Now, my guest today is a little different than usual, because he came to the U.
S. only 12 years ago. That's a short time. He came as a student, but he was living on 1, 000 per month. Today's day and age, 1, 000 a month, it's really not a whole lot. But from he did that for almost five years, and during his college days. And he worked three jobs doing this, of course, but listen, let me introduce him, let him tell you his story, and we'll go on from there.
Yash, welcome to the show. Thanks, Michael. Thanks for having me on the show. I appreciate it. So yeah, it's pretty I didn't, I did not think of it too much when I came to the States. I just came here as a student. Went to University of Massachusetts Lowell on a business degree. Came here to get a business degree and I wasn't sure what to expect, to be honest with you, I come from a warm country, India, where it's like super warm 80 degree weather and you come to a place where it's like really cold and gets dark at five o'clock, it was an interesting place to come, you know, but as soon as I landed, like you have different expectations to what you see on the TV or what you've been shown, Like what people see there about United States or just the country itself.
You just have to work. It's, it's more like you have to put a lot of work, a lot of challenges come, especially when you're new to this country. I remember the first time I had to go to the social security office and get like my social security number. And I was like, so nervous. I was like, what, what is this number?
How do I get this number? Without this number, I don't really get a job, you know? So. It was, it was an interesting time when I, when I did come here. So when I came here, they usually you, they, they don't give you a job. So what I did at that time, I would just go in different offices on campus. And basically asked them if they had an opening and if they would let me do a trial run for a week or two.
And if they liked the work, they'd be open to hiring, something like that. That's basically what my pitch was. And I would just go in different offices. And fortunately I got I got hired at the career center as, as, as a front desk person, right? Interesting move, right? So. Okay, good. From there, I got hired there.
I worked there for like almost four or five years. And then from there I got other, during that same time, I got three different jobs from that same place. Randomly one time, the dean of the business school reached out to me at seven o'clock in the morning. He's like, Hey, it's summertime. We need somebody to like come in and work work work in the office.
Can you do it? It's just a random call at like 7 o'clock in the morning. And especially from a dean, like, you're kind of, like, nervous. It's like, what is going on? So that was, that was, that came through a career center because somebody referred me through. The first job, and then I got another job in the UMass campuses like the main office in Boston.
That's where they used to have an office, the, and I think it was, I forgot what department it was. I think it was the Department of Economics or something. I can't remember exactly, but they reached out to me as well. They're like, hey you were referred by one of our, your colleagues. Well, one of the deans, we want you to come in and interview.
So all of this happened with referrals and networking and listen, you have to be a hard worker in order for you to get those referrals.
So that's all sheds a very nice light on you. But let's just take this into the networking realm. You know, the world is becoming increasingly digital, build a genuine connection to somebody without going digital. So so I, right now, just to give you an idea, I run a. I run a digital ad agency and we work with over 500 plus realtors and everybody in this industry wants to do digital stuff, right?
They want to run ads. They want to do like Google ads, Facebook ads, YouTube ads, and when somebody fills out their information, like they give, when we run the ads, they fill out the name, email, phone number. A couple hundred realtors that do the same thing. Right? So, like, the algorithms are so trained that everybody, as soon as they, a, a, a buyer or, or a homeowner sees an ad, they click on it, they fill out a form, they, they see an, a, another ad from a, another real estate agent.
Now, what happens after that is everybody's calling these leads, okay? Like call, text, that's what they're doing. They're not forming a relationship. In order to form a relationship or network with these people a little bit better, or You need to have some sort of some sort of like of interaction where it's non digital.
It could be a postcard. It could be a video message. It could be something or it could be like an event that you can invite them. Like you can have like a small Event party or something. So like in order to form that connection either you meet them in person Right, or you you basically send them postcards or mailers or something to build that physical connection with them Which is what a lot of people don't do right now because everybody's online.
