In Episode 171 of the Wealth on Any Income podcast, host Rennie Gabriel interviews networking expert Michael Whitehouse. Michael shares how he built a successful network by focusing on helping others instead of selling, turning connections into opportunities. He discusses his work with entrepreneurs and his support for charitable causes, emphasizing the value of genuine relationships in business and life.
In this episode, Rennie and Michael cover:
• [00:00] Host Rennie Gabriel introduces the podcast’s theme on money tips, techniques, and business inspiration.
• [01:00] Michael Whitehouse is introduced as "The Guy Who Knows a Guy," a connector, author, and networking expert.
Michael's Journey to Becoming a Networking Expert
• [02:10] Michael shares how he started networking after moving to Groton, Connecticut in 2014 with no job or business but excelled by leveraging connections.
• [03:50] How focusing on relationships instead of selling made him a successful networker.
Charitable Involvement and Impact
• [03:54] Michael discusses his involvement with his church and various causes, including helping an NGO in Rwanda by facilitating connections and networking summits.
Target Audience and Entrepreneurial Summit
• [05:30] Michael talks about his target market—entrepreneurs, especially geeks, LGBTQ+ individuals, and other unique or quirky individuals. Lessons from the Entrepreneur Summit and why “niches invite, not limit.”
Michael's Biggest Failure and Key Lessons
• [07:42] Michael reflects on his biggest business failure—running a game store that was successful as a community space but financially unsustainable. Key lessons learned: clarity in expectations, balancing the "why" with the "how," and the importance of having a sustainable business model.
The Value of Networking
• [13:04] Michael explains the goal of his Entrepreneurial Village program: creating spaces that facilitate connections and mutual support. He shares how effective networking fills the top of the sales funnel and creates value in a non-salesy way.
Nine Foundational Questions for Entrepreneurs
• [15:32] Michael talks about his free resource, the "Nine Foundational Questions" ebook, designed to help entrepreneurs clarify their purpose, offering, and audience. Link to download the ebook: guywhoknowsaguy.com/mapebook OR https://guy.thrivecart.com/nine-questions-ebook/
Overcoming the Fear of Networking
• [17:07] Michael explains why most people dislike networking—it’s often misunderstood. Networking is about helping others and building relationships, not selling or self-promotion.
Closing and Call to Action
• [17:44] Michael thanks Rennie for the opportunity and reflects on how much he’s learned from the Wealth on Any Income framework.
• [17:52] Rennie closes with an invitation for listeners to check out his TEDx talk and explore the "Wealth with Purpose" program. Link to TEDx talk: wealthonanyincome.com/TEDx.
"I connect people because I like connecting people. It’s about creating relationships and adding value, not selling—it’s about helping others, and in turn, the benefits come back." - Michael Whitehouse
To learn more about Michael Whitehouse, please visit: guywhoknowsaguy.com/mapebook
If you'd like to know how books, movies, and society programs you to be poor, and what the cure is, visit wealthonanyincome.com/TEDx. You'll hear Rennie's TEDx talk and can request a free 27-page Roadmap to Complete Financial Choice™ and receive a weekly email with tips, techniques, or inspiration around your business or money.
AND if you'd like to see how you can increase your wealth and donate to the causes that touch your heart. Please check out our affordable program ‘Wealth with Purpose’.
Rennie’s Books and Programs
https://wealthonanyincome.com/books/
Wealth with Purpose:
https://wealthonanyincome.com/wealthwithpurpose
Rennie’s 9 Days to Financial Freedom program:
https://wealthonanyincome.com/programs
Connect with Rennie
Websites:
WealthOnAnyIncome.com
RennieGabriel.com
Email: Rennie@WealthOnAnyIncome.com
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/renniegabriel/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/WealthOnAnyIncome/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/RennieGabriel
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCdIkYMOuvzHQqVXe4e_L8Pg
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/wealthonanyincome/
Episode 171 Michael Whitehouse [Transcript]
[Rennie Gabriel]
Hi folks, welcome to episode 171 of the Wealth on Any Income podcast. This is where we talk about money tips, techniques, attitudes, information, and provide inspiration around your business and your money. I'm your host, Rennie Gabriel. In past episodes, we spoke about how to understand the numbers from your business, how to measure the level of pleasure based on where you spend your money, how to track your money in five to ten seconds, what determines how close you are to complete financial choice, and how to run your business without being in your business. Last time, we had John David Graham, who founded the Good Samaritan Home that has helped more than 2,500 people restart their lives at older ages. Today, we have as our guest, Michael Whitehouse.
