Networking Unleashed: Building Profitable Connections. An Interview with Stephen Davies and Michael A Forman
- mforman521
- 6 days ago
- 21 min read
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Welcome to Networking Unleashed, building Profitable Connections. I'm your host, Michael Foreman, and today we're pulling back the curtain on one of the most overlooked truths in business. People don't just buy what you sell. They buy why they should buy it from you. My guest knows that sales training isn't about fancy scripts or closing tricks.
It's about understanding people, building trust, and creating lasting connections that drive real growth. We're also digging into the power of the pivot. Why shifting your strategy at the right time can be the difference between thriving and just surviving. This is gonna be a conversation packed with clarity, strategy, and action.
So let's dive in. I'd like to welcome to the podcast today, Stephen Davies. I'm gonna, I would really like to explain what he does, but I'm gonna let him explain it because he'll do such a much better job than I will. Steven, welcome to the podcast, and why don't you give us a little bit about your background.
Thank you, Michael. It's an absolute pleasure to be here and congratulations on your 100th podcast. That is absolutely fantastic. Well done. Thank you. Sales Geek. Sales Geek is a franchise network of what's the best way of describing it. X VPs of sales x sales directors, entrepreneurs, everybody that's lived a big corporate life.
And now we work with smaller businesses and help them with their sales training. We mentor people. We work as fractional sales directors. We go into to businesses and instead of them having to employ very expensive sales directors, we do it on a fractional basis. I've been myself an XVP of sales for a while now.
I worked in corporate. Sales in technology in logistics. I've run my own telecoms company, so I'm well versed in all aspects of sales. Okay. That, that, that's great. Do you wanna tell me a little bit about how you got here from wherever you were in corporate? What made you, what made that decision for you?
Great question. Corporate sales is a lot of fun. The strategizing behind it is a lot of fun. But once you reach a certain level in corporate sales, you spend a lot of time managing upwards, which means you step away from actually being with a sales team. And I've always helped out my friends and my neighbors with their smaller businesses, but always on a, an unofficial basis.
And at some point, especially when I moved over here, I figured, you know what? Corporate sales was fun. It was fun where I lived in Europe, spent a lot of time in Washington and New York, but maybe my talents lie elsewhere. Now maybe I can really drill down into helping the smaller businesses using the experience I've got to actually push out and expand themselves.
Okay. Alright, so that gives us a little better of an understanding about where you came from. But let's go right into the questions and I'm gonna ask you a little about understanding the buyer's mentality. Why is it so important for businesses to truly understand why people buy from them, and how does it connect to building stronger networks?
Okay, so I'm gonna bring up the Cracker Barrel example. Okay, because that's my favorite. Cracker Barrel knew who was buying from them. They knew where people were buying from them. They knew when they had all of this data. What they didn't recognize was why people were buying from them, and because they didn't recognize that when they made the changes that they did.
It all went wrong. Now there are other issues behind that, but the fact remains, they had no idea why. The vast majority of people that are going to crack a barrel were actually going there, and you can pull that back to every single business. If they don't understand why their customers are buying from them, it's very easy for them to head off in the wrong direction, to advertise in the wrong place, to, to push the wrong buttons, if you like, for their customers.
So I think in terms of bringing it back to networking, when you are standing up there and talking about your business to all of these people who you would hope will refer their customers and their friends to you. If you don't know why people are buying from you, that's never gonna work. That's true.
That's true. And would you say that Cracker Barrel falls into the category of if it's not broken don't fix it? No, because it was broken. If you go back and look at their share price and you look at, their sales were dropping off, they had to do something. But I think with Cracker Barrels in Cracker Barrels safe I have the a mantra of.
Evolution, not revolution when it comes to sales and when it comes to marketing, it's the same with car companies. You never see very many car companies going from one design straight to something that's completely different. It puts customers off if they're used to one thing. You can change it slowly over time.
And if you look at cars, you can see the evolution. But with Cracker Barrel, that's not what they did. They went from here to here and everybody went, whoa, hold on. This is too fast. Most people don't like change, and if you change things that, especially if they go in there for comfort, that's never gonna work.
You're right on. Right on. Okay. Let's go a little bit beyond the close then. You've said sales training isn't just about closing deals. How should professionals shift their focus when it comes to building relationships that lead to sales? That, I love that question, and I love that question because I have a bug bear and my bug bear is ai.
