Leaders and Their Stories

Richard Lowe (00:01.558)
Hello, this is Richard Lowe with the Leaders and the Stories podcast. I'm the writing king and ghostwriting guru. And I am here with Anthony Markey, who is the founder of I Know a Guy, which is a daily newsletter and podcast dedicating to helping entrepreneurs and professionals grow their networks through meaningful connections. With the passion for storytelling and collaboration, Anthony believes that one introduction can change everything. Today he's here to share insights on building automatic

excuse me, authentic relationships, the power of networking and how meaningful connections can open unexpected doors. That's a great intro, Anthony. So why don't you take it from here.

Anthony Markey (00:40.556)
Yeah, no, Richard, I really appreciate you having me on. I really enjoyed our conversation that we had the other day. I'm looking forward to you, you know, being guests on my show and I was excited to get on here. You're doing awesome things and I'm happy to be a part of it.

Richard Lowe (00:54.368)
Well, thank you. I appreciate that. So how did you get started in podcasting?

Anthony Markey (00:59.532)
Well, it all started, I've been self-employed for seven years. I'm in the B2B space, but I'm limited. I can only work with companies in the U S with a minimum of 25 employees, preferably over a hundred. And if you spend any time networking, that's not most people, right? The majority of people you're talking to are your solarpreneurs or micro businesses, people that were never going to be a client of mine. So I'm a firm believer in trying to add value to everybody that I meet, you know, if I can, I will. But I just didn't really have a good way of doing it for most folks. So.

I decided to, you know, start making these meetings all about them recording it and sharing it. And that's how I know like I got started. It was originally just going to be a way for me to make better introductions. So if I interviewed somebody and they told me who they are, what they do and what they love, if I ever came across somebody that would be a good introduction for them. I would just send the episode over and say, do you want to meet Richard? And they would either give me the A or the nay. So that's how it started. And it's evolved from there.

Richard Lowe (01:50.454)
Well, that's very cool. Yes. Yes. Do have any technical background at all?

Anthony Markey (01:56.502)
No, like I've, I've, I've, know, messed around on YouTube and stuff before tried, you know, things that maybe lasted a day or two. I'm like, this isn't something I could see me doing, you know, a lot of. And then I started doing this and it turns out, I can, if I really enjoy the, you know, the thing that I'm doing.

Richard Lowe (02:15.232)
So is all you do podcasting or do you do other things?

Anthony Markey (02:18.99)
I do, I do other things. like you said, on my, on my business side, you know, I, I help businesses. this is just becoming the larger bit of what I'm doing because, you know, a lot of that stuff is prospecting and, networking, and this has become a more efficient way of networking for me. and I'm meeting people that I would have otherwise never met, you know, because before I was limited to, you know, going to a group and maybe getting an introduction here or there. Whereas if I can add value to, you know, most people that I meet.

I start getting introduced all over the place and I start making valuable connections.

Richard Lowe (02:51.158)
Sounds like we have much the same strategy here. I'm, doing this podcast for many of the same reasons. It's to meet people and make connections, maybe find some business, maybe not get referrals, give referrals, create a relationship. This is a better way to create a relationship than it is just having a call or worse yet on LinkedIn or email. I'm doing a lot. I'm doing a one to two, sometimes three a day.

Today I had three scheduled, but the last one cat cat canceled. And was like, thank God. you know, didn't tell him that, but, it turned out to be a busy, busy, busy, busy morning, but, and I'm putting them out on Twitter and LinkedIn and Facebook and YouTube and on my website, primarily on my website, but everything else got to put it somewhere. And, I'm assuming you're doing much the same.

Anthony Markey (03:24.718)
But, but you're thankful there's some white space on your calendar. They, you know, get some lunch.

Anthony Markey (03:46.926)
Yeah. Um, I'm not doing, I'm doing, I'm doing one a day, you know, some days I'll have recordings, you know, like four or five other days I'll have zero and it's more of an admin work or my other work. But yeah, I've limited myself to one a day just because that's something that I can, you know, schedule out, have a process for, um, I can do, I can do one a day consistently. Um, you're, you're kind of crazy because I know how much one a day, how much effort that takes. And I've been called crazy for doing that much. So.

doubling or tripling that on some days. is a lot of work. So congratulations. That's a lot.

Richard Lowe (04:20.596)
Well, that will come down as I build up the business side a bit more. cause it is, it is also a prospecting method. It's I think a cleaner prospecting method. Cause I'm actually building relationships rather than just talking to people and saying, you want to my stuff? that's the worst kind of prospecting. Well, actually there are worst kind of prospecting.

Anthony Markey (04:45.154)
But that's one of them.

