Hello, and welcome to Networking Unleashed, Building Profitable Connections.
Welcome to the show, folks.
I'm your host, Michael Forman, 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 a talent you can actually learn.
Yes, even if you're the person hiding in the corner at every event pretending to check
emails.
Unleashing isn't just a nice skill to have.
It's a game changer.
And 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.
So whether you're the life of the party or the let me just stay at home and text type,
we've got something for you.
Stick around, let's turn those awkward, small talk moments into big wins.
Now I've got a guest here today who has really quite an extensive background.
He was in law enforcement for 20 years as a hostage negotiator, no less.
But that was really just the beginning.
He wrote a book and he has so much more to give us, to show us, to tell us that I wouldn't
do it justice by introducing him that way.
So Scott, if you would, first of all, welcome to the show.
Thank you so much.
I'm excited to have this conversation.
Good, that's great.
So Scott, why don't you tell us a little bit about your background?
So yeah, my background, as you mentioned, I was in law enforcement for 20 years.
I've been married, more importantly, been married about 28 years now.
So that's the main thing.
To the same woman, so that's really saying something.
I got involved in law enforcement fairly early on, that's what I went to college for.
And when I got into law enforcement, I was only in for a couple of years before I figured
out I was in a downstream problem.
I was collecting all the problems that were downstream and I got tired of being in the
cleanup business.
So very early on in my career, I started fighting my way upstream to see what we could do to
prevent some of these crimes, to educate people to make better choices.
So that got me involved in things like the DARE program.
I was teaching fifth and seventh graders just basically good decision making practices.
I got trained as a hostage negotiator very early on.
I became trained as a public information officer.
So I'm talking to the media, relaying information to the public, keeping them informed as to
what's going on, teaching our citizens police academy.
All of this to say, it wasn't very long into my career before I figured out I was communicating
for a living.
I was wearing a police uniform, but even when it came to a physical altercation, Michael,
I was the guy that would talk myself out of that fight, talk the person out of fighting
me.
I can take you to the ground.
I would rather not, right?
I would just rather talk you into a better solution for you and me.
So it became very clear that I was communicating for a living.
I'm the middle of three boys.
So as the middle child, I'm the peacekeeper, the negotiator, all of that stuff just kind
of came naturally to me.
And I knew I could retire at 43 years old because I became a police officer at 23.
And at the time it was a 20 year hazardous duty retirement.
It's now 25, but I knew at 43, I had two girls that one was graduating college or graduating
high school when I retired or when I was eligible to retire.
And the second one was five years behind her.
So I knew retirement and collecting a public pension was not my gig.
I knew that about halfway through my career.
So with about eight years left, I started speaking professionally and it kind of came
up because I was attending conferences anyways and knew the conference organizers and one
of them two months out said, Hey, we had somebody cancel for a breakout session.
Do you have anything you can talk about?
I said, sure, I can talk about bullying because I was in the day or classroom.
This was a hot topic in 2010 when this request came through and she's like, that'd be great
if you could do a bullying session.
So I did that to about 20 people.
All those 20 people over half of them came up to me afterwards and said, would you come
train our staff?
Because these were school principals, school resource officers, superintendents.
I said, sure, you'll have to pay my gas.
Like I didn't know how this speaking thing worked.
Like maybe feed me lunch and I'll come.
And so I did that.
And then those staffs were like, Hey, would you come and train our students?
I'd never done a student assembly before, but I'm like, sure, I can do this.
I've been doing dare classes already.
So I knew what connected with them.
And so I started doing school assemblies in 2010 and I was eligible to retire in 2018.
By that time I was doing about 90% school assemblies, about 10% adult learners in the
education world.
Then when I retired, I started transitioning more towards corporate speaking.
And that's where the hostile negotiator stuff really started to play in because what frustrated
me Michael is that corporations today, when there's an issue or a problem, they tend to
shut down communication.
Because they're so afraid of saying the wrong thing.
And then my point is from a law enforcement standpoint, if we shut down communication,
the public thinks we're hiding something.
And it's no different in the business world.
If you shut down communication, that feels like you don't care almost every time.
And so I started putting together corporate presentation saying you are going to have
a crisis every day.
