Networking Unleashed: Building Profitable Connections. An Interview with David Homan and Michael A Forman
- mforman521
- Aug 8
- 23 min read
📍 Welcome back to Networking Unleashed, building Profitable Connections. I'm your host, Michael Forman, speaking strategist, I'm sorry, speaker strategist and believer that meaningful relationships drive real results. Today's conversation is going to challenge you to think about connection because while people, while most people play it safe.
When it comes to networking, real growth, real community starts with a little risk. Didn't read that but that's right. My guest today is someone who understands that connection doesn't thrive in comfort zones. We're dr. We're diving into why risk is essential. I'm sorry, we're diving into why risk is an essential greeting ingredient in community building.
I don't know what's going on with my talking today. And how to often overlook strengths, vulnerability and curiosity can transform not only how we network, but how we lead, collaborate, and grow. If you've ever listened to, if you ever hesitated to reach out, share your story or start that bold conversation.
This episode is going to speak directly to you, so let's get into it. I'd like to introduce today, David Holman. He's got quite a background and I swear I'll just butcher it if I try it because today my tongue is absolutely in knots. But David, hello. Welcome to the podcast and give us a little bit about your background.
Sure. And thank you, Micah, for having me. I love your work and I'm so pleased to be able to share whatever insights I might have from the way that I, from my world, which I call orchestrated connecting. So I'll give you brief background. So I am an anomaly in the business world because I am a working classical composer.
The last time somebody held a job and actually had successive music was Aaron Copeland. Everyone else teaches, but I realized as I was running a large scale nonprofit, that my entire world was about finding the resonance with people and the skill sets that come from the performing arts that come from.
Understanding how to read people, how to have conversations, how you were present. All of that self work helped me understand how I eventually became a nonprofit CEO in my mid twenties, and then transitioned from that into running a film company for a large scale family office. But at every point, there was one thing that brought me forward in my career and that was my purposeful community.
Some people would describe it as a network, but for me, the network. Is around you to do what around of what you're doing. The community is there to lift you up, and I can look at every single point in my life and in my career where I'm at the right donor, got the right client, got into the right room, all based on the power of the introduction.
That's incredible. I think you can do that pinpointing as you eloquently put it because you're actually looking for it. Most people network today. They don't even know. They're networking. They're finding those connections, those networking between two people and they don't understand that it's truly networking that's getting them even further, but.
I'll leave that for now. Let me just go into a few of the questions that I have for you and I hope they are in line with what you wanted to talk about. You talk about risk as a key ingredient in building community. Can you unpack that and what kind of risk are we really talking about when we're trying to connect?
So I love starting with this question because what we don't think about when we don't even think, as you just said, whether we're networking or not, we don't think about the one thing we cannot buy, which is our reputation. People have tried and then they have basically been dethroned, so to speak, but everyone who has a positive reputation has it based on positive action.
So in communities and networks, whoever you look at, your personal network, your business network, your alumni network, any variation from your PTA, there's a thousand worlds in which your community can be purposeful. Michael, in everyone, we rarely, if ever, talk about the consequences of taking bad actions or taking no action.
But if you were to view everything as relationships with the summation of how you've spent your time. What you spent your money towards and into that. If somebody is wasting your time, shouldn't their reputation not be as strong as somebody who is elevating or adding to it? And so in the network that I run and the way that I live my life, if you introduce me to people who are not positive people that I can help or they can help people that I know at some point, sometimes me, then you are wasting my time.
And if I am clear. On the type of people I want to meet, such as yourself and the way that I wanna support those people in my network, why should it not be that standard is a double standard, that you should be rewarded and have your reputation increase for having a positive benefit? And if the opposite is true, shouldn't there be a risk associated with that?
Of course there should be. And I go into. Networking with what's called a servant's heart. I always look to give rather than receive, and as many people would say, and Zig Ziglar, one of them, when you do that, you're going in with a better alternative of living. You go with giving instead of receiving.
