Networking Unleashed: Building Profitable Connections. An Interview with John Elbing and Michael A Forman
- mforman521
- 11 minutes ago
- 25 min read
Welcome to Networking Unleashed, Building Profitable Connections, the show where meaningful connections lead to real opportunities. I'm your host, Michael Foreman. When people think about networking, they often focus on what they should say, how to introduce themselves, or how to follow up, but there's something deeper happening in every conversation.
People are forming a story about you. My guest today explores the idea of story building, which goes beyond simple storytelling. It's about understanding how people experience your message, how they interpret what you represent, and how they decide whether they want to be a part of that story. We're going to talk about three mental steps people go through when enc- when encountering a brand, why some professionals are instantly memorable while others fade from memory, and how the narrative you create can strengthen the trust that people feel and when they meet you.
If you wanna understand how perception changes, shapes relationships, and how a clear story can open the door to opportunity, you're in the right place. Listen, welcome to the podcast. I w- welcome all my listeners to John. John, you are an expert in story building, storytelling. I can't wait to hear what you have to say.
But could... Besides saying hello, could you give us the Cliff Notes of how you got where you are today? So I will start by saying hello. So hi, Michael. Hi. Sure, I can do that. So I've done I think I've changed jobs 15 times in the last 30 years, and then I've been independent for the last 10.
I started out as a software engineer. I was a developer. I was in tech. And then, you shift into project management and things like that. I went back and did an MBA in finance, and I thought, "Ooh, finance, never again." But it's great as background knowledge. I quit, I did some, the first e-banking websites back at the turn of the century.
Maybe if you can see me, I have a white beard. And I quit all that to do some startups that didn't work. Sorry I'm not a millionaire. And then went to work in marketing agencies and and then I went into coaching startups. Somehow with the background of technology, finance, marketing, and entrepreneurial experience, I could at least help them figure out what not to do, even if I couldn't tell them what to do.
I got into a lot of different methodologies, design thinking, and a lot of canvases with a lot of Post-its and things like that, and then I finally got into storytelling where at the beginning it's the idea is what is the best story you can use for marketing and how it can be engaging?
But I found there was more to it than that, that it was... It forces you to ask the right questions. Who am I talking to? What's important? What's less important? And, who is my customer? And then I, working through that I came up with my method, which I call story building, where instead of it's just telling the story, it's building the st- real story you want to tell.
And that came out as a book last year, and there you are. And I'm in Geneva, Switzerland. That is outstanding. Outstanding. We have a lot in common, because what I teach i- is networking, and I'm an executive coach, and I teach the people, the masses on how to properly network, and a good chunk of that is storytelling.
So there's a lot in common. All right, so let's just jump into these questions. You talk about story building instead of storytelling. What's the difference, and why does that distinction matter when building a professional relationship? So often, So storytelling's this buzzword. So you see storytelling everywhere.
You go on YouTube and type storytelling, you'll have all the tips and tricks, and you start with a hook, and you should dance on your left foot, and you should, all these things. But basically, it's adding a nice coat of paint to your story. But if you're telling the wrong story, that doesn't help.
So what I try to do is help them build the right story, and then once you have that structure, you can do a pitch, you can do a website, you can do a, whatever it is, campaigns and things. So I'm really at that foundational level to say, what, what is the story that is engaging for my audience?
So often it's the customer, but I've done it with NGOs and nonprofits and, if you wanna convince your spouse to go to the beach instead of the mountains, it might be the same kind of structure. And so the, I think the main thing is you flip the script and you tell your customer's story, and it's how you fit in their story instead of the other way around.
A lot of companies say, "We're the best," and pound their chest, and then the customer says who is that? Is that for me or not? Or what?" And they're lost. But if you tell their story and they feel engaged, "That's me," and they understand it, then they'll be more engaged. So then, and then I came up with this method and theory.