If you shut down communication, your people will start becoming suspicious.
They'll start looking for a new job and your clients and customers will start wondering
why they're not being informed about minor issues along the way when they would adjust
to those if they would just be informed.
So that's what I do today.
Mostly corporate speaking, I still do school assemblies.
That's the heavy bat.
I tell corporate people all the time, if I can keep a thousand middle schoolers attention
while they sit on bleachers in the gym for an hour, your boardroom does not scare me.
And so mostly corporate today, school assemblies, if they ask, I just don't mark it to those.
I'm older than I've ever been and less relevant to the average teenager than I've ever been.
But still to me, that's the heavy bat.
And that'll always have a special place in my heart.
That's great.
What you're really saying to me is communication is really the key.
It's the main component of negotiating, whether it's hostages or not.
It's negotiating between two elements, two people, two corporations, whatever.
But communication is key.
And listen, I've been married 37 years to the same woman.
I am the middle child of two brothers.
So I feel exactly, I put nine years as a police officer in the Air Force.
So I really feel a kinship to what you are saying.
You know, so how do you communicate with, well, let's just start with the average person.
Okay.
So instead of going to the corporate environment, how would you, if you see a problem, a something
stirring up, a fight basically ready to happen, how would you step in and alleviate that problem?
Yeah, I think especially for this upcoming generation, which I'm a big fan of, but honestly,
I'll be honest, I get a lot of corporations that hire me to come in and train their new
staff because they want me to come in and tell them you actually have to have conversations
with people.
You can't email text your way through business today.
Like you have to have a conversation face to face is what we prefer.
But voice to voice is second place to that.
And they don't want to make a phone call.
Is to get back to your point, this upcoming generation, which my kids are a part of, they've
been trained to bump up against awkward and then run the other way.
And they're afraid to have awkward conversations.
If you feel like conflict coming on, like you said, it feels like it's easier to ignore
it.
It feels like I don't want to offend anybody.
I don't want to have to take a side.
This is going to be awkward.
And I tell people at a time, we are paid to have awkward conversations if you're in leadership.
That's your job.
Your job is to call them in individually and say, I feel like there's a beef going on.
I even tell them my spidey sense is tingling.
And the best way to diffuse awkward conversations is to call it awkward from the beginning.
Bring them into your office.
Say this is probably going to be awkward.
I don't want it to be awkward.
I want you to be awesome.
And in order to do that, we've got to work through these issues.
I feel like there's a tension going on with you and coworker B. In my way off base, if
I am correct me, but I feel like something's going on.
And if you continue down this path, it's going to affect your ability to succeed at this
company.
And your success is important to me.
So what can I do to help?
Give them permission to be awkward in the beginning.
Call it out awkward.
This is probably going to be awkward, but I want to have this conversation because I
want us both to be better at the end of it.
So let's just say there's been a lot of research on what you're talking about.
And the Gen Z period is really what's come into play because those are the new employees.
And I just read a research paper that said after a thousand employers, what a thousand
employers said was that they're having a problem keeping their Gen Z employees because of lack
of professionalism, lack of motivation.
All they want to do is talk on Zoom or their cell phone.
And the whole idea of what I do because I too go into schools and I tell them about
not working communication, but in a different sense.
So I say, what about distractions?
What's your number one distraction?
And of course, it's easy.
It's the cell phone.
So if you take the cell phone out and you talk to them, eye communication, eye contact,
having that confidence, keeping your body straight, all of that is so intricate into
the way that they.
But okay, so let's say you're you're communicating, but I'm going to I'm going to take you out
of the corporate environment and the school environment.
And I'm just going to put you in a professional networking environment.
Yes.
Okay.
Not like your wedding.
Yep.
I've met that incredible person, but give me give me some key elements to the art of
communication with networking.
So I tell people all the time, people freak out about small talk and they worry and I've
had people hire me because they're like, I'm not good at small talk.
I'm like, you are good at small talk.
You just don't realize it, right?
Networking small talk is whoever asks the most questions wins, right?
So people know that networking is a little bit awkward.
That's inherent in it, but the way you make somebody feel at ease in an awkward situation
is you ask them easy questions.
