Latest / Networking Unleashed: Building Profitable Connections / Networking Unleashed: S1E53 An Interview with David Fradin and Michael A Forman, Public Speaker

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Networking Unleashed: S1E53 An Interview with David Fradin and Michael A Forman, Public Speaker · Networking Unleashed: Building Profitable Connections

0:16
Hello, welcome back to Networking Unleashed,
0:20
the podcast where connections aren't just conversations,
0:24
they're the currency of success. I'm your host,
0:27
Michael Foreman, and today we're talking about
0:30
one of the most exciting intersections in business
0:33
where product success meets the power of people.
0:36
My guest today is a seasoned product expert who
0:41
uncovered the five keys to product success. But
0:45
here's the twist. It's not just about features
0:48
and functionality. It's about the relationships
0:51
that bring a product to life. From co -creation
0:55
to customer discovery, from team dynamics to
0:59
strategic partnerships, we're unpacking the how
1:03
networking fuels every stage of building something
1:06
truly successful. Whether you're launching a
1:09
new product, scaling an idea, or trying to find
1:14
product market fit, This episode will give you
1:17
a fresh perspective on how your next big win
1:20
might come from your next big connection. So
1:23
buckle up, get ready to take notes, and let's
1:26
unleash the network behind the product. And my
1:30
guest today is David Fraden. And before I butcher
1:35
his background completely, I'm going to let him
1:38
do that for you. So David, how are you? Welcome
1:40
to the show. I'm doing great. My background is
1:44
I've been involved in product success for 55
1:47
years. I currently consult and teach product
1:52
management and product marketing. My number one
1:54
client is Cisco, and I and my trainers have probably
1:58
trained about half of the product managers at
2:01
Cisco worldwide. Okay, that's very good. And
2:06
what is it? And I read something in your background
2:08
about Apple Computer and a business manager.
2:12
Yeah, I was the business unit manager for the
2:15
Apple III product line. And at the time, there
2:18
was just two profitable product lines for the
2:20
company, the Apple III and the Apple II. And
2:24
Steve Jobs Macintosh was still under development.
2:28
And I was actually working for a computer company.
2:34
when all of that first came around. Back when
2:37
the Macintosh was, ever hear of a Macintosh Lisa?
2:41
Yeah. Okay. So that's when I started working
2:44
with the computers. So that long ago. Okay. So
2:48
let's delve right into this. How does networking
2:51
impact product success, especially in those early
2:55
ideation and validation stages? Well, networking,
3:00
I'm here in Silicon Valley, and one of the reasons
3:03
for Silicon Valley's success is the ease of networking.
3:07
In the culture of Silicon Valley, if I introduced
3:11
you to somebody else and you turned out to be
3:15
a bum, it does not reflect on me. It's just that
3:18
everyone expects everyone to network. In other
3:22
cultures, like the Japanese culture, If we were
3:25
in Japan and I introduced you to somebody else
3:28
and you or somebody else turned out to be an
3:31
idiot, then it would reflect poorly on me. They,
3:35
for many years, have had a culture of if a nail
3:38
sticks up, you got to pound it down. Whereas
3:41
in Silicon Valley, if a nail sticks up, you try
3:44
to help it grow and thrive. I see that the networking
3:48
around in the U .S., anyway, if I were to refer
3:53
you to somebody, and you turned out to be an
3:58
idiot, that would reflect poorly on me because
4:02
the end person would say, the last person that
4:05
Mike referred to me, he really didn't turn out
4:09
to be the best, so I'll just take him over with
4:11
a grain of salt. So I guess it really depends
4:14
on what part of the country you're from or what
4:17
country you're from. Well, that's what many places
4:20
like Silicon Valley, I think in New York and
4:24
in San Francisco and others have studied the
4:27
culture in Silicon Valley, which is about 45
4:30
miles south of San Francisco. And they've tried
4:34
to adopt the same level of entrepreneurship and
4:38
ease of networking. And some of them have succeeded.
