Networking Unleashed: Building Profitable Connections. An Interview with Kelle Sparta and Michael A Forman
- mforman521
- 5 days ago
- 20 min read
Hello and welcome back to Networking Unleashed, building Profitable Connections. Welcome to the show, folks. I'm your host, Michael Foreman, and you're listening to the podcast where networking is more than just awkward handshakes and bad coffee. It's an art and a talent, but here's the twist. It's an art and talent you can actually learn.
Yes. Even if you're the person hiding in the corner at every event, pretending to check emails, networking isn't just a nice skill to have. It's a game changer when you get good at it. You'll wonder why you didn't start sooner. More connections, more opportunities, more profits. It's like unlocking a cheat code for life.
I have a a very nice guest today. Her name is Kelly Sparta and she's got a huge background, so I don't wanna really butcher it, but I will just read the first sentence. She's a spiritual business coach, transformational shaman and energy healer with 50 years experience in personal growth, spiritual practices, and 38 years in business.
So Kelly, welcome to the show, and why don't you give us a little bit of more in depth knowledge of your background. Sure. Michael, thank you for having me. So I'm gonna tailor this a bit to the people that are listening to you because I'm gonna do a little bit different bio than I usually do because not a lot of people know this about me anymore, but I used to be a national trainer in the real estate industry, and so I've actually got a book out in the marketplace called the consultative Real Estate Agent.
I did not choose that title. It was terrible. And, I trained real estate agents for about a decade and a half. I, so my background in the spiritual world is I've been doing this stuff since I was five years old. My mom said I was talking to ghosts in my crib, and so I. These days what I do and you're probably going what does that have to do with networking?
I am also a super connector. And the work I do these days is very much about bringing people into alignment with their purpose and their business. And so the, your purpose is the fullest expression of your authentic self. And when you are in the fullest expression of your authentic self, then you are in alignment with what you're doing.
That alignment creates profit because people will be naturally attracted to you. And a classic example was back when I was selling real estate in the nineties and I came out of the spiritual closet, right? I was desperately afraid to share what was going on with me. And every single client I had at the time was like.
That's so cool. Did you know about this? Did you know about that? Can you tell us the history at the house and does it, is it haunted? And all this stuff? It was so great because everybody, nobody looked at me like I had three heads, it was amazing. And that's just because I was drawing in the people that were in alignment with me.
And nobody was talking about it in the nineties. 'cause if you talked about it, you were a nut job. And now. People are like, oh, you can talk about it now. Mostly. Mostly. I'm okay with the not mostly signs though. That's okay. But I wanna, your opening just spoke to me so much. I wanna jump right into that, if that's okay.
Absolutely. You talked about people standing up against the wall. And I wanna give you guys my favorite trick for networking because I am a super connector and I just, I talk to people and I know everybody, right? And the reason that works for me is 'cause I was a very shy child and the military forced me to be less shy or have no friends, right?
So I learned how to talk to people, but the thing that I found most useful in networking was to assign myself a role. At the event, and it wasn't an official role, it was an unofficial role. So however I was feeling, which was usually unwelcome, right? However I was feeling, I would assume that the other people were feeling that way too.
And I would designate myself the welcome committee. And so anybody walking, standing around the outside edges of the room, I would walk up and say, Hey, who are you? What you doing? How's it going? How's what do you do? Talk to me. And then the minute we would exchange information and we got to the end of our two or three minute conversation, which is really the only time you should be spending, right?
I would say, oh, great, come with me. And I'd grab 'em by the hand and I'd drag 'em to a group of people who were talking, and I'd butt into the group of people and I would say, have you met so and and they, then I would introduce them and they would say that's awesome. They would introduce themselves and da dah.
And then they'd say who are you? And that would give me an excuse to be in the circle, right? Sure. And so by facilitating other people's network, I got to. Facilitate my own. And then when the conversation would die down a little bit and people would start to blah, blah, blah, and there wasn't anything else to say, I'd grab somebody and say, who hasn't been around the room?
And I'd grab them by the hand and walk 'em over to the next group. And I just, that's what I do every time. And it means it's so much easier. You hit upon so many points of interest that I speak about when I go on stages or do workshops in companies, but you really spoke about being an extrovert versus an introvert.
