An afternoon speaking to the East Cobb Business Association with Michael A Forman
- mforman521
- 3 days ago
- 17 min read
I want to ask rhetorical question. How many have you gone to a meeting, gone to a networking event, have a one-to-one meeting and said, oh my God, this was great.
I made so many contacts and then afterwards you realize you haven't gotten any business outta it, right? I, it happened to everybody. Or happens to everybody. And I'm here to tell you it's not what you have to sell services product, anything else, but it's the way that you're doing it and that's what's holding you back, right?
So the first thing is that you are a problem solver. You have to find out what their problem is because you have to have an answer. Is that the end of it? No. No, that's not the end of it. Because you have to figure out where they're going to next. That's when you're going to beat out all the competition is incredible.
But you're saying why does everybody Network? Network, I believe is the lifeblood. Of all business. Without networking, you're not gonna get anywhere, right? So that's your ultimate goal. Now look on the screens, because these are the points that I want to drive home for you to today. Now, first off, take every opportunity to meet new people and yet to focus on the areas that you can help.
You have to go alone with the networking events. That's for extroverts. If you're introverts, there's a slight twist to it, but I'll go into that afterwards. And of course, don't forget business arts. I can't tell you how many times I've gone to a networking event and they say, ah, I'm sorry I don't play business cards.
I can write your number down or something you did, but you're gonna lose them without a doubt. Now, here is the most important thing about network. The most important. If you remember anything, remember this. It's the follow up. Not only follow up, but follow up correctly, right? Because there is a way after a networking event, I've done this many times, I've gone to somebody else who I've seen walk around say, oh, tell me about what you do.
Oh, that's great. How do you follow up with that? Oh, I'm gonna send him an email tomorrow or the next day. I'm gonna follow up next week just to make sure I got them. I said, okay. And in my brain I'm going, you lost because I'll get to them before you. There is a way to follow up, and that is the most important thing that you can do.
Now, here's the funny line. People hate to be sold to. They hate to be sold to, but they love to buy. What does that tell you as an individual? That means okay, so you want what I have to sell, I service my product, whatever. Okay, but you don't want to hear from me that you, I'm gonna sell to you. Because that's a problem, right?
So that's a big problem here. Confidence. Confidence is so how many times have you walked up to somebody and they're looking all over? They're not looking at you in the eyes, right? They're like standing halfway and they're not squared up to you and you don't even want to see them. You don't wanna speak to them.
You wanna move on to the next person, square your body. A friendly facial expression. Now, for some of you that may be difficult, but friendly facial expression, hands in, plain sight, so ever. I love this. The roof max commercials, right? Have you ever seen commercials watch them? I watch him. I watch the person who's talking, he takes his hands and puts 'em down here, goes as he's talking.
'cause he's not to his hands, right? It's called the middle, steep. Everybody see that? Don't do it. Don't do it. It's the worst thing. You listen. I come from a Jewish background. My wife's Italian and the hands are always going. We talk with our hands. Don't stop. Don't. When you walk up to somebody you want and you meet somebody like, hi, how are you?
No. Be yourself. And most importantly, and I have a few clients that have a dialect you have to enunciate because if they can't understand what you're saying, then you're lost right out of the gate. What do you do when you walk up to somebody and you want to meet them? Whatever. First things first, you're gonna listen.
You're gonna listen to them. This doesn't mean that you're going to look at somebody just walked by, that you really want 'em to talk to 'em, and your eyes aren't following them eye contact, right? So you're gonna listen to them and after they finish, this is the most important part about listening. Pause.
You're gonna pause and then you're gonna say something back to what they said, because what does that tell 'em? It tells them that you were listening to them. And that is the most important thing. You want to make sure that you are, that they, you were listening to them. All right, so now what do you do when you are in a networking event?
You walk in. Now, first of all, when you're at a networking event, they always have pieces of paper about booths and things like that. Always have a little bit of a plan where you want to go. But before then, you always have 18 mess people. You're like, okay, what do I do? You pick a table, you walk up to the table.
Don't talk. Don't say anything. Listen. Listen for the conversation to come around to you. Is this a conversation that I want to be a part of? It's not. I haven't said anything yet. I politely bow out. I go to the next table. I go up and I listen. Okay. This conversation is something that I want to respond with when the conversation comes around to me.
I say something intelligent, right? Because I'm supposed to be the expert in my field, so whatever I say, better be intelligent. You're waiting to see who responds, right? Two. Okay. Five people at the table. Two people responded, okay? Those people asked me a question. Okay? That means hook. I got them. Don't say that, of course, but okay, so you got it.
So now, okay, you're having them talk and you have them talk. You're talking to them, but they're asking them questions. I use something called form. I'll go into that later on. Family, occupation, recreation, and a message. And I'll go into that a little bit further, but you're going to talk with them and you're gonna have them talk about themselves, ask about their family, and about the mother, father, sister, brother, son, daughter.
