Networking Unleashed: Building Profitable Connections. An Interview with Katherine Kirchner and Michael A Forman

 Welcome to Networking Unleashed, building Profitable Connections. The show where conversations become opportunities and relationships become results. I'm your host, Michael Forman. A lot of people think networking is about meeting more. People, but the real power of networking isn't the number of contacts you collect.

It's the strength of the partnerships you build. My guest today understands that better than most. She's built her success on creating strong partnerships and developing real rapport with customers, relationships, built on trust, consistency, and mutual value. In this episode, we're going to explore how trust forms in those first conversations, why authentic rapport matters more than clever sales tactics, and how the strength, how the strongest business opportunities often come from partnerships that start with genuine connection.

If you want your networking to lead, to make, to meaningful, collaboration, loyal customers, and long-term growth, you're in the right place. Let's get into it. I'd like to welcome to the podcast today, Katherine. Katherine, I am very interested in what you have to talk about because I go on stages, I do workshops, talking about the same thing, so I'm hoping to pick up some good pointers.

So great Cath. Welcome to the podcast, and why don't you give us like the cliff nos version of how you got where you are today? Yeah, so it, it's interesting. I, I've been in the telecommunications industry for a long time. It certainly wasn't the the original plan that I had. I originally was going to go into music and major in that, and then, through starting that process really, came to the conclusion that probably wasn't the be best path. And at the time there was a lot of opportunity in telecommunications. And so I said, I'm gonna go do that. Seems interesting. And have taken a series of twists and turns and different moves within the industry and even outside of the industry to bring together, a number of different skills across.

Various parts of organizations, whether it's in sales or on the technical side, engineering, operations, customer service a lot of side movement, things like that. But I think ultimately landed at Zao in the role that I'm in now over service assurance, which really touches every part of the organization.

And I think, some of those decisions around. And networking and relationships I built during that whole process, I think have been, pivotal in being able to perform and support the role in, in the way that I need to. Because I've experienced all those different.

Groups and functions that ultimately I support today. So that's how I got here. I spent most of my career at Comcast and then have, had a number of roles since then. I retired and, did that for about two months and said, Hey, I, probably not quite ready for that.

I think I still have a lot to offer. Have been fortunate to be able to land with Zao and the, role that I have today to keep doing what I love doing. I love technology and working with people it, it's, you're passionate about it and that is really 90% of it. If you're passionate about what you're doing, you just enjoy doing it.

So I can feel your passion come through the computer, actually. Okay, so I've got about a few, I've got a few questions. You've built a, you've built strong partnerships throughout your career. What's the difference between meeting someone and actually forming a partnership that produces results?

I think the it's just really building that relationship to be more than just, an introduction, if you will. And what's interesting, particularly in this industry is it's a very small industry. You encounter a lot of the same people. You work with a lot of the same partners and.

You do what you can to not just build the relationship, but provide support and help you know, when they need it. And then I always feel like that returns. To you, at the same level or even in better sometimes. And so what you find in this industry particularly is that you have common clients or you have common challenges.

And building beyond just meeting someone to share contact in information, talk about, things that are shared, issues or problems to solve. And then all of a sudden. You just naturally build this relationship where you're helping each other out and those relationships matter and, come back, in spades if you're helping folks and.

And then, you just find that, you learn from those experiences and those relationships tend to last and you end up crossing paths again. You should always assume that you might. And I've found that many times. You do. There are folks here at ZEO that I worked with.

Years ago for a company that they acquired when it was still that company or, I now work with companies that I've worked for that are now my clients that used to be, I used to be the client. So those relationships can be invaluable because already you've established or you have a trust with folks that you're working with that come sometimes, can take.

Time to build. And so that to me is the biggest thing that I've found is just those relationships matter and that trust that you build lasts and people remember that. And it makes it just so much easier and a little bit more seamless if you're, settling into a new role or you're trying to build and establish a relationship with a client.