So that if you constantly give, if I put two people together. Then one, one or both of those people should say Michael did this for me, so let me try to introduce him to somebody else. And you do that enough and it will go around. What goes around does come around. So it's very important what you say.
Thank you. What's a moment in your own journey? We're taking a networking risk, starting a conversation, asking for help, showing up, changed everything. I have a few of these, but I want to demonstrate with this answer what happened because I built enough of a community to actually support me through a very dark and hard time.
Okay? So there was this time we all remember it. It was called covid. It technically still exists. We just pretend it doesn't. I was living with my now ex in-laws out of New York City. My kids were young and through no fault of my own, I had actually just gotten an incredible new opportunity with my current employer.
Circumstances changed and I had to figure everything else out about my life in the span of six months. So I went to my community and I said. I'm not sure what I can do. I can't go back and run an arts organization. There's no performing arts. It's covid. I can't move back to New York. My younger kid has always had breathing issues.
I don't know what'll happen if he gets this disease. And would anyone that knows, trust or loves me, show up and for 20 minutes, tell me what you think I can do. 142 people booked the call. I might think what I've built now in my world of startup and book and global event series is a purposeful community of 2000.
I was good at it. I wasn't. Then I stumbled into it. I needed to hone it and I was not so dense, but after maybe like the hundred time that somebody told me what they thought I did well, that they thought I was already doing, I got it. That I'd been doing what I was eventually supposed to do. I had been completely afraid of it until people took their time to tell me why they valued me, and that gave me enough fuel for the last five years now to build a much more impactful business and community from it.
So that fuel that you're speaking of is maybe confidence. Confidence in yourself so that you now see what everybody else generally sees or saw in you. And you are now you've built that confidence to such a point where you're comfortable doing what you're doing today and that's creating your community.
And actually. Not only creating it 'cause you've created it, but you're watching it expand and you're enjoying it. And that all started from the confidence level, that's all. Absolutely. Why do you believe vulnerability is such a core strength in today's networking culture? And how can leaders model it authentically?
So you know how anyone with a, who's a parent. Will tell you when they say to their kids, do what I say you're supposed to do. Everyone laughs as you're laughing now because no kid ever listens when you say you're supposed to do something. How are you supposed to model empathy in leadership?
Curiosity. How are you supposed to get past the water cooler conversation without embracing vulnerability as a key part of our lives? This is the question I asked. Myself repeatedly, and even though I might have needed the confidence to build my business bigger than it is at the, it was at the time, I didn't need any confidence to be vulnerable and to see what came of it, because I saw its strategic effect and its personal.
The personal growth I experienced from. When you meet somebody at whatever level they are, and you're willing to share something, not verbal, diarrhea, or every single problem you have, but you're willing to share something that you think instinctually is relevant and they open up, you build relationship trust.
And once you have trust, you have the exact opposite of that parent trying the trying to tell the kid, do what I say. 'cause when I parent my kids and they trust me on certain things, they just do it. They know that I've explained to them why we do it. I will explain more after, and that it needs to be done so we can collectively achieve something That, for me, whether it's in a parent situation or a management or business growth situation is the key, and it's embracing that vulnerability that gets us closer to the people that we wanna stay relational with, even when transaction occurs.
That is so true. I, you touched on so many points that is so crucial besides to living, to, besides networking, it's to everyday life. But what you really said was that, that, trust me, that is, that trust factor is so crucial that you can't. Do anything else unless you have that trust factor. And it's so true with, especially with networking that's what I'm talking about.
That's what I'm all about. But it's so crucial. I think in every business, every walk of life I. Okay. Curiosity is often overlooked in networking. You just spoke about the curiosity. How does it deepen, con connection and create stronger communities? Think about the last time you went to an event, maybe before you spoke, because I have a feeling from the incredible keynotes that you give that once you speak people don't make this mistake.
Think about somebody who's sitting there with you maybe two hours before you go on and they start talking about themselves and they talk and they talk. And you being a naturally curious super connector. Ask them questions and then they say goodbye having handed you their card, and two hours later they see you on the stage and they go, that's the guy I talked to.