As you said, there are the three steps, and we can get into that. Gotcha. Good. When someone encounters a brand or a person for the first time, what are the three mental steps and they, that they go through before deciding whether they should trust them or not? So let's get, let's, so you encounter...
let's keep it with a brand. So you encounter a brand, and this can be a billboard, a website, a storefront, whatever it is. And I find... So I've, I found that we go through three steps, and the three steps, I call them recognition, perception, and projection. And the idea is you need to recognize yourself in the brand.
If I go on a website, I've seen so many websites where we do this great thing, and I'm not... Is this for big companies, small companies? I'm an independent consultant, is it for me? And I don't feel that... And if it, I don't feel it's for me I'll skip. As an independent consultant, I'm looking for a to-do list, and it says, "We're the best to-do list for big teams," and I'm not a big team, and they've lost me.
But if it's, "We're the best thing for independent consultants," I'm not sure what they offer yet, but I'm already engaged because I think, "Ooh they work with people like me. They like people like me," kind of thing. And often that's really quick. You walk down the street and wanna have a coffee, you'll pass three cafes without even slowing down, but the fourth one is the one because somehow it fits.
And I find that a lot of companies skip that part. They talk about them, what they do, the benefits, their features. But if you can start by saying, "As, as an independent consultant, you're trying to organize your life and your work, and you're frustrated because of this, and here's how we can help," I'll be I'll be more, I'll be more interested.
So once... And th- and this is a way of attracting the right client because it's the right people that will be engaged. If you say, "As a young father you're worried about what you feed your baby," if you're not a young father, you're not gonna be engaged. But if you are a young father, you say I wasn't until now, but I am now.
Tell me more." So once, once you feel that it's for you, then you need to understand what's it about, and that's what I call perception. And, usually companies are pretty good at talking about what they do. But there are a few things around they wanna put you in a category, they wanna compare you to things, they want to...
They wanna know how you're different. Instead of saying, "These are my features," it's, "Of all the people that do something similar, this is how we do it differently," and that makes a difference. But overall, I think that's what normally companies concentrate on.
And once I'm convinced I've found the perfect, to-do that has AI this and all that, and I'm all excited, and then I think, "Oh yeah, but it's gonna be complicated." And often companies drop off by saying, "Hey, the, isn't this great?" And then you'll say, "Oh, okay." That, I have to install it, and learn it, and try it, and use my old system with the new.
And all these obstacles say, "Okay, I'll absolutely do this, but I'll come back next week," and then I don't And so if you can walk them through what it's gonna be like, you go through s- somehow the customer journey with all the little doubts they could have, and show them the problems it solves, and almost get them to close their eyes and say, "Imagine this positive future."
And you're bringing people along and solving all these doubts, so they're a few steps farther in the engagement and ready, and will hopefully click that button to take an appointment or something like that. So there you go. Yeah. No, that, that really goes along the same lines as having a servant's heart.
Whenever you network with a company, with a person, a networking event, you go with what's called a servant's heart. You're looking to help whomever you can help first. You forget all about yourself. Just, you put yourself into their story, and you try to s- figure out what you can do to help them, and you can...
'Cause everybody is a problem solver, quote, unquote, right? Yes. But the whole thing is, you don't wanna just solve their problem, you wanna meet them somewhere in the future and walk them along, and you're engaging with them, and they'll realize that, "Hey, you know what? This guy knows what he's talking about, and I need his services."
And I find that- So that's- ... going through this method with companies that actually creates this mind shift. They're focused on their product, on their thing, on their customer service and all these things, and suddenly they step back and see themselves from the outside, and suddenly their mission isn't, making the best widget.
Their mission becomes helping their ideal client the most. And you can f- I can almost feel the, hear the click in their mind where suddenly, it all makes sense, and it aligns the story and it aligns, all the different people that you can be in contact with. And that is quite a, quite a shift.