Richard Lowe (04:46.336)
even blow it out instantly, which is a cold thing is probably even worse.

Anthony Markey (04:53.733)
Yeah, no, this it's still, you know, pitch slapping and going into meetings, just wanting to sell something that I don't think that's ever worked for anybody. Everybody does it at one point or another when you get started, maybe. Uh, but how quickly can you learn that that doesn't work is the main thing. And you're absolutely right. There's something about, you know, having a podcast or being able to add value where if you walk into a business and say, Hey, I'd like to talk to you about, and then whatever you're selling, they're going to tell you to go away. Uh, but if you're talking to them and go, you know, I'd like you to be a guest on my podcast.

at the end of that, they know, like, and trust you enough that you can have that conversation and they ask, what do you do? And they're going to give you the time of day to actually explain who you are. And if they don't need your stuff, they'll probably tell you somebody else that they could need. And you already know that person. So, you know, that's right there with the, know a guy is, you know what I can't help you, but Richard can let me make that introduction.

Richard Lowe (05:37.654)
It's a great way to make a relationship. used, I've started with BNI, if you've been familiar with BNI and never bought it. Cause they're like expensive. There's several thousand dollars a year, sometimes a thousand dollars a year kind of thing. Um, all at once. And they have rules like we can kick you out anytime. It's like, I didn't pay you $1,500 to get kicked out because they show up late for three meetings. It's, know, you can stop that. And then it's all people who want to sell you stuff.

Anthony Markey (05:55.618)
Mm-hmm.

Richard Lowe (06:06.006)
And they have these rules, have to so many referrals a week. And if you don't, get blah, blah. So I said, no. And I joined some other groups like that. And then finally I ran into more of the, what I call the lower level networking groups are usually half an hour long and they do, they do, um, what do call them? Um, breakout room, breakout rooms, and then the speed networking ones, speed networking ones ran into alliances. Did we meet in alliances?

Anthony Markey (06:24.206)
speed networking.

Anthony Markey (06:32.147)
No, I think we were introduced. I think we were introduced by somebody that we both knew.

Richard Lowe (06:34.613)
Okay.

Richard Lowe (06:38.024)
Okay. Alliance is a big step up. get actually, they have deep connections and you tend to, tend to, they're, they're more, focused on making the, the, relationship and they're, they do a lot better at that. and then, I just joined metal, which is a men's only networking group. And wow, there are some powerful people in there and they're very focused on the relationships.

Anthony Markey (07:03.917)
Mm-hmm.

Richard Lowe (07:07.81)
I think the only reason there are men's only is because having women changes the dynamic. There's nothing wrong with women, of course, but it does change the dynamic of the relationship. Men aren't going to talk about things and then talk about with women in the room. and anyway.

Anthony Markey (07:22.114)
Yeah. And that, that goes both ways. I was just talking to a lady the other day that they do some educational seminars and stuff and they only allow women. And because there's some things that women won't bring up men are in the room. So it's good to have that variety. Good to say, okay, I'm going to, I'm going to work in this side of this side. so for sure, I've been in a couple of groups, to your point with B and I, think they're doing some things, right? Some things wrong. the things they're doing right is they're making, so making sure that you have a group of people that are going to advocate for you when you're not there. Perfect sense to me.

But you don't get to pick them if you like everybody in that group But you really don't like that realtor because maybe you referred them and they burned you and yet you're still supposed to You know refer people to them that feels wrong I think it should be a little bit more organic with that where you can build that circle of people of People do you like to share your values that you would want to refer to?

Richard Lowe (08:12.202)
Yeah, yeah.

Which brings us, all this brings us into a subject that's probably over the arching of this like, why on earth are you looking for relationships anyway? You just want to sell your stuff, you know? That's typically, especially the lower level people who just get into something. I just want to sell my stuff. I just want to find a job. Why do need to build relationships with anybody? Well, building relationships is the way to make people know, like and trust you. That's the common buzzword among networking groups. And it actually makes sense. You want them to know who you are, right? If they don't know who you are, they can't do anything with you.

You want them to, to like you because if they don't like you, they're not going to refer you and you want them to trust you again. If they don't trust you, they're not going to refer you. Why do you want referrals? Because those are the best kind of connections to have. If, if I refer you to somebody, they trust me and they know I'm not going to refer somebody to them who's a bonehead normally. mean, that happens sometimes, but that's

Anthony Markey (09:09.538)
Yeah. Yeah. You got to go into that group or that individual or that conversation, borrowing somebody else's credibility, right? You know, as opposed to going in cold where you got to start from scratch, you know, who are you that I need anything or to believe anything that you're saying. But if Richard say, yeah, okay, let's have a conversation. I get to borrow that from the get from go.