Michael is the guy who knows a guy. He creates connections in everything he does, whether it's direct introductions, interactive virtual speaking events, or his dedicated networking event, JV Connect. He's the author of two books, The Guy Who Knows a Guy, and The View from the Deck, Thoughts on Values, Vision, and Gratitude.
Michael, after all this time, I am so happy that I'm finally getting to say, welcome to the Wealth on Any Income podcast.
[Michael Whitehouse]
Well, I'm glad I finally earned my way onto the show.
[Rennie Gabriel]
Yeah. I mean, I just, I love the work that you're doing. So, we'll start with some questions.
Tell me what you do and why you do it.
[Michael Whitehouse]
What do I do and why I do it? I connect people because I like connecting people. And I got to say, you are good at it.
Yeah. Yeah. It started with, in 2024, when I moved to Groton, Connecticut, I didn't know anyone.
I had no job, no business, nothing to sell, but I'm an extrovert. So, somebody said, you should go check out this chamber of commerce. And I said, okay.
So, I went to this chamber with nothing. And all I had was the connections of people I'd met. So, I leveraged the one thing I had, which made me a really good networker by accident.
Because the place where most people go wrong is they're going to sell. They've got something to sell and they want to sell it. I had nothing to sell.
I couldn't make that mistake. And it's maybe a mistake that I would have made if I had something to sell, but I didn't. So, all I could do was say, well, how can I serve?
How can I build relationships? Only thing I got is connections. And I started making those connections.
This is really cool. So, in a few months, I'm meeting mayors and CEOs and chairmen of boards, whatever the plural of that is, all these influential people.
[Rennie Gabriel]
Chairperson.
[Michael Whitehouse]
Yeah. Chairpeoples of boards. And so, I realized just how powerful that was.
And how simple. That's why I wrote the book, The Guy Who Knows A Guy. Anyone can do it.
If you know anyone and you've ever met anyone, you can introduce people to each other. And since most people don't do it, it's not hard to become one of the top 10 networkers in your community because no one else is trying. So, then people are like, wow, you're so helpful.
You're so generous. You're so giving. And I'm like, most of us do it for the accolades.
So, thanks.
[Rennie Gabriel]
Now, did you say you moved there in 2024, this year?
[Michael Whitehouse]
2014. 10 years ago.
[Rennie Gabriel]
2014. That makes more sense to me. Okay.
Now, you're aware that I donate 100% of the profits from my books, my programs, and my coaching to animal and veteran charities. Tell me about a particular charity that you support and what they do.
[Michael Whitehouse]
So, charities. So, I'm fairly active with my church, which does a lot of work in or donates a lot of money to various causes all around. I was involved in Rotary for quite some time.
I had a little personal issue with some people in the actual chapter I was in. So, I'm not actively involved in Rotary, but I certainly will one day reconnect with them. And then a lot of what I do is support various causes and people through making connections, not necessarily a matter of specific causes that I'm passionate about, but by making connections, I can support different causes.
Actually, one NGO I'm working with over in Rwanda, who they run a homeless shelter and schools and IT training and those sorts of things. And they reached out to me to run a summit for them because they want to connect with people on this side of the pond because that's where the money is. And because of exchange rates and whatnot, Americans and Europeans are able to support them in a dramatic way because it's five to one, six to one dollars to their currency.
So, I'm helping them make connections and getting them into our community through summits and networking and whatnot.
[Rennie Gabriel]
Oh, terrific. Now, so who are your target markets or target markets?
[Michael Whitehouse]
So, I've actually been thinking about this a lot lately. And so, I used to say entrepreneurs, up and coming entrepreneurs, people trying to figure it out. And that's true.
But then I sort of niched it down because last week I ran the Entrepreneur Summit, which is a summit for entrepreneurs who happen to be geeks. And I always teach people niches don't limit, they invite. But of course, I didn't live that because it's one thing to say it sounds good, but nothing to be like, this is my niche, because that's kind of scary.
At the Entrepreneur Summit, it's an event for entrepreneurs who happen to be geeks. You would think everyone there would be geeky in some way, Star Trek, Star Wars, Lord of the Rings, whatever. About 20% of the people in attendance, when I said, what's your geekiness?
About 20% said, well, I don't really have one, but they liked the vibe. And that's what I've found is that the geeks are my people. I like hanging out with geeks.
But other people like hanging out with geeks too, who aren't. So really, it is entrepreneurs, especially those who are getting going, but who are quirky, whether it's because they're into Star Trek, Star Wars, Magic the Gathering, Dungeons and Dragons, those kinds of things, or quirky in other ways. People in the LGBTQ community, people who are more spiritual, those sorts of things.