4:41
Some of them have not succeeded because of the
4:43
cultural differences around the country and for
4:46
that matter, around the world. Okay. You talk
4:50
about five keys to product success. Can you walk
4:54
us through them and show and share how relationships
4:57
played a role in each one? Yeah, the five keys
5:01
are a mnemonic of my company's name, Spice Cow.
5:04
This is the word spice, where S stands for product
5:08
market strategy. P stands for repeatable processes.
5:12
I stands for having the information available
5:15
necessary to make important decisions. C stands
5:19
for understanding what it is that your customer
5:21
wants to do, when they want to do it, why they
5:24
want to do it, how they want to do it, where
5:26
they want to do it, how important is it for them
5:29
to get it done, what's standing in their way,
5:32
and how satisfied are they with the current solution.
5:35
And then the E stands for the employees and staff
5:40
and consultants for the company to ensure that
5:42
they have all 130 competencies or skill sets
5:46
that I've identified that are essential to product
5:49
success. Going back through each of them in terms
5:53
of putting together your product market strategy,
5:56
no one product manager can do it by themselves.
5:59
They have to get involvement of senior executives,
6:03
finance, legal, HR, engineering, sales, marketing,
6:09
purchasing, manufacturing. They have to be able
6:12
to easily network, mediate, and negotiate to
6:16
get everyone on the same page and on the same
6:18
product strategy. In the P area, that's a repeatable
6:22
process. And it was either Harvard or MIT found
6:26
that those organizations that had repeatable
6:29
processes that they enhanced and improved over
6:32
time tended to be more and more successful. I
6:36
had one client I was consulting with, and I asked
6:39
him if his company had repeatable processes.
6:42
And this VP of product management said no. They
6:46
introduced five new products. All five failed.
6:48
And then when they went into their retrospect,
6:51
everyone sat around pointing fingers at everybody
6:53
else because they didn't have a repeatable process
6:56
that everyone agreed to. The eye for information,
6:59
you have to network to get that information.
7:02
You may have to go to your corporate marketing
7:04
department and make sure that they subscribe
7:06
to the market research studies and reports that
7:10
are necessary for the market that you're in.
7:12
The C is composed of three or four steps of networking.
7:17
First, to observe what your customer is doing,
7:20
then interviewing your prospective customers
7:22
that fit the personas that you're targeting and
7:25
the target market, then surveying a representative
7:28
sample. Then if you have big data available,
7:31
you can do analytics on that and employ artificial
7:34
intelligence to mine that information. And then
7:37
lastly, in terms of the 130 skill sets that your
7:41
employees have to have, some of them or a lot
7:44
of them are going to just get picked up on the
7:46
job. So to be able to network with people, find
7:49
mentors that will help mentor and coach you through
7:52
developing the skill sets and the competencies
7:55
necessary for your success and for product success.
8:01
Okay. Okay. When building your product team.
8:05
How did your network influence who you brought
8:08
on board? It's usually their references, their
8:13
introductions, and then I would go on and interview
8:16
them from there, check out their references,
8:19
and before I'd offer them an opportunity. The
8:23
second thing I would do is also assure myself
8:26
that the values that individual holds. maps into
8:30
the values that I have and that the organization
8:33
that I'm working for has. Because if there's
8:36
a conflict of values, usually the chances for
8:39
success are substantially and severely diminished.
8:44
Right. So when you have an employee that's been
8:47
with the company for a while and they bring you
8:50
in, how do you deal with that when they really,
8:53
they don't match what you are looking for? Well,
8:59
one of the things I, every time I became a product
9:01
manager, I would go out to lunch with each of
9:05
the other people in the other areas that I mentioned
9:07
earlier, manufacturing, engineering, HR, legal,
9:11
and so forth. And as part of that lunch, I would
9:14
ask them, what is their personal goals in life?
9:17
Where do they want to go? And I told them, if
9:19
I can help you get there, I'll be willing to
9:22
do that. The result of that is whenever I would
9:24
go into a meeting and a decision needs to be
9:27
made, I know where that person is coming from
9:30
and where they want to go. And I can pitch the
9:33
decision along the lines that I know will help
9:37
them out in their personal aspirations. And therefore,
9:40
everyone can come together and be more successful.