And those folks that maybe are there from your past or whatnot. Just really can or invaluable you. You hit on a few really important points that I just wanna reemphasize. Trust is the number one factor, right? Nobody will do business with you unless they trust you. And when you first talk with somebody, you have like a wall between the two of you, and the more they talk about themselves and what they do and everything else, that wall is coming down, that trust factor is going up and not until does that switch happen when they can start actually listening to you.

But what you said was when you go out, when you try to help them, when you try. Networking. It's called having a servant's heart. You go out there and try to help everybody without the thought of selling something, right? So you're out there trying to help them because it will come back to you in spades.

So it's very important. So I just wanted to bring out those two features that you just spoke about, that they are very important. Yes. What signals in an early conversation tell you whether someone is worth building a long-term relationship with? That's a really great question. I think you can, sometimes it just takes.

Really reading, the room and the person and the tone of the meeting or the tone of the discussion, or the approach. It's it's interesting, can, if you really understand the intent of the introduction and meeting the person in the first place, sometimes that can help you.

Navigate the conversation, develop the conversation, and take it to a place that, builds the trust and helps you from a relationship perspective. Now, if you're going into the conversation and there is, a clear, let's say an agenda or, definitely something that you can read is an outcome that the other person has that they wanna get out of the introduction.

Sometimes, it's important to recognize that and build a relationship from that to, I think, navigate into, really building the relationship for longer term strength, among the two parties, right? If you go into it and you say, oh, I can clearly see this person has an agenda, and you just almost, I don't wanna say blow it off, but, don't really come in there and acknowledge that and, have that conversation or make sure that's understood and it's a discussion point, then you can come off as not really being interested or genuine or only having your own agenda.

So it's really. It's not to say that you're not gonna go into con conversation and you're always gonna be able to get past that, but it's important to know what that is. What does the other person wanna get out of the conversation and what do you wanna get out of it? Sometimes it's just the approach and how they start the conversation.

So look for those tones of, am I being brought into this conversation? Because, there's a. There's an opportunity that they wanna talk to me about because I need to listen to that and I need to understand and be open to what it is that they're providing or what they wanna speak to me about and be respectful of that and truly be interested.

And then it's, and then, how do I then bring in. What I would like to discuss or how I would like to build this relationship. It's building really immediately trying to understand, what their point of view is or maybe what their, they wanna get outta the conversation so that you can build the relationship and the trust and truly show the interest and that you respect what they're trying to do.

Yeah. I can, I spot. Somebody a mile away that is walking up to me that wants to sell something. If they walk up to you and they, the first if the first two sentences of their conversation is something about something that they're selling, I almost immediately, close off that section of my brain.

I look I wanna be respectful because I never know what I'm, he's gonna come into fruition again. But I'm gonna end the conversation, so I have to weed that out because, if I'm going to a networking event. And only have three or four hours. I have to really. Figure out what my time should be.

I used to, I was used to be in a mortgage business. I used to go to these events all the time and have a shoebox filled with business cards and say, look how good I did. But, that was pre pandemic, post pandemic. I looked more for the relationships and I think if I take more than 15 cards, that's a lot, yeah. I truly built up something. And I think too, one thing that's important in those, 'cause I've experienced that myself is you know, if it is something that they're trying to sell and it's not something that you know you're interested in or that would actually fill a need for you, then I think that open transparency is important, right?

I've found that, if somebody brings something to me, and maybe it's something that could be an application I might wanna look at in the future, or maybe it's just not something that we would need because maybe. The business, that we have isn't, understood necessarily that it wouldn't actually be a solution.

I'm just pretty transparent about that to say, Hey, that's really, that's really an interesting proposition. It's definitely something we could look at maybe in the future, but probably not right now. Or maybe a, a year away from it or flat out it's, probably isn't something that we would, necessarily leverage.