You know, tell me about you, you know, an easy one is what do you do, which to me is almost
cliche.
That's played out.
One of my favorite ones, networking wise, what's the best thing that happened in the
last year?
Cause that may be business.
That may be personal.
And if they share, well, my daughter got married this year.
That's incredible.
My daughter got married a couple of years ago.
Tell me about that and you just continue asking about that.
And then you might work into it, what they do and that kind of stuff through the course
of this conversation, but ask them easy questions and then ask the follow up question to that.
You know, when they answer that question, ask the next question, even if you never get
a chance to talk about you, when they leave that conversation, they're going to feel really
highly about you because that guy was a good conversationalist.
He was a good listener.
She asked great questions, whatever it is, they're going to remember you because you
put them at ease because you allowed them to talk about something they're an expert
in, which is themselves.
You didn't ask anything else from them except to tell me about you.
And then they will often reciprocate when they're done kind of talking about them.
They're like, what's your story?
Tell me about you.
And then that's your chance to share.
If they don't ask, it's still a win.
And then the big follow up to me, the way I win networking is I'll get a business card,
contact information, something from them at the end.
And then I'm the first to email them.
I email them that day, usually before the event is up.
And I will say, Michael, it was so good to meet you at XYZ event.
I loved hearing about your daughter's wedding.
If I can ever do anything for you, let me know.
Because when they do email me back, that reminds me what we talked about.
You know, it's a hack that tells me, this is a person.
I met at this event and we talked about this thing and we automatically have a report and
move forward.
You just named about four things that I talk about with meeting, networking, communicating
with people.
The first thing I say is when you, after you are networking and you speak with somebody
that you're interested in either them becoming a client or not, you let them talk about themselves.
And I have a little system.
It's called form, F-O-R-M, family, occupation, recreation, and a message.
You kind of have all that going as they're talking about themselves.
And you're right.
Because when they talk about themselves, you're building up that level of trust and that barrier
is coming down.
And that's such a good, positive thing.
And you know what?
You say, before you even say what you do for a living, you say, you know what?
I like what you do.
I like how you do it.
How can I make you more successful?
How can I be a good referral source for you?
It usually blows them away, but he'll give it to you.
And that business card that you get, you're right.
But you're on the back of the card.
You write the date, the name of the function, and the item that you spoke about.
Because when you do that follow-up, yes, you can put that card away and you'll have that
information in the email, but you'll have it right there.
Yeah.
It's huge.
It's really, it comes in handy, but it's very important that you remember all of these
things that you have to do.
And after a while, it's not like you're going to have to think about doing it because it
will just come naturally.
Right.
And as a negotiator, Michael, and I saw a couple of your videos and I know you talk
about this, my number one job as a negotiator was to build rapport.
I need you to think, I need you to know that I care about you.
I know that you, I need you to know that I'm here for your best interest because as a negotiator,
I want you to come out safe and I want everybody that's inside with you to come out safe.
And I want the bad things to stop once we start communicating.
I want decisions to get better.
I want situations inside to improve.
I want to walk you through this so that nothing else bad happens.
Right.
And I have to build rapport.
That's my job.
And today in business, it's no different because we do business with people we like,
no, and trust.
And the best way to get people to like, no, and trust you is to make them feel comfortable,
make them feel like you understand their problems.
Sometimes I'll ask them, how's that going for you when they talk about work?
How's that going for you?
What is the issue you're having at work today?
And whether or not I can solve that problem, I know somebody who can.
Like you know what?
I don't speak about that finances.
Like I don't speak about finances, but I know a guy who does, who's an expert in this,
who's helped people like you, let me connect you.
And then I send an email connecting the two, say you two are awesome.
Go be awesome together.
And I'm still somebody that's helpful to them.
So we've got to build rapport with people.
Otherwise they won't do business with us.
Absolutely.
And that rapport building is so important.
Now you sometimes have 30 seconds to build it.
Sometimes you have three minutes, 10 minutes, a half an hour.
You don't know, but the best you can be, first of all, is yourself.
Be present, be yourself, and a lot of it will fall down.
But let me ask you a question.
What mistakes has happened to you and how did you overcome those mistakes?
