiences and results may vary. Always consult with a professional or advisor for personalized guidance.

Your Business’s Best Listener: Why Understanding Customers Fuels Growth

Economic Insider Staff 2 on July 16, 2025

Any successful business knows that it doesn’t just exist in a bubble. Its very purpose, its ability to thrive and expand, hinges entirely on meeting the needs and desires of the people it serves: its customers. Making big assumptions about what customers want can be a really risky gamble. Relying on gut feelings without truly checking in often leads to products or services that simply miss the mark. This is precisely why understanding your customers is not just a nice idea, but the absolute cornerstone of business growth. And at the heart of this understanding is one simple, yet incredibly powerful, action: listening.

The Core Principle: Why Customers Hold the Keys to Growth

At its very essence, a business flourishes because it offers solutions to problems or brings joy and convenience by fulfilling specific desires. Whether a business sells software, fresh produce, or a consulting service, its fundamental reason for being is to serve its customers effectively. This foundational truth means that knowing your customers deeply is not just a strategic advantage; it is the very essence of survival and prosperity. Imagine trying to bake a cake for someone without knowing if they like chocolate or vanilla, or if they have any allergies. The chances of baking the “perfect” cake are slim to none.

Similarly, in the world of business, trying to build products or refine services without a genuine grasp of customer needs can be like walking in the dark. It is easy to spend valuable resources developing features that nobody truly wants or overlook crucial pain points that, if addressed, could unlock tremendous loyalty. Businesses thrive when they are finely tuned to the voices of their patrons. This involves going beyond surface-level demographics and truly delving into their behaviors, their challenges, their aspirations, and their experiences with a product or service. This deep customer understanding is what truly illuminates the path forward for sustainable growth. It helps to craft offerings that resonate authentically, rather than just adding to the noise in the marketplace.

More Than Just Opinions: The Powerful Payoffs of Listening

Actively listening to customers offers a cascade of powerful payoffs that directly contribute to a business’s health and expansion. For starters, it serves as a direct conduit for driving product and service improvement. Customer feedback isn’t just about fixing things that are broken; it is a goldmine of insights for refining existing offerings. When people talk about what they like, what they struggle with, or what they wish a product could do, they are essentially providing a free roadmap for development teams. This direct input ensures that improvements are truly relevant and valued by the very people who will use them.

Furthermore, a keen ear for customer voices helps businesses identify unmet needs. Customers often express frustrations or articulate wishes that signal exciting opportunities for entirely new products, innovative services, or even directions for expansion that the business might not have considered before. These “pain points” are market gaps just waiting to be filled, and customers are often quite eager to point them out. Businesses that genuinely listen can spot these opportunities early, potentially beating competitors to solving a widespread problem.

Crucially, when customers feel genuinely heard, valued, and actually see their feedback acted upon, it significantly builds loyalty and trust. There is a deep human desire to be understood, and when a business demonstrates that it listens and cares, it fosters a strong emotional connection. This connection transforms customers from mere transactions into loyal advocates who are more likely to make repeat purchases and enthusiastically recommend the business to others. This kind of organic, word-of-mouth promotion is incredibly powerful and cost-effective.

Listening also provides a significant competitive advantage. Businesses that consistently listen to their customers and adapt based on those insights often gain an edge over rivals who do not. They can respond to market shifts faster, adjust their offerings more accurately, and remain more relevant in a constantly changing environment. This agility, fueled by continuous customer understanding, allows them to stay a step ahead. Lastly, engaging in regular customer feedback helps in reducing risk and waste. Developing products or services without proper customer input is expensive and time-consuming. Listening early and often helps validate ideas, reducing the risk of launching something nobody truly wants or investing heavily in features that will go unused. This proactive approach saves both time and precious resources.

Opening the Channels: Practical Ways to Hear Your Customers

So, how does a business actually go about truly hearing its customers? It involves opening up various channels and actively encouraging them to speak. One common and direct method involves surveys, which can range from quick online polls after a purchase, to detailed questionnaires about specific experiences, or even in-app prompts. These can gather both quantitative data, like ratings, and qualitative insights from open-ended questions. Another powerful direct approach involves interviews, whether one-on-one deep dives with individual customers or moderated discussions in focus groups. These methods allow for rich, detailed insights and the opportunity to ask follow-up questions, revealing nuances that surveys might miss.

Beyond direct outreach, there is a wealth of indirect feedback available. Social media monitoring involves actively tracking what customers are saying about a brand, its products, and even competitors on platforms like Facebook, X, or Instagram. This offers unfiltered, real-time opinions. Similarly, keeping a close eye on online reviews and forums (like Yelp, Google Reviews, Amazon reviews, or industry-specific discussion boards) can reveal common complaints, praises, and feature requests that customers openly share. This unsolicited feedback is incredibly valuable because it comes from a natural place of experience.

Operational data also provides a treasure trove of information. Customer support interactions, whether phone calls, emails, or chat transcripts, are often on the front lines of feedback. Analyzing these exchanges can reveal recurring issues, common questions, and expressed frustrations, highlighting areas for immediate improvement. Similarly, website analytics and user behavior tracking can show how customers actually interact with a website or app. Observing click-through rates, time spent on certain pages, or how people navigate conversion funnels can infer preferences, identify roadblocks, and pinpoint areas of confusion. Even sales teams gather vital feedback, as they interact directly with potential and existing customers, hearing about their needs, objections, and desires in real-time. For a more structured approach, some businesses even form customer advisory boards, bringing together a small group of key customers to meet regularly and provide in-depth feedback, acting as a sounding board for new ideas and strategic directions.