And you think later, no, that's the guy you talked at. That is the fallacy in networking. People don't get my estimate, right? Not a social science graph yet, is that only 30% of people are actually curious enough to build depth in a conversation. But what the ones who do, right? Like why would I want to go into even speaking on a podcast with you?
Which I'm very grateful for without having read what you do and looked you in the eye and talked to you and seen that we are kindred spirits and how this world works for that, right? You come with 10 questions, which means you have curiosity, not just the necessity of being a host, but you have insight with that, which means that our rapport is going to be different, and what people listen to from it is going to be different than something that would otherwise be drier.
But now. Which is a lot of conversations when we go through the motions without actually that, that emphasis on the deep listening and curiosity as essential to, again, the same thing, building the trust. You combine the two vulnerability and curiosity, and you have something worth remembering or being you are worth remembering from exhibiting those traits.
That's so true. And really when I say when you're first meeting somebody, you let them talk about themselves, but it's not to such a point where they talk talk. Then you say goodbye. Because they don't even know your name or what you do, because all they did was talk talk.
But, and that's why, I will interject, interjecting with you right now, several parts of my own vulnerability to see if they bite. Yeah. It's true. And if they bite, then you have a conversation. If not, it's a one-way mirror and you were on the wrong side of it. Absolutely a absolutely, and really every time that that you do this, if they bite you're, it's one little thing in the back of your mind saying, okay, they bit on that, so I can talk about this or I can take the conversation in this direction.
But that's all communication, going back and forth without it. You, what you said at the beginning was that's who you spoke at, not to. So true. Yeah. Okay. To add one more thing, absolutely. Go right ahead. So I want to, so I wanna point this out in terms of yes yes, we're walking through the basic principles, which are in my book and the way I talk about connecting.
I know a lot of it's akin to the way you talk about this and speak as well. The think people fail to realize this, realize, I believe we have maybe five to six times in our life to be in the right place at the right time to meet the right person. So if you're not ready for that moment, you have lost more than you could ever fathom because that guy who just talks at you and then hears the keynote speaker, he didn't just get to know you.
You wrote him off by the time your conversation was done, 'cause you saw his intentions and what was behind the curtain, you don't need to talk to him anymore no matter who he is. He's a taker. Absolutely. And all as well as I do that you really, you have to be a giver. Not a hundred percent. Not a hundred percent.
But like I said before, you need to give in order to receive. But if you are, again, if I'm going back to that person that's just speaking at people I really it's very hard for me to say this being the networker that I am. I don't have time for 'em. I don't have time for people like that. And I just move on.
But it's moving on from that person that makes it more difficult for me because they never shut up. That's beside the point. Okay. How can someone move past the fear of being too much or not enough when trying to show up vulnerability in their professional relationships? It's why it's a combination.
If you're just vulnerable with somebody and not knowing if it resonates, you're still talking at them. You're just sharing more than you probably should have. If you're so curious that you just pepper them with questions, you're not actually hearing them, you're just peppering them with questions. It's an intricate balance.
This is an art. It's a skill. So to do that right is to have, what is that real give and give in a conversation where you simply don't just shift gears because you need to make your point, or you harp so much on what they're doing. You miss the chance to share about yourself. It is that deep listening that makes it more nuanced and different, but you have to put enough out there many times to get somebody to open up because, and in a conference setting in particular, just to keep this, going, how many people do you talk to within a given day?
How many people are memorable? Tell me it's more than three for anyone. That's true. So how do how are you gonna be one of those three? Then the follow-up is warranted. You actually get the contact information and know it will be reciprocated or you've even set an intention from it all. This is an art and it's a science that involves that self-work.
And then you have to study how you show up to people to understand that your style and mine are gonna be totally different. Your outcome is different than mine. You are a sought after speaker looking for those keynote opportunities to do your workshops and to speak. That's not how my network works or how my business works, so I have something different from the same conversation, even if we have the same approach to start it off.
