Latest / Networking Unleashed: Building Profitable Connections / Networking Unleashed: S1E4 An Interview with Scott Shilling and Michael A Forman

Transcript

Networking Unleashed: S1E4 An Interview with Scott Shilling and Michael A Forman · Networking Unleashed: Building Profitable Connections

• 0:00
  Hello, and welcome to Networking Unleashed Building Profitable Connections.
• 0:21
  Now what we really talk about is networking, networking and communication.
• 0:28
  Now, networking may be a general type term, but if you really think about it, how to network,
• 0:37
  and as we were discussing a little bit before the podcast, is really ever since the pandemic,
• 0:44
  people lost their minds.
• 0:46
  They forgot how to communicate.
• 0:48
  They forgot how to network.
• 0:50
  They think everything is by Zoom, everything is by Zoom, and you lose the personal touch.
• 0:57
  You don't get the vibe of the room.
• 0:59
  If you go to a networking event, yes, you're talking to one person, but you're getting
• 1:04
  a vibe from the rest.
• 1:07
  And though you're talking to the one person, just somebody to your left or to your right
• 1:12
  really give you some important information.
• 1:16
  So be that as it may, I have an incredible guest.
• 1:20
  He's a master of networking and communication, and really he talks about everything that
• 1:27
  I go on stages I talk about.
• 1:30
  So I would like to introduce Scott Schilling.
• 1:33
  He also has a book that I feel will be very interesting, but I'll let Scott introduce
• 1:39
  himself.
• 1:40
  Go right ahead.
• 1:41
  Well, thanks, Michael.
• 1:43
  I've been very blessed.
• 1:44
  I've done over 3,000 live events in my career, selling millions and millions of dollars from
• 1:49
  the stage.
• 1:51
  Along with that, I've put the sales systems behind those and took one of my clients from
• 1:58
  8 million to 100 million in five and a half years.
• 2:00
  So this isn't guesswork.
• 2:04
  This is proven tips, techniques, and strategies that work.
• 2:10
  And as we were talking earlier, people do business with people.
• 2:13
  And that's the one thing that seems to be forgotten in the marketplace today and quite
• 2:18
  frankly needs to be resurfaced if people want to be successful.
• 2:24
  Yeah, listen, you are 100% absolutely correct.
• 2:31
  And I think that people not only forgot it, but as we were saying before, whenever I go
• 2:38
  to a workout, a workshop, or a breakout session or something, I ask the audience, I say, how
• 2:44
  many 20-somethings are out there?
• 2:47
  How many 20-somethings are out there?
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  And they raised their hands and I say, look, what we're talking about now is completely
• 2:53
  Greek to you because you rely on a cell phone and Zoom calls and you're missing out on that
• 2:59
  personal touch.
• 3:00
  So, let me ask you, Scott, just give me an idea of what your journey was from beginning
• 3:08
  to now.
• 3:09
  And how did you get here?
• 3:12
  Well, I was like many people.
• 3:15
  You graduate high school, you go off to college and I was very blessed.
• 3:19
  I wanted to play football and I was able to play Big Ten football at the University of
• 3:23
  Iowa, Go Hawks.
• 3:26
  But while I was going to school and playing football, I was doing that at a time where
• 3:31
  it didn't seem like I could come out with a Baskerville Business Administration degree,
• 3:36
  but I was, so were a whole bunch of other people.
• 3:39
  What was going to make me different?
• 3:41
  Well, personal face-to-face communication ability.
• 3:45
  So I actually became a licensed life insurance agent at age 18 while I was going to school
• 3:51
  and playing Big Ten football.
• 3:53
  Well, what that gave me is personal face-to-face communication ability, value-added conceptual
• 4:00
  presentation skills.
• 4:02
  And what that means is I've never sold on price in my life.
• 4:06
  I always sell on value.
• 4:08
  So as a sales guy, I don't ever want to sell you anything, but I always want you to buy
• 4:12
  a lot from me.
• 4:14
  So it's my responsibility to create an environment where you want what I have.
• 4:19
  Well, the real differentiator became the ability to communicate and to speak with people.
• 4:27
  People do business with people.
• 4:29
  Well, no, I'm doing it online.
• 4:31
  No, ultimately you're doing it with people.
• 4:34
  There's somebody behind the product somewhere and you can't do everything.
• 4:40
  You might be able to be a purchaser in that direction.
• 4:43
  You have to know how to communicate with people.
• 4:46
  You have to know how to create relationships.