9:44
It means a lot more to the employee when the
9:47
management is looking out for them. Yeah. Okay.
9:51
So how do you balance listening to your network's
9:54
feedback and staying true to your product vision?
9:59
By having the data to know what it is that your
10:03
product needs to do for the customer. I had one
10:07
instance where I was teaching the Botswanian
10:10
telecommunications company in Botswana. And I
10:14
wanted to go to Botswana because I was wondering
10:16
how can you get a country northeast of South
10:19
Africa? And a product manager from one of the
10:22
South African banks asked if he could come to
10:25
Botswana and sit in on the class. And he did.
10:28
And about halfway through the product management
10:31
class, he said that a person that was just hired
10:34
as a general manager in another area of the bank
10:37
convinced the president to cancel his product
10:40
line. And he had 12 engineers and two or three
10:43
product managers and they were all just scared
10:46
to death that they were going to get fired. And
10:48
I asked them, did this, if you had what's called
10:52
a DAISY or RACI chart, which is DAISY stands
10:55
for decision maker, who needs to be advised,
10:58
C stands for who needs to be consulted, and I
11:01
stands for who needs to be informed, which I
11:05
advocate everyone to do, put together such a
11:07
chart before they start their product exploration
11:09
and their strategy and development. Because when
11:13
it comes time to make a decision, not everybody
11:15
is the decision maker. Some people need to be
11:18
consulted with. Some people just need to be informed
11:21
what the decision is. And he responded that they
11:24
did not have that for this product. And I said,
11:27
if you did have that, would this new general
11:29
manager have been on the Dacey chart at all?
11:34
And his response says that general manager would
11:37
not be. So the thing to go back to when you go
11:41
back to Johannesburg is ask for a meeting with
11:44
the president. Show him your data as to why this
11:48
product is important to the bank's customers
11:50
and that he should resurrect the product. And
11:54
if necessary, tell the president he should ask
11:58
this new general manager as to what their data
12:01
is that recommends the cancellation of the product
12:04
rather than that individual's personal feelings.
12:09
Always bring the data. If you have the data to
12:12
back you up, there's nothing that they can really
12:14
say except for ultimately no. If you have the
12:18
data to back you up, you prove to be a great
12:22
argument for that. Can you give an example of
12:26
how a customer or a beta user, beta user connection,
12:30
led a breakthrough in your product? Yeah, I was
12:34
working for a company called DocuGraphics, who's
12:37
no longer around. And they were trying to build
12:40
a new computer workstation built upon Motorola
12:43
components. Also write a word processing program
12:46
and a computer -aided drafting and design program.
12:51
So they're trying to do something like WordPerfect
12:53
and AutoCAD plus a workstation sitting on top
12:57
of a relational database, which I think they
13:00
were writing from scratch, versus using someone
13:02
else's database. And so that was, they're trying
13:06
to accomplish with a few million dollars what
13:09
in four major areas, four multimillion dollar
13:12
companies were doing, like Apple, Microsoft,
13:16
IBM, Sun, WordPerfect, Autodesk, and so forth.
13:21
without the resources. So they were trying to
13:25
go after that broad market of desktop publishing.
13:28
So I went out and I interviewed the half a dozen
13:32
or so customers that we had and found that's
13:35
not how they were using the product. That in
13:38
fact, what they were doing is using it to create
13:41
and manage work instructions, manufacturing instructions
13:45
that are sent down to the floor. to show the
13:49
assembly people how to build the product and
13:52
also manage all the engineering change orders
13:54
so that the right components are used in the
13:58
right product. One of my lead customers was Lytton
14:01
Applied Technologies, and they made fighter jet
14:04
fuzzbusters. So they had this little device in
14:07
their jet, and when the enemy popped off a missile
14:10
at them, this fuzzbuster would detect the missile
14:14
and put out a signal to jam the incoming missile.