Absolutely, and it all goes back to active listening. You have to listen to the person that you're speaking with, and I call it active listening because you're not just hearing them, you're listening to what they have to say, and after they finish talking, you're pausing. That pause becomes so important.
It's because it tells the other person you are listening to them and you have to respond to them with what they were talking about, not the next thing that you wanted to say. And that's so hard for somebody if you're a salesman. I've been a salesman for 30 years. Okay. And you're always trying to sell something, but to be a networking person, you listen to what the person has to say, you respond to the person and you take notes and everything else.
And I have to say, when you follow up with these people, now you're saying that you generally. You generally have three people that you remember in a three or four hour event. I say take 15, 20 business cards. I used to listen, I was in a mortgage industry. I used to come home with a shoebox, filled with business cards and say, look how good I did when I really didn't do well at all.
But on the back of your business card, on their business card, you write down the date. The name of the function and something you spoke about. So when you do follow up with them, it jogs your memory, but that's a whole nother conversation. It's an important thing to note though. I know you have more questions, but I wanna har on this because the art of doing this is so crucial.
What I have adapted now and how I work with, in, in my world of connecting networking in my own events, tons of conferences. I will actually look at the person and say, Michael, I really enjoyed talking about this. I'd love to follow up with another call about this. And then whether it's LinkedIn or WhatsApp or email or text or any variation, I will literally send them a note live to say, Michael, I'm looking forward to talking about AI in the service industry.
Absolutely. And then they remember it too. And from the stack, even a 15 or 20. Sometimes I end up with 10 great meetings from a conference. Depends on the number of people, the type of conference, how many days, but they don't end up with, I don't end up with three. Those people to me, I am a minority in the type of people I follow up with because they need to resonate enough to be worth the time as I am trying to do for them, and it is really difficult.
To remember everyone you've met unless you resonated in that moment and set the intention to connect further. That's so true. That's so true. Esp. When you're doing your follow up, the follow up I feel is more important actually than meeting the person because the way you follow up, just how you follow up, but the way you follow up is so very important, and I have a whole secret sauce with following up.
But you from that first email, text, WhatsApp, whatever the case may be from that first touch. Forward that will determine the type of relationship you're gonna have with that person. So it's very important. What does a truly connected community look like to you, and how can you build it intentionally with both bi, with in both business and life?
I qualify to say, although business and life are separated, I don't believe they are separate. 'cause we are each one person. The idea that people wear hats and you're approaching them on one hat versus another, means you're being pigeonholed into the thing they want to hear you on. When you connect with somebody at a deeper level in as your question alludes to a community.
You can connect on a myriad of different reasons. Some are actionable, some are informational, some are personal, but they're all to the same person. And so the difference in what makes a community function as opposed to even just the network is it may be as we develop our relationship, I will never, ever provide you a lead gen, a speaking opportunity or a client.
But if somebody I know who trusts me. But then meets you, does so without an expectation in return from you or me, then you have a community. Because a community can have these different swirling circles where you can trust that if everyone's intentions are purposeful, then at some point it will come back to you.
But my argument is we whether to risk earlier as your first question, you have to have a community where there's an expectation. Of reciprocity, even if it is in a chain of connections as opposed to me to you and Udemy and the community that I run, which I call orchestrated connecting 'cause I'm both a composer whose music no one listens to.
Even when I say I'm a composer and they like what I say, but also somebody who runs a network in several businesses. I trust that if I were to ask anyone on my network to take the time, they would take the time. They trust that when I would ask people to take time for them, it would also happen. And both of those examples, the risk is inherent.
If you refuse to take time for something that I think would be beneficial, then somebody may refuse to take time for you, or I may refuse to ask because you valued your time above helping somebody else. Very true. And it all depends on how you look at yourself, your time. But you go back to that same basic level of trust.
The people within your community, they trust you wholeheartedly. So if you recommend somebody to them, of course they're going to take that leap and touch base with that person. Otherwise they wouldn't be part of your community. So of course, only when you set the intention for how the community needs to function.