And what you have to do and everything else. And I go in a lot about that. But that's very good, what you did and what you picked up on. And that was just, that was great. You brought up the military. Were you in the military? My mother and my ex-husband were both military. So the, when we moved down here, I live in Boquete Panama.
Now this was my 40th move, four zero. So yeah. Okay. If I didn't make friends fast, I didn't make friends. Absolutely. No. I spent nine years in the Air Force. That's why I asked. You understand? I understand completely. Okay, so how about we. We go right into this. And how does your spiritual background influence your networking approach?
You're gonna love this, so I do, when I go networking, I do what I call finding the bright and shiny in the room. I. Okay okay. I can walk into a room and I have walked into a room of 500 people and just, what I do is just turn on my extra sensory perception. I'm looking at the auras in the room and I'm like, who's bright?
Who's light up for me? And I go and I talk to them and I actually it's very funny. You're gonna it's hysterical. There was this guy, and the networking event I was at was a, it was a weird one. It was a combination. Singles event and business networking and, which was odd. And so this guy, I talked to him and he's who you know, help me find somebody.
And we walked around the room and walked around and he's like, how about this one? I'm like, no, not that one. Why? I would tell him why. And we'd keep going and finally I saw somebody from across our room. I'm like, her. And he started laughing and I'm like, what? He said. That's my wife of 12 years.
I'm like, perfect fit. It works so very good. That's the thing is that you're, what you're looking for is the bright and shiny. And so I'll say this from two perspectives. One is if you're in a physical space, you're looking for the person who's attracts your attention more than anybody else.
So you wanna sit at the edge of the room, not engage with anybody, and just allow yourself to look over the room and see who you feel like you wanna go talk to. And it's not an in your head feeling, it's an in your body feeling. It's a woo right that energy, and then the other side of it from a networking perspective is it's also from a prospecting perspective, because I used to use this all the time in my real estate practice.
Anytime somebody's mind name would come to mind that I hadn't thought of in a while, I would pick up the phone immediately and call them, and they would always be getting ready to put their house on the market Really. Yeah. So I called that intuitive prospecting. Okay. That's intuitive prospecting. Yeah.
Okay. How do align, how do you align networking efforts with your soul's mission, your soul? So when you're networking, so networking is all about finding the connections to the clients that you want, right? Abso absolutely. And so it, it's very much about being in alignment with that person. It's less about the networking and more about the target marketing, right?
So you need to be really clear. I. You're in alignment with your target market. I actually just talked to somebody earlier today who's doing some consulting work. She's working with people on Wall Street and she comes from Wall Street and that's great and it's making her money, but she's not in alignment.
It's not, doesn't make her soul sing. So she's looking for the next thing. And so the thing that you have to be clear on is what makes your soul sing? What is it that you're excited about? The reason I was so happy in real estate is because at my heart I am the person who stands at the threshold of initiation from one identity to the next.
And real estate you, when you move, you change identity in a lot of ways. And so it was in alignment with who I was at my core, right? You have to. Be clear about who you are and what's important to you and what your values are. Make sure you're living by your values and not your parents' values, because otherwise that's a recipe for misery.
And then then you can come about that and say, okay, now I'm clear on who it is I want to talk to. Now I need to find the intuitive connections and the networking connections that get me there. And that is also about. Connecting with people with similar values, right? So I just had a guy on my podcast.
I, I've got a spiritual podcast called Spirit Sherpa, and I just had a guy on who was a financial manager. And why would you have a financial manager on a spiritual podcast, which normally I would never do, but the guy's so aligned, he's heart-centered, he's aligned. It's all about purpose, it's all about, and I'm like, yes, I want my people to know that, right?
But it's all about finding the alignment and values. That's I had somebody on my podcast. His main thing is a Servant's Heart. Yes. And his main goal is just to give and help and everything. And he is so on point with everything. And you can tell that it's genuine just by the way that he speaks.
Yeah. So I understand that completely. How do you balance building profitable connections while staying true to your spiritual values? You can't let your pocketbook dictate your actions. Okay? It's hard to do. I. I see this all the time in the real estate world and mortgages where, they'll prospect end up with a ton of business and then they don't prospect and then they end up with no business and then they have to, they up and down and up and down and up and down.