I think the first mistake and my worst, I will admit this right now, confessional right
here on your podcast, names do not store very well in my head.
I am not good with names.
People tell me their name at the beginning of the conversation.
And while I'm shaking their hand, my brain erases it like an etch a sketch.
I will say it back to them as an effort to help me, but I just struggle with names.
And sometimes I have called people by the wrong name.
I'm also from the South, so it's perfectly acceptable to meet, greet somebody and say,
hey buddy, how are you?
Good to see you partner, how are you?
Because I can't remember their name, right?
It's not personal.
I remember our conversation and I remember where we had the conversation.
Like my brain stores things geographically.
And so my wife and I have this standard practice that's been in our lives for over 20 years.
If I don't introduce her to somebody that comes up and talks to me, it's because I don't
remember their name.
And so she will step forward and say, hi, I'm Greta.
And he's like, oh, I'm John.
I'm like, I'm sorry, John Greta Greta John.
I learned their name same time she did, right?
Or I remembered their name.
So, but you know what?
If that's what, if that's the worst that happens in the conversation, I talked to hundreds
of people a week.
And so do they.
Missing their name, messing their name up is not a huge deal unless you make it a huge
deal.
In any conversation, if you make a mistake, own it.
If I say, hey John, good to see you.
And you're like, it's actually Michael.
Michael, I'm sorry.
I'll remember that for the next time.
And we move on.
You just don't camp there because the longer you camp there and make it awkward and talk
about the last time you forgot somebody's name and everything, all they'll remember
is the awkwardness.
Sincerely apologize and move on.
Very good.
That's very good advice.
I'm glad to see you're using that.
You have been using that with your wife.
My wife and I have the same exact thing because I too, I can't remember names for anything.
She will step forward, introduce and I'll say, oh, that's right.
I'm sorry.
You know, Scott, this is April.
April, this is Scott.
And so on and so forth.
How do you stay in contact with your relationships?
How do you follow up with them?
So generally I follow up with email.
I don't love written communication as a standard as the gold standard.
I prefer face to face.
I tell people, if you can get in the same room and breathe the same air, that's first
place.
Second place is a Zoom video type call, Microsoft team, something like that so that you can
see facial expressions because so much of our communication is nonverbal.
Actually, depending upon what studies you read, 93% of it is nonverbal.
About a third of it is our tone and about half of it is our body language.
So you need to be somewhere where you can pick up tone.
That's why I tell these next generation people, at least get on the phone because you can
communicate compassion through tone.
You can't do that in an email.
That being said, I will email people on the follow up when I've met them at an event or
a conference or something like that.
I'll email them and then I will give them my email.
Email me back.
Here's my cell number.
If you have a question, you can text me.
You can call me whatever West way they're comfortable communicating because just because
I prefer face to face or voice to voice doesn't mean that the Gen Z person I met at the conference
is ever going to call me on the phone.
And if they know it's okay to text me, then they can text me.
Now it's possible that I will say, this is a great question.
Can we talk on the phone to go through this?
It's too much for my old thumbs to type.
And they'll laugh about that.
Eventually they've met me at a conference.
They know I'm not a psycho and I can have a conversation and we'll get on the phone and
have a conversation.
But when I email follow up, if I don't hear back from them after a couple of weeks, I'll
send them a second email.
And in that second email, I always say something like, I probably hit your spam folder last
time.
I just wanted to follow up and say, it's great meeting you at this conference.
If I can do anything for you, let me know.
Now my CRM told me they opened the first email.
They just didn't reply back because their world got busy and it's not a huge deal.
But I always give them the out and more times than not, they email me back and they're like,
you're right.
It was in my spam folder, which I know is a lie, but it allows them to save face.
And I'm okay with that because now we have a conversation going.
I've given them a way to not be embarrassed and continue a conversation that they wanted
to have.
They just got busy and couldn't have at the time that I emailed them.
And then if I don't hear back from them after the second, if I think it's a prospect or
something like that, I'll send them a third email.
And I got this from Grant Baldwin, who's a speaker.
I don't know if you know Grant or not.
I'm a graduate of the speaker lab.
Okay.
So Grant wrote an endorsement for my book.
He's been on my podcast back when I had one and my favorite email of his is the email that
says, Hey, I'd love to work with you.