So really, it's got a lot of people who dance to the beat of their own drum and follow their own path, and are using entrepreneurship to realize their potential, their unique potential, and who understand why I think Next Generation is better than Picard. Now, I think Picard totally messed up those characters. Okay, then we started.
[Rennie Gabriel]
To give you my geek credentials here, when you say Picard, is that a person or a program?
[Michael Whitehouse]
It's a program named after a character.
[Rennie Gabriel]
Oh, God. Oh, okay. Thank you.
Like a game?
[Michael Whitehouse]
No, TV show.
[Rennie Gabriel]
Oh, okay. Great. Okay.
Thank you. So now I've established my geek credentials. Yes. So let me ask you this. This is kind of like a two-part question. And it is, what was your biggest failure, whether personal or business?
And I'm sorry, but you only get to pick one. And then what was your biggest insight from that?
[Michael Whitehouse]
My biggest failure would probably be the collapse of the game store that I ran, because that's the one I can point to and be like, oh, there's a moment where that one failed. So straight out of college, I opened a game store. And it was designed to be a community space that was also a business.
And it was wildly successful, except for never making money. And apparently, if a business doesn't make money, even if it's a community space and generates a lot of social good, it still can't keep functioning. So after about five years, and taking my credit and all my money with it, that collapsed.
Now, what we were able to do was convert it into a nonprofit. So it ran from 2008 to 2018 as a nonprofit volunteer leadership, and basically was a self-funded community space. But the biggest, there were two big learnings from that.
One was in that transition process, which is clarity is important when working with groups. In some ways, that's duh. But the other case wasn't obvious.
And people will accept anything if you're clear up front. So I would say, okay, well, people need to be involved. They need buy-in.
They need power and whatnot. I have come to realize since then that you can run an event and be like, I am 100% in charge. If you like this, come with me.
If you don't, there's the door. And some people are like, I like what you're doing. Sure.
Where are we going, Captain? Or you can say, this is democratic, and we've got bylaws and a board. We're all equal, and people like that too.
But if they expect one and get the other, it's not going to go well. So creating expectations is crucial. But then the other big learning that I carried through is know what you're doing and why, and what you need to be doing.
So if you're running a game store that is a community space, it also has to make money. So yes, the mission was... So I knew the why, the big why, but I didn't look at the how.
And the why, I mean, it turned into a non-profit. So the why was big enough to draw it, but it cost me personally a lot to carry that why, because the why was so strong. I didn't think about the how.
And so you also got to think about the how. So if you're building the community space and it needs $60,000 a year to operate, where are you getting $60,000 a year? And are you doing the things to generate that revenue?
So think about, and not to rely on wishful thinking, that it'll work out, or we'll just work a little bit harder. Harder for what? So where are you going?
How are you going to get there? And when you look at that ultimate why, that ultimate goal, are the things you're doing, do they actually add up to the goal if they work? Because if they don't, you need to do different things and not wait till you run out of money and say, oh, we ran out of money.
How could we have foreseen that? We lost $500 a month, and then we went through our $50,000 in 10 months. I don't know how that happened.
So yeah, that was the biggest learnings.
[Rennie Gabriel]
I get it. And it makes so much sense. I participate in your Entrepreneurial Village program that you do on Fridays.
You bring together people. You create relationships. You're definitely the guy who knows a guy.
How you do your networking, I don't want to say it, is appropriate for anyone who wants to meet people as opposed to just sell to people. But it sounds like a silly question, but what's the benefit or the goal or the objective or the outcome that people achieve if they follow your advice?
[Michael Whitehouse]
Yeah. So the major benefit that you get from doing this is a lot of times you ask people, what do you need? They say, oh, I need more leads.
I need more top of funnel activity. And then they're struggling, and they're cold calling, and they're knocking at mailing, whatever. And they're pulling their hair out trying to do this.
And frankly, I learned how to network the way I do at the level I do, because I didn't want to do any of that stuff. I didn't want to cold call. And I didn't want to think about building those strategies and whatnot.
I just wanted to talk to people. So the major benefit to networking the way I do is it fills the top of the funnel. So yes, I help a lot of people, and it's good and benevolent, but it's not altruistic completely.
It's I have a community of people that if I ever figure out what I'm doing, no, as I do things, I have a community I can turn to and say, hey, could you help me with this? And they say, oh, of course. I'd be happy to.
So it's a matter of putting in the deposits in the social capital bank before you try to draw out from the social capital bank. And you meet enough people, and some of them are going to say, oh, I like your new program, or I want to take your new class, or I want to whatever that new thing. I'm into that.
So it's not simply a matter of like I'm doing good because I'm a good person. It's a matter of I'm doing good because it comes back, and it's a fair and equitable exchange. So I create spaces like the Entrepreneur Village, which is a free event.