I think what's happening, look people buy authenticity. People buy, it's a cliche, but people do buy it from people and more and more you are, there's a massive disconnect between how people are presenting themselves online in networking events and who they actually are. They're asking AI to write their scripts.
They write their elevator pitches, and that's not you. And what's happening is that everybody is starting to sound the same. If you can't get away from that, then who's buying? Who, what are you buying? Who are you buying? Because you always buy a person, not necessarily a product. You've seen me in networking events, networking meetings, and I truly, I'm behind you 100%.
Authenticity is what makes us different. Now, I use AI to write articles and things like that, but for networking events. It's all me. Yeah, and listen, if you don't like me, then I can't help that because there's a mantra. Know you like you, trust you. They'll do business with you. Now everybody knows you.
Hey, look, you're a great guy. Like you that narrows the field down just a little bit because not everybody's gonna like you, but trust you. That's a deciding factor because like I said, nobody will buy from you unless they trust you, and they won't trust you unless you're authentic. Absolutely. Okay, so let's go into the sales training a little bit.
How can networking itself be one of the most powerful sales training tools a business has? How can networking be a sales training tool? I love that question. Pushing it all. Yeah. When do you go to a networking event? You are forced to present yourself in a certain way. You have to know your business.
You have to understand how to communicate the value points of your business, not just to the people in the room, but you are selling through them. So you have to be really spot on in, okay, this is why people buy from me. This is who I am, this is what I do. This is why I do what I do. You have to build that authenticity and that trust.
From a sales perspective, that is probably the best sales trend you could come up with for a lot of people. Most people put off from sales training because they see the clips online of. 200 people in a room, and you've got some, somebody standing at the front and they're they're big and they're bold and they're, you've gotta close this and you've gotta close this.
I wanna see a hundred deals in the pipeline by this point. Then that's not relevant to most people. That's not, they're never going to be in that position where they're needing to push a hard sale, especially small business owners and networking events. What they're looking for is, how do I present my business well?
Now I, listen, I'm a firm believer. I use the pandemic as a mark in time. Before the pandemic, things were very transactional. Networking was very transactional. I've got a widget to sell. Oh, I've got $3. I'll trade you, and you build up a customer list. But after the pandemic for about five years now.
Networking is more relational relationship, and it's because I feel that network networking is the base of all businesses, and as you said, you have to really know your stuff. You have to be authentic and you have to sell what you were saying through the person. Because you're not just selling to those people, you're selling to their network of people.
Yeah. So you really better be spot on to what you're selling and what you're saying if you want that to happen. Yeah. You're dead right there, Michael. The big thing about going to a networking event, especially things like the Chamber of Commerce or or other closed networking events, you've got maybe 30 or 40 people in the room.
So if you go with the mindset of, I'm going to sell to you, I want you to be my customers, you might get maybe 10 depending on the service or product we're selling, but if you go with the mindset of I want to educate these people so they can then go out and sell my product on my behalf, then you've got a massive network that you can sell to.
Absolutely. Absolutely. And I can't emphasize this enough because when you're in, let's say a chamber meeting, 'cause that's where we met, absolutely. But you're not selling to those people. Exactly. You're selling to their network of people. Yep. So you always have to keep that in mind, and I'll get into the follow up and everything later on.
But it is so important for you to keep that in mind that, oh, I'm not, I just don't wanna sell to Steven. I want to sell to Steven's network. And that network isn't just their customers. That network is their family and friends. It's every relationship they've got. Absolutely. I listen I'm the networking guy, right?
And I always say you network wherever you go. If you're online at the grocery store or if you're online in a department store and somebody's talking about. Something in your field or not, you can turn around, give your 2 cents, as long as it's intelligent. You can give your 2 cents and turn back around.
And if you did your job correctly, they're gonna tap you on the shoulder and say, what do you mean by that? Or that's right. But what about this? And that starts the conversation. All you have to do is start the conversation and if you're worth your salt, then it will go far. Here's a great example of how the networking works or how well it can work.
So I had lunch with a chiropractor in my network yesterday and I had my hair cut today, and the lady cutting my hair was talking about the fact she just had a car accident and she needed to go and see a chiropractor. And I, and she was talking about some issues she had previously with a chiropractor.