• 4:50
  You have to know how to start a conversation.
• 4:52
  In fact, I was at a networking event last week and there were about 100 people there.
• 4:59
  And I was kind of standing to the outside of the gathering for a moment and this woman
• 5:04
  walked in and she said, man, I'm already overwhelmed.
• 5:10
  I don't even know how to get started.
• 5:13
  And I turned and I went, she goes, you just smiled at me.
• 5:19
  Why did you do that?
• 5:20
  I said, you ask how do you get started.
• 5:23
  That's how you start.
• 5:24
  See, now you asked me why I was smiling at you.
• 5:27
  Now we are in the middle of a conversation.
• 5:30
  Now we can get to know each other.
• 5:32
  She goes, wow, you're good at this.
• 5:34
  I said, it's not really that hard.
• 5:38
  And now she was in the financial services business.
• 5:42
  How do you go into a room with a hundred people and not know how to start a conversation?
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  As Zig Ziglar said, you can always tell the salespeople that can't talk to people, they're
• 5:56
  the ones with skinny kids.
• 5:58
  So that's true.
• 6:01
  I'm a big fan of Zig Ziglar.
• 6:03
  That's the category of, listen, people hate to be sold to, but they love the body.
• 6:11
  Okay.
• 6:12
  So if you keep that in mind and everything you're talking about is exactly what I talk
• 6:17
  about.
• 6:18
  But, so let's bring this down a little bit.
• 6:22
  Give me a personal experience that impacted your career.
• 6:27
  Oh gosh, there have been many.
• 6:31
  Back in the day I was asked to be a speaker at an event here in Dallas.
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  They had anticipated about 250 people in the audience.
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  There ended up being about 750 people.
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  So they weren't staffed to handle the opportunity that existed.
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  So after I spoke, I said, because I train back of the room teams and because classically
• 6:56
  I'm a sales guy, I'll go work the back table for you the rest of the weekend.
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  I'm local, I'm here.
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  I'll just be of service to you.
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  And they said, well, we can't pay you.
• 7:07
  I said, when did I ever ask to be paid?
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  I said, you need service.
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  I'm going to serve you.
• 7:13
  So we did, had a very successful weekend.
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  Well, five years later, the gentleman who retained me at that first event walked into
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  a room at the Marina Inn in Sarasota, Florida.
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  And I went, hey, Rick, how you doing?
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  He goes, you remember me?
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  I said, yeah, we did that event about five years ago in Dallas.
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  He goes, yeah, you're right.
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  He ended up buying the product I was representing that day.
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  Five years later, he was responsible for putting people on the get motivated stages, the 25,000
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  person events.
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  He the CEO and the president all said, who's the best speaker in the country that's not
• 7:51
  speaking on our stages right now?
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  Write down a name, we'll pray over it and we'll open it up.
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  They all wrote down a name, prayed over it, opened it up.
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  All three of them wrote my name.
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  They called me and they said, we're pretty sure God thinks you're supposed to be speaking
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  with us.
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  I was a 10 year overnight sensation.
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  So the fact is opportunity lies in every event.
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  Every time you do something, you don't know what it is if you have high intention and
• 8:20
  low attachment, high intention of doing something great in every interaction, a low attachment
• 8:26
  as to what that might mean for either you or for the other party.
• 8:31
  The reality is good things happen.
• 8:33
  Again, I subscribed to the Zig Ziglar school.
• 8:35
  You can have everything in life you want when you help enough other people get what they
• 8:38
  want.
• 8:40
  That's true because whenever I go to a networking event or whenever anybody goes to a networking
• 8:45
  event, their first thought should be to give, not to receive.
• 8:51
  If you have that in mind, because one of the things I told them is when you're at a networking
• 8:57
  table, and everybody's interested in what you were saying, say something, I like what
• 9:03
  you do.
• 9:04
  I like how you do it.
• 9:06
  How can I be the best referral source for you?
• 9:09
  How can I make you more successful?
• 9:12
  It usually blows me away.
• 9:15
  You want to do this for me?
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  I don't even know you.
• 9:18
  Yes, no trust.
• 9:20
  They know you, they like you.
• 9:21
  If they trust you, they're going to do business with you.
• 9:25
  That's a main thought.
• 9:26
  Let me ask you a question.
• 9:28
  With everything you've been through, what are some common challenges that a professional
• 9:35
  would face and how would you overcome them?
• 9:39
  Well, there are numerous.
• 9:44
  Starting a conversation is the first one.