'cause there are people that are really good people who might be moderate givers, but in some cases they'll happily help if they've been helped. But they weigh whether they've been helped recently enough to spend their time. Whereas in my network, somebody can have been helped by me two years ago, but because it was so substantive.
They're willing anytime I ask, but they know. I only ask when it's completely relevant and useful. Good point. Beth. Point well taken. Okay. You've said before that connection without curiosity is just performance. Can you speak to that idea and how it shows up in today's networking spaces? Let me back that one out to the world of dating.
Now, I haven't been on a date in a very long time, but this resonates with everyone who has same thing as that person who spoke at you at the conference, right? Think about the one date you went on where you met years ago for both of us. The most gorgeous, incredible person they had everything.
You're describing my wife. There you go. But see, you built a long, bigger connection, right? Yes. But think about the person five years before, unless you were high school sweethearts and don't 'cause 13 years old would've been no way too strange. But think about that person that just the initial spark seemed like it would light a fire.
And you told them everything about yourself, everything that's great about you, everything that would make you incredible. And then they never called back. That's the price of having no curiosity. Everyone I know has had a situation or multiples like that or wonder why if they're such a great friend, why they can't find that right partner.
And in business and networking and all of this is inherently the same. We are looking for a validation for who we are and what we do and the people who give us that we will spend more time with. And that is a give and give. That is for which curiosity is essential as one of the two primary ingredients.
It does. That sounds like it is essential, but very good. Thank you. What are some small, practical ways people can take more social or emotional risks in networking without feeling overwhelmed? When you look at. The world of what you don't know, it's completely overwhelming. Where should you go? Should you keep your job?
Should you go back to school? Should you join this network? Should you go to this other network? We're always looking for how we are out facing to get something. The most practical small step is do a little bit of intention setting so that when you ask for what you need, people are able to know where you need to go.
That's a simple way of saying the more you figure your stuff out, the easier it is for people to help you. And the hardest part is knowing how to ask for it. If you can't ask for it, it's, that is the hardest part. Go. Yeah, and think about it, right? If somebody knows what you need, then they can be your advocate or champion.
If they don't know, then the fact they can't define it is a negative against you. Somebody comes, you're like, I have to find a new job. You're like, okay, I'd like to help you. They're like, I need a new job. And you're like, what type of job? And they're like I could do anything. And I was like, yeah, no one's looking for anything.
But if you come and you say, I was the CFO of a company, I really love doing that work. When the startup was acquired, I realized I'd like to help several startups. You know anyone that's a fractional CFOI could talk to, or several companies looking for somebody with exit experience in FinTech.
Then even the person who's not a connector like you or I will go, yeah, you should talk to Joe. You have to be specific, which means you have to know. How to trigger that specificity in others. Once you understand the impact, ask as I call it, the power of that ask, then all the research you do of where to belong, who to talk to, where you might need to build what you need to for your business and your life.
It no longer is vast and overwhelming. It's lots of specific little parts that you can now plug yourself into Much better. Absolutely. That's great. Great advice. Focusing on, let's say what you can do, what you can't do, but narrowing the field, make it laser focused so that somebody else can help you.
That is great. Great advice. Okay. In your experience. Huh, excuse me. In your experience, what happens when we build networks in rooted authenticity rather than agenda? And how do, how does that shift how does that shift the outcome? I'm really grateful, Michael, for the community that I've built because when I make an ask the answer every time, is anything for you?
Imagine the power of having hundreds or my cases at this point. Thousands of people willing to bend over backwards for something not relevant for them. That is rooted not just in trust, but in action. I've earned that. I've put the time in, and so when I come in to quote cash in my chips. People have been waiting, or in some cases they felt really guilty and in many cases it's not even, it's not even me that helped them.
It's somebody I know who helped them that they met through the network. But you don't have to be a master connector or networker running a big community like I do. You simply have to look at everyone around you as an opportunity to help them. To know at some point you may be helped in a return or they may help somebody else you love and respect.