And I mentioned something that the chiropractor I met yesterday said. And she went, oh, is that, and I went, yes it is. And she's you're the third person that's mentioned that chiropractor. I'm gonna go see them. Power of networking. It's that word of mouth. Absolutely. The power of networking. It's how you do it. And you're not pushing yourself on the person. You're not pushing whoever. You're trying to refer on the person, but you're just saying a few facts, few good, logical facts, and let it go where it goes. Yeah. So that's the perfect way. Listen, I am known throughout the area as being a connector.
I like to connect two people just like you just did. I like to connect two people together. This person does this person is need in need of it. And I'm away. I pushed away. Yeah. I said, okay, look, I put user together. Go have it. Go have at it. And you know what? It's a really good feeling.
It's a really good feeling. It's, yeah. So then you get back into the reciprocal side of that and that you give and people will give back to you. Absolutely. When you network, you have a, what's called a servant's heart. You givers gain. So when you go to a networking event, you look to help everybody else and by you referring somebody else, and again, this falls into the follow up and everything else.
It. It takes all the pressure off of you. You enjoy yourself and you say, look, I put these two people together. Yeah, that's great. And eventually they're gonna refer you. Okay. In your experience, how does knowing when to pivot your strategy or tactics directly impact the quality of your network and business success?
Pivoting someone's business or pivoting your own business is something that is very scary for a lot of people to do. They've gone into their business with an idea of, this is what I'm gonna do, this is how I'm gonna do it, this is why I'm doing it. And there's a lot of people have a an ethos of, I'm gonna stick by my principles.
Which is fine, but in business you have to recognize when something either isn't working or not necessarily isn't working, but is something better gonna work faster for me? Am I putting my efforts into the wrong channel? That's a great example. The difference between working through a channel, which is networking, when, if you think about it, channel sales.
You are asking other people to sell your business for you, albeit they get a financial reward for it, but it's still the same thing. You have to get somebody else to sell your business. Or whether direct sales is best or whether internet sells is best. Is it better to, do you have a business where picking up the phone and talking to people is the right way to sell your business?
You have to, as a business owner or as a sales team manager. Be able to look at your business and go I'm gonna make the change. I can make the change, and if I can't make the change, but I wanna make the change, who do I bring in to help me make the change? Who do I ask? How do I ask for help? That of course, involves a mentor or somebody else that can coach you or something.
Listen, I mentor. Certain people are ready, but I am always being mentored. I'm always being coached by somebody else, so I'm being coached by somebody else. Yet I am mentoring, I think it's six people right now. I'm coaching six people. So you know what? You never stop learning. You never stop changing.
You never stop trying to do it better, because there's always a better way. There's always a better way. Absolutely. Yeah. Every day is a school day. Every day is a school day. I, I try to learn something every single day, every day that I don't, I feel like, oh I didn't learn anything today. It was almost like a wasted day, because I feel that people tend to call me a next a networking expert.
And I hate that term expert because that means that you've learned everything. And I haven't. And I'm always learning. So yeah I've been known as a networking guru, how to make sales stronger, everything else, but I am always learning, always picking up something new. Okay. What role does trust play in both networking and sales, and how do you recommend people earn it instead of just asking for it?
Trust is. The most important aspect of sales unless you are selling a commodity where it is price. People are only gonna buy you from you if they trust you, and people will only trust you as you said previously. If they know you. You have to be authentic in sales, you have to put yourself out there, and in many cases.
You have to step across a boundary where you feel fear, especially in networking, that in, in many cases in networking, you have to stand up in front of 40, 50 people and say your piece. And you have to be confident enough to do that. So people will look at you and go, yeah, okay, I understand that.
I get that. But you also have to make mistakes and you have to be. Comfortable making those mistakes. You have to be comfortable being uncomfortable. As my tennis coach used to say all the time that's the authenticity of it. And that's where if you are standing up there and you're reading from a sheet of paper that is clearly an AI elevated pitch, where's the authenticity?
Where's that trust gonna be developed? Because if you are standing there talking that way and you are not showing who you are. When it comes to your business, people are gonna look at the business and go am I seeing exactly what the business is? If I'm not seeing what the per, who the person is, what's the business?
What's the product? Absolutely. And as you're talking, as you're speaking, I'm just thinking about my mentor and what she said that, what make mistakes. Own the mistakes. Make fun of the mistakes. Yep. And then move on. If you own the mistake and you move on, they can't say anything except for that.
