Networking Unleashed: Building Profitable Connections. An Interview with Perry Sheraw and Michael A Forman
- mforman521
- 4 days ago
- 16 min read
Welcome to Networking Unleashed, building Profitable Connections. The show where re, where relationships aren't collected, they're built. I'm Michael Foreman, and today we're tackling a topic every entrepreneur uses, but very few use. Email. Email isn't just a tool, it's a follow up. It's a reputation.
It's what people remember about you long after the event ends and the business cards disappear. My guest today lives at the intersection of email marketing automation and entrepreneurship and site nodes and. She knows how to turn simple messages into real conversations that actually move business forward.
If you ever wondered why or how to stay on top of mind without being annoying, which I try to all the time, how to keep relationships warm without chasing people or how the systems can support connections instead of replacing it, you're in the right place. I'd like to welcome to the podcast, Perry. Perry.
I'm very interested in what you have to say today, but why don't you give us, like the cliff notes of how you got here today. Thank you so much, Michael, for having me on the, on your podcast. The cliff notes of how I got here today are a little bit off the beaten path, but I started as a news reporter for the Cincinnati Inquirer in the nineties before the internet was really a thing, especially in journalism.
And so I started as a writer and then I ended up moving to the Virgin Islands in the early two thousands and. Strangely enough worked for a national mergers and acquisitions firm that was based out of there. And so started to really develop my career in marketing from there by piecing together a CRM system that was Frankenstein from a database and something called sales sale Sage Sales Logics.
And so just pieced all of that together and started to really, I was at the pioneer stage of piecing together the idea of marketing and sales, communicating together to create things like icebreakers and a variety of touch points for marketing to help sales ultimately influence friends and win over people.
Great. Great. So I've amassed a few questions. I'm going to get them to you. Let's just see where it takes us. Most people think networking starts with a conversation. You work in email. Where do you believe real connection actually begins? I have always believed in the power of the written word to be conversational, and I think that was what made me a natural fit for journalism back in the day before it was digital.
And I always tried to write and I always told myself, write this like you're telling it to someone. And so I believe that I have carried that over into email and I do believe that a lot of conversations. Start in email. And I think that they are very powerful conversations because people can go back and refer to them and they can save them until they're ready to carry on the conversation.
So I do believe that email has the power of conversation baked into it and that everyone sending an email, and I know a lot of emails are written through AI right now, and I think that's totally fine. And I think that AI is really trying to be as conversational as possible. With things like anthropic hiring a philosopher to make AI more human and those types of things.
But I do think that when an before you hit send on an email, even if AI wrote it. You should look at it and say, do I talk this way? Is this how I would communicate with someone? Because if not, it's, and it's the sting of something that is totally ignorable because it's not conversational and it's not interesting to the person that's receiving it.
I agree. I wholeheartedly agree. AI is a tool that you can use and that's all really is it can't replace, your meeting, you're talking with somebody, but you have to go over your AI because you can't just copy and paste and say, that's it. You have to read it and say.
Does this sound like me? Exactly. If it doesn't, then the person receiving it will just go, alright, this is ai and I don't, I don't want it, exactly. In fact, when I would create messages for sales enablement, I, it was mandatory for myself and my team. To always meet with salespeople in role play so that I understood how that salesperson would speak.
And this is before ai, this is when I was acting like ai, right? And creating these emails and sequences for sales. And it's so important that what you say in an email is because it's a touchpoint. These are layered touchpoint that, you're building the relationship with each of these touchpoint, whether it's SMS.
Or email or push notifications or anything that you're doing that's digital communication. That is one piece of the conversation, and it needs to be cohesive and consistent with what you would normally say to someone. Absolutely. I agree a hundred percent. What mistakes do you see entrepreneurs make when they treat email like a broadcast instead of a relationship?
That's a big one. I know that, number one I just always encourage entrepreneurs to start and use the channel, and so if broadcast is what you can do, try and make it personalized. At least try and make it come from your voice and be helpful. Okay, so if you can only get one batch and blast email out a month, do it.