Yeah, exactly. It is quite a shift. And that, you said it, the mindset shift, and that's what you're helping them do because you've already made the shift because you're helping them. But you have to get them the mindset shift so that they understand that you're helping them. So it's a whole big thing.
Okay, how does st- how does the story someone tells about themselves influence the kind of relationships and opportunities that they attract? So when you describe your ideal client, and you can tell, and you talk about, there's i- identity, you're about their aspiration, about their challenges, you, somehow the customer will feel It, they've really invested in people like me.
And you start out that engagement with a level of trust. If I say, "I do the best, CRM in the world," I think okay like everyone else." But, where our mission is to help independent consultants in Geneva with white beards and a cat I think, "Okay, they... Damn, okay they really concentrate on me."
If I was an accountant and I wanted to be one more accountant, I would pick and I would say, "I'm the accountant for landscapers," or whatever, because the landscapers will feel, "Okay, accounting, they'll, they know. They understand me, they know my issues, they know my industry.
They can really help me," and they're gonna choose me. Of course, you're gonna lose the people that aren't, so maybe, landscapers might be a little bit too narrow. But I find that companies don't niche down enough. They try to satisfy everyone, and then most people don't feel concerned.
And by, by being clear to who you help, that creates that connection with that person or that kind of company. Yeah, the first thing that you have to do is figure out who your ideal customer is, right? And you can actually work from there, because a lot of people, whether it's LinkedIn or something else they're too broad.
They put the message out and they say, "Yep, I'm an accountant. I can help anybody." Yeah. And that answers no questions. And to me, that's "All right, you're like everybody else, and I just don't wanna talk to you." But- I- ... if they say... What's that? No I just worked with a leadership coach, and she said, there are two aspects to my work.
There's, how to be high-performing, motivating teams, being, the leader and all that." And part of it is being, a CEO, you're lonely. You come in, you have to smile, you make all the decisions, do the thing. That's a difficult place to be. And she felt if she advertised the first part, she's gonna get the, the alpha male kind of thing performance.
And if she advertises the second part, she's gonna get people that are open to vulnerability, and these, they're probably going to benefit from coaching a lot more. So by choosing how you describe your customer, you're gonna get the right people that can benefit the most to what you offer, and somehow avoid, the real alpha male might think, "Oh, what is that vulnerability thing?
That's not for me." They probably wouldn't have benefited from the service as much. So you can really... You somehow... It's not just choosing good customers, it's the ones that'll benefit the most, that'll get the... Yeah, and it's a win-win situation. It usually... when I have my leadership clients I usually tell them just in the beginning about Steve Jobs.
Steve Jobs, who was- Big guy with Apple, and but he didn't know everything. He knew exactly where his lane was, and every area that he was uncomfortable with or didn't have a great job knowledge, he hired somebody to fill that gap. So he didn't surround himself with yes men. He didn't surround himself with like-minded people.
He surrounded himself with the where he fall, where he fell. So that's what he created such a, an im- an impressive board because everybody knew what they were doing. And that's the way that I start most of my clients in the leadership roles from the CEO on down to CFO, COO. I even have a CMO, which I don't know why, but I have.
But it all falls along with the same thing. Again, it's up to not only the coach but the client themselves, and they see how much good you can actually do. It's really very important. Okay. Why do some professionals struggle to be remembered even after great conversations?
Interesting. It all depends what you call... if it was really a great conversation, they probably would have been remembered. So the question might be, why aren't those conversations as great as they could be? One answer is just that they fall back in the same thing, where, they're there to convince, they're there to show off, they're there to, and all these things.
Where the best conversations where... are when you listen the most. Yeah, I think that, that conversation, the goal, pr- the, that first goal is for the person to feel seen and understood more than, understanding all your offer and and getting all the features and the benefits and all that kind of thing.