14:18
Now, if something's screwed up between understanding
14:21
that the enemy has changed their frequencies
14:24
and this fuzzbuster was not picking that up,
14:27
then the result was the pilot gets killed and,
14:30
of course, the plane is destroyed. So it was
14:33
absolutely essential and important that the right
14:36
version of the components for each build of the
14:40
product was done correctly each time. So I was
14:43
able to move the positioning of the product away
14:47
from the general word. publishing business to
14:50
focus specifically on manufacturing instructions
14:54
with the additional benefit that nobody else
14:57
was in that marketplace at the time. So we could
15:00
niche that puppy, as they say in the business,
15:02
and maximize focusing all of our resources on
15:06
that little market niche and become profitable.
15:10
Yeah, usually when in business, when your focus
15:14
isn't exactly focused, when you have such a broad
15:17
spectrum and then you focus in on one task, one
15:22
thing, you become light years better than what
15:26
you were before because you're focusing on that
15:29
one thing. You're not everything to everybody,
15:31
which really you can't be. So you're focusing
15:34
on your lane. And that really is very good. What's
15:38
the role of strategic partnerships and how do
15:41
you build those relationships from scratch? A
15:45
strategic partnership is very critical because
15:48
you always have to go through a build versus
15:50
buy scenario. And if you could find a partner
15:55
that can provide some holes in your product and
15:59
or in your service, it's far better to partner
16:02
with them than it is to try to go out and build
16:04
a duplicate of it. And the way you do it is you
16:08
approach them and say, hey, we're interested
16:10
in a strategic relationship. This is what we're
16:13
doing. I understand what you're doing. Can we
16:16
sit down and talk about some way that we can
16:18
work together? I had, when I was the business
16:21
unit manager for the Apple III, about 500 hardware
16:25
and software developers that had built products,
16:28
hardware and software for the Apple III. And
16:32
I sat down with them. all of them, to put together
16:34
a strategic partnership to make sure that the
16:38
money they were investing in my product line,
16:41
that they'll get a return on that investment.
16:43
And that included when we were getting close
16:46
to shutting down the product line, no longer
16:49
using it as a cash cow for the company, I focused
16:53
on moving all of my developers from the Apple
16:56
III platform to the Macintosh platform so that
17:00
they can continue to be a going entity. And when
17:04
you're talking about the Macintosh, it brings
17:06
me way back. I told you before that I started
17:09
when the Mac Lisa was still around, when the
17:12
SE30, SE80 was just that one little nine inch
17:16
black and white screen. So I really, it brings
17:20
me way back to my roots. A lot of founders struggle
17:25
with getting their first users. How can networking
17:28
accelerate user adoption? Well, I'll give you
17:33
an example. I joined a company that I was recruited
17:35
to join called Rich Relevance back in 2007 or
17:39
so. And they had a bunch of people come out of
17:43
Amazon's recommendation engine research and development
17:46
area. And they had built a personalized recommendation
17:50
system like Amazon's. And they got some venture
17:54
capital investments. And one of the venture capitalists
17:58
knew the... VP of IT at Sears, the holding company.
18:03
So he introduced us to Sears. I flew out to Chicago,
18:08
went to the Sears campus, which is off of one
18:12
of the suburbs there, met with that VP and with
18:15
the general managers and with the head of Sears
18:17
.com and worked out an agreement for them to
18:21
buy this recommendation engine and install it
18:24
on their website. It was like a $15 million deal.
18:29
And then in typical Sears style, they insisted,
18:34
since I was going to be a vendor of Sears, that
18:37
I also have to give them some stock in rich relevance.
18:41
And that's what Sears did for many decades with
18:45
many of the suppliers to Sears and turned owned
18:48
pieces of the companies that were supplying them.
18:52
We worked all that out as a strategic partnership,
18:55
and I emphasized the importance of making sure
18:59
it worked, even to one point after the president
19:02
of the company promised Sears that if his recommendation
19:06
engine, which is running on other servers, crashed,
19:08
it would not crash the Sears website. One morning,
19:12
about 5 o 'clock in the morning, I get a call
19:14
that says the Sears site is down. We think it's
19:17
rich relevance. Fix it. So I organized a task
19:21
force to jump in there and fix it before more
19:24
than several million dollars in sales were lost.