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  You've got to create a relationship with the person to explore whether what you're offering
• 9:54
  might be a consideration for them or not.
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  That's the first thing.
• 9:59
  The environment, the pandemic changed a lot of things, some for the better.
• 10:09
  Many things less than better.
• 10:12
  But what it did is it stopped people talking to each other and it stopped face-to-face
• 10:16
  communication.
• 10:18
  People started to rely on text and video conferencing and things like that.
• 10:22
  There's nothing better than while this is wonderful and it's better than not doing this,
• 10:29
  it's not the only thing.
• 10:32
  Somebody asked me, they said, Scott, you seem pretty unique.
• 10:35
  I said, yeah, I'm kind of a unicorn.
• 10:38
  I'm on this amalgamation of new school sales and marketing innovation with old school boots
• 10:46
  on the ground, face-to-face, belly-to-belly, talking to people and wanting to have long-term
• 10:54
  relationships.
• 10:58
  I really believe that that's what it takes today.
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  I don't think new school can do it alone.
• 11:04
  It can maybe in certain industries, but not for the most part.
• 11:08
  I don't know that old school can do it alone, but I think when you put it together, it's
• 11:13
  a great mashup of opportunity.
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  It's a great thing.
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  And really, for you and I, we've been around the horn a little bit.
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  It's common sense.
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  This is common sense marketing.
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  But to somebody younger than we are, it may not be.
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  You have to show them what to do, and they may look at you like you have three heads.
• 11:37
  But listen, put the phone down, get off the Zoom, actually go to networking meetings.
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  And I say, look, because when people ask me all the time, I don't know how to do that.
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  I don't know how to get into the networking mode.
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  I said, very simple, go.
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  OK?
• 11:55
  There are 1,000 networking meetings.
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  Go on to a, what is that, meetup.com, and you can find it.
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  There's 1,000 of them.
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  And just go.
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  Because listen, first time you go, it's not going to be pretty.
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  OK?
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  It's going to mess up.
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  OK?
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  But the second time you go, it'll get a little better.
• 12:16
  The third time you go, a little better than that.
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  OK?
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  And before you know it, you're a professional, and you're going out and you're talking with
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  everybody.
• 12:24
  But here's the trick.
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  You're talking to people.
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  You're not talking to your computer.
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  You're not talking to your cell phone.
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  You've got it.
• 12:33
  OK.
• 12:34
  So let me ask you a question.
• 12:38
  What is one essential tip that you would give somebody to improve their networking or sales
• 12:47
  skills?
• 12:52
  You know, I think it comes back down to, and it sounds a little bit like a broken record,
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  but it's where it all starts, is start conversations.
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  Have conversations.
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  Be inquisitive.
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  Have childlike wonder.
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  Ask questions.
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  It's not about, you know, I do 30 second elevator presentations.
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  I don't pitch.
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  Baseball players pitch.
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  I present.
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  I'm a professional.
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  But I think that, I'll give you an example.
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  There was a meeting one day, and there were seven people the first month they did it.
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  There were 57 people the second month.
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  Obviously, that means it was all new people the second time around.
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  Well, everybody stood up during their elevator presentation.
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  Most people do.
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  They tried to sell the room.
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  Fifty second person to go that day.
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  And I said, Hi, I'm Scott Schilling.
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  I'm a trainer, speaker, author, coach, consultant, dog walker.
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  I do a lot of different stuff.
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  But I haven't earned the right to ask you for anything.
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  So I do have a free offer for everybody.
• 14:00
  You can go to TWGFreeGift.com and download one of my books.
• 14:07
  And if you download one of my books and you read it and you go, Hey, this guy seems okay.
• 14:12
  My contact information is in there.
• 14:15
  If there's something that resonates with you, reach out to me and we'll start a conversation
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  there.
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  I want to give you a gift.
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  I don't have anything to ask for.
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  And I sat down.
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  Well, after the meeting, like 50 people lined up to talk to me because I was the only one
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  that didn't try to sell the room.
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  I gave the room something.
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  And so one of the other things you could do at networking meetings is say, let's say that
• 14:42
  you and I were in a networking meeting and say, Hey, you know, I'd love to, you know,
• 14:47
  I'm a trainer, a speaker, an author, a coach, a consultant, all those kinds of things.
• 14:51
  That's really cool.
• 14:53
  But recently I was on Michael's podcast and Michael is an amazing guy.