If they, if you come out where they feel this person can probably help me, then you'll get a second meeting where you can get into how you do that but if you jump in saying, this is, that... If you go too quickly or they feel that you're more concentrated on yourself. I get so many, on LinkedIn probably every other day I get a thing about saying, "So we do software development and this and CCO and just send me your needs."
And I think, really? Some of them pretend and they say, "Oh, I went on your website and I have some good, suggestions for you." And, no you didn't. So yeah, I guess authenticity somehow in there. We have, we come to that word at some point just because it's people can tell if you're faking it, I tell my clients, in order for you to stand out amongst all the other interviews that you have with prospective clients or clients, you have to make yourself different in some way, right? You have to do something that makes you stand out. And, I have one client that he wears a multicolored blazer with a weird bow tie to every meeting.
And he goes, "Look, he may not remember why he called me in, but he'll remember what I wore." I said, "Okay, that's a start. That's a start. But you have to actually engage with s- with him, prove to him that you are different than everybody else." And 'cause for- So hope- ... for me... Go ahead. No, go ahead. No.
So hopefully you're different in a different way than your g- jacket. You know that that's a little bit of gimmick. But I remember I worked for a bank once where there were two buildings a couple blocks from each other, and this was, 25 years ago. And I got one of those first mini scooters, before it was a thing.
And I would g- use a l- I was in my suit and tie and all that, and I would go between these buildings on this scooter and I would go see, the CEO of the bank, and I would fold my scooter and leave it in front of his office And somehow I got known, I would s- I stood out because, oh, you're the scooter guy kind of thing.
The scooter guy. And then, of course I had to, succeed in my project and all that. But but I remember that, this I was known outside the circle a little bit because of that. Yeah, it... But you did something different. You didn't intentionally do something different.
You just figured, all right, that's the fastest way that I can get from point A to point B without taking a car. So what... but you were remembered because it was something different, and that's what I tell everybody. You have to figure out... Listen, authenticity, authentic self, that's a buzzword that is thrown around, and it loses its meaning.
But you have to figure out what that one thing is that makes you different. To the high schoolers and the college people that are just going out for a job, I tell them the same thing. You have to do something before you see that employer that is different, that makes you stand out. And I've gotten- And I-
a lot of pretty good results. Go ahead. What's that? I'm sure that, There's probably a second lever to the, le- level to this in the sense that when you talk about what you do, how you're different is important. If I say, "I'm... I have this great CRM kind of thing," they say, "Okay, there's a million of them out there."
So most of what you say is j- is just the same. So instead of, talking about all that, it's "Normally a CRM works like this, but we do... This is why we're different." And by, standing out, they s- you know, they'll say, "Oh, so if you wanna do it the old way, that's fine. But if you wanna do it, the better way, you can work with us."
And that's also a way of the being remembered because they remember that little difference instead of trying to remember your offer in general. That's correct. That it's... When I tell my clients what they should do, I don't have them concentrate on what they do.
I have them concentrate on what the client feels. So if you can put your... See what their pain point is and what they feel about it and how you can combat that, that will make you stand out, and that will give you that little bit of an edge that they can use. And- So that's one little thing that I do ... and I think that comes back to networking, yes. I think you know a little bit about networking. If I go into a networking thing and I say I do this, say, I mow lawns, people say, "Oh, I'll just go get a drink," and walk away. But if you talk about homeowners have this yard, and they want to have this great place, and they have this all planned, but then, they come home from work and it's tired, and they never get around, and their yard's a mess, and they're ashamed in front of their neighbor.
I take over and make their law- their yard so great that they're, they're proud. They have the best barbecues in the world, and really I can make their life better. I'm already more in, I, I mow lawns. But it- by, by telling how you affect the people you help, th- that makes your whole thing I don't mow lawns, I bring joy to people, th- this audience.
That's e- that's exactly right. And when somebody asks me what I do for a living, I don't come out and say, "I'm a professional speaker. I'm an executive business coach." Because that's just in the background. But I, what I do say is say you know what? Have you ever gone to a meeting or a networking event, made great contacts, but nothing ever happened from it?"