Everybody's digital, right? There's no like Connection being formed, especially physically or like just with a human interaction, right? It's all, it's all like so fast that you just like send a text and an email and that's, that's how the communication is happening. But people are getting immune to it now.
So the things go by the wayside basically. If there's no Connection. Well, you know, when I talk about when I go to my networking events or workshops or conferences, I always say that your follow up is almost more important than when you meet the person. And my secret sauce, so to speak of following up really has been quite good for myself and for the people that I coach and everything else like that.
It's worked out very well for them. And what I do is I include a thank you note, a handwritten thank you note. So After you send that initial thank you email very next day, you send that thank you note. And could you imagine being the person that you receive a thank you note in your office? It goes a long way.
It's really an incredible thing. So that with other things that I do the follow up is key. Do you feel are the key elements for communication in networking? So first thing is We've forgotten to say basic things such as good morning, good afternoon, good evening. Okay, like that's like when you reach out to somebody especially if it's like you're not reaching out on a mass scale It's just like a one on one personalization personalized basis so if i'm reaching out to you michael and i met you yesterday and We are maybe thinking about doing business or just want to be connect with each other Just say good morning.
Good morning, Michael. Hope you're doing well. Nice to connect with you yesterday. Looking forward to meeting you again or whatever the pitch is, right? But just saying that good morning, good afternoon, good evening just opens up the conversation so much more than just saying, hey, hello, hi, how are you doing?
Hola, you know, stuff like that. Which is like, people are immune to that stuff, right? Just, I've noticed that as soon as we changed that, just Just small tweak made such a big difference in our selling process and also How our clients communicate with their clients. It just like it opens people up people think you're more genuine compared to just coming off just as another person who wants to do business, you know, it's true, but you can't forget Being polite and being respectful.
And that goes such a long way. And one time when I was doing sales, I walked through the door and there was a gentleman sweeping the floors. He was the janitor. And I said, hello, how you doing? How's it going? Is this over here, over there, whatever. I was very nice to him, very courteous and everything was well.
We had about a two minute conversation and I moved on and I went up and I saw the C O O. And I, you know, was talking with him about business and that gentleman passed by behind us. And I waved to him and he was, seemed a little perplexed. And he said, why did you just wave to the janitor? I said, I don't care who he is.
I was talking with him. He was a very nice man. He said, that's very interesting. That's the CEO's brother in law. That's crazy. You never know who you're going to talk to. And it actually helped me with my, my sales. But aside from not being polite or courteous, what do you think? Is the common mistakes that somebody would make and how would you overcome it?
Just in networking usually. Most of the time it's just people think for themselves rather than thinking of the person on the other side. That's like the number one mistake. The people want something from the person that they're trying to talk to or network with rather than give them something. I think that's like.
The number one thing that I see a lot of new people who are trying to network make like instead of like giving value or just trying to like be an actual human being without the intention of getting something from them makes it goes a long way because you can smell most of these folks that you're trying to network with whether it's CEOs, CTOs, whatever business you're trying to get into they can smell it from far away.
Okay. Which person wants something from them and why they're trying to network, right? They can just you can just smell it, right? It doesn't Doesn't need to have a deep conversation people just know Even with like just facial expressions, right? Like eyes facial expressions their body language eye contact very important Yeah, okay But you go to a networking event or your network with somebody with the position of giving Not receiving always think to give and don't receive and if you do that enough, well, listen, what goes around comes around.
It will come back to you. But you'll be seen as the person as giving a good referral. You know, I always end the conversation with how can I make you more successful? How can I be a good referral source for you? Because I come in contact with a lot of people. And I may, I may not be able to help you, but I may be able to find somebody that will help you and that goes a long way.
Yeah. Okay. So you told me you were, you had like an ad agency, a digital ad agency. How do you maintain your relationships with those people? With clients, it's usually we try to send them postcards at the, if you have the addresses, if you don't have the addresses, depending on, because right now it's like really, it's a big agency, like we have a lot of clients now, so that one on one personalization that was there.