And here's why, because we do this, that, and the other thing. And then it's, you've listened, you've provided transparency and reasoning. People, so that whoever's presenting to you, it understands. It's not just, I'm just, I just don't wanna listen to a sales pitch. It's truly.

I, this is something that yes, we absolutely need. We're probably nine to 12 months away from it. I'd be, I'd love to talk to you about it again at the right time or. It's just not something that we need, or we've already got it solved for. We've already committed to this other. I think that transparency, even in those conversations really does help because I think nobody wants to waste their own time or to try to pursue something that, isn't ever gonna be a reality.

I just assume. Tell 'em. And then you've built a relationship. 'cause who knows, down the road I might say I need that or I go take another role and all of a sudden I do. And I wanna be able to call that person up. And this has happened to me in, in, in other roles and they're happy to help me because I was honest with them and treated them with respect and transparency.

Absolutely. And by you being transparent right up front, you let the other person know, either A, you're interested, B, you're not interested, or C, you might be interested in the future. Right? And if the other person is worth his salt or her salt, she'll take your information, put it into their database for a year from then and just right and check in with you.

Yeah, or if they're gonna put you into a drip campaign. I'm more going into a marketing, hat now. But if they put you into a drip campaign and just ask you every other month or so, Hey, this is Mike. I just wanna know if I can help you without, with anything, and just very casual so that you don't block me block my emails.

You still receive my emails and it's a just in case type thing. Yes, absolutely. Many professionals rush the relationship and move too quickly towards business. What does trust usually develop? Why does trust usually develop before opportunity? I think it's getting comfortable that the person that you're working with, it's mutual trust, right?

Because, particularly even when you're in a sales conversation, does, is there a real effort there to understand the business and how, and to come to the conversation with a solution versus just, I'm gonna go try to sell this thing. I think what helps really build the trust and why it's important and usually drives to the opportunity, is not trying to take a one size fits all approach.

Particularly if you're going into a complex business or something like that. Like I can tell you, I've worked for telecommunications companies for a number of years and no two are really the same. Like the needs I would've maybe had at Comcast and a highly consumer business with. With a large scale might be different than I might have at a startup.

I might need the same solution, but I might need, a different version of it or some customization that isn't just doesn't just easily fit in the out of the box. Somebody coming in and talking to me and truly understanding and have done their homework a little bit on.

My business certainly helps just right from the get go. Like they come into the conversation and they seem to know a lot about what we're trying to do. So that I appreciate and then I appreciate that, if they don't have all the answers, really just talking to me a little bit about, what are some of the challenges that we face and then helping me understand how maybe that you've solved that in the past.

And, then being just transparent about, Hey, I think we have a solution. I'd love to talk to you about it. Or, I don't know that I have this exact solution, we have this solution for smaller sale clients that we can custom develop. Really trying to gain that understanding before coming into the hard push to sell because in some cases, if they're very like businesses and they have similar scale and similar product sets and things like that, and similar networks and all of that, that can be, yeah, generally, it's a little bit more straightforward, in a company like ours, as an example, we cater to a completely different customer base.

We have numerous equipment types. We sell, a variety of. Products from enterprise all the way up to, carrier services and, it we don't necessarily have the same organizational makeup and how we do our processes because of different, requirements and, really getting to understand the business and what problems we're trying to solve before trying to come in with a solution.

Because then it can come across as, oh, I don't really care. What your problems are. I just have a solution and I wanna sell it. Building that rapport and getting to know the person and what they're trying to solve is super critical. Absolutely. And again, you hit so many points with your answer and.

They're all a hundred percent correct. When I do workshops, I go into companies like ZEO or something else and I do a workshop and I teach them all about how to truly network, how to network. Where they make conversations, turn into clients. You know everything that you just said, everything we have to go in and you first of all, listen instead of talk, if you talk more than 30% of the conversation you lost.

You. You have to build. Way back in the beginning of this podcast, we said trust was the most important factor. And so you have to be able to trust. I have to be able to trust you, and the only way I'm gonna do that is by you asking questions, finding out about me, all this kind of stuff. If you didn't take the time to find out about me.