And at the bottom of that cycle, inevitably they will pick up somebody who will make them miserable and who will take all their time and all their energy and give them nothing in return and probably not even buy. And that's where things go south is you cannot. The better you can take care of yourself by creating consistency in your business by automating your system so that your marketing goes out consistently without you having to touch it and making sure that the business keeps coming in even when you're busy.
The more you can do that, the less likely you are to make those bad decisions. Now if you happen to be in that position where you're like. Ugh. The money isn't there. I gotta pay the bills, blah. Taxes are coming, whatever. Then you have to. You have to center yourself and you have to trust.
You have to go back into your knowledge base of saying, look, there has always been money there. There will be money there again, I have not been doing the things I was supposed to do to get the money in the door. All I have to do is breathe. It'll be fine. I'm gonna trust that the universe is gonna send me something, somebody who is perfect, who is gonna be easy and profitable and grateful, and send me lots of referrals.
And then instead of acting out of panic, you sit down, get centered and just open your mind and say, okay, who needs to hear from me? And open your mind to all of your past clients, all of the people you know, and see whose name pops up and call them and see why they need to talk to you now. Sometimes yes.
It'll be business and sometimes it won't. Sometimes it'll be a referral. Sometimes it'll just be a social call. But they'll remember you two weeks from now when they have a conversation with somebody else. You never know, right? But you gotta trust what shows up. There's a, I was in the mortgage industry for 10 years, so I really understand that.
We had a system to keep yourself in front of all of your clients, your past clients, so you know, it, it goes along that way. But I learned a very valuable lesson. I learned how to fire my clients. Yes. Yes, I fired them. And they're always so what do you mean you don't wanna work with me?
You're so difficult and everything else, it's better that you work with somebody else because. Honestly, I won't have the patience to do it. But that's, I had to learn that the hard way. My, the very hard way happiest places were the people I fired. Yes. Absolutely. Absolutely. You were making me crazy.
Okay, so what's your top tip for networking authentically in the business world? So the one thing that I see happen a lot with people who are out there networking is that they're so busy pitching, they're not listening. Active listening. Yeah, active listening. It's. It's great to wanna go out and talk about yourself, and I am the queen of talking about myself.
Look at me here. But you really, before you can tell anybody anything about what you do, you first need to understand who they are and what they need. Because I don't know about you, but I got toolkits mile wide and 20 miles deep. So if I talk about everything I do, we'll be here for several hours and you'll be bored.
So I need to find out what's going on with them. And so I might give a one liner that's just enough to get people interested. When you're in an industry like real estate or mortgage or insurance, there's a lot of people who are probably at the same event as you who are in real estate, mortgage and insurance.
And I used to run these groups in Boston and that was 90% of the room with that. Was that those four categories and financial planner in there too, right? The four categories were the most people in the room. So how do you make yourself sound different? So that's the first thing is you're like, okay, my differentiation is I am the.
Goddess of real estate or I am the and the queen of making happy change or something, right? Something just enough that people go, what's that? And then you can talk about yourself. But I generally, I start with them. I start with saying, who are you and what are you doing? What's going on for you?
Because that's the first thing I'm gonna do. The second thing I'm gonna do is say, who do I know that I can connect with? Okay, now here's a super connectors. Very hard won piece of information. Do not commit yourself to following up with them. Make the offer, tell them that you're happy to give it to them.
Hand out a card and say, if you send me an email, I'll give you the information. 'cause 99 times out of a hundred, they do not send you an email. And if you are the one who has to follow up with them every time, you'll be spending two or three hours after every event following up with all the people that you promised something to who never will read it.
Never will appreciate it, never will do anything with it. So say, I'm happy to help you here. Here's my card. Please follow up and I'll give you the information. Yeah. And then after I've known about them, given them something, then I will offer them information about me. Because the social contract is, if I give you something, then you should give me something in return.
And in this case, it's your attention and maybe your referral. Or your business, right? Yeah, no, it the first thing that the networking rule is when you go to a networking event, you look to give not to receive. Yes. Okay. So when you're asking that other person all about them, there's this, there's a methodology we use, it's called form, family, occupation, recreation, and a message.
