Today we’d like to introduce you to Joseph Luckett.
Hi Joseph, it’s an honor to have you on the platform. Thanks for taking the time to share your story with us – to start maybe you can share some of your backstory with our readers?
My story starts long before Zero to 100 ever existed — it starts with being adopted as an infant by James and Harriet Luckett of St. Charles, Missouri. I was one of seventeen kids who came through their home between biological, foster, and adopted children, and growing up in that kind of household teaches you something you can’t get any other way: everyone is worth making room for. That belief ended up becoming the backbone of everything I’ve built since.
I wasn’t always destined for networking. My path ran through jobs like Arby’s and Best Buy, and then five years in network marketing, including a stretch with the coffee company Organo Gold starting in June 2010. That’s actually where coffee became more than a drink to me — it became a metaphor for connection, which you’ll see all over my book.
My real “aha” moment happened at my very first traditional networking event. I walked in excited and left invisible — nobody greeted me, nobody sat next to me said a word. Instead of writing networking off, I made a decision that night: I would never let another person feel that way in a room I was part of. On July 15, 2011, I left my last full-time job and went all-in on networking. I set a goal that made people question my sanity — 500 meetings in 90 days — and hit it in 74 days. Then I did it again.
Those thousands of coffee meetings became the foundation for what my wife Carol and I would eventually build together: Zero to 100™, an inclusive, global networking movement. Carol actually coined the name — funny enough, she’s the more introverted one between us, but she’s been the perfect partner to turn a mission into a movement.
The first arm of that movement was my book, Zero to 100: The Gold Standard of Global Networking — the first networking book validated by an independent research study. Led by Behavioral Scientist Daniel Schmidt, a Research Project Manager at Pennsylvania State University, the 12-week study tracked 39 participants nationwide and found that simply following the book’s principles more closely — not more time networking, not more chapters read — drove a 279% increase in leads, a 170% increase in income, and a 234% increase in career advancement, along with major gains in creativity, professional knowledge, and friendships. It hit #1 International Bestseller status within 43 hours across multiple countries, and this year we celebrated its five-year anniversary — it’s now in every K-12 school in the St. Charles district, Missouri libraries, major retailers, international libraries across several continents, and even adopted for use by the Defense Security Cooperation University at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base.
Today, that same philosophy — REAL-ationships over transactions — powers everything from the book to my consulting work, where I help individuals and organizations build networking cultures that actually retain people instead of burning them out. It all traces back to one uncomfortable night in a room where nobody spoke to me, and a decision to make sure no one else ever felt that way again.
Can you talk to us a bit about the challenges and lessons you’ve learned along the way. Looking back would you say it’s been easy or smooth in retrospect?
It hasn’t been a smooth road, and I wouldn’t want it to be — every obstacle taught me something I needed.
The most defining pivot came in 2020. My book was scheduled for release that April, we were in the middle of raising capital, and momentum around Zero to 100 was building fast. Then the world shut down. How do you launch a networking movement when nobody can gather? After a lot of conversations with my wife Carol and our COO, we made the call to push everything back — the book, the funding, the launch — by one to two years. My first reaction wasn’t panic. It was “even better.” That delay gave us more time to adapt Zero to 100 into something even more inclusive for a changed world. We finally released the book in April 2021, and it became a #1 International Bestseller on Amazon.
But honestly, the bigger obstacle wasn’t the pandemic — it was the odds I was up against just getting there in the first place. I was stepping into a networking industry already dominated by massive legacy organizations and celebrity gurus. I wasn’t just a first-time author; I was someone who had navigated real academic struggles and learning development classes earlier in life. The “standard” path to success wasn’t built for someone like me, and I knew it.
So instead of the slow-burn marketing playbook everyone told me to follow, I took a massive risk. I bet everything on the idea that if I had built my REAL-ationships™ the right way over the years, my community would show up when it mattered most. I wasn’t trying to just publish a book — I was trying to set a new global standard for networking itself.