They know that you're human. Yeah. And that's that's such an important point. We all make mistakes. We all stutter over words. We all say the wrong words. We all forget a sheet of paper. Every now and again. Everybody does it. If you are comfortable doing that, and you just accept that everybody does it and I've done it, again, that's the authenticity that people are looking for.
You'll buy from a human, you buy from someone that's like you. Yes. Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. I could have said it better myself. I couldn't have said it better. Okay, so how can professionals uncover the deeper motivations of their buyers through networking conversations rather than traditional sales pitches?
That's asking questions. Yes. As pure and simple as that. Be curious. And if you look at, don't treat, if you don't treat your network or the people in your very close networking group as your customers. Treat them as peers. Treat them as people. You can ask questions to, Hey, so I've got this new idea for a product.
What do you think? Do you know anybody that might be interested in buying this? Why would that be? Who do you think in your network wouldn't buy this? Why do you think that would be? Ask questions. Be curious. Be open. Absolutely. And that was the best answer I can possibly think of because asking questions always is the right idea.
Anytime you want to get to know somebody or whatever they're trying to sell or whatever they have, you are a problem solver. The only way that you can get to the root of the problem is to ask questions about their problem. Once you find out what their problem is, then you can solve it.
Yeah. Then you can solve it. But those questions very important. I like to look at it. I, so I have a and if anybody that's had a sort of seven to 10-year-old child, they, when they have a problem. You can't get to the root of that problem until you ask questions. And it's not a case of asking one question and getting a straight answer.
It's the what was school like? Fine. Okay. And then you have to start drilling down. And that's a great way of looking at how do I ask questions about my my sales technique? How do I ask questions about my product? How do I ask questions about who I need to sell to my customers? Think about it like you're asking a child.
You need to pull that information from a child. That's a very good way of thinking about it. I hadn't thought about that until just now. And that is a great way to think about how to pose your questions because the first question, you're not gonna get an answer. The second question, you're not gonna get an answer.
You're not gonna get an answer or something around the answer to the fifth, sixth, or seventh question. So you're literally pulling the information out from them. So yeah. So if you don't mind, I'm gonna use that from now on. Absolutely. Go for it. Okay. What are the biggest mistakes businesses make when it comes to networking for sales growth, and how can they avoid them?
The biggest mistake is selling to the room. Don't sell to the person you are talking to. It's an immediate turnoff. It's like opening the door. You open the front door and there's someone standing there and they've got a little bit of, they've got a t-shirt on and it's so and so roofing, or it's so and so driveways, or it's pressure washing, whatever your heart just goes and you immediately go on the defensive.
You are not, you feel you are being sold to and as a salesperson, it's completely the wrong way of doing it. Now, I absolutely, these companies make money. There's no question about that. But from a sales perspective, in a networking event, it's the last thing you want. What you're gonna start seeing, if you go straight in, I'm gonna sell to you with that mindset of I'm gonna sell to you.
People looking around straight away looking for an escape route, that's not the way to do it. Again, that's not building trust. You're immediately asking someone to put a wall up. Absolutely, and one of the things that I say in my workshops, my presentations is people love to buy, but they hate to be sold to.
You always have to have that mentality when you talk with anybody, and I tell everybody, I said, look, when you just meet somebody or you go to a networking event or meeting with somebody one-on-one, it doesn't make a difference. Never talk business the first 10 minutes, never talk about anything. I use something called FORM, family, occupation, recreation, and a message.
Pick any one of the above. And family, sister, brother, husband, wife, son, daughter doesn't make a difference. Youth sports, big one. If you have, if they have children, absolutely. It's Right. Listen, I was a baseball coach for 16 years. I was an umpire for three more years. So you wanna talk about youth baseball?
I'll talk about till your ears fall off, but you're talking about everything but. Business and what's happening now, you, everybody has a wall in front of them and that wall is slowly coming down and that trust factor is going up. So the more they're talk, 'cause people love to talk about themselves, they'll talk about themselves till they're blue in the face.
But you're talking to them, they feel more comfortable with you when you can start to sneak in those questions, but never come out and start with it. Okay. How do you help professionals shift their mindset from viewing sales as a transaction, to viewing it as a relationship building process? This goes right along with what we're talking about.
Yeah. That becomes a thing of longevity. A business that is going out to sell will sell to a certain point. But then what, where do you go from there? You've got no long-term relationships with people. You are not selling through people because you're selling transactionally. You're selling a commodity.
