Corey “NetworKing” Moore, founder of ProNetworker, has spent 15 years transforming how entrepreneurs and sales professionals approach business growth through strategic networking. As his company celebrates its 15th anniversary in 2025, Moore continues to champion the philosophy that success lies not just in what you know or who you know, but in who knows you. His upcoming Atlanta Black Expo, scheduled for February 22-23 at the Georgia World Congress Center, promises to be the “Black Business Super Bowl,” bringing together diverse participants in the black business ecosystem.
What led to founding ProNetworker?
We’re celebrating 15 years this year in 2025, and our whole goal for the company was to help people, entrepreneurs, sales professionals, grow their business by meeting more people. So what we’ve been doing for the last 15 years is educating on the effects of networking, as well as creating different opportunities for them to network their businesses.
What is the vision behind Atlanta Black Expo?
I describe this to people as when you think about the super bowl, like how many teams play in the super bowl, too. How many teams actually come to the Super Bowl? All of them! Why? Because they’re celebrating the NFL. Well, think about black business, and how much it’s important to support these black businesses, and how important it is to recycle these dollars in the community. There needs to be a celebration of that, and if there was a celebration of that, what would that look like? The Atlanta Black Expo is the Black Business Super Bowl we are bringing together all black businesses. Anybody is in this black business ecosystem, whether they are spending money on black businesses, whether they’re giving resources to black businesses, or whether they are black business themselves, or whether they’re a person who wants to be a black business. Everybody in that ecosystem. This event is the celebration of that. So it’s happening February 22nd and 23rd at the Georgia World Congress Center.
What are the three most powerful aspects about networking for someone starting out?
The very first thing is to know what it is that you are providing, what are you solving? Why do I need your product first, and be able to actually tell me exactly what it is? Hey, here is my product, this is how my product helps you, and be very clear on that, because that lets you kind of hone down who your “target market” is. After that, you want to make sure that you are actually getting out there, and you have the tools to be able to do so. Very simply, finding out about a networking event, number one and number two, going to said networking event, and then number 3, having business cards, so that you can let people know what you do. Give them something, so that they know how to contact you, how to reach back out to you.
What role does follow-up play in networking success?
Everybody’s heard “fortune is in the follow up”, but you got to do it, because that’s exactly what it is. So making sure that you have some type of system, advanced people are going to have a CRM system, a customer relationship management system, non advanced people, people just starting, you can do Excel, where you take the person’s information that you met, write it in Excel, and then make sure that you have a schedule of how you’re following up with them to making sure that they know what you do, they remember what you do, and if there’s a need, that they can actually do business with you.
What three things helped you survive 15 years in business?
One, consistency, what I’ve always told people is, especially in business, there’s some people who love business and love sales, there’s some people who don’t love sales. Here’s the thing most people in business, they are what’s called the technician, they are the cookie maker, they like to make cookies, but they don’t like the cookie making business. They don’t like to market the cookie, they don’t like to do the quality control of the cookie, they don’t like to do the PR for it, they don’t like doing all that stuff, but you have to do it in business.
What I tell people is this, here’s where you will have success as long as you’re able to, get out there and meet people, let people know what you do, and then remind them of what you do. You will be successful if you are consistent with those things. You got to be consistent. The one thing that I hear the most from people is, “Wow, Corey, you are consistent. You have been doing the same thing for 15 years, getting out, letting people know about how to network and how networking can grow their business”, been doing the same thing 15 years. So again, taking those 3 things and being consistent with it, you will hit success.
How would you explain the connection between network and net worth?
There’s so many of them, network is your net worth, fortune’s in the follow up. It’s not about who you know or what you know, but who knows you, but when it comes to the fortune or your network is your net worth, if you think about your product or service, and let’s say you had 10 people in your database, let’s just say you had 10% in your database who needed that product or service, you send out that information, and let’s just say it gets you a hundred dollars. Now that means in a block of 10, if every 10 people you had, you got a hundred dollars, that’s now going to determine what your net worth is. So if you only got 10 people, then you’re only worth $100, but if you got a hundred people you now might be worth a thousand dollars, and so on, and so forth. When you then start adding into not just the people who are going to purchase your product, but the people who could actually help open other doors for you and stuff like that, be referrals, then that $100 actually starts to increase in that same block of 10 people.
What advice would you give to someone unsure about hosting large events?
I tell everybody, and again it gets back to that, knowing what your product and service is, and knowing who you help. If you know that you have a product or service that can help somebody, it is, I believe, your duty to get out there and help that person. Now, what that means is you have to get out there and let them know that you exist, and this solution exists inside of you, so whether that’s going to an event where there’s one person, or whether that’s going to an event where there’s a thousand people, it is still the same thing, it is your duty to let people know that you exist, and you have a solution that can help them do whatever it is that they’re trying to accomplish.