19:27
And they were happy with that to the point in
19:29
which I could ask them for references and referrals
19:33
to Kmart .com, SearsParts .com, and the rest
19:39
of the other 93 .com websites that Sears Holding
19:42
owned at that time. Wow. Wow, that was really
19:47
good. What networking advice would you give to
19:50
product creators who are great at building, but
19:54
not great at connecting? They got to get out
19:58
of their shell or find somebody for marketing
20:03
or business development or sales that are good
20:06
at that and let them go and don't be paranoid
20:09
about it. That's one thing that in my. talk.
20:13
So I go coast to coast and I'm a public speaker.
20:17
I always talk about introverts and extroverts.
20:20
The people building are usually introverts and
20:24
they always have to get with an extrovert. And
20:27
that's the sales and marketing and everything
20:29
else, part of the business, but the introverts
20:32
are the builders. So that's how I get to them.
20:34
You also run across a personality that thinks
20:37
they are number one. and they cannot allow somebody
20:42
else to take the lead. This guy that was one
20:46
of the founders of Rich Relevance was one of
20:48
those. And I remember we went to a conference
20:51
in Orlando, Florida, and the primary value proposition
20:55
for Rich Relevance is it helps increase your
20:58
sales, or what in the e -commerce business is
21:01
called Lyft. So I said, let's get a bunch of
21:05
balloons and put Rich Relevance on it and tie
21:08
them up to shopping carts, which is related to
21:11
the shopping cart on the e -commerce site. And
21:13
this was an e -commerce conference that was going
21:15
on with other companies there like Sears looking
21:18
for products like Rich Relevance, personalized
21:21
recommendations. So he got his nose a little
21:24
out of joint because I had come up with a...
21:26
better idea for marketing the company. And I
21:30
started talking on the floor with a lady from
21:34
Steva, which is an alternative sugar sweetener.
21:37
And he had to budge his way into that conversation
21:40
and brag about how much he likes Steva, which
21:44
had nothing to do with the strategic partnership
21:46
I was trying to put together. And as a result,
21:49
I wasn't able to develop anything there. Yeah.
21:52
So you have to tell these guys better off that
21:54
you keep your nose out of my business. Let me
21:57
do the thing that I do best and let the company
22:00
go. But you're right. But some people just don't
22:04
want to let go. And that's what happens. That's
22:06
what could happen. OK, so what's one relationship
22:10
that had a major impact on your product's trajectory
22:13
and how did you build it? I guess one thing that
22:20
comes immediately to mind is that When I took
22:24
over the Apple III product line as the business
22:26
unit manager, that was as a result of Steve Jobs
22:30
convincing the executive committee at the time,
22:33
this is 1983, to cancel the product line because
22:36
Steve felt that the Apple III was in the business
22:39
and office market where he wanted his not -yet
22:42
-shipping Macintosh to be. He had not yet learned
22:45
from Dave Packard and Hewlett Packard that it's
22:48
better for him to cannibalize his own products
22:50
rather than have someone else do it. After it
22:53
was canceled, I was called into the president's
22:55
office and he said, Dave, we canceled the Apple
22:59
III product line. I said, I know you did and
23:01
you didn't bother to ask me about it. I have
23:03
the full responsibility, but no authority. And
23:07
he said, so Scully says, what should we do about
23:10
it? And I said, what do you mean we, pale face?
23:14
get the joke. So I had to explain to him that
23:17
there was this fictional character, the Lone
23:19
Ranger, that more white, rode a white horse.
23:22
I got it right away. Rode a white horse, had
23:26
one silver bullet in his belt, and he rode around
23:30
doing good and fighting evil. And he had an Indian
23:33
sidekick by the name of Tonto. And when I tell
23:36
this story to Indian Indians, I have to say an
23:39
American Indian sidekick. And the story goes
23:42
is that the Lone Ranger and Tato are surrounded
23:45
in the desert by 10 ,000 yelling, screaming Indians.
23:48
And the Lone Ranger turned to Tato and says,
23:51
Tato, we're surrounded by 10 ,000 yelling, screaming
23:53
Indians. And all they want to do is scalp us.