Turning Talk into Action: Making Feedback Count for Your Business

Collecting feedback is only half the battle; the real magic happens when a business truly acts on that feedback. The first crucial step involves analyzing and prioritizing the incoming information. Not all feedback is equally important or urgent. Businesses need robust processes to collect, organize, analyze, and prioritize feedback, looking for recurring patterns, common themes, and truly actionable insights. This often means categorizing feedback, identifying trends, and then determining which changes will have the biggest positive impact for the most customers. It is about understanding the “why” behind the “what” in customer comments.

Equally important is closing the loop with customers. It is vital to communicate back to them how their feedback has been used, what changes have been made, or how their suggestions have influenced decisions. This transparent communication reinforces that their voice truly matters and that their effort in providing feedback was worthwhile. This simple act can significantly boost customer satisfaction and loyalty.

Finally, customer feedback should fuel a continuous cycle of improvement, rather than just being a one-time fix. The most successful businesses embed feedback into their very culture, constantly iterating and refining their products, services, and processes based on ongoing customer understanding. This means shifting from a reactive approach, where feedback is only sought when a problem arises, to a proactive stance, where listening is a fundamental, ongoing part of business operations. By consistently seeking out and responding to the voices of their customers, businesses can ensure they remain relevant, innovative, and positioned for sustainable growth. It is this unwavering commitment to listening that truly sets thriving businesses apart.

When ‘Good Enough’ AI Gets You Fined (Or Fired!)

Economic Insider Staff on July 16, 2025

By: Philip Hardy and Chris Baker, Partners in Ashurst Risk Advisors

Why speed is no defense when precision fails, and what today’s leaders must ask before trusting the tech.

In a world obsessed with faster, cheaper outputs, AI has made ‘good enough’ look very tempting when it comes to legal and risk advisory outputs. Need an obligation map – “There’s a tool for that!” Want to summarise 400 regulatory clauses – “Just prompt the bot.”

But compliance isn’t a race – it’s a contract with regulators, stakeholders, and the public. And when shortcuts miss the mark, “We used AI” simply won’t get you off the hook. In fact, it might raise the bar for what’s considered reckless disregard.

Speed ≠ Safety – The Case of the Collapsing Proposal

Let’s start with a recent real-life story.

A multinational firm wrestling with niche rules recently invited proposals from several firms. Our bid emphasised expertly curated obligation libraries, legal and risk oversight, and ‘incremental AI assistance’. Another vendor promised a single platform that would “write all obligations, map all controls, and keep them updated automatically”.

During due diligence, however, the other vendor conceded they could offer speed, but not accuracy. They could offer no assurance that the tool’s recommendations were accurate or that it would satisfy a regulator asking the reasonable-steps question. The firm’s compliance leaders pressed harder: would the vendor underwrite the output? The answer was no. The value proposition collapsed, and along with it, the illusion that AI without expert oversight can meet the needs of complex regulated entities and placate their supervisory bodies.

Context ≠ Comprehension: The Case Where Automation Missed Real-World Control

In yet another cautionary tale, a high-risk venue operator initially relied on AI-generated risk controls to satisfy venue compliance rules (i.e., no under-18 patrons). The tool pulled in industry practice and recommended a range of complex measures, but it completely missed a key, simple, manual control: the presence of two full-time security staff who checked patrons on entry. AI simply couldn’t see what wasn’t written down.

This offers a sobering lesson: just because AI can summarise what’s on a page doesn’t mean it understands what happens on the ground.

When AI Belongs in Your Compliance Stack

None of this is a blanket warning against using AI. Used properly, AI is already driving value in risk and compliance, including:

Scanning policy libraries for inconsistent language
Flagging emerging risks in real-time from complaints or case data
Improving data quality at capture
Drafting baseline documentation for expert review
Identifying change impacts across jurisdictions and business units

But note the pattern: AI handles volume and repetition; humans handle nuance and insight. The most robust use cases right now treat automation as an accelerant and not a replacement. This is because the line between support and substitution must be drawn carefully and visibly.

Ask This First Before Plugging in Your Next Tool

As regulators pivot from rule-based assessments to ‘reasonable steps’ accountability, the key question is no longer just “Did we comply?” but “Can we prove we understood the risk and chose the right tools to manage it?” If your AI-assisted compliance map can’t explain its logic, show its exclusions, or withstand scrutiny under cross-examination, then you don’t have a time-saver – you’ve got a liability.

So, before you plug in an ‘all-in-one automation’ solution, first ask: Will this tool produce explainable and auditable outcomes? Is there clear human oversight at every high-risk stress point? Can we justify our decision to use this tool, especially when something goes wrong? If the answer to any of these is no, you’re not accelerating your compliance strategy – you’re undermining it.

We all love speed, but in risk, speed without precision is a rounding error waiting to become a headline. Compliance leaders have a duty to make sure that what’s fast is also right and that when it’s not, there’s someone accountable.

In this era of ‘good enough’ AI, being good is simply no longer good enough…Being right is.

Disclaimer: The information provided in this article is for general informational purposes only and should not be construed as legal or professional advice. Businesses and organizations utilizing AI in compliance and risk management should seek expert guidance to ensure the accuracy, transparency, and accountability of their AI tools.