It's better than not doing it in my opinion. And then the next thing is, if you can just take three set of goals, make three basic segments out of your database, and then identify a way to talk differently. Even if it's once a month and even if it's still batch and blast for those segments. Talk three talk, take three different approaches with those segments.
For e-commerce it's easier, you can say purchasers versus non pers purchasers, if it's B2B. Then try and find a nuance in each vertical, or separate it by verticals and do more than just personalization with name and personalization, with business. Name those types of things.
Try and find something that is helpful to that person because of who they are and utilize that. I see a lot of cold emails, for example, that come out that, pull, let's scrape something off of my LinkedIn. And I get that. I get that is one way to try and personalize. But you know what?
The emails that I read and I read a lot of emails, but the emails that I read are emails that actually give me something helpful that I can take and possibly make some revenue off of or improve my learning. So down the road, I can make some revenue off of it. So I would say. In a nutshell, be helpful whether you can segment or not, just be helpful.
You have to bring, I, any, all my clients, they ask me about LinkedIn because I use LinkedIn as a business tool. But I say before you try to sell anything, you have to create value. Between yourself and your connection, and once you establish the value 3, 4, 5 times, then you can go in and ask for a cup of coffee or a virtual cup of coffee.
And then slowly but surely you can't. I hate those events, those networking events. Or a guy walks up to you, hands you a business card, say, Hey, I'm this way. And you, can I sell this, and this for only it's for sale. Just for today only. I, I wanna throw the guy right out, yeah. It's the same thing connection wise, and you just have to bring value to the relationship. Absolutely. And I think it's funny when I think about it from my personal experience, that I'm more comfortable building that value layer through the, through email and through marketing touch points sometimes than I am in person networking events, which is why I am the marketer and behind the keyboard.
And, other folks are the salespeople who can really make that nuance work in person. Being in, I've been in sales for 40 years. And one thing I've learned is that when you go to these events, you go with what's called a servant's heart. You go in looking to give Yes.
Not receiving. And if you go in looking to give, it takes all the pressure off your shoulders. You're saying, how can I make you. More successful. And by doing so, it releases all the pressure. Yeah. And you can enjoy yourself a lot more. And I think that's exactly what you have to do with digital communications also.
And I think that it's critical that you go into it trying to be helpful, trying to give first and that is where you're going to start to engage and you'll be able to take the relationship to the next level. Okay. How can someone turn a single in-person connection into a long-term conversation through email without sounding transactional?
Great. Great question. What I would recommend that you do is develop a persona around that individual. What do you know about that person? In sales, I'm sure you would do your research, you'd look at their LinkedIn, you'd look at. Any web material, you'd look at any history that they have and you'd frame your conversation around what you know about them.
And so you need to do the exact same thing in email and frame that communication around how you could potentially be helpful to them, how you can break the ice. With that email communication and establish a relationship without coming out sounding transactional or sounding like you just are reaching out to them because you want something Exactly perfect.
Absolutely perfect. Automation scares a lot of people because they think it removes the human element. Where does automation actually strengthen trust when done right? We know because of automation, we know and we have the ability to scale, to talk to someone where they are in our customer journey, as opposed to the past where we really didn't have any idea about them, or if we did, it was too vast to even tap into.
And so now we are able to say, Hey. I wanna talk to you about this specific topic because of your behavioral data that I have in my automation system, and so it makes it a much more personalized and relevant and helpful conversation because you can actually speak to them where they are in your journey.
Very good. What's one email most professionals should be sending after they meet someone, but almost never do. That recap email, the recap, email with next steps and with follow up follow up opportunities and follow up instructions, whatever's relevant there. But that recap email is so important and it's funny how rarely.
We received that. I sign up for a lot of demos. I sign up for a lot of sales discussions. Part out of curiosity, part because as an agency owner and with multiple clients who need different tools. At their disposal. And it is interesting how rarely sales professionals send that follow up email and it's something that can be automated as well or easily templated.