23:56
What should we do? And Tato, who was an American
23:59
Indian, says, what do you mean we, pale face?
24:02
Yeah, that's right. Scully snickered and I explained
24:07
to him that I have all the responsibility, but
24:09
none of the authority. Give me. full authority
24:13
as an independent business unit, which he and
24:16
the executive committee later did. And as I was
24:20
running that, we had sold 23 ,000 of the 25 ,000
24:26
Apple 3s that we had in inventory, representing
24:29
about a third of all the Apple 3s that were sold
24:31
up to that point in time. And then the company
24:35
announced that they're going to have an Apple
24:37
II Forever event. And the same day, they're going
24:40
to announce the Apple IIc. And they're going
24:43
to have 24 demonstration stations at the Moscone
24:47
Center up in San Francisco showing different
24:50
Apple II products. But they would only give one
24:53
to me for the Apple III. director of communications
24:58
who had been around apple for many years at that
25:00
time came to me he says look we're just opening
25:02
up another can of worms to explain to the dealers
25:05
that the company's still behind the product but
25:08
only one out of 24 demo stations is the apple
25:11
iii and i don't think we can do that anymore
25:13
i don't think the dealers are going to believe
25:15
us or trust us so i think we should shut the
25:18
product line down so i did that day in april
25:22
1984 But in the process of doing that, I also
25:27
had as a customer a company out of Utah called
25:30
Sun Remarketing. Remarketing, no relationship
25:33
to Sun Microcomputers. And he would buy end of
25:37
inventory products from like Osborne and Compaq
25:40
and so forth and then resell them. So I flew
25:44
out to Utah and sat down with him and we cut
25:48
a deal for him to buy the remaining 2 ,000 Apple
25:50
3s so that when I shut the product line down,
25:53
all of them had been sold, all the profits had
25:56
been gained. It was enough money to help pay
25:59
for the finishing of the Mac development and
26:02
also to keep about 1 ,000 to 1 ,500 Apple employees
26:05
employed until the following January. In 1985,
26:10
Steve had cut the Salesforce, eliminated it.
26:15
He discontinued the Lisa product line that he
26:18
had been made general manager of in addition
26:20
to the Mac. And Mac sales dropped to four units
26:23
because there was nothing you could do with the
26:25
existing Macintosh at the time because the largest
26:29
program you could write was 10K and it had to
26:32
be an Apple Basic, which was not a very verbose
26:35
programming language. And a couple, three months
26:37
later, the board fired him and then moved on.
26:43
That's all right. I know I keep saying this over
26:46
and over again, but you're talking all about
26:49
your background in Apple and everything else.
26:51
And that was my beginning in the computer era.
26:56
And it's like old home week. That's really because
26:59
everything you're discussing, I was part of that
27:02
dealership. But I was also a systems engineer
27:06
with Apple Computer. So everything is all coming
27:09
together. If someone is just launching a product
27:13
today, what three networking moves should they
27:17
make in their first 90 days? Once they've started
27:22
putting together their product market strategy,
27:25
one component of that is their distribution strategy.
27:29
So that's what they figured out. Are they going
27:31
to use a distributor? Are they going to go direct?
27:34
Are they going to build a direct customer website?
27:37
Are they going to use a sales force? Are they
27:39
going to use a value -added reseller? Are they
27:42
going to use an original equipment manufacturer?
27:45
So you have to figure those things out as to
27:47
what is the best way to bring your product to
27:49
market. Do you want to do it in the United States
27:52
first, then Europe second, and then Asia third?
27:56
And then you start cultivating relationships
27:58
in each of those areas that your distribution
28:00
strategy tells you that you're going to do. That's
28:05
great. David, you apparently are very successful
28:09
and you're very knowledgeable in what you do.
28:12
What's your biggest mistake that you made and
28:16
how did you overcome it? I think the biggest
28:26
mistake that I've made in my entire career is
28:29
going to work for companies or organizations.
