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 talent you can actually learn.
Yep, even if you're the person hiding in the corner at every event pretending to check your emails. Networking 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.
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So whether you're the life of the party or the just let me just stay at home and text type, we've got something for you. Stick around and let's turn those awkward small talk moments into big wins.
Now, my guest today is a little different than usual, because he came to the US 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 state. So I just came here as a student.
I 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 in the area 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.
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 did come here.
When I came here, they'll usually, 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 ask 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 of that. That's basically what my pitch was. I would just go in different offices and fortunately I got hired at the career center as a front desk person.
Interesting move, right?
So, from there, I got hired there. I worked there for like almost four or five years.
And then from there, I got another, 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 seven o'clock in the morning. And especially from a dean, like you're kind of like nervous.
I was like, what's going on? So 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.
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 your colleagues or one of the deans that 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 do run ads. They want to do like Google ads, Facebook ads, YouTube ads.
And then somebody fills out their information. Like they give, when we run the ads, they fill out the name, email, phone number.
A couple of hundred realtors are doing the same thing. Right. So like the algorithms are so trained that everybody, as soon as they buy or homeowner sees an ad, they click on it, they fill out the form.
They've they see another ad from another real estate agent. Now what happens after that is everybody's calling these leads.
Okay, they 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 basically send them postcards and 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 sex and the 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.
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 be the 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.
What, what 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 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.
Good morning. Good morning, Michael hope you don't well nice to connect with you yesterday. Looking forward to meeting you again or whatever the pitch is right, but just seeing that good morning good afternoon good evening just opens up the conversation so much more than just
hey, hello, hi, how are you doing, Ola, you know stuff like that, which is like people are immune to that stuff. I just have 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
are doing with their clients, but just like it opens people up people think you're more genuine, and come back to just coming off just as another person wants to do business, you know, it's true but you can't forget being polite and being respectful.
It 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 floor so he was the janitor. And I said hello, how are 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.
I was up and I saw the COO, and I 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 is a very nice man.
That's 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.
And 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 try to talk to a 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 turning network make, like instead of like giving
them something 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.
You can smell it from far away. Which person wants something from them and why they turn network. Right. They can just you can just smell it right doesn't doesn't need to have a deep conversation people just know, even with like just
expressions right like eyes facial expressions their body language I contact very important. Yeah. Okay, but you go to a networking event or a 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 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 be 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, 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 the 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 a client's like really happy with us, or not just happy just like client just been with us for some time now.
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 are talking to, we would send them referrals from what we just connect to clients and they would send
each other referrals. Where is the best gift for anybody is just sending them more business. That's the best gift that he could, you know, give somebody.
Of course, 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 lists 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 can be something that brings them some sort 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 $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 being more polite when we communicate with folks, like whether it's like clients or excline or whatever that is or new clients that are coming in.
We just more polite to them. A lot of the well, a lot of our businesses are tough business and a lot of the real estate agents have been burned by other companies.
So what happens in that scenario is that 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.
What do they need what their needs are, you know, so being a little bit nicer to them, being more polite being respectful, 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.
Right. You know, your top two is fun 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, know you was pretty easy because 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 and we are in the same industry like 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 there are clients that we have too many clients, we can 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 my peer, right? Whoever that is.
The second thing is with my time, right? So if they need my time, they stuck with something, they're not sure where their business is going, not sure what they want to do with it, like company issues, customer issues, stuff like that.
And if they just have a question, I just give them my time and sort for them. And team-wide.
Yeah, 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 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.
Okay. What are some challenges that you face?
And how did you overcome it?
Oh, every day is a challenge. I mean, it's something, 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 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.
It's a smart way of doing it.
Yeah.
You know, that's the way to do it.
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 them, for any 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.
Like just as yourself, be yourself, be authentic.
Yes, but also like, don't like, I've noticed this, especially when we've hired a lot of salespeople over the years, I've seen like we 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.
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 high P 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 makes it like really just gives bad results.
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.
Are you talking to them as a human being? Are you shouting at them? Are they like, what are you actually doing? How is your tone? Right? When you talk to them, 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 super serious when they jump on a call and make them feel uncomfortable.
A lot of people, what they do, especially in your salespeople is that, oh, I got to get the sale, you know, start interrogating 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. You 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.
Don't really have one.
Tactic?
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 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?
I just wanted to know that that favorite tactic. Okay, let's just bring this thing full circle.
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.
Okay, just start there.
That sounds fair.
You started saying, hey, hello, how are you doing? Just start there.
If somebody wants 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 buy 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 sampa and my name and my picture will come up.
Okay, that sounds great.
Yash, I can't tell you how much I've enjoyed this talk. You talked all about networking and marketing and being a 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.
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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, Michael A. Forman. Remember, until next time, keep practicing, keep connecting and keep building those relationships.
This is Michael A. Forman, signing off. Take care and happy networking.