But still stay personal by just going in and adding a couple of lines in that email about, something. Personal that came from the conversation. Hey Perry, as we discussed hope you're having a great day in the Virgin Islands or Colorado. And then the rest of it's templated and then your follow-up contact information don't hesitate to reach me by cell.
Those types of personal touches, I think those can really move a deal along. I agree. I, it amazes me at how many people don't do it. Don't follow up with that email. They follow up. First of all, that's half my talk. I go around the country and I say that follow up is probably more important than actually meeting the person, but the time it takes the person to follow up and then how many times, all this comes into play.
And it's amazing how many salespeople don't have a clue. Yeah, and it also is interesting because there. I can remember in 2002 when I was saying I Frankenstein A CRM together. There are so many tools today that can be configured to make that follow up very automated, even allow you to add personalization, but it can make it a very streamlined process for you.
So that part of your SOP is phone call hung up. Disposition, the phone call template comes up on the screen. You add a few personal touches to it, hit send. And you haven't even spent five minutes after that phone call and that communication's out there, right? From your experience, what separates emails that get ignored from emails that start real dialogue and opportunity?
Okay. So that's the segmentation is where it starts, right? So making sure that you have identified, and let's say that it's one-to-one, then segmentation isn't really the issue. But if you're sending to a larger audience segmentation is number one, and then one-to-one or larger. The next thing is gonna be your subject line and that at that subject line.
And if you have the opportunity to enter pre-header, text or the first line of the email very important. And the subject lines that typically when. Are subject lines that are adding value. So you should ask yourself, am I adding value and clearly communicating that in the subject line. I know there's a huge trend on subject lines that intrigue or.
Ultimately misrepresent what the email is about. And that is something that I would caution strongly against. Never. You're betraying trust at the first touch point when you do that. And so I would not resort to gimmicks, I would just try your best to resort to, or to pull and draw on how your subject line is adding value and can be helpful if the person opens that email.
Yeah, there are small books written just for the subject line of an email. 'Cause it can be all off the chart, yeah. But I would make it short, concise, and with what you're talking about. Don't make it something completely different. You don't wanna fake somebody out because I think that will annoy somebody more than.
Get their attention. That's exactly right. And this is going back to AI as a tool. That is where AI can be a huge help. You enter the, the proper prompt, which don't be afraid of prompts, right? If you're not already using ai, it's just basically asking it exactly what you want. That's your prompt.
And giving it examples of past communications and the communication that's underneath the subject line, and asking for, 15 Great examples of that of subject lines that would work with that. And the AI prompt you have to really hone in on exactly what you want your prompt to be.
And don't expect like the first, second, third, or fourth try, because you have to continually drill down on it and expand, what you wanna say, and then it'll just give you a prompt, that's right. I usually wind up asking AI, what prompt should I use if I'm trying to get this result?
That's right. And it's, and it'll tell me the proper prompt and then I tell the prompts and then I get a lot better. It is, AI is a conversation too, it is, you're conversing with AI there and it's not just one language model that you use. I use regularly Gemini Perplexity Claude and Chachi pt all for different aspects of.
Daily, my daily life. Yeah, absolutely. Abso as do I. How can entrepreneurs use email to stay top of mind with their network without becoming that person in the inbox? In the inbox? Oh yeah. So that is going to come back to understanding how regularly this contact might engage with your material, understanding that person's sales, the sales cycle of dealing with this person.
For example, if you have a seasonal. A business that has a seasonal component. If, for we have a supplement company and they offer a big sale, black Friday, cyber Monday, and they have certain purchasers who wait and buy their year's supply during Black Friday, cyber Monday.
And so those people, I identify them in a segment and I say, these people should probably get a monthly touchpoint. To stay top of mind. So I'm going based on their behavior, and that's probably the best example I can give that if you can identify when these people are most likely to engage with you based on your business and sales cycle, then you can identify what kind of cadence you should communicate with them to remain top of mind without being annoying.
Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. What signals in someone's email communication tell you instantly what their value, whether they value relationships or just results. Interesting. That's a good question. So I would say your. Open rate signals some of that depends on content, right? But your open rates can help you understand, and if someone's consistently opening but not clicking or engaging and by calling you or.
Taking some other kind of action. Your open rates would probably indicate more of a relationship because they haven't unsubscribed, they haven't reported you a spam or anything like that. But they're reading your emails and so if you've got the ability to see that's one way. To identify that they are just learning from you and that relationship is building.
If they are clicking through. And this is one thing I always recommend to have CTAs in your email that indicate interest, right? You send four or five emails to an individual, maybe three or a general. And informative, but maybe two indicate a hot lead. And so when they click through on the hot lead, then you know that's a good time to make your phone call, or that's a good time to escalate the communication into something that might be more deal closing.
Yeah. Absolutely. And that call to action it amazes me how many times an email is sent with absolutely no call to action. And it's just like they, they just, they cross their fingers and hope that somebody's gonna reply to it or go further. But there's absolutely nothing to tell them.
And that amazes me. Yeah. Okay. If you stripped away funnels, tools, and tech, what does Genuine connection through email really come down to? Wow. So no automation, no tech, no true segmentation because you wouldn't be able to. So this is going back in time and that that is. Basically saying, Hey, reply to me and I can give you a little more information on X, Y, Z.
That is how, that's a tactic for how you would do that. Again, you're still being helpful, but you're offering to open up the communication in an unthreatening way. We know we're not talking about a phone call. I know a lot of people don't like to. Get hung up on phone calls and that sort of thing. So at the very onset of the relationship, if you offer someone without any kind of ability to click through, fill out a form or anything like that you offer someone an opening to start an interesting conversation that adds value by simply replying to this email.
I think that is probably the best step to forward. Okay. Okay. Alright, Perry, let's bring this podcast full circle. Okay. For someone listening who hates networking events, I hope not because that's what I'm all about. What role? What role can email play in building profitable relationships quietly and consistently?
Ooh, that starts before the networking event if possible. And so if you understand a little bit about the folks who will be attending that networking event, just sending a simple message that says, Hey, I, I noticed that you're gonna be attending this networking event also, and I'd really love to connect with you.
I've got, a couple of ideas that you might find helpful or, I just would love to. Learn a little bit from you about what is important to you right now. Of course that would be tailored to the event and to the individual. But then following up from that event and within the first two days, ideally, after the event following up, this was amazing. I really enjoyed this event. It was just incredible to meet you and to learn a little bit more about your business. I, it made me think of this app, or, our conversation made me think of this downloadable just offering something and follow up and then also trying to set up a time where maybe it's a lunch date, maybe it's just a phone call, maybe it's a coffee depending on.
The interaction and the opportunities that would follow, just follow up with something actionable and helpful. Okay, Perry, that was great. Perry, how can somebody get hold of you if they want to acquire services or just say hi? What's the best way for them to get hold of you? The best way is perry shira.com and from there I also have an agency called duma cx.com.
And so you know, either perry shira.com really that would be the best first step. Just reach out to me there and it's got all my contact information right on the homepage. Great. What a conversation. If there's one takeaway from today, it's this, connections don't fade because people forget.
You just stop showing up in a meaningful way. Email, when used with intention, becomes your quiet follow up partner. It keeps doors open, it keeps conversations alive, and it gives your network a reason to remember you. If this episode sparked an idea, a question, or a wait, I should fix that moment. Good.
That's where progress starts. And if you're, and if you're listening, thinking, I need to communicate better, communicate smarter, or turn conversations into real opportunities. That's exactly the work I do. You'll find ways to connect with me in the show notes. Thanks for listening to Networking Unleash Building Profitable Connections.
So until next time, stay intentional, stay curious, and keep cut the conversation going. Perry, again, I wanna say how great of a guest you were and I hope to speak with you soon. Thank you, Michael. It was really great to be on your show.
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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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