28:33
that either did not have a set of values or did
28:37
not follow those set of values. And third, did
28:41
not map into my values. And one of the things
28:45
I did when I was writing Building Insanely Great
28:47
Products, which is available on Amazon, is that
28:51
I was familiar because of my work in the high
28:54
-tech business and in dealing with the supersonic
28:57
transport and the space shuttle. When I was in
29:00
college, I was personally known to or knew of
29:05
the presidents of most of the Fortune 500 companies
29:08
in the first Fortune 500 list. And I had read
29:12
many of their annual reports. So I made a list
29:16
of those Fortune 500 companies and I had three
29:18
columns. The first column was, did they have
29:21
values? And if so, did they follow those values?
29:25
And the third column is, are they still in business?
29:28
And I found with almost without exception, those
29:32
companies that either did not have values or
29:34
did not follow values, they were no longer in
29:37
business. So that began to tell me how important
29:40
the values are. And I wondered if that applied
29:43
to my personal career. So I made a list of about
29:46
25 organizations that I've been associated with
29:49
throughout my career. These are for -profit companies
29:52
like Hewlett Packard and Apple and others, nonprofits
29:56
like the nonprofits that I started and the flying
29:59
club that I started at Michigan, and the homeowners
30:02
associations of which I've been president of.
30:05
Without exception, those that had either no values,
30:10
did not follow their values, and or did not map
30:13
into my values, I either got fired, and that
30:16
was a mercy killing, and I felt better the next
30:18
day, or I quit, and I felt better the next day.
30:22
But in those in which all three columns mapped
30:25
up, they had values, they followed values, like
30:28
Hewlett Packard and Apple, I thrived, and I was
30:31
very happy, and very happy to get up in the morning
30:34
and go to work there. So the number one mistake
30:37
that I made And those organizations that didn't
30:41
have that is I didn't examine that before I agreed
30:44
to join them. I had a property manager for my
30:48
rental property that I owned on the beach in
30:51
Maui. And he came back to the Bay Area and was
30:54
looking for a job. And I told him that story.
30:56
And I said, After they start interviewing you
31:00
and they finish their questions, you ask them,
31:02
what are their values? And then you decide whether
31:05
or not you're going to join that organization.
31:07
He said a few days later, he went out on an interview
31:10
and he started talking about values. And he talked
31:13
with the hiring manager for four hours about
31:16
values. They hired him and he said he's never
31:18
been happier in a job in his entire life. Sometimes
31:22
that's all you need is just a push in the right
31:24
direction to make sure that your values align
31:28
with the company's. And it's very good advice.
31:32
David, this was a blast. I love talking to you,
31:36
especially about Apple Computer. But if somebody
31:40
wants to get hold of you for whatever reason,
31:42
how would they get hold of you? They can go to
31:45
my website, to Spice Catalyst, oneword .com.
31:48
All my contact information is there. All my books
31:51
are there. All my training courses are there.
31:54
And then there's an extensive blog with hundreds
31:57
of articles about all aspects of product success.
32:01
They can also go to Amazon, any place in the
32:03
world. Look up my name, David Frayden, and all
32:07
my books will come up, including workbooks for
32:09
many of my courses that people can use to put
32:12
together their five keys to product success.
32:16
Fantastic. David, this was so great. I thank
32:20
you so much for coming on the podcast. Glad to
32:23
be with you. Well, hold on, folks. Don't go anywhere.
32:27
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-E -V -V -E -D -U -P -K -I -D -S dot org. Well,
33:43
that's a wrap, folks. A huge thank you to our
33:47
special guests for sharing such incredible insights
33:50
today. And of course, a big shout out to you,
33:53
our amazing listeners for tuning in and spending
33:57
your time with us. Remember, networking isn't
34:00
about being perfect. It's about being present.
34:03
So take what you've learned today, get out there
34:06
and make some meaningful connections. If you
34:09
enjoyed this episode. don't forget to subscribe,
34:12
leave us a review, and share it with someone
34:15
who could use a little networking inspiration.
34:18
Let's keep the conversation going. You can find
34:21
me on Apple, Spotify, YouTube, or my website,
34:26
michaelforman .com. Remember, until next time,
34:29
keep practicing, keep connecting, and keep building
34:33
those relationships. This is Michael signing
34:35
off. Take care and happy networking.