When I started is not usually often available, but what I do tell my team members or client success team members that we have I just let them know that you have to give one on one attention, get it. Get in front of these clients whatever they need help with just reach out to them as soon as possible So if a client ticket comes in somebody needs a response Respond to them within the next hour instead of waiting the next 24 hours.
Yes, that does not build like like an immediate strong relationship, but The person in their head is like, Oh, this person took care of me so fast that I want to just keep continuing business with them. Right. At the same time, we, if, if a client's like really happy with us or not just happy to just say client, just you've been with us for some time now.
We we basically send them referrals. So if we have other agents in different states, and they have clients that are moving to the agent that we are in communication with or talking to, we would send them referrals from one We'll just connect two clients and they would send each other referrals. Whereas the best gift for anybody is just sending them more business That's the best gift that he could you know, give somebody.
Perseverance, of course But give me, give me your top three strategies for ensuring a network interaction that leads to. Actionable results. Personally one email a day to all my list or to my team, everybody on my list or whether they are customers or not customers. We just send the one email a day.
It can be value based, it can be a discount, it could be something that brings them some sort of, of value to their business to what they're doing. That's number one thing. So one email a day. We wish them during Thanksgiving holidays any special occasions rather than just giving them discounts, we just wish them with no intention of like getting anything from them.
So like we just say, Hey, Merry Christmas to you and your family. Here is like a 100 Starbucks gift card. There's 100 on here. If you want to get something for yourself, feel free to do that. Something like that. Right? That's, that's, we do that consistently in our business, right, without, without expecting anything.
Second thing that we do is just be more polite and we communicate with folks. Like whether it's like clients or ex clients or whatever that is, or new clients that are coming in, which is more polite to them. A lot of the, well, a lot, a lot, our business is a tough business and a lot of the real estate agents have been burned by other companies.
So what happens in that scenario is like they just want. Most of these companies just want their money. That's basically what they want. They don't really care about Them as a human being, right? What do they need what their needs are, you know So being a little bit nicer to them being more polite being respectful is something that we focus on as well and number three, I don't know if I have a number three, to be honest with you.
Your top two is fine. And both of them seem like if you do them consistently I can't see how you wouldn't get anything back, even though you're not looking for something. Back, they would feel almost as if they had to get, because you're so nice to them that they really should be nice to you. That's really the kind of way it goes.
You know, when it comes to networking, there's a mantra. Know you like you trust you. They'll do business with you now. No, he was pretty easy because You're you're a nice guy, you know trust you that narrows the field down just a little bit and trust you Trust is such a crucial Factor they have to begin to trust you in order for them to do business with you So with that in mind how would you establish and maintain a relationship with fellow professionals?
Like similar in we are in the same industry, like, basically. They're in the same industry, or I would even include clients with the high end clients with that.
Usually with, like, people, my peers, when we, all of us have the same, similar businesses. I talk to them more regularly than not, and then either send them business. Or help them with my team. What that means is I either with my team or my time, right? So send them business so if if there are clients that we we have too many clients, we can't really take them or There are certain things that we can do that.
This person can do better. We just send We just send that business to to my peer, right? Whoever that is. Second thing is with my time, right? So if they need my time, they're stuck with something. They're not sure where their business is going, not sure what they want to do with it. Like a company issues.
Customer issues, stuff like that, and if they just have a question, I just give them my time, answer it for them. And team wide, yeah, time is golden for sure. Time is golden for sure. And then team, right, if there are certain things that my team member can do and help them better with. I just connect them with my team members and they just help them, right?
So, those are the three main things that I usually focus on without any expectation of anything, you know, whether we get referrals or not, just as, as a human being, just being, as long as they're nice with me and my team members, I'm good with it, right? Without any expectations of like anything from them.