But the other thing the Entrepreneur Village does is it is a valuable event to go to because I bring the people there. And then I get their attention. So when I'm talking about the Opportunity Growth Circle that I'm launching, they're there to listen.
When I'm talking about the Foundation's Inner Circle, they're there to listen. When I talk about JV Connect, they're there to listen, and they're happy to listen because they like what I'm already doing for them. So it's about creating that value.
And that's not just in the events, but the way I do my email list, the way I do social media content, the way I run summits. It's all about creating valuable spaces, valuable information, valuable resources. So when I then make an offer or an invitation or anything like that, nobody minds.
A lot of people are like, I don't want to be on a marketing list. Well, I don't do a marketing list. I simply write a letter every day to 3,600 of my closest friends.
[Rennie Gabriel]
Yeah. I got to tell you, yours is one of the only emails that I read consistently because they're actually entertaining.
[Michael Whitehouse]
Yeah. The trick is that almost every email I write has a call to action at the top part. Usually, I slide in one or two more links in the text, and then underneath are 12 more invitations or offers.
So every one of those emails has 14 or 15 invitations or offers, but it doesn't feel like an infomercial because it's about value.
[Rennie Gabriel]
Yeah. I enjoy reading them. Sometimes I'll only read the first third because that was what was entertaining.
And since I don't care if I'm growing a business, I won't read the other invitations. You have this nine question thing that helps people clarify what the heck they're up to. Could that be one of the valuable free resources that you provide to the people who are listening to this podcast or watching it on YouTube?
[Michael Whitehouse]
It definitely could be. How can they get it? They go to guywhoknowsaguy.com slash map ebook, which really need to create the new link for that because when I first created it, it's the nine foundational questions of business because I found so many people were chasing after things that didn't matter, like naming their program. I'll give your program just the right name or your lead magnet has to be called just the right thing. When you go there, you'll see the name is ridiculous, like five lines long. I try to think of as many words as possible to vaguely refer to what it's saying.
And map is Michael's awesome program, which is what I called the opportunity growth circle before I gave it a real name. That's why it's map ebook. So as a demonstration, I'm like, let me give it a ridiculous name because the nine foundational questions are the nine things you need to focus on.
And if you haven't answered these nine questions, the first three are about values and purpose, the next three are about what you're offering, and the next three are about how you're selling it and how you're building your audience. If you haven't got those nine answered, it doesn't matter what you're calling your lead magnet because nobody's reading it. It doesn't matter what your logo is because nobody's buying anything.
You got to focus on those foundations first.
[Rennie Gabriel]
Terrific. So I'm going to have that link in the show notes so people can just click on it and get that map ebook. Fine.
Let me ask you this straight out because I believe I am one of these people who hates networking. Why do you say people, most people hate networking?
[Michael Whitehouse]
Because they don't know what it is. I ask most people to describe networking and to define it, and they list off various things like going to events, handing out business cards, pitching yourself, trying to sell yourself, pushing things on strangers who don't want them, and none of the things I just listed are networking. Now, networking can happen at events.
You will often hand a business card to someone if you're at a networking event and you're doing what you're supposed to be doing, but that's not what networking is. So if you think that's what networking is, yeah, that's pretty awful. That's a very unpleasant experience.
Networking is meeting cool people who you can do something for and help and helping them for the purpose of helping them with the understanding that will provide value back to you in the future, either from them or someone else. You are putting good energy into the universe and it will circle back through the mechanism of all the various people you're meeting.
[Rennie Gabriel]
From that standpoint, I could actually like networking.
[Michael Whitehouse]
Yeah.
[Rennie Gabriel]
And Michael, I want to thank you for being on the Wealth on Any Income podcast.
[Michael Whitehouse]
And I want to thank you for having me on the show and for teaching me all you've taught me so that I myself can develop wealth on any income.
[Rennie Gabriel]
Yeah, it is my pleasure. And to those of you who are listening or watching, if you'd like to know how books, movies, and society programs you to be poor and what the cure is, then log on to wealthonanyincome.com forward slash TEDx. You'll hear my TEDx talk and can request a free nine-step roadmap to complete financial choice and philanthropy and receive an email once or twice a month with tips, techniques, or inspiration around your business or your money.
And if you'd like to see how you can increase your wealth and donate to the causes that touch your heart, please check out our affordable program, Wealth with Purpose. To my listeners, thank you for tuning in. You can listen to the Wealth on Any Income podcast on your favorite platform, and please rate, review, and subscribe.
Until next time, be prosperous. Bye-bye for now.