They go, "Yeah, that happens all the time." That's good, so that's when you can come see me, because I can change that." And so without saying what I do for a living, that's what I do. And it's a ver- very big difference. So I'll write that down and I like the- It's good. It's good to know. What role does curiosity play in helping someone feel like they're a part of the story you're building?
It, from the point of the s- from, of the company? Does ... w- working with the companies, and a lot of startups also that are trying to devel- you know, dis- discover or figure out what they're doing I, I have this, a canvas about their customer asking a certain number of questions.
And you step through, and you challenge that. Somehow I find that a company says they, they offer a solution, so the problem must be exactly the match to the solution. But in the customer's mind, it's not always the case. Th- they're thinking about something else. I worked for this NGO in water purification, and normally in third world, in developing countries you'll ship chlorine, powder form, put it in the water, to make it safe to drink.
And their solution is to have a s- a, a local system where with water and salt you create the chlorine locally instead of having it shipped, but m- overall it's the same thing. And I said, "What's the problem you solve?" And they said people get sick." And we dug through, and actually the problem they solve is trucks get stuck in the mud, and if that truck doesn't arrive- The water will turn bad.
So by, by creating it locally, you solve the logistic problems. And the people in the field, their worry is, "Damn, where are the truck? Why isn't the truck arriving?" It's not... Of course, the end result is people don't get sick but what they're thinking about is different. And often if you go through that and you try to really understand what really is the c- customer trying to do?
Do, do they wanna solve a problem, or do they want to be the hero, or do they want security, or what is the thing? What is the emotion behind that? And you can connect to that. That's much more powerful in the connection than just the, the sort of the theoretical problem that you're solving.
My grass is too long. No, it's not that. It's I'm ashamed of my yard. And if you can ex- express that in a way that resonates, that's a lot, that's more powerful. Good. Good. Let's change this a little bit to networking. In networking conversations, how can someone invite others into their story without sounding like you're performing or pitching?
First of all, I'm probably not as good a networker as you. I go into a networking event, and I really find there's this mindset. Sometimes I'll grab onto someone I know and not let go because... And other times I say, "Look, I'm there. I'm open.
I want to meet people and go out and stuff." And and then it becomes... it's more about, asking questions and understanding about them. People love to talk about themselves, and and so if you can get... Then, then they'll come back and say what do you do?" And then you can, you have context to talk about yourself and say yeah, you talked about this.
I, I help people like this," or something where it there, there's some context instead of saying, "I did this. I did that," and, my... That's probably what I did when I started this podcast by saying I was a software engineer, and I did this and that and the other, until now I'm doing storytelling," instead of, it's so funny. I, I say all this, and why didn't I start this by saying, "So what I do is, companies have trouble with their story. They have trouble with engagement. They're too centered on themselves, and what I help them is see themselves from the outside and tell their customer story, so that creates much more engagement and trust, and, blah, blah, blah."
But no, I said, I'm a consultant in storytelling fell right into the trap. But that's good. But everything you do, everything we do we learn. Wh- when people are first going out and they're first learning to network, they go out and I... They're afraid to go out. But then once I convince them that networking is the key, networking is the lifeblood of business, they go out and they come back to f- after the first one and they say, "Oh, I was horrible."
I said, "Good, because you'll learn from that first. You'll learn about the mistakes, you'll learn about the things you said, the things you lear- you learned about the things you didn't say. So the second time you go, you'll learn from that." Listen, the first time you went out, you sucked. It was horrible, right?
The second time, you're a little bit better. The third time, you're a little bit better. The fourth time, and by the fifth time, you actually enjoy going to the networking events because you're talking the talk. And so that's- Absolutely ... exactly what it does. All right. How does consistency in messaging strengthen the trust people feel when encounter your brand multiple times?