And that's all to build up the rapport. So that you can, when you walk up to somebody, 'cause that you think of that before you speak with them and you have them talk about themselves because you know as well as I do, people love to talk about themselves. They do. So you let them, but you end the conversation with, you know what, I like you, I like what you do, and I like how you do it.
How can I make you more successful? I. How can I be a good referral source for you? And this is before you even say what you did. And that usually blows 'em outta the water and everything is good after that. Yeah. So that's just a little bit, a little tidbit. Which spiritual principles have you found most effective in building meaningful business relationships?
Non-judgment. Is the single most useful one because everyone lives in fear of being judged because they spend their whole lives judging themselves and projecting that judgment onto others. And so when you can stand in a place where absolutely nothing that comes out of anybody's mouth is judged, and that's true whether you're talking to the person themselves or talking about someone else.
Because if you're gonna judge somebody else, they're gonna assume you're gonna judge them. So non-judgment, if you can stay out of judgment and stay in a compassionate, open-hearted space, then people will trust you at a much higher level and a deeper level, and they're more likely to refer to you because they trust you.
Know you, like you, trust you will do business with you. That's the mantra of networking. And it's true. No matter how you slice it, it really is. But what you said is so real. Can you share a networking challenge that you faced as a spiritual entrepreneur and how you overcame it? Yes, I can definitely do that.
I made the mistake of joining A BNI group when I was promoting myself as a, as the business shaman and that BNI group had zero referrals for me. They were not at all interested in anything I was doing. They, in fact, looked at me like I was a nut job. This was about 2006, 2007, and the way I solved it is I left the group and found better shores.
And BNI, it's either you have it what everybody's interested in or nothing. Yeah. And you don't get anything. So that's the way BNI works. But I completely understand what you're saying. How do you create mutual value in networking while honoring your spiritual beliefs? I don't know that there's a conflict with my spiritual beliefs or my spiritual assumptions about life.
With any networking. The only difference would be that I don't network with people I don't like because that's a good thing, isn't it? Yeah. If you're not gonna like them, then you're not gonna send 'em business. And if you don't like them, the clients they get aren't gonna like you either.
There's really no point in being there. But yeah, we have to get to a certain point. And really in our, with our ages, we've gotten to a certain point where, you know what? I don't like you. I don't have to deal with you Exactly. Rather than just starting out. We're like, I'm gonna take everybody.
I don't care what they them, dislike 'em, whatever. I would not recommend that even when you're younger no. You're gonna beat your head against the wall and you're gonna be, you're gonna feel rejected and miserable all the time because the people that you don't like you. And then you're gonna feel rejected.
And why would you do that to yourself? Just, see, I, if I knew us. Yes. A hundred years ago I wouldn't have, I would look like this. Okay. Because I beat myself up against the wall. Okay. What mindfulness practices do you incorporate into your networking
strategy? Networking these days for me is a little different, so I'm gonna actually jump into online networking to have that conversation. Okay. Because, I live in Boquete Panama, but my market is in the US and so all of my networking these days is online. And so the first thing that I'm doing is I am researching people before I talk to them.
Everybody and their brother wants some of my time right now. Every time I turn around somebody's oh, let's hop on a networking call. And I'm like. I've got 12 calls this week and I've got four podcasts and I have to actually get some work done at some point. And you have to recognize, especially if you're talking to somebody who's busier, the more successful someone is, the more you have to justify the reason for the call and the more you need to honor the time that they give you, whether it's 15 minutes or an hour and a half.
If I'm giving you more than 15 minutes of my time at this point in my career for networking, it's because I feel like there's something to be had here. I don't call people just to talk to people at this stage. And a lot of that's just because I don't wanna be on the computer all the time.
And so this is about aligning my level of need to have time away from the computer. And this is about balancing for myself. So it's not actually about the networking, it's about the. The time management for myself around networking because you've gotta, if you go to a new networking event online, give it one or two tries.
If you don't get anything out of it, move on. Go to something else. If you're not coming in, especially if it's like a two hour event. I went to a two hour event two weeks ago, got zero out of it. I've got another one coming up tomorrow. If nothing comes out of that one, I will not be going back to that event.