• 14:58
  If you guys don't get to know him, you're really making a mistake and ultimately become
• 15:04
  a third party advocate for you or somebody in the room.
• 15:09
  See if more people would go and try to support or say, Hey, I just did this deal with Michael.
• 15:15
  That was absolutely amazing.
• 15:17
  He took such great care of me.
• 15:19
  You really should get to know him.
• 15:21
  Well, if people come over and get to know you, what are you probably going to say about
• 15:26
  me?
• 15:28
  You know, it was one of the best transactions I ever.
• 15:31
  So now I become your advocate, you become my advocate and better things happen.
• 15:38
  See when I even you said, you know, please introduce yourself.
• 15:41
  What I said was all factual.
• 15:43
  I've done over 3000 live events.
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  I've probably had a million people sitting in seats in front of me.
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  I've been the front man to eight infomercials.
• 15:51
  I've sold 25 million from the stage.
• 15:54
  That's all factual stuff.
• 15:56
  But if I say it, it could be taken as arrogant or egotistical or don't I think I'm something.
• 16:04
  No, I'm just spouting some facts.
• 16:06
  But if you say those exact same things, it holds a different kind of credence, right?
• 16:14
  You can sell you.
• 16:15
  Typically, I can sell you better.
• 16:18
  Why?
• 16:19
  Well, are you going to tell me you're not awesome?
• 16:21
  You're never going to tell me that.
• 16:23
  But if I say you're awesome and I say, Michael, why does everybody say you're so awesome?
• 16:29
  Then it's informational.
• 16:32
  It's taken totally differently.
• 16:34
  So become great at bragging on other people.
• 16:39
  Become great at saying, gosh, it's so good to see you.
• 16:42
  Hey, have you met Tom over here?
• 16:44
  Man, Tom, you got to meet Michael because he's just flipping awesome.
• 16:49
  Again, that's going to get you a whole lot further in networking than going, hey, Tom,
• 16:55
  I'm really awesome.
• 16:56
  You're right.
• 16:57
  Right.
• 16:58
  But that's why I said that when you go to a networking event or a networking meeting,
• 17:03
  you're looking to give and you praise other people because as well as I do, what goes
• 17:10
  around will come around.
• 17:11
  OK.
• 17:12
  If you do that to enough people, then they're going to start to you as well.
• 17:17
  Now, once they do that, once you give you want to give a referral, make sure it's a
• 17:23
  referral.
• 17:26
  But you have to give them something extraordinary.
• 17:30
  And I too, like on my website, I have my book sale.
• 17:34
  But right next to it, I have a bridge version.
• 17:37
  OK.
• 17:38
  It's everything that's in the book as a PDF.
• 17:42
  You download it and that will get you on your way for networking.
• 17:45
  And it's free.
• 17:46
  Just take it.
• 17:48
  And people ask me all the time, they say, why do you do that right next to your book?
• 17:52
  Don't you want to sell your book?
• 17:53
  I said, no, not really.
• 17:55
  I'm here to make you more successful.
• 17:59
  That's exactly why when we were talking, you know, this just came out.
• 18:04
  90 second success tips, 104 tips to sell more with less effort.
• 18:10
  Somebody said, well, why are you putting it out?
• 18:12
  And I said, well, it's pretty simple.
• 18:13
  I don't think people want to sell less with more effort.
• 18:17
  You know, I mean, I think it's pretty self-explanatory.
• 18:21
  I was paid a whole bunch of money for what's in that book for a company that we took from
• 18:28
  eight million to a hundred million in five and a half years.
• 18:32
  And I was taught, well, you don't take things that you could sell in a seminar and put it
• 18:38
  into a book.
• 18:39
  Why would you take thousands of dollars and turn it into $20 on Amazon?
• 18:43
  Well, but we're at a time where people need that information.
• 18:48
  So it's time to put it in a book so that people can get it so they can sell more with less
• 18:53
  effort so that they can enjoy life.
• 18:56
  Because we've got to do what we can do to serve people, to help people, again, get in
• 19:02
  these conversations.
• 19:04
  Because as nice as the conversations are for business, they're having the same challenges
• 19:09
  in life.
• 19:11
  They're not talking to their wife.
• 19:12
  They're not talking to their kids.
• 19:14
  They're not talking to who could be friends.
• 19:17
  They're not friends because they're not talking to them because they don't know them.
• 19:21
  And so there's so many different things that can be done if in fact we simply engage with
• 19:32
  people.
• 19:33
  Well, how do you do that?