What are some challenges that you face? And how did you overcome it? Oh every day is a challenge You know saying especially when you run a business so I think nowadays Previously I used to react to challenges Nowadays, i'm pretty proactive with it. So just to like I I can't remember because there's so many challenges that take place in general, but When I was reactionary I would catch myself not doing the things that I was supposed to do to prevent that in the first place, right?
And if there was a challenge that was happening and I'm not doing anything about it. Or haven't done anything about it in the past, that means I'm just reactionary. I'm just getting, reacting to it. But nowadays, we get ahead of it before it even arises. That's a smart way of doing it. Yeah. You know, that's the way to do it.
Exactly. Let me ask you a question. If somebody was looking to improve their networking or sales skills, give me an essential, give me a tip for that. From any one of my listeners. If they were to improve their sales or just networking stuff, the number one thing that I would do is just not, don't follow a script with anything right now.
The first thing I would do is just improve how you talk to another human being. Be yourself. Be yourself. Be authentic. Be yourself. Be authentic. Yes, but also like don't like I've, I've noticed this, especially when we've hired a lot of salespeople over the years, I've seen like we, I can give the same script, same process, everything to one salesperson and give the same thing to another salesperson.
Both of them will have different results. Based on how they communicate with the customer and the number one thing is that the one that succeeds is usually Pretty calm talks to another person as a human being Doesn't expect the sale all the time, right and Does not have these high pitches low pitches a lot of tonality differences Just like a smooth calming tone to them rather than just like a hypey tone Or salesy tone as soon as somebody comes in they get like super excited.
They change their tone constantly There's value to it But usually i've seen people do it incorrectly which which makes it like really it just gives bad bad results, right? so Instead of following all these sales gurus and people that teach you stuff about selling which is great. You always want to invest in yourself But the first thing I would do is see how you're talking to somebody If yeah, are you talking to them as a human being?
Are you shouting at them? Are they like, what are you actually doing? How's your tone right when you talk to them? That that would be the number one thing that I would look at before you do anything else And when you do talk to them, whether it's a zoom call phone call You want to have like that smiling tone to it, right?
So you don't want to be you don't want to Be super serious when they jump on a call and make them feel uncomfortable A lot of people what they do, especially newer salespeople Is that oh, I gotta get the sale, you know, ba ba ba ba ba start interrogating like people You don't want to do that. You want to make them feel comfortable Talking to you, opening to you, right?
And that only comes if you're nice to them, smile at them, you greet them pretty well, you know, so those are some basic things. Well, let me ask you a question then, just from everything we talked about, what's your favorite marketing tactic? Oh, marketing tactic. I don't really have one tactic. It's just there has to be one thing that you enjoy Really doing personally.
I just enjoy Sending one email a day To my list and marketing side right on the sales side when I talk to folks My number one thing is just being polite to them when they do jump on a call with me those are those are the two main things that I like personally compared to anything else tactic without like going too much into like, okay.
What's the sales script stuff like this? Yeah I just want to know that that favorite tactic. Okay, let's just bring this thing full circle Yeah, and give me one takeaway for my listeners that they can use tomorrow. One thing I would give to your listeners is if you're going to talk about business networking tomorrow with somebody or even today, just start your conversation with a good morning, good afternoon, good evening.
Just start there. That sounds fair. That sounds fair. Instead of saying, hey, hello, how are you doing? If somebody wanted to get hold of you, either for your services or just to ask you about coaching them or anything, how would they get hold of you? They can go on my instagram I can there should be a link in the bio or something.
I don't know if you can put it in there or they can just reach out to me on facebook just type in yash sampath and my name and my picture will come up. That sounds great. Yash I I can't tell you how much i've enjoyed this this talk you you talked all about networking and marketing and being Real person being authentic being present all the right things.
You said all the right things So I just I want to thank you for coming on the show and hopefully You'll get tons of business from it. Yeah. Thank you. Thanks for having me michael. You're welcome
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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