It's very much about honoring your own energy levels and knowing what you can and cannot do. Because the problem is that especially when you're working one-on-one with people, if you start to burn out, they will feel that and cancel their appointments with you. That has happened to so many people I know, because they get burned out and they're like.
How many calls today, and suddenly the calls are just dropping like flies and you're like, Ooh, but I needed that business. And that's problematic. So you really do have to manage your own energy really well and make sure that you have a clear agenda for the conversation that you're having.
Even if it's a, Hey, I really like what you do, let's learn about each other. That is a clear agenda, but the, Hey, let's just jump on a call because we happen to jump and there's no value there. And don't lie to people about why you're setting the meeting, by the way, because they know, right? Of course they know.
But you have to have, there has to be a goal. For the, for the call. There has to be a reason, unless it's just a friend of yours that you want to catch up with. But if you're in business, there has to be a little structure, a goal for the end of the conversation. There's gotta be a reason why you spoke.
So that's all comes with it. How do you attract and identify networking opportunities that align with your spiritual and business goals? You're gonna laugh again. I see so many things come across my desk and so many opportunities, and for me, a lot of it is simply, I. Just feeling into it if I, so your body knows what is good for you and what isn't.
Your body can feel into the energy of what's going on in the room. And so if you get your head out of the way and just close your eyes and put the idea of going to that on the table, don't think about it. Just put the concept of it on the table and then listen to your body. If your body goes woo, then you go.
If your body goes, ugh. Then you don't, if your body goes, eh, then I usually don't go. An EH is not enough for my time. For somebody just getting started and eh might be useful, right? It might be. Yeah. Yeah. You're absolutely right. But again, it's because of where we are in our venture. It's you don't have time for stupid people, it's I don't.
Who don't have anything to offer me and who I probably don't have anything to offer. If it's not a fit, I don't have time for non fits. Yeah. Okay. Let's, so you're not wrong. Bringing this full circle, bringing this full circle how do you see networking evolving network for the spiritual entrepreneurs in the coming years?
Oh, what a great question. I see. Here's the thing. When I work with spiritual entrepreneurs and when I'm saying that, what I'm saying is people who are teaching spirituality and doing spiritual services and things, the biggest challenge that they have is that they are tech phobic and they really don't wanna be running a business 90% of the time.
And the reason that they are running a business is 'cause there's nobody who can employ them. And so if they could get a job doing it, they would. And so that's the biggest challenge for them right now. And so in the coming years, I think that anybody who can translate tech is gonna be greatly in demand for them.
And anybody who can help them use AI is gonna be greatly in demand for them and in, in terms of their networking. One of the, one of the first rules of networking is how do you. Find you, you go to the places where your pe your clients are gonna be, right? Or the people who have your clients are gonna be one or the other, right?
Or both, ideally. And they need to be able to find those venues. So when I left the BNI, I actually switched to a different group that was entirely made up of people in that. Wellness market. And that was slightly more useful, but not terribly more useful because they still had sort of poverty mindset.
And so when you're surrounding yourself, don't surround yourself with people with poverty mindsets, is what I'm gonna say. 'cause your income is the average of the 10 people you spend the most time with. You have to realize that you are who you surround yourself with. And this, I used to think that no.
That that's not the way it goes, but it actually is the way it goes. And that 10 is a good number. You take the 10 people that's you surround yourself with, look at them, because that's pretty much where you are. That's very insightful. Kelly, this was great. I gotta tell you, this was a great podcast.
I can probably talk to you for another two hours, but if anybody wants to get hold of you either to be coached to, for your website or whatever the case may be, how can they get hold of you? Yeah my website is kelly sparta.com, like you see on the screen. It's K-E-L-L-E. There is no I, no other e no other y, just K-E-L-L-E.
Yes, my mother was phonetically stupid. Kelly sparta.com and my podcast is Spirit Sherpa. So you can find Spirit Sherpa on any podcast player. Or if you don't know how to do a podcast player one, learn some tech and two. It's at spirit sherpa podcast.com so that because like I said, my people are tech phobic.
Okay. Okay. Very good, Kelly and I look forward to talking with you in the future. Thank you.
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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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