I don't want to bother you.
So I'm going to put the ball in your court with this email.
If I can ever do anything else for you, let me know.
If they don't get back with me, they're not my person.
But I tell you the times that somebody has gotten back to me on that third email and
said, I'm so sorry, life has been crazy.
Let's schedule a time to meet because they realized this is kind of last chance.
That's Grant Baldwin's approach, Chris Voss, who's another FBI negotiator.
He says in his subject line is, have you given up on working with me?
Which is a great question.
Because if they have, they can just continue to ghost me and I'll get the message.
If they haven't, then we like, no, I'm sorry, I've been busy.
Let's connect.
Great.
It's funny to bring up Grant Baldwin because I've spoken to him a few times.
He actually contacted me because of what I did with his course.
I went through his course faster than most and I've done a little bit.
I've done pretty well with it.
And he's a great person.
He's a great guy.
Okay.
So give me one essential tip.
You can give to someone looking to improve their networking or sales skills.
Yeah.
And it's the same thing when we were looking for a new negotiator to add to the team.
That was the same quality we were looking for.
Because we would have officers that would apply and they would say, I can talk anybody
into anything.
That's really not what we're looking for because what makes a great negotiator is
the same thing that makes a good communicator and that's, they're a great listener.
I have never talked anybody into doing anything.
My wife, my girls, any hostage, the host, the taker I was talking to, but I have listened
people into doing what I want them to do.
Meaning, I'm asking questions and I'm truly listening for what's being said, for what's
not being said, what makes them mad, what makes them happy.
Those are the type of things that allow me to formulate a solution to their problem that
allows them as many wins as possible.
I know, let's say your kids are a motivating force for you.
If you become a better communicator, you're going to be able to talk to your kids better
and that's going to bring that relationship that much closer to where it needs to be.
They're going to know mom is a great listener.
Mom asks good questions.
Dad is always available and he's going to listen when I come to him with the small stuff.
So it makes it easier to come to him with the big stuff.
So listening is a superpower today.
And it is hard.
I get it.
We have so many things competing for our attention.
That's what makes it so magnetic.
That's what makes it so rare is that people don't do it.
When my kids were growing up and we would go to a restaurant or a store or something and
there was somebody just a few years older than them working there who did not communicate
well, didn't make eye contact, mumbled, that kind of stuff.
When they would walk away, I'd look at my daughters, I'd say, see where the bar is.
You just have to be better than that, right, which meant when they were little and they
wanted to change their order in a restaurant, they would ask me, dad, can you ask them if
I can add this?
No, but you can.
That's your job.
You have a want.
It's a legitimate want.
You need to ask for it.
And they didn't want like they pushed back, but in order to get them to communicate on
the level they need to communicate to be successful, we had to teach them to be not afraid to speak
up appropriately, but also more importantly to listen to what's being said and what's
not being said.
I just said that because listening is such an important part of communication that many
people just overlook it.
They think about the next thing that they want to say and they're not responding to
what is said to them.
So listening is so and what's more important than listening that pause after listening
because that tells the other person, yeah, they were listening to everything that I was
saying.
Yeah.
So, so, so bring all this full circle.
Just give me your favorite marketing or networking or communication tactic.
Your favorite one.
Yeah.
I think that's great.
So, you're talking to somebody, they give you an answer and in order to make sure you
understand what they're saying, I paraphrase back to people.
Active listening is gold today.
Like if you want to perhaps study anything, one thing that's going to improve your communication
study active listening.
So you're paraphrasing back to them.
You're asking this is what I heard you say is that correct.
And that allows them to one, know you heard them and two allows that if they're an external
processor like me, they might say, that's not what I meant to say at all.
What I meant to say is this and now we're getting into the root of the problem.
And so in order to do that, we have to ask open ended questions.
One of my favorite open ended question is why, but why is one of those double edged
swords because it can make people feel defensive.
When you look at somebody and say, why did you say that they will automatically get their
guard up because they feel like they have to defend themselves.
And so what I do is I tell people something like, I like that answer.
Tell me how you got there.
Why did you share that at this time?
Like validate the answer, make it okay for them to share.