You are in a race to the bottom because selling like that is always going to come down to cost. And unless you, that's your business your mantra if you like, is I'm gonna be. The lowest common denominator, you're gonna run up against problems again and again explaining to a business person, okay, this is great.
Now where are you gonna be in three years? If you stick with that model, where's the market gonna go? How big is the market? How do you expand? How do you get other people? To sell what you are selling if you are at the lowest common denominator and just selling transactionally. It's about an education process of look to the future.
That's absolutely right. And listen, this all goes back to what we've been talking about at the beginning, the relationship building process. It's not transactional anymore, it's relationship building. And really the more you can do that, the better. I used to be in a mortgage. Industry and I used to go to networking events because mortgage people love networking events.
I used to come home with a shoebox filled with business cards and say, look how good I did when what I didn't do well at all. I did not. So now if I get 15 or 20 business cards in a three hour event, I'm fine. Because I, I built that relationship with each of those people. I would rather have three exceptionally good conversations in a room full of 50 people than come home with 20 business cards.
Absolutely. I'm behind you a hundred percent. A hundred percent. Okay. Can networking itself reveal when it's time to pivot in business, and if so, how's happened?
Yes, it can. And it can, because if you are listening and asking the right questions in your networking event, you are gonna understand the market you are gonna, but somebody will mention, oh, so I, yeah, you do that. I know a company that used to do that, but now they're doing this great example of this.
Pressure washing companies. So pressure washing companies. They go out and they pressure wash the house and they pressure wash the the driveway and they do all these things seasonally. All of a sudden you've got an opportunity there because it's Christmas and what have you got? You've got ladders.
You've got lots of latts and you've got crews going around and what are people looking to do? They're looking to get up on the roof and they're looking to put their lights up. Once you see someone else talking about doing that in a networking event, if you are a pressure washing company, if you're a window cleaner, ah, okay, now I get that.
I can do that. And that's a really simple pivot in a very short period of time. That's not a permanent pivot, but it's a. Extra arrow to the boat. Or string to the boat. Absolutely. And that's a very good example, by the way, because I can think of two pressure washing companies now that just made that pivot.
So you're right on target. Okay, so let's bring this podcast full circle and kind of talk, looking into the future a little bit, looking ahead. What skills or strategies do you believe every business leader must adopt to connect, sell, and stay profitable in a rapidly changing market?
They need to understand where their market is going. Not look around and go, what's the stock market doing? Not look around and go, where's the economy going? You have to be aware of those things. But your individual market, who are you selling to? Who are your customers? Why? And it comes back to why are your customers buying from you?
Are they buying? And I love using the man the mantra pure, why are they buying C convenience. Perhaps you uniqueness, are they buying that relationships or expense or cost? If you can understand which one of those your customers are buying or the reasoning they're buying from you, then you are able to look at your market better and understand why your customers are or are not gonna buy.
You need to protect yourself by understanding your market and your business, not necessarily just the wider market. Absolutely, and I just had a client, he said that what he has to offer, five other people are offering the same exact thing for just about the same price. How can he be different?
I said the difference is very simple. It's you. You have to make yourself different. You have to make yourself more accessible. You have to make, when, lemme go back a little bit. Okay. When you're first meeting these people on LinkedIn and they immediately say, I've got this to sell and I've got this to sell.
Why do they? Why is that a turnoff? Because there's no relationship. So if you bring a little value to that relationship the first time, the second time, the third time that you made the connection and you're bringing them value, now you've just made yourself above everybody else. So you have created that relationship.
So it was very good.
It's the standing up and saying, what makes you different? I value my customers, will I talk to my customers? It's there's not, that's not unique, right? Show me how you're gonna do that. And that's where the value of networking comes in. Because you are able to as you do, join people together, you bring something to the table and you give that to somebody than someone is more likely to give something back to you.
That's it. That's it in a nutshell. Spoken said, you said that very well. Steven, I have to tell you this was a great podcast and if they wanted to get hold of you, have Sales Geek come into their office and either have a fractional sales director or not, or just talk to you about being coached.
How can they get hold of you? Very simple. My email address. Steve, STEV e@salesgeekcsg.com and my phone number is (404) 989-7189 and I'll be happy to talk to everybody about networking and sales. That's great. Steve, thank you so much for coming on the podcast. You're a great guest. Thank you, Michael. I really appreciate it.
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Folks. 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.
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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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