How important is negotiation for entrepreneurs?
When it comes to again about making this cookie, there’s people who are good at making the cookie, and there’s people who like the cookie making business. In business negotiation, the same way sales is very important, if you don’t mind paying what somebody else wants you to pay or getting what somebody else wants you to get, the negotiation is not a big deal for you, but if you actually want to pay less for certain things, if you want to actually customize what it is that you get and get the things that you want to get and not what somebody’s willing to give you, then you need to actually be good at negotiations. Most times, people think that negotiations equals settling, I’m only going to get a certain amount, that’s not true at all, you could actually negotiate, and if you are really skilled in this, you would understand what it is that you want, and what it is that they want, and then be able to negotiate to get both. For me, that has always been my mentality, how can I not just create a win situation, or even a win win situation, but a win win win situation? How can I create where everybody wins.
Why is branding important for entrepreneurs?
We as people these days, we have so many choices of where we spend our dollar, unless you are a new CEO or new founder of a company, and you are the only one that does this thing, they can’t get it no other place, then you might not worry about branding as much, but if the person has an option on where they can get it, then you have to let them know what’s gonna be that differentiator of why to get it from you and why not to get it from what else. As far as the brand is concerned, that starts building what’s called brand confidence, as I’m letting people know what I do, and I’m being consistent with that, and as I’m being aware of what I want them to see, and how I want them to see, and how it looks, and all of that, how they feel about it, that’s all a part of my brand. With that, that’s going to help build confidence in the buyer to do business with me.
How did Morehouse College shape your business journey?
I loved my experience at Morehouse absolutely loved my experience. Coming from Colorado and being in Atlanta and being around other black folks who actually had something to do with their lives, who wanted to develop their lives and wanted something better and striving better, it was a phenomenal experience, being at Morehouse. Unfortunately, we didn’t have all the resources that other colleges, probably right down the street, had, and it was actually an easier situation for us. So what we had to do was to make a way, we had to be able to say, “this is what I want, here’s a short line to get it, oh, that line ain’t available, that resource not available, let me figure out some other way to get this thing done”, so that now, when I get out in business world, I’m almost expecting to know at the beginning, I’m almost expecting it not being a short line, like I’m already prepared. The preparation that go into, which I would venture out to say, any HBCU to get you out into the real world, with this, you are already expecting not to have the easy way. You’re already expecting there to be a problem and you to have a solution in your back pocket, and I’m not talking about Plan B, I’m talking about plan CDE. Again, resilience, let me tell you graduates, if anything, they have resilience, they have figured out a way to make something happen, that note that wasn’t there before, but now is regardless of what other situations came about.
How do you stay competitive in the business landscape?
I definitely first educate myself on business in general, I go to YouTube, and I watch hundreds of videos dealing in just business in general, looking at all success stories and not looking at the success part, but I want to hear the backstory. How did they get there? What trials and tribulations did they go through to get there? So number one, just being a steward of business, number two, being a steward of my industry, looking at the event industry, and looking at what other events are doing, what other events are offering, what other aspects are about, at events, what people are going to and things of that nature. Just so that I know, okay, if I’m doing the Atlanta Black Expo, how many other black expos out there? How many people are going to them? What elements are they having, that can kind of tell me, what to either have at my event or what not to have at my event. Lastly, listening to people and what their needs are.
Who are your business role models after 15 years?
Two people that actually come to mind, one is Dr. Keyes, who here in Atlanta, she does the Village Market Atlanta. She did a phenomenal job with that event when she was doing it, has turned it into an actual retail shop, but when she was doing the Village Market Atlanta, to be able to have that event every quarter to just the size of it was just amazing, and just what she was doing for the community, phenomenal.
The other person who, just when you said that the thing that came to mind was Martin Luther King, and when I think about when he had his famous speech in Washington and the number of people that came out to hear the speech, they didn’t necessarily come off for him, they came for what the whole event was itself, and this is prior to emails, this is prior to social media, this is prior to websites and stuff like this, prior to text message marketing, it’s like, how did that get out? But when you think about the commonality that everybody had, everybody there was on one common goal, was for the rights of human beings, the rights of black folks, and to be able to tap into what the commonality for everyone is, and to actually create something centered around that, is huge. So again, for me, in the events industry being able to look at, how do you have an event and bring that number of people out and not have all of the different advertising mediums that we have right now. That’s amazing, I don’t know if it’d ever be duplicated.