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  You walk up and you capture their interest and attention.
• 19:39
  You say something about them.
• 19:40
  Wow, that's a good looking shirt, man.
• 19:42
  I love that green.
• 19:46
  It doesn't take much.
• 19:47
  It usually surprises them like my shirt.
• 19:51
  So why don't you give me a little sneak peek of your book?
• 19:56
  Give me one little excerpt from your book that you really feel passionate about.
• 20:04
  The one that always comes up because it makes me laugh and hopefully it sets a tone.
• 20:09
  But one of the tips in there is sell dog food to dog.
• 20:14
  Sell dog food to dogs and cat food to cats.
• 20:17
  Because if you sell dog food to cats, it just pisses them off.
• 20:22
  Like I say, it's a little tongue in cheek and a little funny, but people try to jam
• 20:27
  their solution, their round peg into too many square holes.
• 20:33
  And that's what that tip is all about is when people say, Scott, what is it you do?
• 20:39
  I identify problems and provide solutions.
• 20:43
  It's only four words.
• 20:45
  But most people are so enamored with their solution that they try to get it to fit everywhere.
• 20:55
  And the reality is more than likely it doesn't.
• 20:59
  And so you're not doing yourself any good.
• 21:01
  You're not doing them any good.
• 21:02
  You didn't solve their problem.
• 21:04
  You ultimately, while you may have made a sale and made a little commission, they're
• 21:08
  going to return it.
• 21:10
  So the commission's going back.
• 21:12
  Now the company's got to do all the paperwork.
• 21:14
  Now your merchant services gets dinged.
• 21:17
  There's more negative to selling something that shouldn't have been sold than there is
• 21:20
  positive.
• 21:22
  And so I'm all about doing this the right way for the right reasons with the right people.
• 21:32
  Pretty simple.
• 21:33
  And I realized that a lot of these tips seem very simplistic and on one side they kind
• 21:39
  of are.
• 21:41
  But then why aren't you doing it?
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  So just because it's simple.
• 21:47
  I learned a great lesson from Zig backstage one day.
• 21:51
  He's talking with Les Brown.
• 21:54
  And Les said, you know, Zig, we go from city to city and I change my talk every week and
• 21:59
  I got a fresh talk and you use the same dang talk every week.
• 22:04
  And he says, why?
• 22:06
  And Zig said, well, that's for two reasons.
• 22:10
  For one, because the people in this city need to hear this message and they haven't heard
• 22:14
  it yet.
• 22:15
  But more importantly, I teach truth and truth never changes.
• 22:22
  This book is truth.
• 22:25
  They might be 90 second success tips, but they're truth.
• 22:32
  You could do them today.
• 22:33
  You could have done them five years ago.
• 22:35
  You can do them five years from now.
• 22:37
  It doesn't matter.
• 22:39
  Truth works.
• 22:41
  Treating people with respect, honor and dignity is truth.
• 22:46
  Absolutely.
• 22:47
  Novel concept, right?
• 22:49
  So that's I'm on a mission to return respect, honor and dignity to the planet and get people
• 22:54
  enjoying their life again.
• 22:56
  As a military veteran, honor is very big with me.
• 23:02
  The truth and honesty and all that resonates with me greatly.
• 23:06
  So I just want to thank you for everything you're doing, everything that you've done.
• 23:12
  Please read the book.
• 23:14
  Scott, if people wanted to get hold of you, what's the best way?
• 23:19
  Man, my email, I don't hide very well.
• 23:22
  It's scott at scottschilling.com and my website is aptly named scottschilling.com.
• 23:31
  Just seek me out, reach out and let's have a conversation.
• 23:34
  I'm here to be of service and love meeting people.
• 23:38
  That's great.
• 23:39
  Scott, I want to thank you again.
• 23:41
  This was a great time and everybody, if you really want to learn more about Scott, please
• 23:46
  go to his website and you'll learn oodles more.
• 23:50
  Okay.
• 23:51
  Absolutely.
• 23:52
  I'm committed to oodles.
• 23:54
  Okay.
• 23:56
  I'll see you soon.
• 23:57
  See you soon.
• 24:02
  This has been another episode of Networking Unleashed, Building Profitable Connections.
• 24:11
  First of all, to all my brethren, all the veterans of these United States, thank you
• 24:17
  for your service.
• 24:19
  Second, if you'd like to offer me a call, I always give to Tunnel for the Networkers.
• 24:26
  That's t2t.org.
• 24:30
  Thank you.