I don't know how important it is, so I'd leave it like that. Okay. When establishing rapport with customers or partners, what behaviors Quietly build credibility without saying a word. I think the biggest one is the listening element. I think. Being your natural self and coming across authentic.

Obviously you're saying things at that point in time, but you're truly showing that Hey, I'm gonna start this off and I have a true interest in really building a relationship and potentially a partnership with you. But then that, that listening part is really important. Because if you're.

Thinking about the sale, let's say, and how to get that over the goal line, and you're not really listening to what it is that. The client, potential client is trying to solve, you'll miss the mark. And that to me is the number one thing is listening and being methodical about the approach.

And then once you've listened, then obviously, answer and say, and ask more questions or, and I think while you're, the listening has to be authentic too. There's body language, right? You say, I'm gonna stop and I'm gonna listen. I'm not gonna say a word, but you can also tell if somebody's really listening or not.

There's those nonverbal cues. Are you engaged in the conversation when you're listening, are you acknowledging, 'cause. I can, I think most people can. I can tell when somebody's truly listening and when they're not. Absolutely. And that's the big thing that I would say is genuinely be interested and listen, because if you're not generally interested and you're really not listening you're, maybe you're hearing things, but you're not listening, you're formulating how you're gonna respond and you're not really.

In tune with the conversation and truly listening to what the person has to say. Absolutely. And just as important as the listening, there's a pause at the end of the listening. Yeah. So if you're listening intently, you don't, shouldn't be thinking about the next thing that you wanna say. You have to listen to the person that's speaking, digest it, pause, and then you re reiterate some of what they had said back to them.

Say, if I understand you correctly. X, Y, Z. So you get a lot more out of it when you listen. Listen, when you correctly listen and Right. The difference between listening and hearing, right? Yes. Because you can hear it, but you're not gonna listen. Okay, perfect. What mistakes do people make when they try to force a partnership instead of letting it develop naturally?

I think what happens when you try to do that is, is it can result in, and I've had this happen maybe there wasn't, there was such a rush to get to a partnership through some means, whether it was a sale or, us, me signing on and saying, yes I'll agree. I wanna move forward with this solution that you're providing or whatnot.

I think, and again, it goes back to the listening and the really exploratory work around what is it that they're really trying to solve? Because if I don't understand that and. It somehow gets glossed over in the process and then all of a sudden somebody says, yep, it sounds good. I'm gonna take it.

And then all of a sudden it doesn't meet the expectations. Maybe it's, a service you bought and it's not performing the way, it came across in the pitch. And maybe that's not because it's a bad product, it's just you didn't take the time to really understand the true need and what some of the real gaps were that needed to be solved.

In order to be able to make sure you sold the right thing or you set the right expectations, and then all of a sudden, it gets deployed and it's not meeting your needs or it's not meeting expectations because the true exploratory work and transparency didn't take place. That can be a rush to, to sale, right?

Whether that's when you're. Using somebody for adding supplementary resources and capabilities, or it's a tool or software or any of that it can be it. That is one of the first things that can really just take, if you had trust, it's gone. Because you're like, you felt like that, that they understood what you wanted. You get in there and maybe the details weren't known. And then I think the other thing that can happen is once you, if you, even if you get to that point, maybe it doesn't mean that, okay, maybe we didn't take enough time upfront to really understand the needs, documents, gaps, whatever.

But now that we know, then how quickly can you react to that and solve it? I think that's the next thing, because to me it doesn't mean, yeah, maybe it wasn't the wrong decision, it's just maybe we rushed into it a little bit and there were some things that we didn't anticipate, and then how do we recover from that quickly?

And you get the confidence and the trust that, it's recognized and there's a path forward to resolve whatever. The gap is because I've experienced that. And then you usually come out of it on the other end and say, yeah, we had a couple of bumps in the road. 'cause we didn't fully understand the requirements upfront, but there was definitely a commitment and an understanding from this partner of what that was.