Okay. Youth sports. I was a baseball coach for 16 years. I'll talk about any, anybody with use parts, right? I get to them on that level and all of a sudden. Know you, like you, trust you. They'll do business with you. If they know you well, I now know all of you. That's great. They like you. I'm sure that everybody in this room isn't gonna like me, but that's why I have learned with that.
Know you like you, but here's the big fact. Trust nobody will do business with you unless they trust. To you and that trust, I can do a whole hour just on trust. The trust factor is so important that, because what you're doing is there's a wall between you and the person and you're trying to tear down that wall, but trying to build up that trust factor, right?
Yes. Sorry, I thought you were gonna go to the next slide that I had a question on this. Can I ask question? So when you said walk up to the table. Quite quietly observe, right? If you walked away, said, and there's no connection with that conversation, like you said before. You're first finding out whether or not the conversation is for you.
If it's for you, then you have that connection. If there's not, then there's walk away. So the question is, when you walk away, you, are you giving the impression of disrespect that I No, you haven't anything walked up. We to the table, you. I would always go up to somebody if I was at CES, for example, and I'd walk up to the table with a bunch of men and I'd say something like, how did you think about the football game restaurant?
You always find that common ground, right? That's what you're looking for. You're looking for a common ground and you find it, that's wonderful. If not, then again you move on. But it's really a pretty simple process. Okay. Form family, occupation, recreation, and a message, like I said, wife, sister, brother, son, daughter, whatever.
Get them on that whatever. You can just find out about their occupation. Oh, they're a doctor. What kind of doctor? Okay. Are they other in sports. Oh, okay. They're musician, whatever. You talked to them on that level. And you'll see, they will stay there and talk about it. Why? Why? Because people love to talk about themselves.
They will talk to you for an hour as long as you are seen interested. So you're going to keep that talking and you're, they're going to talk and talk. And finally it's gonna come around to what they do for a living. And they're gonna tell you, and they're going to tell you again, and you're gonna sit there and you're gonna listen.
You are gonna repeat back and you're gonna pause, and then you come out with a line. You say, you know what? I like you. I like the way you do business and how you're doing it. How can I make you more successful? How can I make you, how can I be a good referral source for you? This is what's called having a servant's heart when you walk into a networking event.
You look to give not your sin, and as long as you look to give, that takes all the pressure off your shoulders. All of a sudden, you're not nervous anymore. All of a sudden you're looking to help somebody. So it goes a long way. Okay? You have to build a rapport with a person, right? Build a rapport. What do you have in common?
You have to ask questions. Questions are a great way of trying to build rapport. Because you're asking questions about them when you walk into an office, if you have a one-to-one meeting, right? You have anywhere between five seconds and almost a minute to look on the walls. Look on the desk, right? Is there music on the walls?
Is there an art? Is there some sort of sports paraphernalia? I want you to look at the pictures. That he has on the desk is, are the pictures on the rear desk facing out or are they on his desk facing in and you say what's the difference? Big difference. The ones on the rear, in the rear facing out, they almost want you to ask about them, ask about those pictures, and if the pictures are on the front desk towards him.
For her off limits. They don't wanna talk about it. So those little nuances, little things that you can do, that you can pick up on, that can go a long way. Here's the mantra. Know you like, you, trust you. Okay. They want to do business with you. You're not going to get to that last part unless you have the first three, because if the person doesn't know you, they're not gonna do business with you.
I'm talking about something that's not online. Oh, sorry to interject, but I think this relates even to Zoom calls. Absolutely. Because we often have the virtual background. Yes, and I regularly use that and I've noticed that if I don't start a conversation about that, it can be awkward on the call.
You have to remember with a Zoom call, a perfect question. Zoom call is a person on the other side of that camera. Everybody thinks it's Zoom doesn't, you don't have to worry about it. Everybody knows about the person who's half dressed and in her underwear, okay? Far that you can just get to know the person behind the camera.
And that means now I, like I said, I do a lot of podcasting and I always try to get to know the person before the podcast because that will give me other question.
Now, introvert versus extrovert. I've told you so far, you walk up to the table, you wait for the conversation, you listen for it, and hopefully when the conversation comes around to you, you're gonna say something intelligent. Okay, that's great. All for extroverts, us. What about introvert? Because an introvert, when you walk into that networking event, it's like hitting a wall oh my god.
There's so many people here, and then all of a sudden, what do they do? They grab a train, grab the wall. I hold the wall of death. Okay. So with an introvert, you still go to this networking event, by the way? I say go to a networking event at least once per week. Okay. So you're gonna walk in with somebody that you know.