Richard Lowe (09:29.942)
It just, it starts you off on the right foot instead of coming in cold. I went into alliances cold and took a couple of months for me to get to know people. I went into metal, um, with the, with an introduction and I'm coming up to speed in a matter of a couple of meetings and it's much better to have, to have the, um, the network. Now, the other reason why you, the reason why you want a network is now you've got the network behind you. You've got some people who will.

If you're in the right network group, help you who will mentor you, who will talk to you, who they're not, I mean, they're not necessarily friends, but they're friendly at least. And I just, just did one of these and this podcast are great. Cause I just did one with the person who's in AI, Diana Lee, and she just did her podcast, just put it up yesterday. And she, great person to, to, to network with. She's very outgoing. She's doing all kinds of stuff.

And she's doing a lot of stuff with chat GPT, good stuff. She likes to promote and so forth. mean, that's, that's what you really want a network and partner is they're promoting you and you're promoting them. I promote people same as you do by passing around this podcast. I'm putting it everywhere. That's work that you don't have to do. And all you need to do is just repost it and comment on it. Maybe.

Anthony Markey (10:54.59)
Yeah, absolutely. The long form content can be cut into all sorts of content that can be shared, dispersed by, you know, multitude of different people. um, the, the, the value is you get to borrow each other's audiences, right? They, everybody, everybody that you interview, they get a, they get a, you know, they get you out there that you get everybody on their network to see, and then vice versa, you're out there seeing it. So that's the mutual exchange too. And then the ones that go above and beyond, because this isn't easy, you know, I don't know how long it takes you per episode.

but I've kind of narrowed mine down to know that every interview is taking me from recording to editing everything, probably about three hours per episode. I'm going to spend three hours dedicated to that person. and you know, they're going to reciprocate in some way that's that's that mutual exchange there where, you know, it it's multiplicative. It's not additive.

Richard Lowe (11:41.398)
got it down to about two hours, including the interview. If the interview, doesn't matter how long, I mean, the interview is going to be what it is. And then the post work, including posting it everywhere. It's about two to two and a half hours at the most. And I do overlap them because sometimes like rendering takes a while and there's things that take time. And I usually batch them all for a couple of, a couple of times a week so that I'm spending half the day on that or late evenings and stuff. I'm probably doing too many.

Anthony Markey (12:07.438)
Mm-hmm.

Richard Lowe (12:11.178)
But it's a great way to meet people and I'm going to have a conversation with these people anyway. I want to get, these are the people, these are my audience. mean, mine's invitation only. I don't know about yours, but because it's invitation only, it's people that I wanted to talk to anyway. So I may as well put it to use.

Anthony Markey (12:16.205)
Mm-hmm.

Anthony Markey (12:28.782)
Yeah, no, I'm getting introduced to all sorts of people and you have to make it kind of invitation only. I have a very open door. You know, there's very little, you know, very few people that I'll say probably not a good fit to. Um, but that's still, you know, like you said, being able to get it down, get it efficient, um, and then batch it because you can't, you know, when you say, Hey, I do an episode a day or I do multiple episodes a day. People think that you're actually doing them every single day. No, you're going to batch it. Like you said, you're going to have your

You three, four, five interviews that one day. And then on Friday, you're going to have an admin day where you spend, you know, six hours cutting, editing, posting, scheduling, and getting it out. Otherwise you literally would go crazy.

Richard Lowe (13:07.766)
Well, I'm trying to proceduralize it so that at the point where it becomes obvious, I'm going to hand it off to VA, the post work, because it's actually not that hard. But I need to have that procedure written up and something that's bulletproof to hand to them. And I'm not at that point yet. And then once I do that, the editing is easy. I'm not doing much editing. It's just whatever Riverside does, maybe a quick scan through it. I love Riverside. Do use Riverside?

Anthony Markey (13:34.412)
Yeah, no, I have the brand button. press brand in it, intro outro stuff. And then you just clip the little bit of maybe fuzz in the beginning, fuzz at the end, done five minutes, maybe.

Richard Lowe (13:45.3)
I like it because you can edit the transcript and it edits the video. And I don't know of any other that does that. Maybe some of the, maybe Descript does or one of the others, but StreamYard doesn't do that. Zoom doesn't do that. Editing a video is a pain in the rear. Editing a transcript, a couple of minutes, you know, you're done.

Anthony Markey (14:05.814)
Well, considering your background.

Richard Lowe (14:08.468)
The transcript is just words. Actually you just find the words and press delete and it's gone.