The results were beyond anything I could have imagined. Within 43 hours of launch, the book hit #1 International Bestseller across four countries. That moment was validation — not just of the book, but of everything the methodology stands for: when you stop selling and start operating from the science of connection and the B.I.G. values — Belonging, Inclusivity, and Gratitude — people respond. It proved that your community is your greatest marketing asset, if you treat them with authenticity. They’ll carry you to the finish line every time.
Thanks for sharing that. So, maybe next you can tell us a bit more about your business?
The business is Zero to 100™, and the tagline says it all: The Gold Standard of Global Networking. We’re not a networking group — we’re a company that unifies the entire global networking community through what I call REAL-ationships™ and networking-specific education.
What we specialize in is fixing a problem nobody else in the industry had actually solved: there was no universal standard for how to network well. Every membership group, every conference, every “networking guru” had opinions, but nobody had a validated, repeatable process. That’s what Zero to 100 built. Our foundation is the book, Zero to 100: The Gold Standard of Global Networking — the first networking book with a process validated by an independent 12-week research study out of Pennsylvania State University, showing real, measurable gains in leads, income, career advancement, and stronger relationships for people who followed the principles closely. We followed that with a companion workbook, The How-To Approach to Create REAL-ationships, to help people put the process into action step by step. And through Luckett Consulting, I work directly with individuals and organizations — helping membership-based networking groups lower attrition and raise retention, and helping professionals build networking habits that actually stick.
What sets us apart is that everything is built on data and behavioral science, not charisma or hustle-culture hype. We use tools like DISC and Motivators to help people understand not just their own networking style but how to adapt to everyone else’s — because effective networking isn’t about being the loudest person in the room, it’s about meeting people where they are. Our whole philosophy runs on what I call the B.I.G. values: Belonging, Inclusivity, and Gratitude. Those aren’t just words on a page — they shape everything from how we structure our frameworks (like the Bridge-Tie Effect and Mirror Matching) to who we intentionally make room for in a room.
Brand-wise, what I’m proudest of is this: the book just hit its five-year anniversary, and in that time it’s gone from one guy with a dream in St. Charles, Missouri, to a resource sitting in every K-12 school in the St. Charles district, Missouri libraries, Walmart and Amazon, international libraries across four continents — and even the Defense Security Cooperation University at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base. It’s been endorsed by the founders who literally built this industry — BNI, AmSpirit, TEAM Referral Network, Networking Today International, Women Empowering Women, and more. Five years, one book, and it’s found its way into every room that matters.
What I want readers to walk away with is simple: networking isn’t a talent some people are born with and others aren’t. It’s a skill, a science, and — if you do it right — the greatest gift you can give someone else. That’s Zero to 100. That’s what we’re here to teach.
If you had to, what characteristic of yours would you give the most credit to?
If I had to pick one, it’s genuine care for other people — put simply, before it’s about me, it’s about you.
That trait actually showed up early, long before I knew what to call it. As a kid, I was the type who’d get obsessed with something — breakdancing, video games, whatever it was — and stay with it until I mastered it, no matter how long it took. That same intensity carried into networking, except instead of chasing a high score, I was chasing the question: how do I make this person feel seen? At my very first networking event, nobody spoke to me. I remember exactly how that felt, and I made a decision that night that I would never let anyone else feel invisible in a room I was part of. That decision, more than any strategy or system, is what built Zero to 100.
The other piece is discipline paired with an insatiable appetite for learning. I’ve always believed self-development is really two separate words doing two separate jobs — “self” is the reading, listening, and absorbing; “development” is actually applying what you learned until it shows up in your behavior. A lot of people stop at “self” and call it growth. I’ve tried to never let myself off the hook that easily.
So if you boil it down: put people first, stay relentlessly curious, and actually do something with what you learn. That combination is what turned a guy who felt invisible at his first networking event into someone building a global standard for how networking should be done.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://Www.zeroto100.io/store
- Instagram: http://instagram.com/joseph_luckett
- Facebook: http://facebook.com/josephluckett84
- LinkedIn: http://linkedin.com/in/josephluckett84
- Twitter: http://twitter.com/josephluckett
- Other: https://zeroto100.io/luckett-consulting/