So that's a big thing I've found, is that, I had one this gig where I had a company and I, there were, like, eight or 10 people, and I said, "Okay, before we start, take a piece of paper and write down what the company does." And then we looked at the stories and we had thing, 10 different stories.
And when I work with them and they build a story together, they have this shared story and suddenly, the stor- if the salesperson, the website, the campaign, the pitch, they all make sense because they're based on this ali- it aligns the team.
It's based on this shared story, and that makes it really important. When I... often I've... you click on a Google ad because they have this one, angle, and then you land on the homepage and that angle has disappeared, and you said they brought me in because they were gonna solve this specific part of the problem and that, that was for me, and then it's up to me to go and search or something like that."
And so th- this idea that, you have, consistency in the story, but consistency within, a kind of a funnel of story when you contact a customer and you follow up and you keep throwing. If somehow that story, weaves left and right, they'll get lost and you lose trust.
Consistency is also a core element of trust. The, it's not just a script, it's that's their, that's what they, who they are. It's, in networking, it's know you, like you, trust you, they'll do business with you. And you know that everybody knows you because your name is out there, your face is out there.
But like you, that narrows the field down just a little bit because not everybody's gonna like you. But trust you that's the hinge because nobody will do business with you unless they trust you. Yeah. So that's what you're working on, is that trust factor. And for the, that... When you... We talk about what a company does, I ask everybody, my all, every one of my clients, "What's your 30-second elevator pitch?"
And they're all like, "Oh, yeah this." I said no, let's get it down to exactly what you should do." Okay we get it down hours and hours later. "All right, good. It's perfect. Now make it down to 10 seconds." And they flip out. They go I can't do that. I... it took me so long to get it down to 30 seconds, and I have to do it in 10 seconds?"
Okay." So we work on it, we work on it until it's 10 seconds. I said, "Okay, you happy with that?" He goes, "Yeah, I'm happy with that." "Good, now throw it out." Throw it out because now you know exactly what to focus in on- Yeah ... exactly what you have to say, and that's where the consistency is built.
It's on that- And then you can riff, you can... everything will come back to that once you have that core story. Absolutely. Absolutely. I'm sure I... i'm telling you all my consulting, networking tricks, but that's all right. All right. What mistake- I published it all in my book with all every...
you don't need me. You can just use my book and e- everything's in it. Yeah I have two books also. I could just- Yeah ... just go re- research them. But some people need that extra help. They always do. They always do. As soon as I finished my networking book, a month later I could have doubled the size, 'cause I'm always learning something else.
So it's I probably should do a second book on networking. Okay. What mistakes do professionals make when trying to tell the story that actually weaken their credibility? I think we've touched on a number of those in the sense that... first of all, it's the, it's centered on them, and the customer feels, they're on...
they're not really concerned with me. They're trying to sell their stuff. It can be, inconsistency. You have, you... The website isn't the same as the salesperson. It can be this feeling of of of fakeness. They've done these studies where there's this gut reaction against AI, and it's not really about, things that are- really problematic, suddenly there's this weird feeling that there's a, there, there's no human behind it.
Th- there, this guy did this he put on on some other social media, he put a a Monet painting saying, "What do you think of my AI-generated Monet painting?" And he got thousand, thousands of people, hating it, how it was obvious, it was crazy, that it was disgusting, there was this and that.
And then he said but actually it was a real one." And it where there's this... And w- more and more we're trying to optimize, we're trying to automate, we're trying to do all these things. And more and more, by being, the, human, having a human voice, really s- is noticeable today somehow.
And that's that's really s- I don't know if it's surprising, but, it's the face-to-face. Networking is so important because, listen, it's great that we're talking through Zoom. You're in Switzerland, I'm in Georgia in the States, right? So we can connect, and we can network like this, but nothing is going to remove the networking in person, the networking events in person.