That's why it's purposeful. The way we can design this, and we may believe we're powerless in this, but I know that we have a choice who we surround ourselves with, who we spend our time with, who we partner with, who we work with. In some cases it's out of our control, but as we go through this life, we are less and less out of control, right?
You start with your family into your schooling, into your initial work, but as your life progresses, the thing we have to realize that needs to be flipped on its head is it's a choice who we surround ourselves with, and therefore the more intentionality of that, the better the outcome from it. That's great.
That's great. David, you are speaking like a successful person. I. You have been through the lows, the highs, and you've come out of this smelling pretty good. But think back for a minute, think back of the mistakes you've made, and I'm sure there's one or two, but the mis gimme a mistake that you've made and how you overcame it.
I believe you only learn from mistake. Absolutely everything that I have now, and it might, it might smell of success. I don't know if it's necessarily that, the joke right now as we do this podcast is you might have a book coming out August 5th around Purposeful Community Connection.
It might be a bestseller or I might put author on my LinkedIn page and I have a startup that's launching and I might be a successful exited founder, or I might just put founder. On my LinkedIn page, right? Like the way we perceive success is always relative. 'cause human nature is to want more. Where I made my biggest mistakes were in wanting more without understanding not only my value, but really in understanding other people's value around me.
So the origin story of orchestrated connecting is the best example of this. And no, I won't give you the 20 minute spiel 'cause we're on a time limit here. Essentially, I built a network of trust where I didn't connect the people I trusted to each other. That was one of the biggest mistakes of my life because everyone around me needed something I couldn't do, and I was in the way.
And I realized that the best way to build my intentional network was to get out of the way. By getting those people to meet each other, I had to develop a rule system, a mantra, all these different parts to make it work. But in the end, Michael, what really worked. Was learning that I was not nearly as good as I thought I was, but seeing the patterns and balancing my time and helping people, and I was absolutely horrendous at demonstrating my value while doing it.
Okay. Okay. Let's bring this podcast full circle. If someone is listening today feeling disconnected, guarded, or unsure of how to start, what's the first step toward building community with purpose and heart? You know what I have to say now, according to my publicist, is read my book, orchestrating Connection, how to build purposeful community in a tribal world.
But because not everyone reads a book and my family, what I'm basically gonna do is have a bunch of coasters. That's what we call my classical albums that everyone used to buy coasters. I put everything up on my website. I put it up in video form. I've really tried to convey to everyone that to start, the most important thing is to know you have to, as per all of your great questions today, you have to get outside your comfort zone.
And by getting outside your comfort zone, you have to know that you're going to get both rate response. And great criticism for not just talking with the people who validate you, who know you, and some are gonna like you. Some are gonna love you, some are not gonna care in the slightest. And the minute you start to see the patterns of how somebody responds to you or not, you gain more control, more confidence, so to speak, and you start to see which people to avoid, which is as important as which people to embrace.
Very good. David, I have to tell you, you're a fantastic guest. I loved having you on, but if somebody wanted to get hold of you, what's the best way? If you Google me and you look at my websites, business or community, I put my information out there, my email, if you actually Google hard enough, you can find my cell phone, but I believe in a world of intentional connection.
So if somebody were to listen to this and want to connect, the first thing I'd ask for them to do is to write you as a listener and to thank you for your podcast and for your work. The second thing I would then suggest is if something struck them, don't just write me and be like, Hey, let's connect really means you didn't listen to the last 30 minutes of our conversation.
Is there something that I'm offering or something that I'm doing that we think there could be reciprocal value? In the world of running a community and a network and a business, and being an active dad with kids who are eight and 11 is the thing I've lost in my life is time. Therefore, if you're going to add to value and time, and I can do the same, let's build a relationship.
Otherwise, if there's things that one could learn from what I'm saying, by the book. That's great. That's great. David, again, thank you for coming on the podcast and I hope to talk to you again soon. Absolutely. Thank you so much for having my me, Michael, and thank you for all the work that you do.
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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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