Anthony Markey (14:09.631)
Yeah.

Anthony Markey (14:13.678)
Mm-hmm. Yeah Plus you have the the ability to press like I want all the um's gone and it goes through a no trip Look that I don't do that. I like it to be a little bit more natural Well, then get rid of that one because I drop them all the time

Richard Lowe (14:24.63)
I get rid of the umbs. And some of them go very stuttery.

Anthony Markey (14:30.702)
Yeah, it does come that way, but yeah, no, it's definitely a lot, lot easier than it would be otherwise. A lot of the advancements that we've been getting with AI being able to do a lot of that has been super handy. Like your magic clips that it has, and then your Opus pros and your D scripts being able to, you know, minimize that time. Otherwise, you know, five years ago, trying to do this every single day. I couldn't have done it.

Richard Lowe (14:33.639)
But it's fun.

Richard Lowe (14:51.764)
No, it would have been once a week, maybe if I was, I'm actually probably less than that. Cause it was, you had, you would have had, I would have had to send it to an editor. It's just, it's just too much. And I wasn't going to do that. I've done, I did them. I did the manually and I had beautiful subtitles that I handed and all kinds of stuff took several hours each. Not going to do that again.

Anthony Markey (15:00.174)
Yeah.

Anthony Markey (15:12.872)
Yeah, that's gone.

Richard Lowe (15:15.21)
Yeah, but I like this. has your name and your title, your company right there on the bottom, my name, my logo. I didn't know you could put the intro and out row in as part of the brand. I'll have to look at that to be very nice.

Anthony Markey (15:24.63)
Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yeah, it's pretty simple. Once you get them, it's a button press. It makes it super clean.

Richard Lowe (15:33.366)
Yeah, I'll have to do that. so lots of reasons to network and then everybody has to choose their way to network. How are you going to do it? A lot of people go the easy route and they just try and meet people on LinkedIn and blast out messages and emails and stuff. And you could kind of call that networking in a way, guess, but they're out to get business. It's always can't buy my stuff. And you don't, that really doesn't work, especially not now. cause there's a lot of scams and stuff out there they really need to know you.

And especially from like my product, not that it's tends to be scammy, but it tends to be a little higher ticket. So it's not so easy to say buy my stuff. I have to have a chat, have to have a conversation. If I'm going to do that conversation, I may as well have a podcast, give them something. And at the end of mine, I do a testimonial for the both I get one and get one. that might, I mean, getting testimonials is a pain in the rear, but

Anthony Markey (16:29.624)
You

Richard Lowe (16:30.442)
We're right there. like each other. just did a podcast. It's great time to do a quick testimonial, video testimonial for each of us.

Anthony Markey (16:35.662)
Yep. No, that's a really good idea because you're not wrong. know, people, you know, they have the best intentions, but it's just your time, you know, trying to say, okay, well I'll do it later. And then it gets back burner because it's not the forefront of their day. Right.

Richard Lowe (16:48.758)
Yep. Yep. Yeah. mean, everybody says, and I was a LinkedIn profile person. did dot three, 400 of them. And the, got to have as many LinkedIn testimonials as you can, but kidding those.

It takes some work. I barely bother anymore except to ask them if they could do that, but one out of 10 maybe. But a video testimonial after a podcast, I get it virtually every time. There's a few times where I decide not to do it. I just don't know them.

Anthony Markey (17:04.416)
Yeah, it sure does.

Anthony Markey (17:11.544)
Mm-hmm.

Anthony Markey (17:16.334)
Really.

Anthony Markey (17:20.234)
Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Richard Lowe (17:22.592)
But I get it every time.

Anthony Markey (17:24.91)
Yeah. No, I've never considered that before. That's a really good idea. Um, definitely. well, and again, it adds that layer of mutual benefit you're getting and receiving at the same time. Everybody's winning in that situation. And that's the, that's the way, like you said, everybody has to pick their way of networking. If you're just spamming people, you're just kind of annoying most people and the other people, you know, what are they getting in return? Right. Whereas with what you're doing in the podcast thing and the getting the video testimonials, there's a definite mutual benefit.

And that's, where you're going to get a lot more light, a lot more attraction and people are going to refer and recommend to you is because the, no, no, he absolutely added value to me. It was not a waste of my time. was, I didn't feel like I was being put on or there was no like rug pull or anything like

Richard Lowe (18:08.254)
And if they ever do want whatever I'm selling or whatever you're selling, they were more likely to remember it after a podcast. one of the standard changes subject slightly. One of the standard methods of getting leads is to hire a lead gen service or do it yourself. And that's where you basically put out a whole bunch of in-mails on LinkedIn or whatever, or cold emails or whatever, trying to turn basically say, let's connect. And that tends to have spotty.