Because you need to pick up the vibe of the person or the vibe of the room. Because I've walked into networking events, after about 15 minutes I said nope. This whole thing is not right for me," and I've walked out, right? And other times I've walked in, I said, "Oh I'm home. I'm home.
This is perfect." And you had to drag me out of there kicking and screaming. Okay. So let's bring this podcast full circle. If a listener wanted to reshape how people perceive them within the next 90 days, what storytelling or story-building habit would you recommend they start immediately? The first thing is this idea of flipping the script.
Look at yourself from the outside. Potay- Put, put, my company's name is Standpoint. I find it so important that, you take your the other person's standpoint, in this case your customer. Tell their story. And that, if, that, you can get that m- mindset shift a little bit.
One thing is to, go on your website and say, "Okay, I'm my ideal customer. How does this make me feel? Do I, recognize myself? Do I feel that this, the, these people are, working for me? Am I, do I have that first level of recognition and trust at the beginning?
Or do you jump in and talk about your product and your service, and it's up to me to figure out if it's for me?" And I think that, that first step, where- When I'm l- when I'm listening to your offer or reading your offer, but I feel that, y- you work with people like me. You're
I'm al- I'm a little bit more open to listening instead of saying, "Oh, okay, what are they trying to sell me?" It's like, "Okay, how can they help me?" And that, that creates that sh- that shift. John, this was fabulous, a fabulous podcast. You did very well. I loved listening to everything that you had to say.
But if somebody wanted to contact you, either to help them with their story or just to say hi, wh- h- how would they get hold of you? I have a, the core, is my website, which is standpoint.ch. I'm in Switzerland, and the .ch is for Switzerland. Switzerland, but and so you'll, you can find my book.
You can ... And then, so there are two things on the website. Y- if you go to my contact form and say, "Hey, I'm from Michael's podcast. Let's set up a, half an hour and we talk about your brand," great. And also I created I, I automated one of my little processes, which is to create a tagline. So you can go in, and then it'll ask you questions about your customer, about your product and then use six different formats and, propose, and you pick ones, and there's variants.
And it really helps you create a thing, and I- it gives a little bit of f- of a little h- teaser of the kind of questions you need to ask. And then you come out with a tagline, and then, and so anyways, you can always just pick a half an hour of my time, and I'd be happy to talk to you from the other side of the world.
That's great. That's great. This conversation reminds us that networking isn't just about exchanging information. It's about the story people carry with them after the conversation ends. When the me- when your message is clear, consistent, and authentic, people understand what you stand for and how you can help them.
That clarity makes you easier to remember, easier to trust, and easier to refer Take one step this week. Think about the story someone would tell you about after the, after meeting you. Is it clear? Is it consistent? Small adjustments in how you communicate can completely change how people perceive you. If you found value in today's episode, make sure you like, follow, and subscribe to Networking Unleashed: Building Profitable Connections so you continue getting the best insights on networking and communication, and share this episode with someone who wants to strengthen how you present themselves in conversations.
If you'd help improving your communication and building connections through opportunities, visit michaelaforman.com to learn how I work with professionals, teams, and organizations. So until next time, shape your story, strengthen your connections, and build relationships that truly matter. John, I wanna thank you again for coming on my podcast.
You were wonderful. Thank you, Michael. That was a lot of fun. Happy to have been here. My pleasure
Well, hold on, folks. Don't go anywhere. Let's hear from our sponsors. David Neal, co-founder, RevvD Up Kids. RevvD Up Kids is on a mission to protect children and teens from sexual abuse, exploitation, and trafficking. They provide prevention training programs for children, teens, and adults. To learn more, go to RevvDUpKids.org.
Henry Kaplan, Century 21. When it comes to making the biggest financial decision of your life, leave it in the hands of a proven professional, Henry Kaplan. Henry is a global real estate agent with Century 21, celebrating his 41st year in business. No matter where you're moving, Henry has the right connections for you.
You can contact Henry at 561-427-4888
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, and 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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