And they resolved it quickly and just that. Alone can build up trust sometimes more than you even had before. When you've got somebody who, one knowledges the issue, two puts a plan in place to go solve it, and then actually executes on that and turns it around, right? Sometimes that can be harder than the initial, Hey, I just made the initial sale.

Right? The harder part is how do you re maintain that trust and build it even more over time so that when the time comes. For another solution or a new solution, they're gonna come right back to you because you built that trust. And I think most clients I certainly know, and I think many do that sometimes things aren't gonna be perfect and that there are gonna be problems from time to time.

But how you recover from those. With full transparency and actually execution are gonna build more trust than I would say even the initial relationship at times. Depending on this scenario. Yeah, absolutely. It's, no solution is perfect. So you're gonna give the solution and you're gonna have bumps in the road.

It's how you recover from those bumps in the road is whether or not that they're gonna trust you or not. So if you come out and you say, okay, look, we have these bumps in the road. We're gonna solve them, and you solve the problem, all of a sudden things are working well. They're like, oh my gosh, you're a genius.

Yeah. And they'll trust you. So it all goes along with that. And usually when there's bumps in the road, it's not, it doesn't all get. Finished after the first round. Those bumps in the road, then all of a sudden that creates other bumps in the road. So you have to fix those which create other bumps in the road and you fix those.

But if you go through, if you're honest, you're upfront and you're transparent, and you fix all those bumps in the road, then that's the trust. Then they'll pull you back, a thousand times. Yep. Okay. What does listening, here we go. What does listening play in building trust, especially when meeting someone for the first time?

I think listening just shows that you're genuinely interested in getting to know that person, what they have to offer how they can help you not just how they can help you, but then. You truly wanna understand and listen so that you know how, that you can help them or what, how that relationship would be meaningful to them versus, just talking.

I always appreciate that when I get into those conversations because. It, it is truly somebody that wants to build a relationship with you because they think that's important. I run into those things. Some, what's even I think, resonates with me sometimes is people just wanna build a relationship with me.

'cause they've, maybe they're linked in with other folks that I know and they. They think that, hey, maybe there's some way that I can help this person down the road, or vice versa. Like in, in our industry, we work you, we work with our competitors. Sometimes we sell competing services and we compete with each other, but then we're also partners.

And I don't wanna be building the relationship just because it's Hey, on the partner side, I need. This help. So that's why I wanna build the relationship. I also know that I'm gonna have to help them at some point in time, and we're gonna have situations where that relationship's gonna be really important.

So I'll go after the relationship to say. Hey, we seem to be crossing paths. We work really closely together. We partner together sometimes and have mutual clients. Sometimes we compete with each other, but at the end of the day, for those moments when we need to work together for the collective good of our client, our mutual client, I wanna make sure I have this relationship in place and we trust each other.

Even though we might compete sometimes, we trust each other to be, and we have the shared goal of making sure our mutual client is cared for. Absolutely. Absolutely. What separates a reliable partner from someone who simply shows up for the opportunity? I definitely think it's the, the trust that continues to get established over time and proven with providing that good service.

I think, what I find is that sometimes you can work with partners. Once you, once the initial sale is made, there's not a, a great handoff, and then you're just you don't ever hear from 'em again. Until it's time to buy something else. And I think one of the things that, I think we do a great job of here is that we don't take that approach necessarily.

And I think companies that don't, where, the folks that are selling to you maintain a relationship and are checking in and obvi, obviously making sure that you're connected with the right folks within their organization. For day-to-day support, like I get pulled into, what I think is great about our folks is that, they don't sell and say, yep, see you later.

I'm off to the next client. They maintain those relationships and they, they introduce me to customers as somebody that can help you know that they're always available to help. But I'm also there and it's a very nice kind of. Natural handoff and partnership that we can come then together into the client and say, you have a team here.