Not necessarily somebody you work with, but somebody that you know knows you, knows all about you and what you do. Because when you walk up to that table and you finally say, okay, you know something, that conversation is something that I want to be a part of. That person say, oh, you know something, Michael knows all about that.
Michael, why don't you share that with us? So that's a little introduction. So now all of a sudden you're not feeling so away, now, I'm not saying that if you're introverted, you're gonna do this, the first networking event, and all of a sudden it's gonna work and it, you're never going to, you you're an extrovert.
No. The first time you go to a networking meeting, by the way, you're gonna suck. It's horrible, right? What you learn from go to the second meeting. You're gonna suck, but you're gonna suck less. Go to the third meeting, you're gonna still suck, but still keep it honest. Okay? But by the fifth time, the sixth time you go to a networking meeting, all of a sudden you realize you're going to enjoy it.
Wow, I'm meeting all these people. I'm learning about all these businesses. This is great. So that's the main difference. So now. What do you do? Follow up. Follow up. Follow up. Okay. Follow up immediately. I have a secret sauce when it comes to follow up. And by the way, it's 98%. It works. Now I'll go into that label.
You take notes on the back of a business card. Those business cards aren't there just for you to hand out. When you, after you say that to the person I want to make it more successful, da yada, you turn that business card over, you write down the date, the name of the function, and something you spoke about because that will come in Andy, when you follow up and you put it into your CRM and so on, so forth.
I want you to connect with them on LinkedIn, Facebook, Instagram and Twitter. When I say connect, just look them up, reach out and connect. Now, it doesn't mean that you're gonna connect with them and turn around and try to sell 'em. You have to create value. That value is so important, and here we come to it.
The thank you card, the handwritten thank you card. That's right. It's a handwritten thank you card, and I'll go over one and where to write that, but that is so important. Can you imagine being the person that receives a thank you card all of a sudden it's not an invoice, it's not some pokey ad, it's not anything, but it's somebody reaching out to you and saying, thank you for your time.
It goes such a long way and you stay top of mind. So now can I say something about the business cards real quick? Sure. So there are a lot of people that eliminate the business cards. When you try to write on them, it's almost impossible. Yep. That's why you have a phone. Yeah. Okay. I always lose it if you have to.
It didn't take note right After the conversation, you go to your note taking and you just write notes. That's very important. Okay, so now what's the secret sauce? What's the follow up system that I follow After the networking event, you're going to go home or back to the office, whatever the case may be, and you're going to immediately send a thank you email.
Thank you for your time. Don, it was great meeting with you. Thank you for your time. I hope to do busy with you soon. Michael's it. Easy peasy. The next morning, the very next morning, you write that handwritten, thank you. You write almost the same thing. Hey Don, this is Michael. I met you on such and such state at such an event.
We spoke about X, Y, Z. Remember me. I want to thank you for your time. Have a great day. Have a great day. Bye. You're going to wait about three or four days because the mail is slow. Snail now, right? You're going to wait now if they haven't sent you an email back yet, which 50 50? You're gonna send 'em an email.
Hey Don, this is Mike. I met you on such day at such an event. We spoke about X, Y, Z. Notice I say that in the beginning of every correspondence. I'm gonna do that in every correspondence until he enter me. Hey, I was just waiting my calendar and I see Tuesday and Wednesday of next week are pretty well open.
Would one of those days work best for you? Okay, I will you in three days. Three days. This is a magic number, by the way. Three days. Still haven't returned that email yet. Hey Don, this is Michael. I met you on such and such date, such as event. We spoke about X, Y, and Z. Listen, I said Tuesday and Wednesday of next week we're open Tuesday's kind of full.
How's Wednesday? Wait another three days because these are horrible person Hasn entropy. Okay, so last time. Hey Don, this is Mike. I met you on such and such date, such an event. We spoke about X, Y, Z. I said Tuesday and Wednesday were powerful. They seem to be filling up rather quickly. How's the following week or what is good for you?
And just leave it there. So if he hasn't answered me by this time, he probably is okay. He said I did something somewhere, or just, he just doesn't want to talk to me. Okay? Do I take all that stuff and throw it away? No, I have a CRM. Everybody have you have a CRM or know what it is? Customer Relationship Management tool.
Okay. Take all of it, put it in there. Every touch point that you had, by the way, it takes between eight and 15 touch points before somebody would buy from you. So you have to reach out to them at least 18, eight times before they even think about it. We talked to you. Okay, so now expand business a little bit.
LinkedIn, I always put, for business, I have X amount of thousands of no contacts. Business to business. That's where I do all my advertising and everything else. The Instagram is more for reels, more for those short, quick little advertisement reels. 15 seconds. 15, 20 seconds.
I used a certain program for my podcast. I split it into pieces and I post it on Instagram, just so they can see me. And of course I do a full video on YouTube. Now. I did a little investigative work. Where is the best place where. Your advertising dollar really works. Where, what, what is most commonly used?