Because when I say, I really like that answer, I've never heard that answer before.
It makes them feel unique and special.
And now they're more willing to say, this is why I got there because in my past, this
has been an issue for me and now it's not.
And this is why I said what I said.
So it validates their, their opinion because it's valid.
And then it allows them to push deeper into the why question because the longer you can
keep somebody talking, the more likely you can solve their problem.
Now today, when I tell executives that they push back, they're like, I don't have the
time to have these type of conversations.
Okay.
Then make time in your future calendar for these problems to reoccur.
You could either make a little bit of time today or you could make time next week and
the week after and the week after because you didn't address it today.
Right?
Take the time, ask the questions, push for the higher level thinking stuff.
Tell me why you said that.
I like that answer.
Tell me why.
Ask open ended questions to get to the root of the problem today.
And the chances of you having to solve that problem with this person again are almost zero.
It's great.
All right.
Scott, last question.
Yeah.
Give me one takeaway that my audience can use today or tomorrow.
One takeaway.
One takeaway is find a way to surprise and delight.
We talked about this before we came on.
I don't care to share this story.
I met a guy at a wedding that I went to a friend of mine.
She was getting married actually a mastermind client of mine was getting married and I came
to the wedding two and a half hours from my house.
My wife went with me and we didn't know anybody, but I've never met a stranger.
So like I'm excited for this event.
My wife is more introverted than I am.
And so she can function in extroverted world, but it takes a lot of energy.
It gives me energy.
So we sit down at this table not knowing anybody.
I talk to the guy next to me.
He's drinking a bourbon like I am.
I'm from Kentucky.
I have to ask about that.
It's state law.
And so, you know, we talked about bourbon for 20 minutes.
We talked about business for an hour.
It was an incredible conversation from a guy I never met before.
A week later when I get home, a week later on my porch is a package from this guy who
I've never met.
And I open it up and it's a $50 bottle of bourbon with a note in it that says, during
our conversation, you mentioned you wanted to try this type of bourbon.
I had a couple of bottles.
This one's on me.
Enjoy.
And I told my wife, I said, that's such a baller move because it was something very
personal, very specific in our conversation that he picked up on, made a note of, went
to the bride, got my home address and sent me a bottle of bourbon, which is illegal,
by the way, but people do it all the time, right?
It's olive oil.
He shipped me olive oil, I should say, for the FBI people listening.
The postmasters.
They just ship it through the post office.
Anywho, it made me realize there's so much I can do in these conversations with people
to plus the experience.
To after we talk, instead of sending them an email, send them something that we talked
about.
Even if that's something as simple as a box of bourbon chocolates because I'm from Kentucky
and that's something they'll remember from me.
And that cost me six bucks to send that to them.
And I'm like, that's just something that if this guy asked me to come and speak at his
organization today, you better believe I'm going to do everything I can to get there.
And it's not about the $50 bottle of bourbon.
It's about the fact that we talked about this particular kind within an hour and a half
conversation.
He made a mental note when out of his way to ship me something.
To me, that's next level networking right there.
And I've never experienced anything like it.
And it's my new standard.
Absolutely.
Fantastic.
Scott, if somebody wants to get hold of you, whether they wanted your services, they wanted
to consult with you or just talk to you, how would they do it?
So they can go to my website, speakingofharvey.com, or they can email me directly.
It's just scott at speakingofharvey.com.
And I reply back personally to all of my emails.
I have an assistant that helps with some other things, but you email me, you get me.
And you can ask questions.
We can talk about, we can set up a free consultation call to see what I can do for you or your
organization.
And if at the end of that call, it doesn't make sense.
We're still friends and I have a new network somewhere.
That's fantastic.
Scott, thank you so much for coming on the podcast today.
Thank you for having me.
Well, that's a wrap, folks.
A huge thank you to our special 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.
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 enjoyed this episode, don't forget to subscribe, leave us a review and share
it with someone who could use a little networking inspiration.
Let's keep the conversation going.
You can find me on Apple, Spotify, YouTube, or my website, MichaelAForman.com.
Remember, until next time, keep practicing, keep connecting, and keep building those relationships.
This is Michael A. Foreman, signing off, take care, and happy networking.
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