Your sales person is always gonna be available anytime you need anything. They're certainly gonna be able to help you if you're not getting what you need. But by all means, here's a team of people that you know, that we work very closely together with, that you know are available to you. They build that re, they help build that relationship for me with clients, especially as we're bringing on new ones.

And I think that type of approach makes such a difference for clients. 'cause the clients know then that you care that, Hey, I've sold this and I'm gonna be available and we'll certainly talk about any future opportunities as they come up. Or I'll check in periodically. But I wanna make sure that who's available to you all the time to be able to help support you from a service assurance perspective, as an example.

And there's nothing I appreciate more than our sales folks doing that. And I think our clients appreciate those introductions as well. So they know that it's yeah, I don't really care what happens now. I sold it. And first time they have an issue, they're on their own, type of thing.

I don't, i'm not, I've worked with a lot of sales professionals and I would, I would tell you, I think we, I think we do a really good job of that here, of making sure that the clients, it's very clearly understood. Who else? They have to support them in the organization and they don't just ghost the clients.

I'm not saying that happens with frequency everywhere, but I have seen that happen. Not here, obviously, but I think that's one of the things that we do really well, is we've got such a good relationship internally to support that customer from sale to service. And everybody being tightly aligned.

That's perfect for me. That's the way to do business, yeah. Because that's the way you succeed and that's the way you get more business because of your ferral base because that's gold, yeah. Your referral base is gold. Okay. Let's bring this podcast full circle. If someone listening today wants to build a network that consistently leads to partnerships and referrals.

What one relation, what one relationship building habit should they start practicing immediately? I think the the big one is, really identifying the need and listening. And as it relates to trying to find those opportunities, look across your current network. Really take a step back.

'cause I have to do this every once in a while. I have a lot of people in my network. There's people that I, don't necessarily have regular contact with. And then there's just folks that, I do stay in contact with. I think really leveraging your current network and understanding where they can help you is certainly a big important piece.

And then I think the other thing is, as you're doing that, really identifying those opportunities that those folks can help you with. And then when you're presented with those opportunities or you make those connections, starting with that trust element and truly listening and as, bringing those relationships in to, to help you build more, right?

Because I think, if you're. If you're trying to build a relationship or network with, a client or somebody that you know doesn't know you, but they know one of your, folks that you're already networked with and you have a strong relationship with and they have a trusted relationship with that person, immediately they could say.

I know this person, I trust this person. And if they, if this is somebody that they've worked with and they trust, I'm gonna give it a shot and I'm gonna open up, the door to a conversation because of the reputation and the relationships they have with people in your network. I hope that answered the question.

Yeah, no, really in spades, it did. Wonderful answer. Listen, you are a great podcast guest. I think I can talk to you about for another hour, but we, due to time constraints, Catherine, if somebody wanted to contact you about either getting help from Zao or just to say hello, how could they contact you?

I think a really great way is through LinkedIn. I'm out on LinkedIn. And I get a lot of outreach through that avenue. I think the other way too, you can, certainly can go to our website. There's ways to contact us and you can get ahold of me through that avenue.

I think both of those ways are great and I look forward to hearing from folks. I love to connect with folks. Always happy to help or share information that's great. Great. Thank you. This conversation is a great reminder that successful networking isn't about impressing people.

It's about understanding them. When you focus on building trust and creating value in your relationships, partnerships naturally show. Here's a simple action for you this week. Reach out to one person in your network and reconnect not to ask for anything but to strengthen the relationship. Those small moments of consistency often lead to the biggest opportunities later.

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's serious about building stronger professional.

Relationships. If you'd help improving how you communicate and build meaningful partnerships, visit Michael, a foreman to learn how I work with professionals, teams, and organizations. So until next time, focus on trust, strengthen your partnerships, and build connections that truly move business forward.

Catherine, thank you so much for coming on the podcast. Thank you. I appreciate the time.

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  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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