What is the most the biggest platform that you can think of that they would, somebody would see what you're selling. It wasn't what I was thinking of. I had to change my whole philosophy, by the way. Depends on email. No, it doesn't. It doesn't. No, it doesn't. YouTube. YouTube is number one. It is number one.
And Instagram is like halfway down. But Instagram, it wasn't the second one. Facebook, I always said that Facebook on Facebook was for family. Yeah. Was to reach out and touch somebody, oh, advertising. So YouTube, Facebook, Instagram is the third one down, and then all the TikTok and everything else is.
It's down there below. Now TikTok might be on the rise, but it's not there yet. So regardless of what people are saying to you, I'm telling you YouTube, Facebook, and Instagram. Now, if you want to network, go to meetup gatherings meetup.com, right? You can find different little things. Just go out there and network.
You want to get your, look what your word on. You want to get your face out there. You want people to say when you're walking into a room oh, I know that person. I don't know what they do, but I know that person. Not bad. Okay, so networking is a skill and a talent. A skill and talent. So what does that mean?
Practice practice. You're gonna suck the first time, the second time, the third time, but you're practicing. That's what goes on. Now, you're focusing on relationships. I used the pandemic as a line in the sand. Pre pandemic. It was basically transactional. Your networking was transactional.
Post pandemic, it's relational. I used to be in a mortgage company, the mortgage company. I'd go to a networking event ask, come moment with a shoebox filled with business cards. Look how good I did. No, I did horrible because I couldn't remember anybody. Now, when I go to a three or four hour event, I come back with about 15 business cards because all of them, I'll be able to follow up properly and that is so important.
So keep in touch with them. Remember to write, guess what? The handwritten thank you notes. All of my students that I coach, I have them write on handwritten thank you note and send it to me in my briefcase. I have thank you notes. I have 50 thank you notes. Thank you. Have the old ones that are just, you can just do, but I had mine printed my logo.
They pretty, they're nice and everything else, one step above. You don't have to do that, but that's what you do. Now I'm going to tell you a few things. You want to get your brand out there. You want to get your name out there. AI is a buzz word. Everybody's using ai. It's all my God's gonna replace all these jobs and everything else.
We're all, AI will not replace certain jobs. But if you use AI as a tool, that will take you. Balance places now. How else can you network out there? You write articles. I write articles twice a week for a magazine. All about networking and things like that. Podcasting. It's a great way to, to get your word out there, but what are you doing?
You're getting other people to come on, talk about them and to interact and interject what you want to say about networking and digital courses. I have to be good enough. I, on my website, you can see I have about eight digital courses. Took me a long time to do, but it has everything from sales to networking and so on and so forth.
You can do that. You have a website. There's another website you do to create the courses, and then what you do is you sell 'em on your site or other places. If you want to get the word out, create a digital course. I don't care if it's a. You sell it for $7, sell it for $5. It doesn't make a difference, but you're doing it and you're getting your name out there.
Okay, so right back, we'll circle about back to the beginning. Take every opportunity to meet new people. Where do you meet new people? Kohl's, the supermarket. Are you networking? Yeah, you are. How many times have you been in line and you heard the conversation behind you and you're like I really know about that subject.
I really want to turn around. Say it. Say it two second and turn back. Okay. If they are interested, they'll say what would you mean by that? Okay. How about if you focus on how you can help somebody serve smart? Having a servant's heart, how can you help? You're going alone except for an introvert.
Don't forget your business cards and you have to follow up properly. Let me tell you now, if you don't follow up properly, you might as well not even have gone to the event in the first place when I said I follow up. No following up is one thing. Following up correctly. It is different. And remember, people hate to be sold to, but they love to buy.
So no matter what you're selling, no matter what service you have, they want to buy from you. But if you're going there to try to sell them, you lost it.
a huge thank you to our guests for sharing such incredible insights today, and of course, a big shout out to you, our amazing listeners, for tuning in and spending your time with us. If you're interested in my digital courses being coached or having me come and talk to your company, just go to MichaelAForman.com and fill out the request form.
Remember, networking isn't about being perfect. It's about being present. So take what you've learned today, get out there and make some meaningful connections. If you've enjoyed this episode, please don't forget to subscribe. Leave us a review. Share it with someone who could use a little networking inspiration.
Let's keep the conversation going. You can find me on Apple, Spotify, Pandora, YouTube, or my website michaelaforman.com/podcast.
Michael is a business networking expert specializing in enhancing professionals' networking and communication skills to drive profitability. As a leading authority in this field, he is highly sought after for his dynamic presentations and workshops. His extensive experience has consistently led to significant improvements in corporate profitability by empowering individuals and organizations to connect more effectively and efficiently.
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