Anthony Markey (18:14.093)
No, yeah.

Richard Lowe (18:37.886)
Results. mean, I, my marketing company does that for me, but we send out a let's we're having, I'm having an event once a month you should attend. let's connect. And the, the event is a technical event, not technical, but it's for technical people, which is who I'm connecting with. And I've been getting very, very high results with that because I'm giving them something.

Anthony Markey (18:59.438)
Yeah. If you can lead with service, you're going to stand out because guess what? Most people don't. Right. Most people come into a meeting and they go referral, please. And, or, or they pitch slap you. You're the person they're trying to sell. Whereas if you can go in and say, here's this thing that I'm giving you, let me know if I can help you in any other way. They want to reciprocate.

Richard Lowe (19:17.878)
And they go to that meeting, either first or second time, and then they hopefully like it. They get to meet me. It's a round table, so we get to have a meeting with several people. And then maybe they decide to go with me, maybe not, but they will remember me. And they will give referrals if they remember them. And it's a big thing. Do you have a book?

Anthony Markey (19:42.496)
I do not have a book. One is being written though. I think we talked about that a little bit last time we spoke. Yeah, in the process of having my first book. I have about 20 of them at the moment because we're all, we're anthology, is that what it's Compilation.

Richard Lowe (19:49.3)
You need a ghostwriter.

Richard Lowe (19:54.098)
yeah. A compilation. I'm actually thinking of doing that. Charging a certain amount per chapter and then writing instead of paying, buying a whole book, they just buy a chapter in a book and getting maybe a dozen people put together a book saying digital transformation or something.

Anthony Markey (20:10.328)
Mm-hmm.

Anthony Markey (20:14.99)
Yeah, that'd be a really good idea. because like you said, it can't have, you know, you sticker shock for some people, but if they can get their name out there and be like, I was published in this book and everybody's promoting one another that leads right into the same kind of everybody's adding value to one another because they're all having their own part and they're working together.

Richard Lowe (20:32.01)
The key for that is, is I have to put together a promo package that everybody is on the same page. So when the book comes out or before it comes out, you need to do these things. After it comes out, you need to do these things. So that everybody's on the same page because it needs to be promoted to sell and everybody needs to be clear on what it's for and how to use it. But I probably will put that together shortly and maybe a cybersecurity or digital transformation or, or maybe how to know a guy.

Anthony Markey (21:00.342)
Yeah. No, absolutely. The more people out there that can learn how to actually network in a way that's beneficial, the better. So any advocacy in that space, I'm all for.

Richard Lowe (21:14.729)
Networking is where it's at. If you want to make it in this world, especially the tumultuous as it is today, you need to be in a group. And that group can help you. if you get laid off, if you're working for the government, God help you. And you need a group to, if that day comes when they lay you off, then you need to be able to have the fallback plan. okay, I can go talk to this group and at least get something. And one way to do that is to build up goodwill.

Anthony Markey (21:40.963)
Mm-hmm.

Richard Lowe (21:45.258)
Well, we've had a very fun conversation today. Is there anything you'd like to end off telling your listeners?

Anthony Markey (21:50.946)
No, I think you're absolutely right. Networking is the way to go. Grow your circle, meet somebody new every day, whether that be joining a group, going to events, starting a podcast, guesting on podcasts. There's a million different ways, but the more people that know who you are that like you, better off it's going to be for your business, regardless of what you're

Richard Lowe (22:07.486)
Right, right. And that doesn't necessarily mean spamming social media. Don't do that. Yeah. so I'm Richard Lowe. This has been the leaders in their stories podcast. I'm with the writing king and the ghost writing guru and, let me ask you, where can we find you?

Anthony Markey (22:11.306)
It means the opposite of that actually.

Anthony Markey (22:25.65)
You can visit me at my website, ikag.me. ikag.me. Feel free to take a look through everybody I've interviewed. There's a lot of awesome people out there. Meet somebody new every day. That's the newsletter. It goes out once a day, makes daily introductions. So, feel free to sign up, ikag.me.

Richard Lowe (22:41.034)
I'm going to have to visit that site so I can poach people up for interview.

Anthony Markey (22:45.735)
They all want to be there, you might as well.

Richard Lowe (22:48.064)
Yeah, might as well. And you can poach mine if you want to have my permission. Yep, yep. So thank you for appearing and until next time.

Anthony Markey (22:50.414)
There's a mutual benefit right there, right?

Anthony Markey (22:58.83)
Appreciate it, Richard. Thanks for having me.